We have been forced to listen ad nauseum about how Mike Bloomberg is a superior manager-we heard it through three election cycles and it's now about time for the media to finally do its job and simply say: the emperor has no clothes! With yesterday's indictment of the entire CityTime crew of gangsters it has become painfully obvious that Mayor Mike's inattention-and absence-during last winter's snow storm was just the tip of the iceberg.
Here's the WSJ's report:
"Fraud permeated "virtually every level" of the development of New York City's long-delayed and over-budget automated payroll system, U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said Monday as he announced the indictments of two New Jersey executives accused of paying off contractors.
Padma and Reddy Allen, the top executives at TechnoDyne, a consulting company that worked on the city payroll system known as CityTime, were accused of handing out more than $40 million in kickbacks as part of an elaborate scheme to defraud city taxpayers. The couple had already returned to their native India, and authorities are pursuing them."
So, where exactly was Mike when all of this was going down? Right on top of this if you believe the risible response to the news from his lackey: "In a statement, Mr. Bloomberg's spokesman, Marc LaVorgna said, "Our Department of Investigation uncovered this fraud, bringing it to federal prosecutors, and we will be using all available avenues to recover any funding owed to the city."
Ho, ho, ho! DOI did no such thing, and credit goes to Comptroller Liu who first blew the whistle on the scandal. In fact, the mayor should go on one of his self promoting advertising jaunts to give profusive mea culpas to the citizens he hood winked a third time in 2009.
This is nonfeasance on a grand scale-and those prospective mayoral candidates who are looking for the mayor's coattails should re-think that strategy in light of the naked emperor's non-performance on this grand theft.
We at WPU are not surprised. On the front lines of one of the most wasteful boondoggles in city history we know first hand all about the city's managerial expertise-and the mayor's misguided priorities. That he can use corrupt consultants is no surprise here. The only difference is that the CityTime consultants ripped off the clueless Bloomberg administration and, of course, the tax payers; EDC's consultants are part of a conscious scheme to rip off small property owners along with the auto-choked residents of Queens.
It's time for the mayor to step down. His purchase of a third term should be returned to the buyers because of the fraudulent advertising the sale involved. He no longer has any credibility left and should leave red-faced immediately!
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
Sunday, June 19, 2011
Out to Lunch-Breakfast and Dinner
Yesterday the NY Post commented on a Peter Vallone sponsored bill that was the brainchild of someone quite near and dear to our hearts. The bill would bell the Bloomberg cat when he picks up and leaves the city rudderless down in Bermuda, or wherever. The paper calls the legislation the, "MIA Mayor" bill:
"Councilman Peter Vallone Jr., still stewing over City Hall’s blizzard response — or lack thereof — at Christmastime, has introduced legislation meant to force the mayor to leave notice whenever he vacates town. Bloomberg apparently decamped to sunny Bermuda in December, as a blizzard approached the city. The rest, as they say, is history: A rudderless city was left to fend for itself."
Addition by subtraction, you say? How unfair of you. But what is taking the legislation so long to be brought to a vote? The Post doesn't say, but should have because it is the dilatory tactics of Speaker Quinn-you know, the woman who would be mayor-that has held it up this long.
The Post does, however, do a good job at poking fun at the mayor's defense: "A mayoral spokesman insists smartphones render the bill unnecessary: “In this day and age, the person New Yorkers elected mayor can always act as mayor — wherever he or she is.” Well, presumably Bloomberg took his BlackBerry to Bermuda at Christmastime — but that clearly didn’t prevent the near-total collapse of the city chain of command when the storm hit. He’s lost the benefit of the doubt, in other words."
As he should have about almost anything-including the viability of the Willets Point development and particularly the efficacy of those ramps off the Van Wyck. Nothing the mayor says, and no policy he advocates can be taken with anything but a grain of salt. Even though this fool wants to ban salt.
"Councilman Peter Vallone Jr., still stewing over City Hall’s blizzard response — or lack thereof — at Christmastime, has introduced legislation meant to force the mayor to leave notice whenever he vacates town. Bloomberg apparently decamped to sunny Bermuda in December, as a blizzard approached the city. The rest, as they say, is history: A rudderless city was left to fend for itself."
Addition by subtraction, you say? How unfair of you. But what is taking the legislation so long to be brought to a vote? The Post doesn't say, but should have because it is the dilatory tactics of Speaker Quinn-you know, the woman who would be mayor-that has held it up this long.
The Post does, however, do a good job at poking fun at the mayor's defense: "A mayoral spokesman insists smartphones render the bill unnecessary: “In this day and age, the person New Yorkers elected mayor can always act as mayor — wherever he or she is.” Well, presumably Bloomberg took his BlackBerry to Bermuda at Christmastime — but that clearly didn’t prevent the near-total collapse of the city chain of command when the storm hit. He’s lost the benefit of the doubt, in other words."
As he should have about almost anything-including the viability of the Willets Point development and particularly the efficacy of those ramps off the Van Wyck. Nothing the mayor says, and no policy he advocates can be taken with anything but a grain of salt. Even though this fool wants to ban salt.
Relocating Simple Common Sense
According to the NY Post there's one guy at Willets Point who doesn't need to worry about having his property condemned-Ralph Paterno who sells Met memorabilia across from Citi Field. Ralph expressed his concerns to the paper and lashed out at the Bloomberg administration: "Mayor Bloomberg is stealing from the poor to give to the rich," charged Paterno."
But Ralph can rest easy. The reason? Well, here's the brain-dead city's response: "A city source said officials are offering to relocate the business and re-train workers." WPU's Jerry Antonacci has the only possible response to this inanity:
"Wow what a response! Re-train a guy that sells Met hats? To be what, a guy that sells Yankee hats? And why would he want to be relocated away from the stadium whose team shirts and hats he is selling? Does this make any sense?”
But this is how the city thinks, in canned sound bites divorced from any sense of reality. But then again the entire Willets Point project is divorced from reality so why should the city’s lame explanations be any different?
But Ralph can rest easy. The reason? Well, here's the brain-dead city's response: "A city source said officials are offering to relocate the business and re-train workers." WPU's Jerry Antonacci has the only possible response to this inanity:
"Wow what a response! Re-train a guy that sells Met hats? To be what, a guy that sells Yankee hats? And why would he want to be relocated away from the stadium whose team shirts and hats he is selling? Does this make any sense?”
But this is how the city thinks, in canned sound bites divorced from any sense of reality. But then again the entire Willets Point project is divorced from reality so why should the city’s lame explanations be any different?
Friday, June 17, 2011
Ramp Tramp
The last time we met Julissa Ferreras she was supposedly advocating for an oversight hearing on the proposed Van Wyck ramps-cognizant it seemed of the deficient EDC traffic estimates and worried about the potential impact that the increases in car and truck trips would mean for her Corona and East Elmhurst neighborhoods.
That, as we say was then, but this is now. As the Flushing Times reports from last week's ramp hearing, Ferreras has been elevated from her bench role into the EDC starting line up: "As the Council member who represents Willets Point, I am writing to express my support for the proposed ramp to be located off the Van Wyck Expressway,” Connell said, reading from a letter Ferreras wrote to EDC President Seth Pinsky. “This ramp is essential to mitigate the expected additional traffic as redevelopment of Willets Point moves forward.”
Ferreras has gone from wanting an oversight to being one-is it any wonder that she's on her fourth chief of staff? But the Queens Tribune, unlike the council member, captures all of the complexities surrounding this ramp controversy.
As the paper reports: "The lead-up to Wednesday’s hearing provides an abject lesson in the density, scope and epic mountain of red tape required to slap new ramps around Flushing Bay. It’s a three-year odyssey of competing reports, varying math formulas and legal gamesmanship. What emerges is a veritable chess match, with leading opposition group Willets Point United and the EDC playing an exhausting series of countermoves based on the ramps."
The odyssey, as it were, began when it became clear that EDC was cooking the books: "At the outset, WPU latched onto the ramps as the potential linchpin to any challenges of the project. The interchange between the Grand Central Parkway and the Whitestone and Van Wyck Expressways already presented a nightmare of congestion at peak rush hours. The City presented a bleak picture of the ramps’ ability to ease traffic in the surrounding local roads, WPU argued, with the added congestion of a planned monolithic mixed-use redevelopment of the 62-acre Iron Triangle. The City Council approved the plan regardless."
But the ramps were identified in the original EIS as the linchpin of mitigation-and at that point EDC decided to play its own version of Three Card Monte: "That draft EA, held alongside the FGEIS, provided a morphing depiction of the ramps’ impact, according to WPU. The group enlisted Brian Ketcham, a Brooklyn-based transportation engineer with a history of being a pain in the City’s backside (he effectively killed Westway, the Koch era’s massive West Side Highway proposal). Ketcham’s number crunching and colorful assertions have become the dogma behind WPU’s opposition. His reports, the most recent a 286-page rebuttal of the draft EA, amount to the group’s sacred text."
Keep in mind, however, that SDOT originally sent EDC back to the drawing board based on the sacredness of the Ketcham critique-a skepticism that seems to not have survived the changing of the guard at SDOT: "WPU’s plans took a second hit when the ramps made it past the DOT. Though lacking the state agency’s final endorsement, the plan was sent out for public review. EDC welcomed the move as a signal of the ramps’ imminent approval. WPU contended the DOT’s new commissioner and former EDC Transportation Vice President Joan McDonald was returning favors to her former employer."
Indeed! But the Ketcham's work is impeccable which is why the state and EDC both dread an independent review-afraid of the chicanery that it would reveal:
"Should the redevelopment of Willets Point go through as planned, all roads within a two-mile radius would become a hellhole of steady brake lights, honking horns and an incapacitated mass transit system, according to Ketcham.
“They’re essentially proposing the largest shopping mall in the city,” he said. “The impact on the surrounding local access roads is so horrendous. They low-balled the traffic, they have overstated the impact of transit. These folks are playing games with the numbers.”
And they've altered their original evaluation-fraudulently tailored to the SDOT and the Van Wyck: "Ketcham’s point lies in the differences between gridlocked hell depicted in 2008’s FGEIS and smooth driving portrayed in the draft EA, both prepared by engineering firm AKRF. According to Ketcham’s submission, the latter hides many of the flaws laid bare in the FGEIS, underreporting the estimated car trips by as much as 100 percent."
EDC responds with gobbledygook, but the Tribune is alive to the agency's obfuscation: "The gulf between the FGEIS and draft EA can easily be explained by competing formulas, according to the EDC’s dense, three-paragraph response to Ketcham’s assertions.
“[The draft EA], which is more regional in its approach, and focused on highway systems, uses different modeling procedures for forecasting future traffic volumes,” the agency said. “In contrast, the FGEIS analysis conservatively assigned vehicles according to the most direct route between their origins and destinations. Both approaches are appropriate and represent industry-standard protocol for evaluating traffic.”
Easy for them perhaps, but Ketcham remains incredulous: "While the FGEIS states half of the Iron Triangle’s auto traffic would use the Van Wyck Expressway, the latest EA lowers the figure to one third. An estimated 2,000 cars were not reassigned to local roads in the report, according to Ketcham, showing “operating conditions on local roads that are better than reported in the FGEIS despite carrying 26 percent more Willets Point trips. More trips, lower impacts: it is mysterious why EDC thinks anyone will believe this.”
Because EDC believes that in politics, clubs are trump-to wit the new SDOT commissioner, mysteriously elevated in the middle of this traffic storm. And perhaps, the witless Ferreras should pay attention to the full impact of Ketcham's critique: "Ketcham claims the EDC’s reports willfully ignore the ongoing development within Downtown Flushing, with the likes of Flushing Commons, the RKO Keith’s, Skyview Parc and other big ticket projects adding to traffic congestion.
“They just don’t complete all the calculations,” he said. “My analysis does. The frustration for someone like me is where is the planning? Where is the upfront analysis? They will build it and nobody will come because they can’t get into or out of it. Or the whole area will be gridlocked.”
Que lio!-as our Hispanic friends might say. But WPU is hopeful that the courts and the Feds will expose the state/EDC collusion: "Ketcham’s latest rebuttal to a City-produced report will play a major role in any lawsuits challenging the planned ramps, including a case returning to Judge Madden’s court.
“If the court rules [it] does have jurisdiction and that we should litigate the merits of the traffic impact, Ketcham’s report would definitely be integral,” said Michael Gerrard, WPU’s attorney for the case.
Gerrard also hopes Ketcham’s findings will encourage the Federal Highway Administration to undertake a Federal Environmental Impact Statement, which would most closely mirror WPU’s desire for a non-partisan third party to assess the traffic impact of the plan."
Where does leave the hapless Ferreras? As always, relegated to the servant class where she will remain as a beggar at the feast. It will, however, be her communities of Corona and East Elmurst that will be beggared if this project goes forward. As we warned almost two years ago, these neighborhoods will become the dirty door mats for the new development; and it is fitting that booth Ferreras and Queens BP Marshall live there so that their constituents can look at them see a daily reminder of their betrayal should this ill-conceived monstrosity go forward.
That, as we say was then, but this is now. As the Flushing Times reports from last week's ramp hearing, Ferreras has been elevated from her bench role into the EDC starting line up: "As the Council member who represents Willets Point, I am writing to express my support for the proposed ramp to be located off the Van Wyck Expressway,” Connell said, reading from a letter Ferreras wrote to EDC President Seth Pinsky. “This ramp is essential to mitigate the expected additional traffic as redevelopment of Willets Point moves forward.”
Ferreras has gone from wanting an oversight to being one-is it any wonder that she's on her fourth chief of staff? But the Queens Tribune, unlike the council member, captures all of the complexities surrounding this ramp controversy.
As the paper reports: "The lead-up to Wednesday’s hearing provides an abject lesson in the density, scope and epic mountain of red tape required to slap new ramps around Flushing Bay. It’s a three-year odyssey of competing reports, varying math formulas and legal gamesmanship. What emerges is a veritable chess match, with leading opposition group Willets Point United and the EDC playing an exhausting series of countermoves based on the ramps."
The odyssey, as it were, began when it became clear that EDC was cooking the books: "At the outset, WPU latched onto the ramps as the potential linchpin to any challenges of the project. The interchange between the Grand Central Parkway and the Whitestone and Van Wyck Expressways already presented a nightmare of congestion at peak rush hours. The City presented a bleak picture of the ramps’ ability to ease traffic in the surrounding local roads, WPU argued, with the added congestion of a planned monolithic mixed-use redevelopment of the 62-acre Iron Triangle. The City Council approved the plan regardless."
But the ramps were identified in the original EIS as the linchpin of mitigation-and at that point EDC decided to play its own version of Three Card Monte: "That draft EA, held alongside the FGEIS, provided a morphing depiction of the ramps’ impact, according to WPU. The group enlisted Brian Ketcham, a Brooklyn-based transportation engineer with a history of being a pain in the City’s backside (he effectively killed Westway, the Koch era’s massive West Side Highway proposal). Ketcham’s number crunching and colorful assertions have become the dogma behind WPU’s opposition. His reports, the most recent a 286-page rebuttal of the draft EA, amount to the group’s sacred text."
Keep in mind, however, that SDOT originally sent EDC back to the drawing board based on the sacredness of the Ketcham critique-a skepticism that seems to not have survived the changing of the guard at SDOT: "WPU’s plans took a second hit when the ramps made it past the DOT. Though lacking the state agency’s final endorsement, the plan was sent out for public review. EDC welcomed the move as a signal of the ramps’ imminent approval. WPU contended the DOT’s new commissioner and former EDC Transportation Vice President Joan McDonald was returning favors to her former employer."
Indeed! But the Ketcham's work is impeccable which is why the state and EDC both dread an independent review-afraid of the chicanery that it would reveal:
"Should the redevelopment of Willets Point go through as planned, all roads within a two-mile radius would become a hellhole of steady brake lights, honking horns and an incapacitated mass transit system, according to Ketcham.
“They’re essentially proposing the largest shopping mall in the city,” he said. “The impact on the surrounding local access roads is so horrendous. They low-balled the traffic, they have overstated the impact of transit. These folks are playing games with the numbers.”
And they've altered their original evaluation-fraudulently tailored to the SDOT and the Van Wyck: "Ketcham’s point lies in the differences between gridlocked hell depicted in 2008’s FGEIS and smooth driving portrayed in the draft EA, both prepared by engineering firm AKRF. According to Ketcham’s submission, the latter hides many of the flaws laid bare in the FGEIS, underreporting the estimated car trips by as much as 100 percent."
EDC responds with gobbledygook, but the Tribune is alive to the agency's obfuscation: "The gulf between the FGEIS and draft EA can easily be explained by competing formulas, according to the EDC’s dense, three-paragraph response to Ketcham’s assertions.
“[The draft EA], which is more regional in its approach, and focused on highway systems, uses different modeling procedures for forecasting future traffic volumes,” the agency said. “In contrast, the FGEIS analysis conservatively assigned vehicles according to the most direct route between their origins and destinations. Both approaches are appropriate and represent industry-standard protocol for evaluating traffic.”
Easy for them perhaps, but Ketcham remains incredulous: "While the FGEIS states half of the Iron Triangle’s auto traffic would use the Van Wyck Expressway, the latest EA lowers the figure to one third. An estimated 2,000 cars were not reassigned to local roads in the report, according to Ketcham, showing “operating conditions on local roads that are better than reported in the FGEIS despite carrying 26 percent more Willets Point trips. More trips, lower impacts: it is mysterious why EDC thinks anyone will believe this.”
Because EDC believes that in politics, clubs are trump-to wit the new SDOT commissioner, mysteriously elevated in the middle of this traffic storm. And perhaps, the witless Ferreras should pay attention to the full impact of Ketcham's critique: "Ketcham claims the EDC’s reports willfully ignore the ongoing development within Downtown Flushing, with the likes of Flushing Commons, the RKO Keith’s, Skyview Parc and other big ticket projects adding to traffic congestion.
“They just don’t complete all the calculations,” he said. “My analysis does. The frustration for someone like me is where is the planning? Where is the upfront analysis? They will build it and nobody will come because they can’t get into or out of it. Or the whole area will be gridlocked.”
Que lio!-as our Hispanic friends might say. But WPU is hopeful that the courts and the Feds will expose the state/EDC collusion: "Ketcham’s latest rebuttal to a City-produced report will play a major role in any lawsuits challenging the planned ramps, including a case returning to Judge Madden’s court.
“If the court rules [it] does have jurisdiction and that we should litigate the merits of the traffic impact, Ketcham’s report would definitely be integral,” said Michael Gerrard, WPU’s attorney for the case.
Gerrard also hopes Ketcham’s findings will encourage the Federal Highway Administration to undertake a Federal Environmental Impact Statement, which would most closely mirror WPU’s desire for a non-partisan third party to assess the traffic impact of the plan."
Where does leave the hapless Ferreras? As always, relegated to the servant class where she will remain as a beggar at the feast. It will, however, be her communities of Corona and East Elmurst that will be beggared if this project goes forward. As we warned almost two years ago, these neighborhoods will become the dirty door mats for the new development; and it is fitting that booth Ferreras and Queens BP Marshall live there so that their constituents can look at them see a daily reminder of their betrayal should this ill-conceived monstrosity go forward.
Thursday, June 16, 2011
Projected Failure
The Queens Courier focused attention on the EDC ramp hearing last week, citing once again how WPU feels that the proposed ramps-along with the concomitant massive traffic emanating from the Willets Point development-will bring traffic to a halt on the Van Wyck. The ramps, instead of ameliorating the traffic as they are supposed to-will degrade the highway-the only concern that should bother state and federal regulators.
What EDC wants to do-violative of the state and federal environmental rules-is to convince the oversight authorities that the development of Willets Point is a given, making the ramps necessary to ameliorate the traffic mess it's creating. Of course, that's simply false since the project will not be built without these ramps. And if it isn't built the Van Wyck will be better off-therefore the only two scenarios that regulators should be considering are:
(1) The Van Wyck with the 80,000 daily car and truck trips from the project, or;
(2) The Van Wyck without the project.
It is not the job of SDOT to become a development partner of EDC-no matter how much the new DOT commissioner hearts her old agency. On top of this false baseline assumption by EDC the agency consultants have still not provided the state with accurate professional analysis of the traffic impacts-something that has been true for the past three years of the review process.
That is why WPU continues to demand an independent review of the traffic from the project. WPU's Mike Gerrard makes the case: "Michael Gerrard, a lawyer for Willets Point United said that the group fully intends to push for an independent environmental assessment.“We believe that the environmental assessment completely misrepresents the impact that the ramps would have and we’re going to urge the state and federal transportation departments to prepare an independent environmental impact statement,” he said."
At the presser before the hearing Councilman Dan Halloran railed against the years of deprivation of basic services for the property owners: "Besides being a prime spot for retail and housing, the city argues that Willets Point is a blighted area and therefore should be redeveloped. Halloran shot back at this claim, saying that it was the city’s inaction that put the industrial area is such dire straits.
“The city chose not to improve the area – they chose not to plow, not to provide sewers, not to provide infrastructure of any kind,” he said. “There needs to be development in Willets Point, but it needs to be done with the cooperation of the people there and not at gunpoint. What is happening now is downright un-American.”
The question that remains, is how will the regulators respond to the continued obfuscation of the EDC "experts?" And will the state move quickly to rubber stamp the ramp approval knowing how deficient the analysis is? After all, WPU's Brian Ketcham has produced and 264 page critique of the EDC EA-and a quick approval will demonstrate that SDOT is in the tank using equipment provided by its new boss.
One thing that still disturbs us, however, is how this commissioner/puppet was chosen in the first place. In politics it is always useful to examine, cui buono? And in this case the designation of Old McDonald benefits the mayor who endorsed the governor at a timely moment. Just saying.
So, as Meatloaf's girl friend might have said: "What'll it be boy?" Will SDOT do its job fairly. or will McDonald be a good marionetta and follow her marching orders armed with a rubber stamp? We shall see.
u
What EDC wants to do-violative of the state and federal environmental rules-is to convince the oversight authorities that the development of Willets Point is a given, making the ramps necessary to ameliorate the traffic mess it's creating. Of course, that's simply false since the project will not be built without these ramps. And if it isn't built the Van Wyck will be better off-therefore the only two scenarios that regulators should be considering are:
(1) The Van Wyck with the 80,000 daily car and truck trips from the project, or;
(2) The Van Wyck without the project.
It is not the job of SDOT to become a development partner of EDC-no matter how much the new DOT commissioner hearts her old agency. On top of this false baseline assumption by EDC the agency consultants have still not provided the state with accurate professional analysis of the traffic impacts-something that has been true for the past three years of the review process.
That is why WPU continues to demand an independent review of the traffic from the project. WPU's Mike Gerrard makes the case: "Michael Gerrard, a lawyer for Willets Point United said that the group fully intends to push for an independent environmental assessment.“We believe that the environmental assessment completely misrepresents the impact that the ramps would have and we’re going to urge the state and federal transportation departments to prepare an independent environmental impact statement,” he said."
At the presser before the hearing Councilman Dan Halloran railed against the years of deprivation of basic services for the property owners: "Besides being a prime spot for retail and housing, the city argues that Willets Point is a blighted area and therefore should be redeveloped. Halloran shot back at this claim, saying that it was the city’s inaction that put the industrial area is such dire straits.
“The city chose not to improve the area – they chose not to plow, not to provide sewers, not to provide infrastructure of any kind,” he said. “There needs to be development in Willets Point, but it needs to be done with the cooperation of the people there and not at gunpoint. What is happening now is downright un-American.”
The question that remains, is how will the regulators respond to the continued obfuscation of the EDC "experts?" And will the state move quickly to rubber stamp the ramp approval knowing how deficient the analysis is? After all, WPU's Brian Ketcham has produced and 264 page critique of the EDC EA-and a quick approval will demonstrate that SDOT is in the tank using equipment provided by its new boss.
One thing that still disturbs us, however, is how this commissioner/puppet was chosen in the first place. In politics it is always useful to examine, cui buono? And in this case the designation of Old McDonald benefits the mayor who endorsed the governor at a timely moment. Just saying.
So, as Meatloaf's girl friend might have said: "What'll it be boy?" Will SDOT do its job fairly. or will McDonald be a good marionetta and follow her marching orders armed with a rubber stamp? We shall see.
u
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
NYC's Waning Freedom
For all of us at Willets Point the undeserved third term that Mike Bloomberg bought can't be over soon enough-and the idea that Speaker Christine Quinn, the midwife of this fiasco, is seen by some as a front runner to replace the mayor is, well, laughable. Some of our feeling were reinforced when we read about the George Mason University study that labeled our state, "dead last in liberties."
It goes without saying that NYC drives a great deal of what's wrong with the entire state. And, as the study pointed out, the permissive use of condemnation was one of the reasons why NY was criticized so severely:
"Ranking worst in the categories of economic freedom and fiscal policy, New York also landed near the bottom for the categories of personal freedom (48th) and regulatory policy (40th). The study cites New York's restrictive gun-control and anti-smoking laws and sky-high cigarette taxes and the Big Apple's ban on trans fats. The researchers also slam New York's "excessive" home-schooling regulations and its strictest-in-the-nation health-insurance rules. The authors rap New York for curbing the rights of individual property owners. "Eminent domain abuse," the report says, "is rampant and unchecked."
Mike Bloomberg is, without a doubt, the driving force behind the city's restrictive control over so many of our personal freedom-imposing his own paternalistic sentiments without concern for what the citizens might want. An English paper captures the Nudger in Chief perfectly: "If you had to think of one city on earth where the rulers should not try to impose a standard of ‘good behaviour’, it would surely be New York. Who in their right mind would seek to sanitise this concrete jungle, to sedate the city that never sleeps, to demand conformism and obedience from the inhabitants of a place which, in the words of a popular tourist T-shirt, is known as ‘New York F**kin’ City’?"
Yup, Mike Bloomberg's the one-and the Spectator goes after Super Nanny with a vengeance: "It is hard to convey the impact of this state-enforced calorie-counting. It effortlessly zaps the fun from eating out. It is designed to induce caution, even guilt, in New Yorkers, to make them stop and think before snacking or dining, to make them treat calorific consumption as something akin to snorting cocaine — an act that can have grave consequences. As a regular TGI Friday’s patron told a reporter when the display law was introduced, after she noticed that the Brownie Obsession dessert had ‘1,500 CALORIES’: ‘I’m so upset. I wish they wouldn’t have done this.’"
This is precisely the soft despotism that Tocqueville warned about years ago-and it fits right in to the unethical third term that most New Yorkers didn't want: "In a complete reversal of the traditional democratic relationship, Bloomberg and co don’t consider it their duty to mirror the desires and outlook of those who elected them. They want to remake New Yorkers as models of what they consider to be healthy citizenship."
So it's not only your property that these proto-fascists want; your soul is up for grabs as well. Disdain for property rights, high taxes, and unwanted intrusions into our daily personal lives, is the legacy Mike Bloomberg will leave us with. And, by the way, he couldn't even plow the streets in a timely fashion. Quite a legacy!
It goes without saying that NYC drives a great deal of what's wrong with the entire state. And, as the study pointed out, the permissive use of condemnation was one of the reasons why NY was criticized so severely:
"Ranking worst in the categories of economic freedom and fiscal policy, New York also landed near the bottom for the categories of personal freedom (48th) and regulatory policy (40th). The study cites New York's restrictive gun-control and anti-smoking laws and sky-high cigarette taxes and the Big Apple's ban on trans fats. The researchers also slam New York's "excessive" home-schooling regulations and its strictest-in-the-nation health-insurance rules. The authors rap New York for curbing the rights of individual property owners. "Eminent domain abuse," the report says, "is rampant and unchecked."
Mike Bloomberg is, without a doubt, the driving force behind the city's restrictive control over so many of our personal freedom-imposing his own paternalistic sentiments without concern for what the citizens might want. An English paper captures the Nudger in Chief perfectly: "If you had to think of one city on earth where the rulers should not try to impose a standard of ‘good behaviour’, it would surely be New York. Who in their right mind would seek to sanitise this concrete jungle, to sedate the city that never sleeps, to demand conformism and obedience from the inhabitants of a place which, in the words of a popular tourist T-shirt, is known as ‘New York F**kin’ City’?"
Yup, Mike Bloomberg's the one-and the Spectator goes after Super Nanny with a vengeance: "It is hard to convey the impact of this state-enforced calorie-counting. It effortlessly zaps the fun from eating out. It is designed to induce caution, even guilt, in New Yorkers, to make them stop and think before snacking or dining, to make them treat calorific consumption as something akin to snorting cocaine — an act that can have grave consequences. As a regular TGI Friday’s patron told a reporter when the display law was introduced, after she noticed that the Brownie Obsession dessert had ‘1,500 CALORIES’: ‘I’m so upset. I wish they wouldn’t have done this.’"
This is precisely the soft despotism that Tocqueville warned about years ago-and it fits right in to the unethical third term that most New Yorkers didn't want: "In a complete reversal of the traditional democratic relationship, Bloomberg and co don’t consider it their duty to mirror the desires and outlook of those who elected them. They want to remake New Yorkers as models of what they consider to be healthy citizenship."
So it's not only your property that these proto-fascists want; your soul is up for grabs as well. Disdain for property rights, high taxes, and unwanted intrusions into our daily personal lives, is the legacy Mike Bloomberg will leave us with. And, by the way, he couldn't even plow the streets in a timely fashion. Quite a legacy!
Monday, June 13, 2011
Delay Tactics?
The NY Daily News, commenting on the EDC ramp hearing of last week characterizes the fight for an honest traffic study as a "delay tactic." What's missing in the story., however, is that the delay that EDC has been forced to endure for the past year and a half has been as a result of its own dishonesty-and that the current effort of the development agency to go forward is a continuation of the same pattern of deceit.
Put simply, the same reason why this ramp application to the state has been delayed-shoddy consultant work that does violence to the truth-is now why WPU has called for an independent study of the ramps' impact on local roads and the Van Wyck. Mike Gerrard says it concisely and accurately:
"Willets Point United attorney Michael Gerrard said the city's environmental study "utterly lacked objectivity."
"The massive Willets Point project will destroy the ability of the Van Wyck Expressway to carry traffic any faster than a snail," Gerrard said after the city's Economic Development Corp. unveiled plans for the ramps at a public hearing Wednesday."
Is this true? Or shall the state step in and subject the city's application to an independent analysis? Clearly there was something amiss that led the state to send the original EDC ramp report back to the drawing board. Has it suddenly undergone a radically righteous makeover?
Hardly, as WPU's Brian Ketcham has pointed out. In fact there is nothing that has really changed in the equation aside from the fact that the SDOT has a new bobble head who appears to take her orders straight from William Street-where she recently received her pay check from.
All of this makes the upcoming hearing before Judge Madden very interesting indeed-and the judge may look at this entire effort with a jaundiced eye since the city seems to feel that it can act with impunity-and contrary to the judge's own decisions.
The reality here is that Kermit the Mayor is a big green hypocrite and is cooking the books in an attempt to force feed traffic onto all of the roads around his boondoggle. When the final chapter is finally written on the Bloomberg administration, Willets Point will be high on the list of blatant examples of dishonesty and hypocrisy.
Put simply, the same reason why this ramp application to the state has been delayed-shoddy consultant work that does violence to the truth-is now why WPU has called for an independent study of the ramps' impact on local roads and the Van Wyck. Mike Gerrard says it concisely and accurately:
"Willets Point United attorney Michael Gerrard said the city's environmental study "utterly lacked objectivity."
"The massive Willets Point project will destroy the ability of the Van Wyck Expressway to carry traffic any faster than a snail," Gerrard said after the city's Economic Development Corp. unveiled plans for the ramps at a public hearing Wednesday."
Is this true? Or shall the state step in and subject the city's application to an independent analysis? Clearly there was something amiss that led the state to send the original EDC ramp report back to the drawing board. Has it suddenly undergone a radically righteous makeover?
Hardly, as WPU's Brian Ketcham has pointed out. In fact there is nothing that has really changed in the equation aside from the fact that the SDOT has a new bobble head who appears to take her orders straight from William Street-where she recently received her pay check from.
All of this makes the upcoming hearing before Judge Madden very interesting indeed-and the judge may look at this entire effort with a jaundiced eye since the city seems to feel that it can act with impunity-and contrary to the judge's own decisions.
The reality here is that Kermit the Mayor is a big green hypocrite and is cooking the books in an attempt to force feed traffic onto all of the roads around his boondoggle. When the final chapter is finally written on the Bloomberg administration, Willets Point will be high on the list of blatant examples of dishonesty and hypocrisy.
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