The Mark Of A Good Manager Is, In Tough Times, The Ability To Do More With Less

And gouge people with parking tickets in order to balance the budget:

Documents released last week as part of Mayor Bloomberg’s new $59.4 billion budget show that the Finance Department is projecting a $93 million increase in parking-summons revenue over the $593 million expected to come in this fiscal year.

That would be the biggest jump since 2004, when collections soared a staggering $144 million over 2003. It also would be the most money ever taken in. The previous high was $623 million in 2008.

Film Tax Credits Nearly Turn Deadly

And in a time when there is much confusion about what’s real and what’s not you can’t be too sure what you’re seeing:

A movie chase scene got too realistic early today when a car jumped a curb during a film shoot and smashed into the entrance of a Times Square restaurant, injuring two people, police and witnesses said.

The action scene gone awry unfolded at the Sbarro at 47th Street and Seventh Avenue shortly before 1 a.m.

Street closing notices posted by the police indicated the shoot was for the Nicholas Cage film, “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice.”

. . .

Mark Watkins, a tourist from Birmingham, England, watched the live action chase from the top of the new TKTS booth.

“A black Ferrari and a silver Mercedes were chasing each other,” he said.

“The Ferrari took a route down the center of the road, swerving between cars. The Mercedes took the outside lanes.

“The Ferrari took a sharp right to the left and lost it, swerving across the lanes, taking out a lamppost and a news stand.

“One lady was knocked to the ground and a lamppost landed directly on top of a chap.”

Horrifying video at link.

Mayor Bloomberg: Unsafe For Children

Maybe he meant Mike Huckabee*:

At a press conference in the Bronx to announce the opening of a new Home Depot store, Michael Bloomberg was [p]resented with the company’s trademark orange apron, but declined to put on a pair of safety goggles, saying, “The last guy to put on a pair was Dukakis.” (Close enough?)

Bloomberg was offered the goggles by a Home Depot manager as the mayor and other officials used a small electric saw to cut a piece of wood (the Home Depot version of a ribbon-cutting ceremony).

*As in. Because he certainly didn’t mean President Obama, who looks cool in his safety goggles. (Then again, candidates refusing to compromise their coolness by taking proper safety precautions seems to have a long history.)

Apologies, Non-Apologies, Contrition And Spin

Gentlemen, yet another example of how not to apologize:

After bristling at a disabled reporter whose jostled tape recorder briefly interrupted a news conference on Thursday, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg privately approached the reporter on Friday morning to deliver an oblique apology.

“The mayor spoke to Michael Harris,” said Jason Post, a spokesman for Mr. Bloomberg, referring to the reporter. “He said he was sorry that Michael was offended.”

Mr. Bloomberg’s words did not exactly satisfy Mr. Harris, who held his own news conference outside City Hall on Friday to both praise and rebuke the mayor, nor did it satisfy advocates for the disabled, who criticized Mr. Bloomberg for appearing insensitive.

In an interview, Mr. Harris said Mr. Bloomberg spoke to him for less than three minutes and told him that he apologized if Mr. Harris was offended.

“Which is not totally sincere,” Mr. Harris said. “The mayor’s apology was a conditional apology. But I believe it was sufficient to allow us both to move on.”

Moral of the story: Take great pains not to offend press corps, lest you find yourself in the middle of a multi-news cycle “story.”

Earlier: Bloomberg Refuses To Coddle The Disabled.

Bloomberg Refuses To Coddle The Disabled

Treats everyone equal . . . good to know:

To all the New Yorkers who have brought on the indignation of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, add one more: Michael A. Harris, a disability-rights advocate and journalist with a tape recorder that went off at the wrong time.

Mr. Harris, who uses a wheelchair, unwittingly found himself the source of a bizarre and uncomfortable 60 seconds with the mayor during a news conference on Thursday at Gov. David A. Paterson’s Midtown office.

As Mr. Bloomberg was delivering remarks on the governor’s introduction of a bill to legalize same-sex marriage in New York, someone bumped into a tape recorder that Mr. Harris was carrying in his pocket. That triggered the recorder’s play button, and noise from an earlier rally Mr. Harris had recorded at City Hall started playing.

The noise, which was not playing loudly enough for most other people in the room to notice, rattled Mr. Bloomberg.

“Can we just stop this, and maybe we’ll start again?” the mayor asked.

At that point the City Council speaker, Christine C. Quinn, leaned over to the mayor, covered the microphone on the lectern and whispered in his ear, “He’s disabled.”

Mr. Harris’s disability, and the fact that he was clearly having difficulty reaching the recorder to shut it off, were apparently of little consequence to the mayor.

“I understand that — he can still turn it off,” Mr. Bloomberg was overheard saying. The mayor then suggested that Mr. Harris leave altogether. “Maybe we just take everything outside.”

. . .

A spokesman for the mayor explained that the Bloomberg administration frequently went out of its way to accommodate Mr. Harris at press events, providing him with transportation in a special van and ensuring wheelchair access is available. The spokesman, Jason Post, also pointed out that Mr. Bloomberg had treated Mr. Harris as he would any other reporter — which, Mr. Post added, should not be overlooked considering that the mayor was delivering remarks on equal rights for gay men and lesbians at the time Mr. Harris’s recorder went off.

“People should be treated the same,” Mr. Post said. “This is no different.”