Mayor Names New Press Aide

By THE NEW YORK TIMES 9:43 AM ET

Marc La Vorgna, 33, will take over as Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s press secretary next month, after Stu Loeser leaves the position, which he has held since January 2006.

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WNYC News

City's Construction Giants Face Criminal Probe for Billing Fraud

Monday, July 30, 2012 

       

By Bob Hennelly

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(Stephen Nessen/WNYC)

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“ "The message should be clear to all who are engaged in similar contract billing fraud: You are in our sights. And the defense that ‘everyone does it’ will not be a shield against law enforcement."

— Loretta Lynch, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York

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Months after one of the city’s biggest construction giants agreed to pay nearly $60 million for inflating costs on public works projects, WNYC has learned that the criminal probe into billing fraud has expanded to other major contractors.
Bovis Lend Lease, which avoided indictment in the 2007 Deutsche Bank fire that killed two firefighters, agreed in April to pay $56 million in penalties and restitution for overbilling.
Now, WNYC has confirmed federal prosecutors are looking into the billing practices of Turner, Plaza, Skanska and Tishman construction companies. The construction contracts under scrutiny run into the billions of dollars.  
The firms are linked to major public projects like the Croton Filtration Plant, the extension of the 7th Avenue Subway and the World Trade Center.
In April, Janice Fedarcyk, the head of the FBI’s New York office, zeroed in on the impact of Bovis's fraudulent inflation of public construction costs.
"The over billing fraud affected city, state and federal public building projects,” she said. “If you are a New York City resident, Bovis indirectly swindled you on three different levels. For 10 years the pattern of fraudulent over billing was a standard practice, business as usual.”
At the heart of the probe is what prosecutors say is an industry-wide practice known as "8 and 2" in which construction companies fraudulently bill clients for hours not worked by labor foremen.
Bovis would add two hours of overtime pay on top of regular hours for as many as 60 foremen and falsely listed unworked hours as worked, prosecutors said.
The standard contract states that the union foremen get $34.24 an hour with no guaranteed overtime.
Federal prosecutors say the union foreman were not charged and did not break the law because they played no role in Bovis’s fraudulent billing.   

(A few stories remained at the Deutsche Bank building in lower Manhattan in 2010. Stephen Nessen/WNYC)
At the Bovis announcement in April, Loretta Lynch, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, had a warning for the city's construction industry.
"The message should be clear to all who are engaged in similar contract billing fraud: You are in our sights,” she said. “And the defense that ‘everyone does it’ will not be a shield against law enforcement."
In a statement to WNYC, Tishman’s corporate parent, AECOM, confirmed that in December 2011 it was served with a grand jury subpoena in the billing investigation. The company said that it was cooperating with prosecutors.  
A spokesman for Turner would say only that the company "could neither confirm nor deny" it was under investigation. Skanska and Plaza declined to comment.
Brian Aryai, a 13-year veteran of the Treasury Department, was a former senior vice president at Bovis. He is the whistle blower credited by prosecutors with tipping them off to the 8-and-2 billing scheme that set off the probe.
Aryai, who could collect a substantial reward under the federal False Claims Act, said that what Bovis admitted to is a common industry practice.
"I think within the industry there was such rampant corruption that the people who were entrusted with being in positions of accountability and power overlooked very visible symptoms of the issues that have been uncovered," Aryai said in an interview with WNYC.
One of the former Bovis employees who pled guilty is James Abadie, a leading contractor trade group and former chairman  of the powerful Contractor Association of Greater New York.
Abadie  is awaiting sentencing and faces 20 years in jail. His guilty plea has sent off shock waves in construction circles, because he was so well regarded across the industry, according to Louis Coletti, president of the Building Trades Employers Association.  
Coletti said Abadie’s fall and the wider probe has the industry “reeling.”
He says the across-the-board nature of the continuing probe is a challenge for builders at a time when contractors are dealing with thin profit margins.
(Photo: Croton Filtration Plant in Van Cortland Park in the Bronx. The $3.5 billion dollar project is being built by Skanska. Bob Hennelly/WNYC)
Coletti defended the industry's "8 and 2" practice as a cost of doing business. He says the money paid to the foremen was to assure jobs got done on time.
"This was not a question of over billing. There is some question about procedures and compliance issues," Coletti said.
Prosecutors say what matters is how contractors represent these costs to their customers in their bills.
Coletti predicted the fallout from the focus on billing practices would force the industry to be more transparent in how it does business.
He conceded the industry has had a tough time shaking its image of being plagued by 'no show jobs' linked to organized crime. He says, in reality, those days are the stuff of TV and the movies.
"There is a certain excitement to thinking that kind of activity goes on on a regular basis. It’s like the Sopranos TV show. It was a very popular show. I don't know if we are over going to overcome that kind of perception, unless we begin to do very publicly the kind of things I am talking about with you now," Coletti said, referencing the industry’s efforts improve transparency. 
Ronald Goldstock, former director of the New York State Organized Crime Task Force – which investigated the infiltration of the construction trades by the Mafia – says law enforcement has been successful in rolling back the mob's dominance in construction. But he says the organized crime legacy still makes the industry vulnerable to corruption like the "8 and 2" billing arrangement.
"Over time customs and practices are set up within the industry. They do become internalized. People don't think about them as being corrupt necessarily,” he said. “Over time it is an accommodation between both sides, and no one really knows which it is anymore.”
As federal prosecutors pursue white-collar cases in the construction industry, one challenge they may encounter is that the bigger the construction firm, the more limited their enforcement options may be.  
This was the case with Bovis. US Attorney Loretta Lynch struck a deferred prosecution deal with the Australian-based multinational building firm. She cited concerns that criminally prosecuting Bovis would do more harm than good for the city because Bovis was so central to so many ongoing projects.
This is not the first time Bovis avoided criminal prosecution because of its size and dominance in the city’s construction industry.  
In 2008, Bovis benefited from similar forbearance by Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau for the firm's role in the Deutsche Bank Building fire.  
Two firefighters were killed, and the DA’s investigation determined that Bovis was partially responsible as the prime contractor. In that case Bovis was granted a non-prosecution agreement.
It paid the families of the firefighters $16 million and agreed to reform its management of subcontractors.

PITY CITY HALL OR THE LOSER

Farewell To 'Stud The Loser'. The following is the first post on the Freepress

  Saturday, January 13, 2007

PITY CITY HALL OR THE LOSER

On January 8, 2007, while I was at New York's City Hall, covering Mayor's Bloomberg news conference in the Blue Room, I went to ask an assistant press secretary what was the mayor's announcement. I stood up by the door leading to the mayor's press office and I asked what was the subject matter of the newsconference to assistant press secretary Mike Kelly. Suddenly, the mayor's press secretary came with an angry look screaming from the top of his lungs, and his eyes about to explode out of his cornea. shouting at me to get out of there and threatening me that he will take my press card away from me. The echo of his shouting resounded all over the main floor of City Hall.

After 20-years covering news conferences at City Hall this is the first time in my memory that a Mayor's Press Secretary has been disrepectful to a member of the press. That date, I wondered why Mr. Loeser, behaved in such a provocative matter. I was wondering wheather, it was my being a Puerto Rican instead of an anglo from the mainstream media. The position of a mayor's press secretary is an important one, and very demanding, however, there is no excuse to be belligerent and intimidating.

I am well aware, that the mayor and his press entourage don't like the questions that I asked during news conferences. My questions, to New York City mayors, from Mayor Dinkins, Mayor Giuliani and to Mayor Bloomberg, are questions relevant to issue affecting the people of this great city, especially, to Latinos, Blacks, and Asians.

I have never seen Mr. Loeser threatening a white reporter. Perhaps, his last name described him appropiately—a LOSER.

The mayor's aides say as much about him as his ties. There is an old adage that says "If you sleep with dogs, you get fleas" Hopefully, Mayor Bloomberg will fumigate his staff before he is contaminated with infestation.

By: Rafael Martínez Alequín

Obama’s Team Takes Gamble by Going Negative

By JEFF ZELENY

Both the opportunities and the risks are greater for President Obama, who seeks to shape perceptions of Mitt Romney just as more voters are tuning in to the race.

July 27, 2012 6:14 PM ET

Outside City Hall, Ministers Call on Churches to Do More to Fight Gun Violence

By VIVIAN YEE

The clergy members pledged to build personal relationships with local police officers and use their pulpits to speak out against carrying guns.

Murdock: A rarity: A program that actually works for Harlem kids

Submitted by SHNS on Thu, 07/26/2012 - 15:40

Murdock: A rarity: A program that actually works for Harlem kids
DEROY MURDOCK
Scripps Howard News Service
07-26-12
NEW YORK

At a time when good news is rarer than a mohel in Mecca, few things are as encouraging as 31 teenagers here. Nearly all are low-income blacks and Hispanics in Harlem. Most occupy single-parent homes. The soft bigotry of low expectations would allow each to surrender, snarl at society, and settle for a life on the dole -- or perhaps an even tougher spot on the American periphery.

Instead, 100 percent of these students graduated from local high schools in June (three quarters of them from government campuses). Across America, only 72 percent of high-school seniors graduated, while that number is just 65.5 percent elsewhere in New York City. Among these high-caliber kids, 98 percent will enter college, versus 68.3 percent of U.S. high school graduates, and 71 percent of Big Apple grads. These 31 youths were admitted to 105 different four-year colleges, 25 of which will welcome them soon.

These include, among others, Columbia, Fordham, Haverford, Howard, Middlebury, and Templeton. These students collectively scored $2.3 million in merit-based college scholarships, averaging some $74,000 each.

Too good to be true?

Actually, this is routine at the Harlem Educational Activities Fund, a privately financed non-profit founded in 1989. HEAF's philosophy is: "No excuses. Every child can learn." It works its magic after school, providing enrichment, encouragement, mentoring, and other guidance to some 30 to 50 boys and girls annually, starting in sixth grade. HEAF selects students via grades, test scores, on-site writing exercises, and interviews with children and parents.

HEAF's extracurricular efforts train students to thrive in the world beyond Harlem.

-- Sixth graders read George Orwell's Animal Farm to understand characters, plot, symbolism, and literary analysis.

-- An elective called Order in the Court introduces students to the legal system and advocacy, culminating in a mock trial.

-- Project Restaurant teaches business practices as HEAF's kids design their own eateries. Financiers, marketers, architects, and restaurateur Jean-Claude Baker of New York's Chez Josephine all share their lessons.

-- French, Chinese, and Japanese classes expand students' horizons and make them more desirable to college recruiters.

-- A HEAF delegation just returned from Belize after focusing on cultural preservation with Garifuna youth. Last year, a group visited Botswana to learn about teenagers orphaned by AIDS. Earlier, HEAF toured Northern Ireland to study its peace process.

HEAF also spends classroom time honing English and math, practicing for college-admissions tests, and perfecting university applications. HEAF graduates have become doctors, attorneys, professors, and military officers.

HEAF's participants and alumni are its most convincing spokesmen.

"HEAF made the college-application process a lot easier," says Teleah Slater, a Brandeis-bound graduate of New Explorations into Science, Technology, and Math High School, a government campus. "I had a lot of difficulty writing my personal statement. One of the staffers stayed about two hours after the office closed to talk with me about what I wanted to say and develop an outline, so I could get started." The Harlem resident continues: "HEAF always has been supportive, not just academically, but emotionally. Whenever you have a problem, they always are there to help."

"As an immigrant from the Dominican Republic, no one in my family knew much about American colleges or the education system," says a HEAF alumnus named Manny, now at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "HEAF was there for me as both a support group and a way of getting out of an insulated shell. If not for HEAF, I would not find myself at MIT today. I am the first in my family to go to college."

HEAF is the brainchild of Manhattan real-estate developer Daniel Rose. He laments that some consider underprivileged children "human bonsais, because external conditions have restrained their growth." Instead, Rose explains, "We want to help children grow to their full height ... We are not selling an education, a degree, or a job. Our goal for each HEAF student is a life that is satisfying and fulfilling."

(Deroy Murdock is a columnist with Scripps Howard News Service and a media fellow with the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace at Stanford University. E-mail him at deroy.Murdock(at)gmail.com.)

Seabrook guilty of funneling $1.5M in taxpayer funds to friends, family

By BRUCE GOLDING

Last Updated: 2:38 PM, July 26, 2012

Posted: 1:03 PM, July 26, 2012

A federal jury today convicted embattled City Councilman Larry Seabrook on nine criminal counts that he funneled $1.5 million in taxpayer money to friends and family.
Seabrook was found guilty of trying to sneak the public funds to nonprofits that he secretly ran with what prosecutors called his "yes men and stooges."
He was immediately thrown out of office as a convicted felon, under state law.
“This conviction ends Larry Seabrook’s power to channel the flow of taxpayer funds to himself, his family, and his cronies,” Department of Investigation Commissioner Rose Gill Hearn. “His career as an elected official is over, and his life as a convicted felon begins.”

AP

Larry Seabrook was convicted Thursday on nine of 12 counts.

The Manhattan panel also acquitted the Bronx Democrat on three charges related to his alleged laundering of roughly $50,000 in "illegal thank you payments" from a Bronx businessman.
Seabrook emerged from the courthouse about an hour after the verdict, holding
hands with his wife, Maria Diaz.
"My reaction is that I continue to have faith in God, faith in the system, faith in my attorneys and faith in where we're going to go and my wife and my family, that I continue to have faith, continue to believe in the system and I'll prepare myself for whatever is next," said the convicted pol, who will remain free on bail.
Asked if he planned to appeal the verdict, Seabrook said: "Well we're talking to
my attorneys and we'll find out what's the next step.”
"We respect the jury's verdict,” said defense lawyer Ed Wilford. “We don't agree
with it but we respect it.
"And we're going to do everything we can to pursue Mr. Seabrook's legal rights
and remedies from this point on.”
Seabrook faces up to 20 years on each of the nine counts for which he was convicted.
Prosecutors said Seabrook used a phony $177 receipt for a bagel sandwich and a Diet Snapple as part of that alleged scheme.
“Councilman Larry Seabrook abused the power of his office to influence public contracts and to fund his own corrupt friends and family plan,” US Attorney Preet Bharara said.
“Today’s conviction ensures that the councilman will pay for betraying the public trust. Rooting out public corruption and restoring the public’s faith in honest government remains a vital mission of this office.”
Seabrook’s elaborate, three-part scam sent money to a city slush fund, job training program and a group aimed at bringing diversity to the FDNY.
This was a retrial of a prosecution that ended late last year, with a hung jury on all counts.
All jurors in this prosecution left court without making any comments today.
“Larry Seabrook has been convicted of crimes that display a galling abuse of the trust and confidence placed in public officials,” New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn.
Voters will fill Seabrook's seat on Election Day in November. It'll be a non-partisan election.
The City Council will send staffers to Seabrook's district office, so none of his constituents lose services between now and the election of his replacement.
Additional reporting by David Seifman and David K. Li

Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/manhattan/city_councilman_larry_seabrook_convicted_pQ4SWL44SAwc5mecL0Wo0M#ixzz21lyEJzyX

Seabrook guilty of funneling $1.5M in taxpayer funds to friends, family

By BRUCE GOLDING

Last Updated: 2:38 PM, July 26, 2012

Posted: 1:03 PM, July 26, 2012

A federal jury today convicted embattled City Councilman Larry Seabrook on nine criminal counts that he funneled $1.5 million in taxpayer money to friends and family.
Seabrook was found guilty of trying to sneak the public funds to nonprofits that he secretly ran with what prosecutors called his "yes men and stooges."
He was immediately thrown out of office as a convicted felon, under state law.
“This conviction ends Larry Seabrook’s power to channel the flow of taxpayer funds to himself, his family, and his cronies,” Department of Investigation Commissioner Rose Gill Hearn. “His career as an elected official is over, and his life as a convicted felon begins.”

AP

Larry Seabrook was convicted Thursday on nine of 12 counts.

The Manhattan panel also acquitted the Bronx Democrat on three charges related to his alleged laundering of roughly $50,000 in "illegal thank you payments" from a Bronx businessman.
Seabrook emerged from the courthouse about an hour after the verdict, holding
hands with his wife, Maria Diaz.
"My reaction is that I continue to have faith in God, faith in the system, faith in my attorneys and faith in where we're going to go and my wife and my family, that I continue to have faith, continue to believe in the system and I'll prepare myself for whatever is next," said the convicted pol, who will remain free on bail.
Asked if he planned to appeal the verdict, Seabrook said: "Well we're talking to
my attorneys and we'll find out what's the next step.”
"We respect the jury's verdict,” said defense lawyer Ed Wilford. “We don't agree
with it but we respect it.
"And we're going to do everything we can to pursue Mr. Seabrook's legal rights
and remedies from this point on.”
Seabrook faces up to 20 years on each of the nine counts for which he was convicted.
Prosecutors said Seabrook used a phony $177 receipt for a bagel sandwich and a Diet Snapple as part of that alleged scheme.
“Councilman Larry Seabrook abused the power of his office to influence public contracts and to fund his own corrupt friends and family plan,” US Attorney Preet Bharara said.
“Today’s conviction ensures that the councilman will pay for betraying the public trust. Rooting out public corruption and restoring the public’s faith in honest government remains a vital mission of this office.”
Seabrook’s elaborate, three-part scam sent money to a city slush fund, job training program and a group aimed at bringing diversity to the FDNY.
This was a retrial of a prosecution that ended late last year, with a hung jury on all counts.
All jurors in this prosecution left court without making any comments today.
“Larry Seabrook has been convicted of crimes that display a galling abuse of the trust and confidence placed in public officials,” New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn.
Voters will fill Seabrook's seat on Election Day in November. It'll be a non-partisan election.
The City Council will send staffers to Seabrook's district office, so none of his constituents lose services between now and the election of his replacement.
Additional reporting by David Seifman and David K. Li

Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/manhattan/city_councilman_larry_seabrook_convicted_pQ4SWL44SAwc5mecL0Wo0M#ixzz21lxkNf00

Ruben Diaz, Jr. “Very Seriously Considering” Public Advocate Run

Written by Chris Bragg on July 25, 2012. Posted in  

Campaigns/Elections, Daily
Time posted: July 25, 2012 11:00 PM-

Ruben Diaz Jr. (via bronxboropres.nyc.gov)

In the wide-open 2013 race for New York City’s second-highest elected office, a potential frontrunner has emerged.
A spokesman for Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz, Jr. confirmed a source’s tip that Diaz is very interested in running for New York City public advocate.
“This is something that we are very seriously considering,” said Diaz’s spokesman, John DeSio.
Public Advocate Bill de Blasio currently holds the position, but is widely expected to run for New York City mayor in 2013.
If Diaz enters the public advocate race, he would seemingly jump to the head of a crowded field. As a sitting borough president, Diaz would have by far the highest name recognition of any current candidate. He would also be the only Latino contender and the only one from the Bronx.
Diaz has previously been dismissive of political pundits who have said that running for the relatively powerless public advocate’s office was more realistic than running for mayor in 2013. In a 2011 City & State profile, Diaz and his aides said that the borough president would either make a run at Gracie Mansion or that he would keep his current job.
But Diaz’s fundraising has not kept pace with the major mayoral candidates, who also have significant bases, and the unsettled field for public advocate gives Diaz a major political opportunity.
“Various people have been clamoring for someone Latino and someone from the Bronx to run citywide,” DeSio said. “He’s a very motivated individual, and has put together a good record during his time as borough president.”
That record has included scuttling the Kingsbridge Armory development in the Bronx in 2009 over a developer’s unwillingness to pay a “living wage” to retail workers – and a campaign for a citywide “living wage” bill since then. In late June, the New York City Council pushed through a watered-down version over a veto by Mayor Michael Bloomberg. The staunch advocacy on the issue has made a Diaz popular in organized labor circles, and vilified him among some in the business world.
The Bronx is New York City’s second-smallest borough, and is seen by political observers as a somewhat difficult place for candidates to run citywide. But Scott Levenson of the Advance Group, one of Diaz’s political consultants, said that Diaz is well-positioned to pull off the trick.
“He is probably one of the only people who can come out of the Bronx and parlay it into a citywide run,” Levenson said. “He has deep relationships in each of the five boroughs, and is respected and liked, which is rare in this business.”
Diaz, who has been fundraising for a citywide run for several years, currently has $462,000 in the bank. That’s a built-in advantage over his potential opponents who have not been fundraising as long, including former congressional candidate Reshma Saujani, who has $265,000 on hand; Brooklyn State Sen. Daniel Squadron, who has $370,000; and Brooklyn Councilwoman Letitia James, who has $143,000. Noah Gotbaum (the stepson of former Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum) is also mulling a campaign, and Staten Island’s Catherine Guerriero recently announced a run.
Democratic consultant Doug Forand of Red Horse Strategies said jumping into the public advocate’s race would make some sense for Diaz.
“If he does this, he starts as the front-runner,” Forand said. “Not only does he represent a whole borough, but from the start, he has greater name recognition than anyone else out there.”

Busted ex-Assemblyman called witness in bribery case minutes after he was released on $1M bail

By MITCHEL MADDUX

Last Updated: 2:56 PM, July 25, 2012

Posted: 1:08 PM, July 25, 2012

Only minutes after he was released on $1 million bail yesterday, a former New York state legislator called an FBI informant at the center of his bribery case in what appeared to be a possible attempt to obstruct justice, officials said today.
Jimmy Meng, 68, a former Assemblyman who was the first Asian-American to serve in the New York Legislature, reached out to the associate shortly after walking out of the Brooklyn federal courthouse after his arrest by the FBI - even though laws and bail restrictions bar contact with witnesses in his influence-peddling case.

Gregory P. Mango

Jimmy Meng leaves federal court after being arraigned Tuesday.

"Mr. Meng, at approximately 5:48 pm yesterday,...contacted the cooperating witness in the case. That is extremely troubling," Assistant US Attorney Marisa Seifan told a judge today.
"We also believe that an associate of [Meng's] also reached out to the cooperating witness," Seifan said at a court hearing.
After hearing of Meng's efforts to speak with the FBI informant, Magistrate Judge Cheryl Pollak told the former Queens pol that such conduct violates bail restrictions and could be tantamount to witness tampering or obstruction of justice - which are federal crimes.
"Mr. Meng, it is violation of the bond to threaten or influence the testimony of anyone involved in your case," the judge said from the bench.
"If you do it again, you're going to go into jail. Because if I find out that the witness feels intimidated, you're going into custody," Pollak said.
Asked if he understood the warning, Meng whispered, "yes, yes," and hung his head low.
The former legislator - who who served in the Assembly from 2005-2006 and represented Flushing, Queens - is facing charges that solicited $80,000 in bribes from the associate, in exchange for promises that he could make a tax fraud case against his friend disappear - or at least could deliver a reduced sentence by bribing prosecutors in the Manhattan District Attorney's Office.
But the associate began secretly working with Brooklyn federal prosecutors and FBI agents probing public corruption and surreptitiously recorded tapes of Meng discussing his bribery scheme, officials say.
Brooklyn federal prosecutors do not believe that Meng ever contacted officials from the Manhattan District Attorney's Office to offer a bribe in his friend's tax fraud case was bona fide.
Instead, it appears that Meng was poised simply to cheat his unsuspecting friend out of the money - without delivering on his promises to get the tax case dropped, officials say.
FBI agents arrested Meng yesterday on wire fraud charges after the associate delivered a fruit basket containing several thousand dollars in illicit payments to the former lawmaker's lumber yard.
His arrest is clearly an unwelcome development at a time when his daughter is busy mounting her campaign to win a congressional seat in eastern Queens, where she's running as the Democratic candidate.
Grace Meng - a state Assemblywoman now competing for the seat against city councilman Dan Halloran, a Republican - said in a statement yesterday that she had no knowledge of her father's alleged actions.
Today after appearing at the brief bail hearing, Meng emerged from the federal courthouse accompanied by his wife, but said nothing when asked by reporters about his call to the FBI informant at the center of his bribery case.

Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/busted_bail_assemblyman_called_witness_IlM2DQu4HKkgwAHS8aC2hJ#ixzz21gMk9dv1

Public hearing on Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s proposed soda ban

 City Council members Dan Halloran, Oliver Koppell, Letitia James, Melissa Mark-Viverito and Robert Jackson all showed up at yesterday’s public hearing on Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s proposed soda ban – and each one criticized the proposal, saying it would hurt small businesses and the local economy. Some blasted the proposal as arbitrary, since some establishments would not be covered by the new limit, which would cap the size of sodas and sugary drinks available at food service establishments at 16 ounces. “Laws and regulations should not be arbitrary and capricious,” Councilman Koppell said. “This proposed regulation is exactly that.” But Health Commissioner Thomas Farley explained that the change could only be implemented for restaurants and other establishments that are regulated by the Health Department. The restrictions were proposed by the Bloomberg administration as a way to address obesity, but critics also said they would fail to address the underlying issues of the city’s obesity epidemic – education, physical activity and poverty – and urged the Board of Health to vote against the proposal. Councilman Jackson recounted that a constituent told him that, “Only God can dictate to me what I can and cannot do. And [Mayor Bloomberg] is not God.”

July 24, 2012, 6:05 PM ET

Jobless Rates High in Bronx, Brooklyn 

Metropolis HOME PAGE »

By Anjali Athavaley

The Bronx and Brooklyn continued to post the highest rates of unemployment in the city in June, highlighting the disparity in jobless rates among the five boroughs.
According to non-seasonally adjusted numbers from the state Department of Labor, Bronx’s unemployment rate was 14%, up from 12.1% a year ago. Kings County’s rate rose to 11% from 9.7% a year ago.
Unemployment in New York, Queens and Richmond counties were lower, at 8.8%, 9.3% and 9.4%, respectively. Jobless rates tend to be higher in the Bronx and Brooklyn primarily because of demographic factors like education levels, said Elena Volovelsky, labor market analyst for the Department of Labor.
According to Labor Department numbers released last week, the city added 11,500 private-sector jobs between May and June despite a rising unemployment rate. The two numbers are measured through different means: the unemployment rate comes from a survey of households while the number of jobs added comes from a survey of employers.
There are many theories as to why the two measures don’t add up. Economists point to increases in the labor force, commuters taking jobs, and freelancers getting hired full-time.
Those who are unemployed say looking for work can be frustrating. Steve Jacobs got laid off in February from an advertising agency where he worked as an assistant with some copy-writing duties. Since then, he has applied for hundreds of jobs. He has been taking freelance projects when he can.
“Luckily, I know a lot of people in New York, so I’m not that disheartened just yet,” said Jacobs, 30, who lives in Brooklyn.  But he added, “I’m sure every job I’m applying for gets 10,000 other applicants. I feel invisible at times.”

• Employment,
• jobs,
• Labor,
• Unemployment Rate

Feds arrest ex-Queens Assemblyman Jimmy Meng on wire fraud charges

Former Queens Assemblyman Jimmy Meng, the first Asian-American to serve in the state legislature, was arrested Tuesday on federal wire fraud charges, the Daily News has learned.

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com

 

Blogs » John Nichols » Alexander Cockburn and the Radical Power of the Word

John Nichols

Alexander Cockburn and the Radical Power of the Word

John Nichols on July 21, 2012 - 11:11 AM ET

Alexander Cockburn and I met in the 1980s, when we shared places on a panel in Detroit, where the topic was the latest murders of Catholic priests by Latin American death squads. Alex was talking about the horrors of US foreign policy. I was talking about the horrors of US media coverage of US foreign policy. We were sufficiently in sync that our mutual friend, brilliant music writer and thinker Dave Marsh, came up at the end of the evening and. presuming that we were comrades long-standing, told us we really should take the show on the road.
We did, more or less, appearing frequently together over the years. But most of our time together was spent at my home in Madison, Wisconsin, where Alex was a frequent guest. He would pull up in a great big American car, the trunk packed with favored libations, new books and the facsimile machine he used—even after the Internet had its moment—to send columns to The Nation. (Alex regularly proved that his knowledge of history, his memory and his veteran reporter’s knack for asking the right people the right questions could be the superior of even the most powerful search engine. Eventually, however, he did with Jeffrey St. Clair develop a politically potent website, CounterPunch.)
Alex, who has died too young at age 71 in Bad Salzhausen, Germany, loved writing. He loved it so much that he met his deadlines even as a two-year battle with cancer progressed toward its final stages. Alex's commitment to the craft—to the radical power of the word—extended far beyond his own contribution. He poked, prodded and inspired the rest of us. When I was working on an article at my home computer, he would lean over me and make suggestions. Invariably, Alex wanted to see a paragraph added on some new evil done by a corporation, some third-party candidate who had not gotten enough attention or some third-world cause that had gotten even less attention. Alex’s suggestions did not always fit where he proposed that I add them, and I asked them about this once.
“Sometimes you just have to get the story out,” he said, “anywhere you can.”
But, of course, Alex never just got the story out. His prose, honed during an Anglo-Irish childhood when he learned at the side of the master—his father Claud, the great radical British journalist of mid-century who lent him the title of his column, “Beat the Devil”—never failed. Alex knew how good he was. He knew that he could take readers where other writers could not, to the fields of India where Coca-Cola was stealing water from peasants, to the barricades of neglected labor battles in Austin, Minnesota, and Toledo, Ohio; to “The City” of London where the Libor scandal now unfolds. There were times when the going got rough; Alex's radicalism was genuine, and he could offend not just foes on the right but friends on the left. He parted company with mainstream liberals on issues ranging from gun control to global warming.
But no one could skewer the banksters, the robber barons and the crony capitalists of this broken era quite so ably as Alex.
His last column for The Nation was a delicious takedown of all the dark players involved in the scheme by the biggest bankers in the world to fix rates. The bankers got their due, of course, but so did the regulators and, of course, the pliant media. “Now it turns out that the whole thing is a fix—a grimy hand all too visible,” Alex wrote. “Is is possible to reform the banking system? There are the usual nostrums—tighter regulations, savage penalties for misbehavior, a ban from financial markets for life. But I have to say I’m dubious. I think the system will collapse, but not through our agency.”
Casual readers might imagine a darkness in the closing line of what was Alex’s last Nation column published in his lifetime. But that is a misread. Alex shared Tom Paine’s faith in the necessity of information and insight, of speaking truth to power; this, he knew, to be the essential element for building the activism that would begin the world over again. He was a radical democrat who believed ultimately in the power of the people to overturn the corruptions of empire that politicians and the corporate media would otherwise keep in place.
Alex kept the radical faith, steadily, constantly, going to the ends of the earth to cover the next story of revolt and revolution, going to the far corners of the United States to uncover the news that Americans were not taking it anymore. If a crowd had gathered, and if they were raising the red flag, or any flag of protest, that was enough for Alex. He would report their struggle, usually in The Nation, but also in the pages of The New York Review of Books, Harper’s, Esquire, the Village Voice and (for a brief period as remarkable as it was ironic) the Wall Street Journal.
Alex chose as the title and the underlying theme of his finest collection of essays, The Golden Age Is In Us (Verso), a line from the anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss. In Tristes Tropiques Levi-Strauss wrote:

If men have always been concerned with only one task—how to create a society fit to live in—the forces which inspired our distant ancestors are also present in us. Nothing is settled; everything can still be altered. What was done but turned out wrong, can be done again. The Golden Age, which blind superstition had placed behind [or ahead of] us, is in us.

Alex taught me, he taught us all, that those were not blandly optimistic words. They are demanding. They suggest that we have fewer excuses than we thought, that this is the place, that now is the time and that there is truth in the maxim that says we are the people we’ve been waiting for.

Related Topics: Alternative and Independent Media | Activism | Media | Media Activism | Peace Activism | Books and the Arts

• Today at 12:59 PM
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Mayor Bloomberg Flirts With Violating the Taylor Law

• By Dan Amira

Mayor Bloomberg is as frustrated as anyone about the depressing lack of interest in passing stronger gun control laws in the wake of the Aurora shootings and similar massacres. After calling out President Obama and Mitt Romney on Sunday, Bloomberg stepped up the rhetoric on Piers Morgan last night by calling on police officers around the country to strike:

"I don't understand why the police officers across this country don't stand up collectively and say 'We're going to go on strike. We're not going to protect you unless you, the public, through your legislature, do what's required to keep us safe.' After all, police officers want to go home to their families, and we're doing everything we can to make their job more difficult but more importantly more dangerous."

We highly doubt Bloomberg actually wants a nationwide police strike to take place, because he is not insane. He was just making an absurd suggestion to illustrate how our lax gun control laws endanger police more than they do the average citizen. But was his suggestion illegal?

You may be familiar with the Taylor Law for its prohibition on strikes by public employees, such as teachers, transit workers, and, yes, police officers. But the law also declares that "no public employee or employee organization shall cause, instigate, encourage, or condone a strike." Bloomberg is a public employee, no? And he appears to be encouraging a strike? Not that we expect Bloomberg to be brought up on charges or anything, but still, he's the mayor! He's not supposed to be violating the law.

We're no experts in the Taylor Law, though, so we talked to a couple guys who are, such as Alex Colvin, the chairperson of the Department of Labor Relations, Law, and History at Cornell's School of Industrial Labor Relations. "He's certainly encouraging the police officers to violate the law, I think that's clear," Colvin tells us. However, Colvin adds, the prohibition on encouraging strikes was written with union members and union leaders in mind, not just any public employee with an opinion. "You could try to make an argument that a literal reading would suggest that, as a public employee, he's engaging in this," Colvin says, "but it's certainly going well beyond the original intent of the Taylor Act."

Larry Cary, a partner at the midtown law firm of Cary Kane with decades of experience in the field of labor law, is similarly unconvinced, but for different reasons. While Bloomberg could theoretically be considered a public employee — earning all of $1 a year —  in the context of the Taylor Law, Cary says, he'd be considered a public employer. Public employers are also not allowed to "authorize, approve, condone or consent" to a strike by public employees. Still, Cary doesn't think Bloomberg's remark quite reached that level.

"His statement is not phrased as encouraging, it's phrased as he 'doesn't understand' why this doesn't happen," Cary told us, "which from an injunction point of view would be language which would not be enjoinable, because it does not directly authorize, approve, condone, or consent. It's a statement of —  it's a First Amendment statement of opinion." However, Cary suggested the same remarks could be found to violate the Taylor Law had they been uttered by, say, a police union president at a membership meeting.

So it appears that, with the help of context and some verbal hair-splitting, Bloomberg just barely stayed on right side of the law. Nevertheless, if he's going to continue advocating a police strike, he should probably pick his words carefully.

Two Ex-Editors for Murdoch Charged in Hacking Case

By JOHN F. BURNS and RAVI SOMAIYA 10:21 AM ET

Charges were brought on Tuesday against eight of the most prominent figures in the phone hacking scandal, including Andy Coulson, the former communications director for Prime Minister David Cameron of Britain.

The New York Times
Kate Taylor reports: “The Bloomberg administration said on Sunday that it had received final regulatory approval for its plan to build a garbage transfer station on the East River at East 91st Street, and that construction could begin before the end of the year.”

New Yorkers for Beverage Choices

On the steps of New York City Hall hundreds of people turned out to support New Yorkers for Beverage Choices demanding that that the Board of Health respect the right of New Yorkers to make their own food and beverage choices.  Council members Letitia James and Dan Halloran, spoke against mayor Bloomberg proposal.

Video by Rafael Martínez Alequín

Vital Gap Widens Between Obama, Romney

Obama To Address Gun Control Within Confines Of 'Existing Law'

Sabrina Siddiqui Become a fan

sabrina.siddiqui@huffingtonpost.com

 

Michael Bloomberg Criticizes Obama, Romney On Gun Control After Colorado Shooting 

Posted: 07/22/2012 11:47 am Updated: 07/22/2012 12:25 pm

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg said President Barack Obama has spent his first term avoiding the gun control debate, as he continued to press Obama and presumptive Republican nominee Mitt Romney on the issue following Friday's mass shooting in Colorado.
"The president has spent the last three years trying to avoid the issue, or if he's facing it, I don't know of anybody who has seen him face it," Bloomberg said Sunday on CBS's "Face the Nation."
A vocal proponent of gun control, Bloomberg has renewed his push for stricter gun laws since suspected shooter James Holmes allegedly opened fire in a packed Aurora movie theater during a midnight screening of "The Dark Knight Rises" Friday, killing 12 people and wounding 59 others.
Indeed, Obama has largely remained silent on gun control policy. Although he called for reinstating the expired federal ban on assault weapons during his 2008 presidential bid, he has neither worked to re-implement the ban nor laid out any gun control proposals since assuming office.
The last time the president discussed the subject was in January 2011, after the Tucson shooting spree that injured former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) and left six people dead. Obama promised to outline new steps for gun safety at the time, but he has not offered specifics since then.
Bloomberg's criticism Sunday did not focus solely on the president. He noted that Romney, who as governor of Massachusetts passed a ban on assault weapons, has "apparently changed his views." And it is because of their differing views on gun policy that Bloomberg, an independent, has been reticent to support Romney this cycle.
“This really is an enormous problem for the country, and it's up to these two presidential candidates," Bloomberg said. "They want to lead this country, and they've said things before that they're in favor of banning things like assault weapons. Where are they now and why don't they stand up? And if they want our votes, they better.”

Anthony Weiner's Political Comeback: Let the Show Begin

posted by Dominic Carter
Sat, 07/21/2012 - 11:46pm

Yes, Anthony Weiner can make a political comeback. In fact, via the People magazine trial balloon, it's already under way.
To the skeptics the following argument is made.

•If Washington Mayor Marion Barry, seemingly caught on tape by the Feds smoking crack in a hotel room with a female friend can be elected mayor AGAIN of the nation's capital, (I will never forget Ted Koppell interrupting national prime time TV coverage to show actual video of the mayor of Washington apparently smoking crack), why in the world wouldn't Weiner be able to make a return?

•Do we forget the house actually voted to impeach President Bill Clinton and he is now one of the most beloved figures throughout the world?


I have covered Weiner up close for more than 15 years, often interviewed him on live television on NY1 News, and even moderated a debate for mayor a few years back that included Weiner. (It was widely considered that Weiner won the four-way 2005 debate with his personality and witty one-liners. Here is how the New York Times covered the debate.) The debate in effect ended the political career of City Council Speaker Gifford Miller with a lightning round of questions where candidates could only respond with a Yes or No answer, and started Weiner's rise to prominence in becoming a front runner for mayor. Fast forward to last week: I made the argument on RNN-TV (The Richard French Live Show) that Weiner is coming back, and even this week.

Weiner can't be elected mayor of New York right away. Democratic contenders for mayor would eat him alive with criticism. They would initially run a rose garden strategy against Weiner, ignoring him at first, but when it came down to crunch time, could you imagine the TV commercials?

However, there is a path where yes, Anthony Weiner could possibly be elected mayor of the great city of New York.

Right now, some of you across the country are asking what am I smoking, but here's the point. Remember Weiner was a tremendous fighter in Congress for the middle class. He could bring that part of his reputation, and more importantly his $4.5 million campaign war chest right into the contest to be elected Public Advocate of New York. Weiner would certainly have the most name recognition by far of any of the candidates. Of course, that cuts both ways and can be polarizing. However, if Weiner does a good job as public advocate, that's only a heartbeat away from being mayor. In fact the position is first in line to succeed the mayor, should something happen to the mayor of NY. If Weiner shines as public advocate, and he would, then he has changed the narrative, and can run for mayor.

As far as his "sexting" scandal ... Americans have "been there, done that" before. Certainly New Yorkers have.

First thing that comes to mind is Rudy Giuliani's nasty divorce. Giuliani, in full public view, wanted to move his wife out of the taxpayer-funded residence for the mayor so he could move in his mistress. That woman, Judith Nathan, is now Rudy's wife. Giuliani went on to become America's Mayor for his handling of 911 and to run a credible campaign for president where at one time he was the front runner.

It's important to keep in mind that Weiner's scandal wasn't constituent driven -- it was the non-stop focus of a tabloid media and the cover-up that was much worse than the crime. Weiner would be page one for a few days, and then the press would move on, returning to Weiner from time to time.

Also keep in mind that after Hillary Clinton lost the hotly contested democratic primary for president to Barack Obama, there was talk that she was finished with politics -- that it came down to the first woman or African American president, and Hillary lost. The talk was that she would be too old to be elected now. Hillary Clinton vowed she was done with politics, but she kept her head down, and worked extremely hard as Secretary of State, to the point where even Republicans praise her. Hillary Clinton changed the narrative, and now she may be the leading Democrat for president in 2016. The country may have its first African American and woman president after all. (Sooner rather than later.)

Weiner's situation may very well come down to "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone."

Americans are forgiving.

Some may not like it, but Weiner's comeback is underway.


Follow Dominic Carter on Twitter: www.twitter.com/Dominictv

Photo Finish

July 22, 2012

Paterno Statue Affixed With Bronze Word Balloon

Melissa Mark-Viverito

NYC Council Member, 8th District

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Taking on Our Fair Share of the City's Waste Burden

Posted: 07/19/2012 3:47 pm

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91st Street , Residents For Sane Trash Solutions , Upper East Side , Government Waste , Marine Transfer Station , Nyc Trash , Reducing Waste , Waste , Waste Management , Yorkville , New York News

A group of residents from the Upper East Side suddenly has a newfound interest in its neighbors to the north. Residents for Sane Trash Solutions, a group led by Upper East Siders, has waged a relentless and well-funded campaign to "save East Harlem-Yorkville" in an attempt to stop the construction of the municipal waste marine transfer station at 91st Street in Manhattan. Simply put, this group is exploiting East Harlem. By incorporating this neighborhood into its campaign, the group seeks to bind itself to the struggle of New York's environmental justice communities, which have endured the hardships of environmental inequality for decades.
These Yorkville residents would have us believe that the area around 91st Street is a low-income minority neighborhood that is over-burdened by industrial-style facilities and in need of environmental justice protections. These claims are not even remotely true. In fact, as it stands now, the Upper East Side doesn't even have its own sanitation garage to park the trucks that service that district. Instead, trucks head uptown to garages on E. 99th Street in my district (which is right next to a public hospital) and on West 215th Street in Northern Manhattan.
What's disturbing is the way this group is trying to undo the hard work that actual environmental justice communities have put in for decades, work aimed at achieving a fairer distribution of waste facilities that have historically been concentrated in lower income communities like mine. Instead of genuine, honest engagement with the El Barrio/East Harlem community, our mailboxes get bombarded with inflammatory literature that tells a one-sided story of the marine transfer station and what it will mean for our community and our city.
The 91st Street marine transfer station was included in the 2006 Solid Waste Management Plan (SWMP) because it is integral to the plan's stated goal of borough equity. Currently, Manhattan is the only borough that lacks a waste transfer station. This stands in stark contrast to the South Bronx community, part of which I represent, which alone has 12 waste transfer stations.
The 91st Street marine transfer station will also further the SWMP's mandate to transition to non-truck-based transportation of solid waste. By shifting to barge and rail export, we will reduce 6 million truck miles from our city's streets every year. 200,000 of these miles will be eliminated by the 91st Street site alone. And the marine transfer stations being built are absolutely state-of-the-art, with odor controls, negative pressure to keep in the air, and complete enclosures, so that waste will be placed into sealed containers before leaving the facilities.
The marine transfer station at 91st Street operated for nearly 60 years before closing in 1999. Nine years ago, when discussions were underway about what facilities should be included in the Solid Waste Management Plan, the East Harlem Human Services Consortium, which included 79 East Harlem social service providers, wrote to the Sanitation Commissioner strongly supporting the inclusion of the 91st Street marine transfer station into the plan. They correctly pointed out that by switching waste export from a truck-based to a barge-based approach, this marine transfer station would help clean the air in East Harlem.
Our trash does not magically disappear overnight -- it has to go somewhere. Residents for Sane Trash Solutions should join the rest of us in taking on their fair share of the city's waste burden.

Follow Melissa Mark-Viverito on Twitter: www.twitter.com/@MMViverito