Maybe There Is Another Food Additive That Needs To Be Banned?

Ronald Lauder, who bankrolled the 1993 and 1996 term limit referendum, tells us we should kill it, kill it:

My fellow New Yorkers agreed with this and voted overwhelmingly for term limits in both elections. And over 15 years, the concept has proved itself correct. Term limits gave us a more dynamic City Council. It also gave us Michael Bloomberg — a smart, competent and popular mayor. So having said all that, why do I suddenly have a change of heart on something about which I feel so strongly? Why do I believe term limits should be lifted temporarily to allow Mr. Bloomberg to run for a third term? The answer is simple.

I lived and worked here in New York during the fiscal crisis in the early 1970s. I remember how close this city came to going under. I also remember how that financial crisis trickled down and depressed life not just on Wall Street, but on every street in every borough. Housing prices plummeted, storefronts remained empty for years, business stagnated and opportunity dried up. A corresponding rise in crime led to nightmare murders that became the stuff of horror movies. Visitors stayed away, further eroding the city’s economy. Times Square in 1975 was not a place you wanted to bring your children.

I never want to see that happen again. During the last few weeks, we have seen an unprecedented rupture in our national economic system that rivals not 1975, but 1929. Ground zero for this financial meltdown is not Washington or California or small-town America, but New York. The sudden and shocking demise of major institutions like Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns only reinforces the comparison to the earlier and even darker time.

Certainly, there are able candidates for mayor in both parties; I know and admire many of them. But I believe that for a city poised on the brink of economic disaster (and experience tells us that economic disasters eventually become social disasters), a prosperous future depends in large measure on a mayor with a deep understanding of finance, governance and politics.

There’s a strong vote of confidence about what the city’s economy will look like on January 1, 2010. I wonder what he knows . . . but as much as Lauder feels good about his own efforts to tame the sclerotic system of entrenched lawmakers, shouldn’t an idea be a good or bad idea regardless of who supports it financially?

So let’s tease this out — given that Bloomberg is especially suited to saving New York City from catastrophic economic woes 15 months from now, what exactly has the mayor done that is so impressive on this front? What will he do, create a computer terminal? What about his tenure in office — doing mayoral things that every mayor does, and acccomplishing mayoral goals that every mayor has — what about his work in office would bring someone to this conclusion? For starters, consult his astounding 96 percent success rate in fulfilling his 2005 campaign promises (as of 2007) (.pdf here). Obviously no one else in the whole world would have been able, for example, to “expand the Out-of-School Time (OST) system to increase the number of young people served” (page 4). That’s great and all — but that doesn’t exactly show how he would single-handedly stave off a worldwide recession.

I say look on the bright side, if Bloomberg is unable to lead and the city starts to look like Scorsese’s Taxi Driver, then we won’t have to worry about where to put those million new residents, will we?

Now, Darling, Wish!

What should I wish for, Mother?

A gentleman caller:

Administrators at St. Peter’s Girls High School have mandated that juniors wanting to attend the May 22 prom must be escorted by male companions.

Even students unaffected by the sudden policy change at the New Brighton school said they don’t understand the couples-only rule.

“I just heard about it now; they can’t go unless they have a date,” said senior Deanna Stropoli, 17, of Dongan Hills, who is attending tonight’s senior prom with a boyfriend. “I think it’s kind of messed-up. Some people aren’t going to be able to go.”

There is no such restriction on the senior prom.

School interim principal Florence Bricker wouldn’t comment this week on the policy, which is a change from previous years, and St. Peter’s R.C. Church Monsignor James Dorney said it was strictly a school matter.

Other Staten Island all-girls high schools polled by the Advance said yesterday they have no such policy for their junior proms.

The city Department of Education doesn’t have a formal policy governing proms at public schools, but a spokeswoman said yesterday that a dates-only dance would be “highly unlikely.”

“It wouldn’t happen in public schools — everyone’s invited,” said DOE spokeswoman Margie Feinberg, although she said prom arrangements are up to each school.

St. Peter’s always has declined to divulge its student numbers, but the total is thought to be less than 300. The couples-only policy might have been enacted with an eye to boosting attendance at the prom.

But seriously, who has a prom on a Thursday? When did that happen?

Good Thing They’re A Small Constituency . . .

Why you would want to discourage someone from using technology that gets like 80 miles to the gallon, I don’t know:

The city’s scooter owners aren’t pleased with Mayor Bloomberg’s congestion-pricing plan. London’s system, on which New York’s is based, excludes scooters and motorcycles from fees, but here they’ll be charged half-fare, $4 (assuming they use a special E-Z Pass). “They’re addressing the problem backwards,” says Jonathan Perkel, a founder of the New York Scooter Club. “We’re part of the solution. In London, they exempted scooters, and people started riding them, and that took a lot of cars off the road.” He’s mad at Transportation Alternatives, the bicycle-advocacy group, which helped develop the proposal. “They’re not interested in any change that wouldn’t favor bicycles or mass transit,” Perkel says.

Educational Community, Manhattan Beep Come Out Strongly In Favor Of Faster School

Because the sooner they get out, the more quickly they can become unemployed and start having children:

The policy would prevent eighth-graders from moving to high school if they score poorly on standardized English and math tests or fail to pass certain core classes. The teachers union, principals union, and parent groups have opposed it. Proposed by the mayor in his State of the City address, to be official the policy requires the approval of the Panel for Education Policy at its meeting tonight. Since Albany transferred control of the city schools to the mayor in 2002, the panel has never vetoed a mayoral policy.

Panel members — including the five appointed by the borough presidents and eight appointed by Mr. Bloomberg — have usually lined up behind proposals, ever since four years ago, when Mr. Bloomberg averted a veto by firing two appointees who were set to oppose a policy the night before the vote. That policy, cracking down on so-called social promotion by making it more difficult to move out of third grade, is a model for this one.

Manhattan’s representative, Patrick Sullivan, is set to vote against the eighth-grade policy today. In a statement, the president of Manhattan, Scott Stringer, said he asked Mr. Sullivan to vote no because retaining students “rarely works.”

I understand why parents would want to avoid challenging their children to become educated — and I even get why a borough president would prefer a dysfunctional school system — but what’s the deal with the unions? More kids staying in school more years means more jobs — win-win.

You Know What Else Protects The Environment? Taking The Bus, Subway Or — Wow, Just Think Of It! — Even Walking

Or you could dangle a ridiculously generous incentive like free parking for hybrids:

New Yorkers who purchase hybrid cars would receive a novel perk under legislation proposed by Council Member Hiram Monserrate: free parking for a year.

“Obviously in the backdrop of global warming and $4-a-gallon fuel, the question is what we should do as a municipality to consume less,” Mr. Monserrate, who represents parts of Queens, said in an interview.

If the legislation passes, drivers with receipts for hybrid cars could apply for permits granting them the right to free use of parking meters for a year after their initial purchase.

According to Mr. Monserrate, the advantages of such a move would not be limited to the environment.

“It might help in a small way to activate new car sales, which I think is good for the economy. And no one can deny that it would be good for car dealers and the workers at the plants,” he said.

While the cost of the proposal was not immediately clear, Mr. Monserrate said tax revenue from increased car purchases could help pay for it.

“Whatever the city loses on a few quarters, we will gain in the city tax portion of purchasing a new vehicle,” he said.