If You Want To Understand Why We Pay Such High Taxes In New York, Start Here

The cost of rebuilding the I-34W Bridge in Minneapolis was $234 million. The cost of rebuilding the dinky City Island Bridge in the Bronx has now risen to $120 million:

After several years of delays, planning and community opposition, the cost of replacing the 108-year-old City Island Bridge has risen to $120 million.

Back on Aug. 20, 2003 — when Mayor Bloomberg announced plans for a new high-tech bridge “as unique as the island itself” — the cost was estimated at $32 million.

The new bridge project has yet to get started, with the latest launch date now set for next year.

“What are they building, the Bridge on the River Kwai?” groaned Councilman James Vacca (D-Bronx), whose district includes the tiny, isolated community surrounded by Long Island Sound and Eastchester Bay.

He and other critics of the city’s plans to build a “signature bridge,” with suspension cables evoking the island’s sailing past, said they’d be far happier with a cheaper remake of the current ugly-duckling span.

“We’ve been handed a bridge that we just hate,” said Barbara Dolensek, vice president of the City Island Historial Society and the Civic Association.

“They wanted something that would put their names on the map.”

In An Effort To Further Combat Public Drunkeness And Spousal Abuse The City Will Soon Require Stores To Record The Names And Addresses Of People Who Buy Coors Light

When people start using etching acid to cook up debilitating illegal drugs that tear at the very fabric of society, then maybe let’s talk about giving the police wide latitude to create files on the law-abiding citizens they protect. Until then, this seems like another example* of Councilmember Peter Vallone Jr.’s insane overreach:

In an effort to further combat “scratchiti” — graffiti etched into glass — the city will soon require stores to record the names and addresses of people who buy glass-etching acid.

. . .

The purchase information — which includes the buyer’s name and address, amount of acid and date — must be kept for up to one year and made available to the police on request.

“This will have a deterrent effect if people know their identification will be kept on record,” said Councilman Peter F. Vallone Jr., a Queens Democrat who is chairman of the Public Safety Committee and who negotiated with the mayor’s office to get the bill passed by the Council on Wednesday.

. . .

“We had an impasse until I went to buy Sudafed,” Mr. Vallone said. Sudafed and other cold medicines are now broadly regulated — and often kept under lock and key — because they are used as an ingredient in methamphetamine, but a license is not required to obtain the drug.

“I went to get Sudafed and they asked me for my identification,” Mr. Vallone said. “I asked how come we can’t do it for etching acid?”

*As in.

The New Economy

Son, perhaps you’ve never thought about a lucrative career as a city marshal:

A lucky group of city marshals earned a record $43 million last year by swooping in to collect debts for individuals, the city and big corporations like AT&T and Con Edison, routinely towing cars, evicting tenants and collecting court judgments.

There were 46 marshals in 2008, and cashing in on financial catastrophe has made 16 of them millionaires.

They pocket 5 percent of every debt they collect, and pay only minor fees for the privilege. Their 2008 take was $1 million more than the year before, and almost $5 million more than in 2006.

Do You Like Me For My: Courtesy, Professionalism, Respect [Please Check Box!]

“If you have been stopped and were not involved in any criminal activity the NYPD regrets any inconvenience”:

The NYPD has begun handing out informational cards to pedestrians they stop, question and frisk, Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said Thursday.

Cops in sections of Manhattan, Brooklyn and the Bronx have given those people 4 X 2 1/2-inch white cards that explain a so-called stop, question and frisk encounter.

“We know that the whole stopping and question procedure is a difficult one for us,” Kelly told reporters at Police Headquarters.

“People are, at the very least, losing time, and we’re taking time away from them. We’re hoping to . . . give people a little more information about what the procedure is and why it’s being done.”

. . .

The two-sided card cites common reasons for stops, such as carrying what appears to be a weapon, sights or sounds that suggest criminal activities, or reports of suspicious behavior.

But Monopoly Is So Much Fun, I’d Hate To Blow The Game

You would think that two adults could stop or at least disrupt a sexual assault. And you have to assume that those odds get even better if you have three adults at the scene:

A third MTA employee failed to come to the side of a woman being raped on a Queens subway platform, an internal memo revealed.

Location Scout: 21st Street/Van Alst Station.