Strong Independent Leadership

Now with 50 percent less leadership! Mayoral Control apparently won’t be taken up in Albany before September:

It was another setback for the mayor’s legislative agenda in Albany, where he has been repeatedly thwarted by lawmakers who complain that he employs a my-way-or-the-highway approach.

The failed negotiations over the school control bill were a replay of similar battles the mayor has fought in Albany in the last few years — like his campaign to construct a stadium on the West Side of Manhattan and his plan to charge drivers a fee to enter the busiest parts of Manhattan.

“The mayor’s people are telling us they will not budge, they will not accept anything that isn’t their version of the bill,” said Senator Bill Perkins, a Harlem Democrat who is one of several senators from the city calling on the mayor to accept the changes. “We live in a democracy, not a dictatorship.”

He’s still campaigning about “getting the job done” or something, right?

Can’t We Let It Go On A Little Longer?

If only for newspaper ledes like this:

As mayoral control of city schools teetered on the brink Tuesday, an angry Mayor Bloomberg said state senators should stay in Albany until they put him back in charge.

If This Is What They Anticipated The Market Would Be, Then What Does It Say About The Wisdom Of Their Free Agent Signings?

The market was not supporting face value and now it still isn’t, even for the vaunted Mets-Yankees subway series:

A year ago, it would have sounded absurd: blocks of tickets to the first Subway Series at new Yankee Stadium, available at face value on the Yankees’ Web site, a mere five days in advance.

But there they were as of Monday afternoon, and plenty of them.

Feel like taking nine very, very good friends to Friday night’s game against the Mets? The tickets were yours — 10 in Section 24B, Row 7 for a mere $900 apiece, plus a $23.45 “convenience charge.”

Ten in 24B also turned up at $900 per for Sunday. How about 10 in Section 28 at $525 apiece for Saturday?

Location Scout: New Yankee Stadium.

From Bilbao To Indianapolis For Just $200 Million

But we’ll always have Miss Brooklyn:

Citing financial concerns, the developer of the long-delayed Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn has scrapped plans for a Frank Gehry-designed $1 billion glass-walled basketball arena for the Nets in favor of a less expensive arena. The new design, which will cost about $200 million less, comes from Ellerbe Becket, an architectural firm based in Kansas City, Mo., that specializes in convention centers, stadiums and arenas and designed Conseco Fieldhouse in Indianapolis, where the Indiana Pacers play. Officials who have seen the design say that while it resembles Conseco Fieldhouse it also bears a likeness to an “airplane hangar.”

The new design, which will cost about $200 million less, comes from Ellerbe Becket, an architectural firm based in Kansas City, Mo., that specializes in convention centers, stadiums and arenas and designed Conseco Fieldhouse in Indianapolis, where the Indiana Pacers play. Officials who have seen the design say that while it resembles Conseco Fieldhouse it also bears a likeness to an “airplane hangar.”

. . .

“The current economic climate is not right for this design,” Mr. Ratner said of the Gehry design in a statement released Thursday afternoon, “and with Frank’s understanding, the arena is undergoing a redesign that will make it more limited in scope.”

Mr. Ratner has said he is eager to get started with what he says will be a world-class project.

Mr. Gehry, the award-winning architect behind the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles and the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, added that while he regretted the demise of his arena design, he remained “extremely proud of our work on the Atlantic Yards master plan and on the original arena.”

Location Scout: Atlantic Yards.

The Tax May Not Be In The Bag

The big bold plastic bag tax (the one whose yearly windfall inexplicably jumped from $16 million in early discussions to somewhere around $100 million) seems to be blowing in the wind like something out of Alan Ball’s head*:

City Council Speaker Christine Quinn has decreed the nickel-a-bag proposal “is off the table,” according to City Council sources.

Aides to Quinn privately confirmed the development, which could add to the mayor’s woes of filling a $1 billion revenue gap in the new budget due July 1.

“We’re not going to go negotiate a budget here,” the mayor said when asked about the development.

“And Christine Quinn is certainly pro-environmental. I think that happens to be an environmental thing as well as a revenue-raising thing.”

The mayor warned the budget will have to be balanced, either through “fees and taxes, which nobody likes, or you reduce your expenses, which means less services, which nobody likes.”

*And if Bloomberg has his way, such scenes may be lost forever.