A Man, A Plan, A Fax Machine And An Email Inbox

The Queens Chronicle crunches the numbers and deems Councilmember John Liu grandstander of the month for December:

One of the modern personalities that accompanied the invention of e mail was the electronic chatterbox. Friends who forward every chain letter, relatives who send a new digital photo every time their child eats a new type of food, and dates of little consequence who keep sending text messages long after the initial spark is gone are all prime examples of this.

In the world of Queens politics, the leading electronic chatterbox is City Councilman John Liu (D Flushing). Over the past month, the Queens Chronicle has collected every e mail and fax sent by Queens representatives at all levels of government: city, state and federal. The paper tabulated the total number of communications and Liu came out ahead by a large margin.

Between Nov. 21 and Dec. 21, he sent 37 separate e mails and three faxes about his work on the council. He sent out advisories about his intentions to take part in rallies after the police shooting of Sean Bell, releases about his opposition to Rosie O’Donnell’s impersonation of Asians and announcements about his appearances on television. He also chronicled his participation as the council’s Transportation Commitee chairman and outlined his opposition to the expansion of a gas station in Flushing. On one day in particular — Dec. 1 — Liu sent five individual e mails on topics ranging from the announcement of new free Chinese language courses to the dedication of a new mobile computer lab in a local school.

If Anything Will Help Us Get Over The Terrible Events Of That Day, It’s Rudy Giuliani

Because it’s not like it’s crass or anything to shore up the 9/11 widow constituency for a potential 2008 run:

Supporters of former Mayor Rudy Giuliani have started discussions with relatives of 9/11 victims about backing him if he runs for president in 2008, some family members told The Post.

The conversations have taken place in recent weeks, according to some victims’ families, who described the talks as “casual.”

Marian Fontana, who lost her firefighter husband on 9/11, said she got an invitation to go to a Giuliani exploratory committee dinner last week from a former firefighter working with Giuliani’s committee. She described the invite as “last-minute.”

Fontana said she was appreciative of what Giuliani did after 9/11, but would want to know a lot more about any candidate’s stand on a variety of issues.

“I feel like I’m not ready to endorse,” said Fontana, who added, “I could see why [Giuliani supporters] would want to reach out to family members.”

But wait, there’s more:

But some relatives who are anti-Giuliani are already planning “Swiftboat”-type attacks against the ex-mayor — modeled on the negative campaign against John Kerry in 2004 by his fellow Vietnam vets. It seems likely that 9/11 kin could help Giuliani counter that criticism.

Some 9/11 family members have been deeply critical of Giuliani, blaming him for communications failures the day of the attacks.

Others have faulted his administration for allegedly not doing enough to protect rescue and recovery workers from polluted air at Ground Zero.

For the most part, those family members who have spoken with Giuliani supporters are family members who have maintained a relationship with Giuliani in the years since the attacks and were already fans of his.

A Giuliani spokeswoman declined comment.

Future Shock: One Miiilllllion People!

The Mayor, noting that the city’s population will grow by one million people by 2030, says New York will face dire infrastructure problems unless something drastic is done about it:

New York’s population will grow by nearly 1 million people by 2030 — pushing the city to the breaking point unless there are huge investments in energy, housing and transportation, Mayor Bloomberg warned yesterday.

New homes, jobs and better transit will be needed to deal with an influx equivalent to the populations of Boston and Miami combined, and it will cost billions, the mayor said at a Queens planning symposium.

“This growth could bring incredible benefits: Billions of dollars in new economic activity will be generated by new jobs, residents and visitors,” Bloomberg told an audience at the Queens Museum of Art.

Immigration is a big factor behind the projected growth, but experts also said the city’s success in reducing crime and improving services already is reversing decades of suburban flight.

The city must support the boom by building new infrastructure, including tunnels, energy plants and schools, Bloomberg said. Even more challenging, it must do so while reducing environmental damage, he said.

Planning experts at the forum offered suggestions, including taxing vehicles that drive into Manhattan’s most heavily trafficked neighborhoods, called congestion pricing, and charging residents by the pound for the trash they throw out.

Among the 10 goals the mayor laid out for the city to meet over the next 23 years were creating homes for 1 million new residents, huge upgrades in mass transit, adding parks, finishing the water tunnel, improving the efficiency of power plants and cleaning the city’s air, land and waterways.

Census figures (via Encyclopedia of New York City):

• 1930: 6,930,446
• 1940: 7,454,995
• 1950: 7,891,957
• 1960: 7,781,984
• 1970: 7,894,862
• 1980: 7,071,639
• 1990: 7,322,564
• 2000: 8,008,278*

Ooh, a demographic crisis is upon us because New York finally caught up with 1970 population levels. Scary.

That million new people are going to come from where exactly?

But of course as we know from recent world events, the best way to encourage action is to create a crisis.

*Sorry, the 2004 estimate was a shocking 8,085,742.

If Michael Bloomberg Is The Ross Perot Of 2008 Then Kevin Sheekey Is The Ralph Reed Of The Post-Bush Era

So far, all this Bloomberg ’08 talk is doing is positioning Kevin Sheekey as the Ralph Reed* of the independents:

The day after Bloomberg’s reelection, Kevin Sheekey, his campaign manager, gave a TV interview. At 40, Sheekey is a character straight from central casting: If Karl Rove is (or was) the Architect, Sheekey is the Operator. Puckish, preppy, tousled, and inordinately caffeinated, he was born and bred in Washington and worked for years on Capitol Hill, establishing a rakish reputation. After rising to become Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s chief of staff, he was hired away by Bloomberg in 1997 to be Bloomberg LP’s chief lobbyist and has been with the mayor ever since. Now, appearing on NY1 News, he averred that a Bloomberg presidential bid was “not likely” — though no one had asked if it was.

With that mischievous spark, Sheekey ignited speculation that would soon be blazing like a Bronx tenement circa 1977. By the summer, rarely a week would go by without another story about Bloomberg 2008 — most of them the handiwork of Sheekey, whose desire to see his boss run was (and is) frank and unconcealed. “My view is, the country needs to start over; it needs independent leadership,” Sheekey told me last week. “And in 2008, Mike Bloomberg is the guy who could give the country that chance.”

Bloomberg’s refusal to muzzle Sheekey is seen in political circles as a sign that he wants to stoke the fire. (To put it mildly, there isn’t much freelancing among the mayor’s people.) Bloomberg does nothing to dispel this impression when I ask about his adviser’s sotto voce presidential ruminations. “I’m shocked if Kevin is doing this,” he says, in his best Captain Renault tone. “Shocked!”

*Not to suggest that Ralph Reed didn’t have a good run there, but in the end all that hubbub never really amounted to much, did it?

Armed With Attendance Reports, The Challenger Demanded To See The Council Member’s Doctor’s Note

Now that they gave themselves that big retroactive 25 percent raise, I guess they expect that we expect that they be held to account:

It could be as if City Council members were sent back to school.

They’d have to submit a written, signed excuse such as a doctor’s note if they miss a scheduled meeting, hearing or vote, according to a draft of a proposal taking its cue from school policy.

And if they knew they were going to miss a meeting, they’d have to give advance notice.

“Members should bear in mind that the New York City Charter requires the physical presence of members at a committee meeting/hearing,” said the proposal by Speaker Christine Quinn.

The council’s absentee rate is 12 percent for the first nine months of the year, according to an amNewYork analysis of attendance records published Nov. 10. The council members with the worst attendance records — Joel Rivera (D-Bronx), Miguel Martinez (D-Manhattan) and Charles Barron (D-Brooklyn) — missed 26 percent of their scheduled meetings, according to the amNewYork analysis.

Still, the overall attendance record this year is an improvement from 2005, when the council had a 20 percent absentee rate, the analysis found.

Under Quinn’s proposal, council members each month would get a written report of their attendance and would have the option to dispute the record.