Mayor Bloomberg: Leadership By Any Means Necessary

So much leadership, it hurts:

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg says the governor should dispatch state troopers to haul state lawmakers back into session. He wants them to approve the bill giving him authority over city schools.

I hope the City Council cooperates during what will surely be a smooth third term . . .

Footprints Like A Couple Of Yetis, You’d Think They’d Be Able To Mix In A Compact Fluorescent Or Two

It makes sense that the Mets and Yankees (especially the Yankees!) would have a bigger carbon footprint in their new stadia; no one would expect any less from two teams that are known for sucking up all available resources:

Yankee Stadium and Citi Field combined use enough electricity to power 20,000 homes, twice as much as the old ballparks, Con Ed says.

Citi Field, the smaller of the two, has the higher peak capacity — 11 megawatts, enough to power 11,000 homes. That’s 120 percent more than Shea’s maximum 5-megawatt draw.

The new Yankee Stadium has access to 9 megawatts, enough for 9,000 homes. That’s about twice the power draw of the old Stadium.

Blame the stadiums’ big potential power use on what makes them great — hi-def TV screens, huge scoreboards and extra elevators, escalators and lighting, said Con Ed spokesman Bob McGee.

The Yankees’ new main scoreboard, at nearly 6,000 square feet, is seven times bigger than the lower-tech scoreboard in the old Stadium.

And both new stadiums have plenty more elevators. Citi Field has 11; at Shea there were just four. The new Yankee Stadium has 16 elevators, compared to three in the old park.

. . .

The standard for green ballparks has been set by the Washington Nationals’ stadium, which opened last year and won a silver rating from the US Green Building Council — the first major pro stadium to earn such certification.

Nationals Park uses about 15 percent less power than the old RFK Stadium did, thanks in part to energy-saving lighting that reduced peak power usage from 1,293 kilowatts to just 1,011 — a savings worth about $440,000 over 25 years.

Location Scout: New Yankee Stadium, Citi Field, Nationals Park.

This Is The Democracy

Freedom’s just another word for nothing else to do:

A bill to be submitted this week in Albany seeks a permanent name change for the tower at Ground Zero, officially declaring it the Freedom Tower.

Brooklyn Sen. Marty Golden is submitting the legislation in defiance of the Port Authority, which owns the site.

Earlier: “Leading Economic Indicator: Delinking Financial Centers From The Concept Of ‘Freedom'”.

And I’m Not Going To Take It Anymore . . . Except That There Are Few Options Across The East River

He’s like Howard Beale without the pipes, a nasally Howard Beale . . . unbecoming of a gazillionaire:

Subway and bus riders need to get “mad as hell” at state lawmakers stalling a plan that would prevent crippling fare hikes and debilitating service cuts, Mayor Bloomberg said today.

“When you see what’s going to happen to your commuting costs you should call your state legislators and say, ‘I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it any more,'” Bloomberg suggested.

On The Bright Side, Maybe This Means Reservations At Per Se Will Be Easier To Come By

Then again, most of Manhattan may shutter before that happens:

Congress’ planned 90 percent tax on bonuses paid by bailed-out companies will snatch $12 billion at the very least from employees of firms that are based in New York City or have big operations here, experts said.

And that would have a dire effect on the city’s economy, impacting everyone from top luxury retailers to taxi drivers to tax collectors.

The crushing tax passed in the House yesterday would affect workers who make over a quarter-million dollars a year at companies that took more than $5 billion in rescue funds from the taxpayers.

Several executive-compensation experts said that under those standards, at least half of all of the windfalls granted by bailed-out firms would be affected.

“And that’s a conservative estimate,” said Chuck Collins, a compensation expert at the Institute for Policy Studies.

For example, he said, at least 50 percent of the $2.6 billion that Goldman Sachs gave its employees in bonuses would likely be hit with the tax.