Hizzoner’s $400 Haircut

If it feels good, pile on:

For most mayors, mass transit has been as much a place to meet voters as a means to get to the office. Mr. Koch said he used the subway a couple of times a month to listen to the concerns of riders. John V. Lindsay regularly took City Hall reporters along for rides (“it was a real crush,” grumbled one former newsman), though he rarely rode it to the office. Neither did David N. Dinkins or Mr. Giuliani. But using mass transit, with its populist overtones, can be a double-edged sword for mayors, political analysts say: It may provide face time with the citizenry, but it also carries the risk of appearing calculated.

“From Mayor McClellan, when the subway opened, to the current mayor, every mayor has used a subway for political purposes,” said George Arzt, a former press secretary to Mayor Koch. (George B. McClellan took office in 1904.)

During his first campaign, in 2001, Michael R. Bloomberg pledged to travel by public transportation nearly every day. He seemed to relish being cast in news reports as a mogul squeezed onto a crowded No. 6 train.

But a report in The New York Times yesterday showed that nowadays, Mr. Bloomberg’s commute typically consists of a sport utility vehicle ride to a Midtown express subway stop 22 blocks from his Upper East Side home.

. . .

Yesterday, Mr. Bloomberg brushed off questions about the report on his commuting.

“You know, the story is what it is,” he said at a press conference in Brooklyn. “Some people focus on important things, some people don’t. There’s not a lot to say.”

The mayor then refused to acknowledge the journalists who swarmed around him as he left the news conference. Stu Loeser, the mayor’s chief spokesman, insisted to reporters that “the question was asked and answered.”

Later, Mr. Loeser added: “No matter where the mayor goes, his security detail follows him. That’s a fact. He takes the subway because it’s the fastest way to get around, but no matter where he is, in case of an emergency, in case of a disaster, manmade or otherwise, there are security vehicles with him.”

One reporter asked Mr. Loeser afterward if the mayor was taking the subway “for show.”

“No, he takes the subway virtually every day,” the spokesman replied, “because it’s the fastest way to get from Point A to Point B.”

“It is what it is” . . . hmm . . . sounds familiar.

Wasn’t The WTC Insurance Fund Supposed To Help Avoid This?

Things you don’t want to have happen on a gorgeous summer weekend include opening up the Sunday Post to see how much you’re cashing in on 9/11:

One of the high-priced lawyers who have sucked $47 million out of the $1 billion World Trade Center insurance fund is infamous for defending companies that manufactured Agent Orange, a pregnancy drug linked to cancer, and defective breast implants.

James Tyrrell, a partner in the law firm Patton Boggs, is hailed in legal circles as the “master of disaster” and the “devil’s advocate.”

Another lawyer, Thomas Jones, serves simultaneously as secretary of the WTC Captive Insurance Co., which manages the $1 billion FEMA fund, and as partner in the Chicago-based McDermott Will & Emery, the fund’s legal counsel.

In a lawsuit filed in Manhattan last week, 9/11 responders blasted the Captive’s mounting expenses — $75 million so far, including $47 million on law firms — and Jones’ alleged “conflict of interest.”

They charged the city-run WTC Captive is a cash cow for its employees, consultants and lawyers, and has “squandered” money that should go to 10,000 cops, firefighters and other workers with illnesses blamed on toxic exposure at Ground Zero. It has paid just $45,000 to a carpenter who fell off a ladder.

Patton Boggs, based in Washington, D.C., commands up to $850-an-hour — one of the highest billing rates in the country, according to a National Law Journal survey.

Tyrell, who works out of the firm’s Newark office, would not discuss what he charges to lead the battle against Ground Zero responders, saying his firm’s contract with the WTC Captive has a “confidentiality clause.”

The city Law Department also refused to divulge the fees paid to the hired guns. Neither Tyrrell nor Patton Boggs has done work for the city before, officials said.

Documents obtained by The Post show that eight senior partners at McDermott, Will & Emery, including Thomas, can each bill the insurance fund $618 an hour. The partners first billed a “discounted” $550 an hour, but that fee was raised 6 percent in 2005, and 6 percent again last year.

Dumb Luck

If you’re going to spray paint, do it at night — and for god’s sake, don’t do it in front of the offices of the City Councilmember who considers graffiti one of the city’s most pressing problems:

A boneheaded 16-year old boy was arrested at around 1 p.m. Wednesday, July 11 after he climbed to the rooftops of local Astoria businesses in broad daylight just down the street from the offices of anti-graffiti advocate City Councilmember Peter F. Vallone Jr. and vandalized walls with spray paint.

After seeing the vandal atop a restaurant on 31st Street and Ditmars Boulevard, local merchants notified police and called Vallone, who arrived in time actually to watch the boy tagging the wall and being arrested. The suspect was found with a bag full of graffiti instruments and had paint on his body. He is being charged with making graffiti, a Class A misdemeanor, and Vallone is asking for restitution for damage to the businesses.

“But this case demonstrates how brazen many of these kids are getting,” Vallone said. “They have the mentality that graffiti isn’t a crime, or they won’t get caught doing it. Graffiti sends the message that we do not care about our neighborhoods — but arresting these vandals says that we do.”

The Lobbying Effort Is In The Mail

Even with all that presidential hype he’s still just a lame duck:

Lawmakers on Monday shelved Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s plan to charge a fee to drivers entering the busiest parts of Manhattan, dealing a setback to the mayor as he tries to raise his national profile and promote his environmental initiatives.

The State Senate, which had convened in a special session, adjourned without taking up the plan after it became apparent that the votes for passage were not there.

Meanwhile, the Assembly speaker, Sheldon Silver, proposed sending the issue to a study commission that would also consider other ways to reduce traffic, and giving the Legislature until next March to act.

The developments suggested that passage of the mayor’s plan, or one resembling the original, was unlikely. Asked if congestion pricing was dead, Senator Martin J. Golden, a Brooklyn Republican who supports the plan, said, “It doesn’t sound like it’s alive, that’s for sure.”

Mr. Bloomberg had lobbied hard and backed an extensive publicity campaign to pressure lawmakers to approve his plan by Monday, the deadline for the city to seek as much as $500 million in federal aid. But legislators complained that he had failed to answer basic questions about the proposal, which has never been tried on a broad scale in any American city. Still, last-ditch talks continued late Monday night.

. . .

In a tense meeting on Monday, testy exchanges erupted between the mayor and the Democratic state senators he was trying to win over. At one point, according to several people present, Mr. Bloomberg told the senators that his administration had sent plenty of information about his plan in the mail, and that it was not his fault if they had not read it.

“If the mayor came in with one vote, he left with none,” said Senator Kevin S. Parker, a Brooklyn Democrat.

“His posture was not ingratiating,” he said. “He says he doesn’t know politics, and he certainly bore that out by the way he behaved.”

So angered were Democrats that they decided to vote as a bloc to defeat the measure, and there were not nearly enough votes among the Republican senators for it to pass.

The mayor moved from meeting to meeting in the Capitol, his expression grim, and he declined to take questions from reporters. He did take a shot at his critics on WROW-AM radio in Albany on Monday morning, saying, “Anybody that says we didn’t have enough time to look at this is ridiculous.

“They don’t read the mail or they don’t read the newspapers,” he said, adding that it would be difficult “to not know about congestion pricing if you can read.”

Or maybe they actually did read the newspapers (nice lobbying effort, by the way — sending over a stack of op-eds!) and felt that there were certain outstanding and/or unanswered issues including but not limited to the potential increased traffic just outside the congestion pricing zone, the incomprehensible notion that Manhattanites below 86th Street would be charged to leave the zone (and reduce congestion in the process!), or the astounding observation that the 6 train is actually not that crowded if you go to work at quarter to seven . . .

Maybe Like The Rest Of Us She Just Misses Anna Benson

But that she did it in what could be* a contract year for A-Rod is a nice touch:

Yankee superstar Alex Rodriguez’s long-suffering wife, Cynthia, may have finally flipped her pretty lid yesterday when she went to a game in The Bronx wearing a tight-fitting, white tank top bearing a foul message on the back: “F- – – you.”

The obscene phrase was plainly visible to thousands of fans — including plenty of kids — as she, her 2-year-old daughter, Natasha, and an older woman took their seats in the players’ family section of the House that Ruth Built.

“[One] father, was so embarrassed, he got up and left and took his son,” who appeared to be about 10 years old, a fan said.

“I mean this kid was right in back of Cynthia — his nose must have been about 4 inches away from the words ‘F- – – you.’ ”

. . .

The team’s policy prohibits any banners or signs that are not in “good taste” and also warns that security guards will eject any guests “using foul language” or “making obscene gestures.”

Still, when some fans let nearby security know about Cynthia’s four-letter garment yesterday, nothing was done.

“It was noted by police and security,” one fan said. “They were aware of it. I guess they didn’t know what to do. I guess you don’t kick A-Rod’s wife out of the game.”

It’s not clear who the target was of Cynthia’s F-bomb: Yankee fans, management, the media — or even perhaps her wandering husband.