The Resignation After The Assignation

New Yorkers across the city react strongly to news that former Governor Eliot Spitzer overpaid for sex:

At 11:45 a.m. yesterday, New Yorkers were transfixed by their televisions during a stunning moment in state history — the resignation of disgraced Gov. Spitzer.

. . .

At Forlini’s restaurant downtown, owner Joe Forlini and his staff also gathered at their television and gaped that the spectacle.

“I never liked the guy,” Forlini said afterward. “The real people who are suffering are his family. The guy’s a bum.”

. . .

“My first reaction was, oh, my God. My second reaction was, what an a- – – – – -,” said Patricia Browne, 45, of Chelsea, who watched the resignation speech with a crowd of coworkers around a television in her Midtown office.

“I thought, you know, hey, you prosecuted people for this. And then you go to a prostitute yourself. It seems there’s a disconnect, buddy, and it’s sad. What he did was egregious and he should have resigned. He had no choice.”

Somewhere In Lower Manhattan, A Man In His Mid- To Late-30s Remembers A Song From The ’80s That Had A Not-So-Terrible Guitar Hook And Something To Do With Rats; He Turns To His Colleague And — Strumming Air Guitar Furiously — Screams Out This Lyric . . .

. . . “Like Romeo to Juliet/Time and time, I’m gonna make you mine.” His friend scratches his head, because he was (is) a big Ratt fan, and knows that the very next line is “I’ve had enough, we’ve had enough/It’s all the same,” but no matter, since most people only internalize snippets of lyrics, and besides, he came to the sad conclusion long, long ago that Ratt were probably a bunch of high-school dropout goons with little sense of internal logic, but that’s all beside the point on this particular day, he thinks, because he understands his friend’s sentiment, which is something along the lines of “what comes around goes around,” etc., etc. or whatever:

Cheers erupted on trading floors around the city yesterday as word spread of the stunning downfall of Gov. Spitzer — who spent most of his term as attorney general torturing Wall Street with his witch hunt for financial wrongdoing.

An employee of a major investment bank, who requested anonymity, said the company chef had been instructed to break out bottles of champagne so that the staff could party and swap jokes about “client No. 9.”

Meanwhile, at another giant firm, Merrill Lynch, “everyone broke into cheering on the trading floor,” an employee said. Merrill got socked for hundreds of millions of dollars in penalties, thanks to Spitzer.

Traders were on such a high that stocks rallied for about a half-hour. Then the laughs wore off and the gloom returned for a down day.

Give Him Credit For Being Such A Moron

A cab driver who knows he’s driving around the former transportation reporter for the Post and still refuses to take his credit card is basically an idiot:

I went to taxi court, won my case and still wound up feeling guilty.

My cabdriver, Surjit Singh, had been completely in the wrong, but as I watched him squirm on the hot seat three feet away from me as though he were being tried for high treason and not Taxi and Limousine Commission Violation No. 2-61A1, I began to regret ever calling the city to complain.

Back on Dec. 28, Singh took me from Kennedy Airport to Brooklyn.

I told him that I used to be the transportation reporter for The Post and well understood the concerns about the new GPS and credit-card systems that had sparked two strikes. We even talked about a slew of recent news stories about how drivers were being fined for refusing to allow passengers to pay by plastic.

Then, as I watched the meter tick off the fare, I realized I wasn’t going to have enough cash to also give him a tip. But when I asked if I could pay by credit card, he lied and said the system was broken. I told him that it was clearly working and that I would tip double, more than covering the 5 percent transaction fee, but he insisted I go to an ATM.

After the ride, I called the city, and they scheduled a hearing for six weeks later, by which time I was no longer the slightest bit upset about it. Due to this cooling-off period, as few as 20 percent of passengers actually end up following through on their complaints, officials said.

. . .

An hour later, the judge came back with her decision. Singh was fined $500 for refusing to let me pay by credit card and for fraud, violations that put four points on his hack license. Two more points within a 15-month period and he would be suspended for 30 days; six more and his hack license would be revoked.

The whole thing seemed so excessive that if I had had the $500 in my wallet, I might have handed it to him.

Filet — Maybe, But Grilled Salmon Just Makes Me Think Of Cousin Dee’s Low-Budget Wedding

The Times checks the numbers and determines that congestion pricing is bogged down in the City Council:

It’s the signature policy item of his second term, but Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s congestion pricing plan may be in serious trouble, not only in Albany but in the New York City Council, which after two years of bowing to much of the mayor’s agenda seems suddenly emboldened to resist him.

A New York Times survey of the Council’s 51 members this week found opposition to the plan running at nearly a 2-1 ratio among those who have taken a position.

Mr. Bloomberg needs 26 votes for approval of the plan, which would charge drivers $8 to enter Manhattan below 60th Street.

Asked how they would vote if they had to decide today, 12 council members said they would vote yes, 20 said they would vote no, and 11 said they were undecided, but with serious concerns. The other eight did not respond.

The informal tally bodes poorly for the mayor, who must now split his attention between swaying undecided members of the State Assembly, where opposition up to now has been loudest, and assuaging concerns among council members. It also raises the question of whether council members are more willing to depart from the mayor’s agenda as they turn their focus to their next political campaigns.

And the City Council, known for its courage, seems set to do the right thing:

“It’s going to go down,” said Lewis A. Fidler, a Brooklyn Democrat who opposes congestion pricing. “I think the council members, recognizing it’s not going to pass in Albany, want to assert the integrity of this institution.”

The mayor’s plan must be approved by both the Council and the State Legislature by March 31 for New York to qualify for about $350 million in federal financing.

The mayor and his aides, along with Council Speaker Christine C. Quinn, have started an effort to woo council members and legislators in recent weeks.

They stepped up their courtship Thursday night with a dinner at Gracie Mansion to which more than a dozen council members from Manhattan, the Bronx and Staten Island had been invited. Only six attended, and gathered around a table with the mayor and the speaker over grilled salmon and wine. In a cordial tone, Mr. Bloomberg made his pitch, warning them of the risk of losing federal money just as the city’s economy appears headed for bleak times, according to some members who attended.

Sudafed For The Roadways

The number of free parking permits for city employees is much bigger than once thought:

The number of government-issued parking permits provided to employees of city agencies is significantly higher than had been estimated by city officials, according to a citywide inventory.

Ordered by Mayor Bloomberg earlier this year as part of a citywide initiative to cut down on the sought-after permits by 20%, the inventory found that city agencies gave out about 142,000 parking permits last year.

“If you had asked me to guess when we started this analysis, I would have said there were between 70 and 80,000,” Deputy Mayor Edward Skyler said. “Placards and permits are necessary for the government to do business, but it has gotten out of hand.”