Aplogies Not Accepted at the Times

In this morning's NY Times, the paper runs an AP story on an apology made yesterday by Duke president Richard Brodhead concerning the college's failure to stick up strongly for the rights of its students during the lacrosse rape hoax (and we're thankful here for the outsourcing given the biases exhibited by the Times). The key point here is that the university, and many of its faculty-along with a gullible media that so desperately wanted to believe this meta narrative of racial and sexual exploitation-simply hung these kids out to dry with no real support for their presumption of innocence.

Here's the money quote from the Brodhead speech on this, as posted on the Durham-in-Wonderland website: "Second, some of those who were quick to speak as if the charges were true were on this campus, and some faculty made statements that were ill-judged and divisive. They had the right to express their views. But the public as well as the accused students and their families could have thought that those were expressions of the university as a whole. They were not, and we could have done more to underscore that."

For many of us, even though the recognition of failure is always healthy, the president's admission is a little bit late in the day, and there were many earlier junctures where Brodhead could have spoken out against the abuse of his students-by both the faculty and the prosecutor-to great effect. In spite of this failure, his mea culpa is appreciated simply because it is the right thing for him to do if the university is going to learn from this sad incident.

As much as the Brodhead apology may be seen as minimalist, given the egregious nature of the presumption of guilt by so many,it stands in sharp contrast with the behavior of the paper of wreckage in this matter. As we have mentioned before many times, here, here, here, and here, the NY Times' coverage of the Duke case was an embarrassment to the genre, What greatly exacerbates the paper's failure to accurately cover the case-a failure that is amply documented in the Until Proven Innocent expose of the matter-is the fact that the Times has never editorialized on the case after it, and the paper's coverage itself for that matter, was proven to be a hoax.

The Times colluded with the rogue prosecutor and still hasn't said a word about what can be seen as the single most egregious case of prosecutorial misconduct that was basically enacted before our very eyes; with the Times writing the libretto. And this is supposed to be a paper that has a concern for the protection of civil liberties-apparently only as long as the threat is against certain classes of people who need to have the Times as their perpetual guardian angel.

So,as a result of its ideological and ethical blinders, the Times continues to damage its once great name. It reminds us of the Op-Ed that the paper published four years ago on the "decline" in heart attacks in Helena, Montana. The author, an editor at Prevention, cited a study by two doctors that after the city passed its secondhand smoke ordinance, it experienced a 40% decline in heart attacks. Subsequently, proving once again that there's a big difference between correlation and causation, the study was thoroughly debunked. The Times has never corrected this misinformation, or apologized to its readers for the error.

What this all tells us is that are major MSM outlets need to be constantly and fairly monitored-and that anti-free speech laws that limit citizens from political advocacy while giving carte blanche to papers like the Times must be resisted for what they are: unfair advantages to certain people with a particular point of view.

A Licensed Lack of Integrity

We have so far restrained from any comment on the proposal by Governor Spitzer to allow illegal immigrants to obtain drivers licenses. As is often the case, however, it is the NY Times that stimulates our need to speak out. In today's paper the Times editorializes in support of the measure, and the following comment really motivated our need to post: "Republican opposition to Mr. Spitzer’s move has taken a strident anti-immigrant tone that is unwelcome in this discussion."

Excuse me! We have examined the comments of both Majority Leader Joe Bruno and Assembly Minority Leader Tedesco, as well as other remarks from Republican opponents, and we're unable to see anything that remotely resembles an "anti-immigrant" mindset. In the Times editorial, the paper sees Bruno's claim that the use of drivers licenses by illegals would lead to these folks voting illegally as simply false. We're not sure that it is or it isn't; but if it is, than it is a simple policy disagreement and has nothing to do with being anti-immigrant.

In fact, it could equally be claimed that the position of Bruno, et al, is pro-immigrant, since it can just as well be seen as a defense of those immigrant who struggle to comply with our laws through legal immigration pathways. As one Republican law maker told the Times in a separate story: “Handing licenses out like lollipops to illegal immigrants is an affront to those who are in our country legally and puts our communities at risk,” said Assemblyman Pete Lopez of Schoharie."

In examining the Times editorial there is one glaring omission: the absence of any recognition that the illegal immigration problem might pose a national security threat. Instead, and we see this with all of the open borders advocates, we are offended with the invidious comparisons of border security proponents with out right racists.

And we've never seen the Times editorialize when an illegal felon, often someone who is a repeat offender who should have been deported much earlier, murders one of our citizens (can we can say "our citizens" without being accused of xenophobia?). In fact, when Mary Nagle was killed in our old town of New City the only take the Times had on this was this headlined article: "Killing Leaves Suburbanites Wary of Immigrant Workers." The Times' only concern seems to have been that the killing would lead to an "anti-immigrant" backlash.

But don't simply take our word on this. The Times had nothing to say editorially about the disruption of the Minutemen speech at Columbia last year. On the contrary, the paper was forced to issue the following apology for mischaracterizing the group's intentions: "Correction: October 10, 2006, Tuesday An article on Saturday about a protest at Columbia University over a speech by the head of the Minuteman Project, a civilian border patrol group, gave an imprecise description of the group's stand on immigration. While it opposes illegal immigration, the group does support immigration in general."

There, it couldn't be clearer. So immersed in its own ideological miasma, the NY Times can't even report an immigration-related story with any degree of either accuracy or fairness. So let's take its drivers license commentary with an understanding of where the paper's coming from-it simply has no interest in protecting either the country' safety or your own.

Stringer: Word Up?

We've definitely been hammering BP Stringer over his questionable deal making acumen; but the animus derives from the way in which Stringer dramatically postured as a defender of the community when it was politically expedient to do so. As last year's March, 23rd article in the Columbia Spectator points out, Stringer, "expressed solidarity with opponents of Columbia's proposed Manhattanville expansion Wednesday night."

The last time we encountered such ephemeral allegiance, we found ourselves hooked up with the infamous Councilman Guillermo Linares, who sold out his own Dominican store owners on application to build a Pathmark Supermarket on 125th Street, for the promise of being Charlie Rangel's successor in Congress (How's that working out Guillermo?). Elected officials need to be held to their words, and in the case of Stringer he's clearly "a man whose allegiance is ruled by expedience."

Here's what Scott said last March: "I want to promise you that as long as I'm borough president I'm going to do everything I can so that Columbia cannot run roughshod over this community," he said at a meeting of the Coalition to Preserve Community, a group that has protested the expansion plans. "I will stand with you, I will demonstrate with you," he said to the audience of about 125 people at St. Mary's Church, "We are as smart as those $600 an hour lawyers."

Not only was Stringer willing to man the barricades, he also told the Coalition to Preserve Community that he was adamantly opposed to the use of eminent domain. The full quote here gives a real sense of how deep the Stringer deal with CU is a betrayal of the community: "Stringer expressed opposition to the use of eminent domain to take property in Manhattanville and suggested he would be willing to use his vote in the Uniform Land Use Review Process, the procedure for approving rezoning of the area, to leverage Columbia into taking it off the table. "I'm not for eminent domain, and I do have a role in this ULURP process," he said. Columbia has asked the state to consider using eminent domain to forcibly buy properties from business owners who have refused to sell, though they say it remains a last resort.
"People in this neighborhood should not be shoved to the side just because we need to expand," he said in reference to Columbia.
"Columbia left to their own devices has a thirty year record of evicting tenants, of not dealing with the community," Stringer said."

This staunch stand on principle wasn't the first time that Stringer made his position perfectly clear on the use of ED. In 2005, right after he was elected, Stringer told the community: "We have a wonderful opportunity when a school of this magnitude comes to a community and wants to expand", he said, adding, "Part of what we have to recognize is that Columbia left to its own devices, unchecked, will use eminent domain ... I want you to know clearly where I stand. That is unacceptable."

Wow! In the space of eighteen months Stringer morphs into a completely different person, shedding principles like a reptile shedding its skin. It's no wonder that the community is up in arms. As the Spectator reported yesterday, quoting Sarah Martin of the Grant Houses Residents Association: "Martin was equally perplexed that the University would offer to create a housing fund outside of its Community Benefits Agreements with the LDC. According to Martin, discussions about a housing fund were in the works, though the LDC had yet to propose a dollar figure it would find acceptable. “Why is he [Stringer] trying to make the CBA for us?” she asked. “He should be supporting what we’re trying to do. ... He’s sold this community out.”

Which, as we said this morning, doesn't bode well for the Stringer future. Harlem Tenants Council president Nellie Baily deserves the last word here: "At a public hearing last week in advance of Stringer’s vote, the crowd was split, but a majority of speakers urged the borough president to reject Columbia’s plan, and some cautioned that he would face political repercussions if he approved it. “Politicians, I warn you, this is your litmus test,” Harlem Tenants Council president Nellie Bailey said at the hearing. “If you want to be in office, you’ve got to vote against this plan.”

Second Stringer

We have certainly commented enough on the pusillanimity of Manhattan BP Stringer in regards to his obeisance to the Bloomberg-Bollinger axis. Stringer's failure of nerve here, gives a good deal of fuel to the fire for those who feel that the office of borough president is an unneeded anachronism. Stringer's failure doesn't bode well for his desire to eventually move up to any available city wide office. Not if leadership is seen as one of the necessary prerequisites of holding office at that level.

A couple of additional points are still important to make on the Stringer sycophancy. In the first place, given that he has now taken a position diametrically opposed to that of the community and its 197-a plan, it is incumbent upon him to remove himself from the board of the West Harlem LDC. His role as an honest broker has been vitiated. In addition Stringer, in the person of Anthony Borelli, his rep on the LDC, has been in the forefront of the efforts to remove Nick Sprayregen from said board-allegedly because of Nick's conflict of interest. At this writing there is no one with a greater conflict in the issue of the Columbia expansion than Stringer, regardless of the fact that he's an elected official.

On top of this it needs to be said that Stringer in all of his discussions with Sprayregen and his attorney Norman Siegal emphasized that he would never support the Columbia plan as long as the issue of eminent domain was still on the table. However, as soon as the "Stringer Plan" (kind of like the Marshall Plan-no?) was adopted by the mayor's folks Scott, jettisoned all of his faux principles in a rank display of narcissism. As Sprayregen e-mailed us: "I feel that what Mr. Stringer has done is a complete betrayal of the West Harlem community. For over two years, he has gone on the record, as well as repeatedly said to my attorney, Norman Siegel, as well as to members of the Coalition to Preserve Community, (CPC), that he would refuse to back the Columbia plan as long as eminent domain was being threatened. Moreover, with this decision, Mr. Stringer is putting his own future aspirations ahead of truly doing what is right for the community that he serves."

Sprayregen's comments drew a response from the BP's office, that claimed that the West Harlem landowner was, according to a Crain's In$ider report, "spreading misinformation." So Stringer is now denying the positions that he previously espoused to numerous people on the issue of eminent domain, a perfect example of situational ethics.

Which brings us to the unintended display of honesty at the Stringer/Bollinger press event the other day. When pressed on the relatively meager university offering of $20 million for a $6 billion development, Stringer defended his midwifery to AMNY: "Stringer says Columbia understands the needs and concerns of its neighbors in West Harlem. He says the package contained enough benefits for the neighborhood to win his blessing."

When we speak of unintended honesty we're obviously not referring to the first part of the Stringer remark-a hilarious act of toadying that is frankly embarrassing. It's the second piece of the statement-the remark that Columbia had provided "enough benefits" to "win his blessing, that moved us here. It did so because it revealed clearly just how little it takes to extirpate any moral sense in the BP. In fact a cursory analysis of the agreement here, leads us to observe that General Robert E. Lee negotiated a better deal at Appomattox.

CB9 Chair, Jordi Reyes-Montblanc gets this at a much more fundamental level. As he told the Spectator: "He said that $20 million was “not even a drop” when compared with the community’s housing needs, and that at least $500 million would be required to address them."
And this from this morning's Crain's: "However, LDC President Pat Jones calls the package “modest.”Her board continues to talk with school officials about affordable housing, education and employment."

So in the end, when faced with his first opportunity to move up to the majors, the Manhattan Borough President revealed that he is a second stringer, lacking strong leadership skills. Let's hope that he gets the proper challenge he deserves when he stands for re-election in 2009.

Morose on Gay Rights

In today's DMI blog the indefatigable Maureen Lane flagellates herself in a post about gay rights. What makes all of this fascinating reading is the fact that the entry she writes devolves from a Daily Kos commentary on the Ahmadinejad speech where the Iranian Nutcase denied that his country had any gay people.

It would seem to us that the Ahmadinejad denial might have been a perfect opportunity for the regressive left in this country to reflect on some of the things that distinguish America from the Islamic orthodoxies of the world. Our bad!

Instead, the speech led our Kossak to ruminate on, "how do our own policies deny the gay community?" Wouldn't you know it, they just can't seem to miss the opportunity to not find anything good to say about their own country-and Lane falls right into this stultifying mindset with the following mea culpa: "I have not written enough about the Lesbian, Gay, Bi-sexual, Inter-Sex, Transgender, Two Spirit, Questioning and Queer (LGBITTQQ) community and poverty. In that way, I have contributed to denying the community. When you compound discrimination, the intersection of race, sexuality and gender can be profound on people’s ability to attain economic security and to get help when they are in need."

Now let's make one thing clear, this is not a post about the absence of discrimination against gays in the United States-something we're far from expert about. The point is something quite different. There is a stark differential between the American mindset on these issues-yes even if we include evangelical Christians-and the medieval worldview espoused by radical Islam. As Bruce Bawer points out in his While Europe Slept, Jerry Falwell might have wanted to deny Bawer's marriage rights, but at least he didn't advocate stoning him to death.

All of which illustrates how the left continues to see its own country with the most jaundiced eye-and explicates why these folks would even support an Ahmadinejad over Prersident Bush. Politics has been known to make strange bedfellows but this really takes the cake. In many ways this is similar to the phenomenon that Paul Berman writes about in Terror and Liberalism, where he observed how French socialists morphed into supporters of the Nazis.

Sometimes we get so caught up in our own self-righteous disputations that we blind ourselves to some self evident truths-one in particular being that there are many less savory political environments than our own, and that there are some really evil people in the world; far more than any neocon or Republican.

Negotiated Surrender

Yesterday, as expected, Manhattan BP Scott Stringer lived up to his deal with the mayor, and agreed to support the Columbia expansion plan-with little of community benefit to show for his willing acquiescence. What he did get out of the deal was good for Scott; he gets to point with some degree of exaggerated pride to the city's support for the rezoning plan that he has put forward as an answer to the anticipated Columbia-generated widespread dislocation in the West Harlem community.

It is, however, way too little to show for his efforts. As Matt Schuerman of the Observer pointed out, the $20 million that Columbia has pledged to support affordable housing is a cruel joke when juxtaposed against the dislocation that the the university's own consultants envision will be generated by the massive gentrification impacts of the plan. As Scheurman observes:

"Some $20 million will be devoted to an affordable housing fund that will partially offset the indirect displacement that the new campus is expected to cause outside the footprint.
But given the fact that it costs, conservatively, somewhere around $400,000, and sometimes as much as $1 million, to build an affordable apartment in Manhattan, the contribution would only go so far in alleviating the indirect displacement. The draft environmental impact statement, for instance, says that “approximately 3,293” nearby residents would be forced out because of gentrification."

So what the BP has failed to do is to draw a principled line in the sand, something that would have been reflective of true leadership on behalf of a beleaguered community that has been looking for a righteous defender. Instead, just two days after Lee Bollinger acquiesces to an Iranian nutcase, Stringer acquiesces to Bollinger and becomes the midwife for the gentrification that he claims to be so concerned about.

Here's Stringer's comment on all of this sleight-of-hand: “This is a win-win for Columbia,” said Stringer. “It's a win for West Harlem, and quite frankly it's a win for all of New York City. Columbia's expansion will keep it at the forefront of higher education and scientific research. While it becomes an active partner with the community, we can be assured that binging affordable housing and jobs, sustainable development and economic opportunity is something that we will have to continue to strive for."

Notice the interesting circumlocution here? Columbia gets its expansion, but everything else is put in the "continue to strive for" category. It's a classic buying of a pig-in-a-poke, with Stringer acting as the auctioneer. Let's face it, Stringer, when confronted with the Columbia behemoth, simply blinked-afraid to tackle the university and its plan head-on. Where will the affordable housing be built. What good will the $20 million be if no space is set aside in the 18 acre footprint? Isn't this the real "player to be named later" that the baseball executives talk about?

It all reminds of of Popeye's Wimpy, who would always tell the sailor: "I'd gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today." In this case, it is Columbia getting the hamburger today, while it is West Harlem that will be continually waiting to see if Tuesday will ever come.

Let's hope, as the Times reports this morning, that the deal making is not yet done: "Yesterday, some Harlem officials said the agreement by Columbia was a good-faith effort to begin discussions about the project and its impact." If this is so, we can only hope that the next negotiation phase will be led by those who understand that Columbia needs to truly modify its plan if the community benefits are to have real substance.

"Gentlemen, Start Your Engines

The Traffic Congestion folks got started yesterday, and if the first meeting is any indication, it should make for interesting copy as we proceed along in the discussions. Right off the bat, critics of the mayor's plan wasted no time in voicing their criticisms. Assemblywoman Vivian Cook worried that, "...her district, which includes Long Island City, could become a "parking lot" because of drivers avoiding the fees."

The mayor's presenter responded to Cook's concerns by saying that the issue could be addressed by residential parking permits and muni-meters. Perhaps so. But how can we possibly gauge any of this without the requisite data collection and analysis? There are simply no vetted numbers available to give us any confidence in the mayor's rather brazen assumptions. This shortcoming was highligted in this morning's Metro, when critics of the plan asked the mayor's rep where the numbers were.

Which brings us to the issue of cost. As Richard Brodsky pointed out yesterday the London comparison, as questionable as it might be, still is based on the fact that the congestion tax in that fair city is now around $20, which if approved here would mean that New York commuters would be paying over $5,000 a year in additional taxes. This is the issue that has particularly roiled opponents of the mayor's plan.

This is on top of the fact that we're already over burdened and, as Nicole Gelinas points out, the current rates are eroding the city's economic diversity and competitiveness. Add to this the ill-conceived truck tax-also sure to escalate, and you got a further big government anchor on the city's entrepreneurial class. An additional issue here is whether the goal of the tax is to reduce traffic or simply to raise revenue, a question that was raised by Assembly Ways and Means Chair Denny Farrell: "Are they trying to decrease the amount of cars coming in or increase the amount of money we're getting?" he asked."

All of which is of course complicated by the fact that an inefficient agency is in charge of all of these issues; and the MTA is certainly failing in its efforts to win friends and influence people as it lurches toward an ineviatble fare hike. It will soon be time to take a time out on all of this, and launch a more sober evaluation process to determine how to deal with a whole host of mass transit problems.

Trader Joe Comes to West Harlem

In this morning's NY Sun, the paper reports on the decision by the Bloombergers to support the rezoning initiative of Manhattan BP Scott Stringer. As the Sun says; "The decision by the city was announced in a letter yesterday from commissioner of the Department of City Planning, Amanda Burden, to the president of Manhattan, Scott Stringer, who has been pushing new development and height restrictions. As Columbia's intended new development would transform an area that consists mainly of warehouses and industrial buildings, the planned expansion has already helped to raise land values in the area around the campus footprint, community leaders say."

Can anyone say horse trade here? It certainly appears as if the Bloomberg administration has offered its support for the Stringer plan in exchange for the BP's support of the current Columbia expansion. We can't believe that the support would be unconditional.

If so, this would be a disappointment since we have argued, persuasively we believe, that the Stringer plan is only a good first step, and is certainly no panacea for the kind of displacement impact that the university's expansion will have on the West Harlem community. In fact, if this is the trade than the only thing that the community is getting is the standard major league stand-by-either a "player to be named later,' or the time-honored "future considerations."

It most definitely doesn't compensate for the utter paucity of affordable housing in the existing expansion plan, and we're hopeful that the BP will play a more direct midwife role in a concrete response to the displacement issue, since, as the Sun points out; "With the City Planning Commission scheduled to hold a hearing on the subject next week, the university has yet to reach any agreement with the two major remaining private landholders in the campus footprint. The largest landowner, Nicholas Sprayregen, has put forward a proposal to swap land with Columbia and build hundreds of units of housing across the street, though he has yet to talk with the university about the plan."

It needs to reiterated, especially with the questioning concerning Lee Bollinger's leadership role during the current Ahmadinejad flap, that the CU president has yet to reach out to address the community on the use of eminent domain, and his "my way or the highway" approach may lead to more grief then the university has bargained for here.

Bloomberg's Ennui

In the aftermath of the Ahmadinejad controversy, we are once again struck by the mayor's bloodless response to the event. It appears that the passions that roil this kind of contretemps simply pass right by Mike Bloomberg. As the NY Sun reported yesterday, the mayor took a totally different position on the affair than the one taken by Speaker Silver, who had raised questions about the levels of state funding that Columbia receives.

Bloomberg, on the other hand, demurred: "I think Columbia's budget should be, or whatever help the state gives them, should be based on the quality of the institution and the need for that institution to grow, thrive and be here and to advance science and the arts," Mr. Bloomberg told reporters." So let's get this straight. The mayor feels that hosting a Holocaust denier who wants to wipe Israel off of the map is advancing the sciences and the arts?

We suppose, in defense of Mike Bloomberg, that at least the Iranian guy hadn't come out in favor of chain smoking or fast food-the only things that seem to really get a passionate response from the mayor. Which is quite typical of an end of ideology liberalism, one that has no real beliefs to take a stand for-that, because of its bankruptcy of beliefs, needs to elevate health to a moral end in and of itself.

This is something that we're seeing all over a Europe that no longer believes in the value of its own civilization and is, in the words of Claire Berlinski, a place with "No past, No Future, No Worries." It is in the context of this spiritual void that Europeans, and the health nannies like the mayor, raise health into a final value for living. In the end, however, it is a pale substitute for the robust Islamic worldview that Ahmadinejad represents, and it dramatically underscores why Mike Bloomberg's brand of apolitical politics is simply wrong for our challenged times.

Making the Best of a Bad Situation

The averting of a total calamity yesterday at Columbia, is owed to the courageous stand by CU president Lee Bollinger, who used the nutcase's presence on campus as a teaching moment. Now, we have been highly critical of Bollinger who did precious little to chastise the Columbia's students who prevented the leader of the Minutemen organization from speaking at CU last year; and we still feel that there was no need for the university to give this low rent dictator a prestigious platform. Bollinger's confrontation, however, managed to salvage the situation.

But was this really all about free speech? Free speech-and the vigorous exchange of ideas in an unfettered marketplace-is a principle of democratic politics, and doesn't extend to the avowed foreign enemies of this country. And a free speech forum is about promoting dialogue and debate; Is there something to debate about the Holocaust? Or about the proposed genocide of a nation?

Now obviously, the clerical fascism that the Iranian avows sees homosexuality as a mortal sin, deserving of a stoning death-which is the kind of punishment that has already been executed in Iran on more than one occasion. Would Columbia's invite a religious leader from America to campus to espouse these kinds of views? We think that all hell would break loose.

So why invite Ahnadinejad, only to excoriate him for his odious opinions, beliefs that Bollinger rightly believes have no place in any democratic system? Last year our good buddy Clyde Haberman chastised conservatives for rebuking Columbia for allowing the Minutemen to be shouted down, while at the same time pressuring the university to not allow Ahmadinejad a platform:
"Particularly upset last week were the city’s more conservative editorial writers, who accused Columbia of not doing enough to protect speech unpopular on the politically liberal campus.
A few weeks earlier, the same editorialists had applauded Columbia for canceling a speaking invitation sent to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the nuke-seeking, Holocaust-denying president of Iran. Someone like that, the editorials said, had no business being invited. Sound familiar?

This is as false a comparison as you can make. To say that an American wanting to advocate a certain border policy for immigration is equivalent to a foreign dictator whose largess is contributing to the deaths of American soldiers is to reify the concept of free speech into an unrecognizable concept. We need to have the voices of the Jim Gilchrests on campus, if only because they are so rarely espoused. On the contrary, the virulent anti-American and anti-Israeli opinions that we've heard from the Iranian are, well, quotidian on most US campuses.

So one cheer for Bollinger. But we're still skeptical about the reification of free speech at Columbia because we know too well how selective and hypocritical the elite professoriat can be. We know full well that you wouldn't see the kind of polite demonstrations that were seen yesterday on Broadway, if a vicious right wing foreign figure was invited to Columbia, But why fantasize? That's a situation that simply will never happen at any Ivy League institution.

Hitting the Bricks on Broadway

Yesterday was a powerful day in the ongoing deconstruction of the experiment on free speech at Columbia University. The lively and combative Rachele Lipsky joined us for a turn at the Morningside Heights barricade, and combative she was, giving an impassioned rationale for a Michele Malkin interview on why the invitation to the Iranian nutcase had nothing to do with free speech.

There were around two thousand folks gathered in front of the university yesterday, and the basic theme on display was outrage at Columbia's insensitivity in the granting of a prestigious platform to a Holocaust denier and American-soldier killing leader of a terrorist state. Those who try to use the free speech banner in cases like these are generally some of the same people who are absolutely intolerant of any voicing of conservative views on the campus-as was the case with the rescinding of Larry Summers speech invitation at the University of California.

What is also important to emphasize is that the vaunted free speech domain on campus is very much a chimera-at Columbia as well as elsewhere around the country. Too many academic departments appear to be dedicated to a particular political ideology, and alternative viewpoints are almost non-existent. And when folks raise a fuss about all of this, the fragile academics-unused to being challenged-scream "McCarthyism."

So let's open up our university campuses to real diversity of opinion. If we don't they will continue to become what Bruce Bawer called the "one idea state," a place were opinions range narrowly from left to far left. In this process, as ideological lock-step metastasizes, the idea that no beliefs should be treated as sacred is lost in the enveloping orthodoxy.

The Third Wrong

Columbia is doing us all a great favor because, by its offering a platform to the Iranian madman, it allows all to see clearly the moral dry rot that infects so many of our elite campuses today. The repercussions are starting to come in. In today's NY Sun, the paper writes about the response to the university's grave error from Assembly Speaker Shelly Silver: "In an interview with The New York Sun, the speaker of the Assembly, Sheldon Silver, said lawmakers, outraged over Columbia's insistence on allowing the Iranian president to speak at its World Leaders Forum, would consider reducing capital aid and other financial assistance to the school."

This should only be the beginning, since the school has compounded its initial error by an additional outrageous statement from the Dean of the International School, one clueless fellow named John Coatsworth, that Columbia would have invited Adolf Hitler in the 1930s to speak at a university forum. This has led the NY Daily News to call for the dean's firing. In an editorial entitled, " Monstrous Idiocy," the paper says; "Coatsworth's invitation to the Iranian president was a gross abuse of academic freedom that he has been attempting mightily and futilely to defend. But there is no way, at least in civilized society, to defend Coatsworth's expressed openness to granting a forum to a man who was the world's most determined, most efficient mass murderer."

A statement, by the way, that President Lee Bollinger endorses! This is the university that is asking the city and state to condemn other people's property so it can expand its civilizing mission into West Harlem? As we have already said, we can no longer take it for granted that this expansion, spearheaded by moral idiots, is in the public interest. And we're certainly not alone.

As the NY Sun also reports this morning, Council Finance Chair, David Weprin is taking a similar stance: "Bollinger made a big mistake, and there should be consequences for him for making that decision," the chairman of the New York City Council's Finance Committee, David Weprin, said in an interview. "We should look at everything involving Columbia, whether it be capital projects, city and state, or other related things that we do in the city for them," he said."

As the expansion application wends its way through the ULURP process Columbia appears to be treading on some thin ice of its own making. The university is so used to its own ideological echo chamber that it seems to think it's immune from the normal political process. It should beware, however. The Sun's editorial today captures Speaker Silver's angry response:
"There are issues that Columbia may have before us that obviously this cavalier attitude would be something that people would recall," Mr. Silver told our Jacob Gershman yesterday. "Obviously, there's some degree of capital support that has been provided to Columbia in the past. These are things people might take a different view of … knowing that this is that kind of an institution." Mr. Silver faulted Columbia for "attempting to legitimize this individual," saying, "We have an obligation because of the U.N. to allow him to come to this country. It doesn't mean we have to make him welcome. We don't have to give him a forum."

Columbia, through its own arrogance, is creating a situation whereby all New Yorkers will need to re-evaluate is putative contribution to the city's civic life. Daily News columnist Michael Goodwin really gets this: "Opening the door to every global psychopath is not principle. It is pure provocation. It is not defending freedom of speech. It is embracing moral equivalency, a lazy leftist dogma that says all "ideas" are equally deserving of being taken seriously. That Columbia has fallen into the value-less trap shows that an expensive education doesn't buy common sense." Indeed, it appears to militate against having it.

Columbia Issues a Til Ticket to Ride

In Friday's Spectator, the paper writes about the Columbia proposal to relocate the Til tenants to comparable housing "within the community." This news is very much a mixed blessing. On the one hand, according to the university, the tenants will be given new apartments under the same potential ownership option that all of the Til folks currently have. On the other hand, as CB9 chair Jordi Reyes-Montblanc told the Spectator:

"I was "flabbergasted" about a press release being issued without first having communicated with the TIL Tenants and gotten their concurrance if they actually decided or not to accept the offer and it needs to be an outstanding offer that will benefit the TIL Tenants and the community at large..
HPD has made it clear that the TIL Tenants will decide their future and CB9M has made it clear will will support the TIL Tenants no matter what their decision is, expected to be made freely and without coercion from any quarter."

So what Columbia has done in this situation, is to hold separate negotiations with HPD behind the tenants back-only to present them with a take-it or-leave it proposition. This is not really any kind of good faith bargaining. It also doesn't address the larger housing issues that are bound to be generated by the displacemenrt effects of the university's expansion.

So while we are glad that there may be a possibility that the Til tenants will be able to stay "within the community," we are disappointed that the univesity believes that the way to expand is to do so unilaterally through the issuance of diktats. Clearly, real engagement is missing and, as yesterday's Times editorial said, Coumbia needs to overcome its decades of "aloof detachment" if it is going to win over its neighbors.

NY Times' Half Measures

In yesterday's editorial in the City Section, the NY Times correctly points out that Columbia has done precious little to gain the confidence or support of its neighbors in West Harlem for the university's ambitious expansion plan. Here is the editorial at its most cogent: "And while Columbia has worked hard to accommodate residents, including finding replacement housing for those who would be displaced as it builds, more is needed to reassure the neighbors, particularly those who have not been impressed by the school’s promises of thousands of new jobs or by its deepening ties to the community."

The editorial goes on to say that the city is "recognizing the rift" and is doing so by taking a long look at the zoning plan proposed by BP Scott Stringer. And while we certainly support Stringer's efforts to deal with direct and indirect displacement of the area;'s residents we have already pointed out that the Stringer plan, in dealing with the Columbia aftershocks, doesn't deal directly with the impact of the plan itself.

In particular, as the Times highlights, gentrification is a major threat here: "Even those who live outside the university’s expansion area fear the spillover effects of new growth that could push them out, a prospect already faced by residents in other parts of the city where rents have risen with gentrification." Yet, curiously, the paper doesn't suggest any specific modification to the Columbia plan that would deal directly with the displacement issue.

Which is why the adoption of the Stringer plan needs to be seen as part of an overall comprehensive solution that includes the university's commitment to affordable housing and the negotiation with key property owners to swap land in order to build these kinds of units. In essence, the plan itself needs to be modified-and after that, the after-effects must be prepared for.

The Times is right that; "Columbia’s efforts to win over its neighbors have been hampered by the reputation for aloof detachment it helped create a generation ago and has been trying to live down ever since." The way to remedy this, is to treat the community with respect, take its demands seriously, and come up with a plan that engages the key community issues.

Contrary to what the Times says, the Stringer plan alone is not the compromise that "could give Columbia the room it needs to remain a first-class university and the neighborhood residents the assurances they need that their lives will not suffer." A more comprehensive solution needs to be crafted, and the Stringer proposal is just a good first step.

"Progressives" Beguiled by Poverty

In a post last week on the Drum Major Institute site, Maureen Lane took Heather McDonald of the Manhattan Institute to task for setting up a false dichotomy between poor people and"the rest of us." Here's how she set this up:

"Heather's premise is that people are not doing things like, taking kids to school on time, going to PTA, going to doctor's appointments, because they have bad behavior and they just need to "do the right thing" like the rest of "us" (by which she must mean the presumably middle class viewers). Setting poor people outside society by drawing a "them versus us" dichotomy is a tried and true way for ideologues to frame arguments for not working directly on economic and public policy solutions to poverty."



Let's take a critical look at Lane's assumptions here. What she's saying is that by placing a major responsibility on people to behave in certain ways-ways that have been demonstrated to be successful in achieving certain socially desirable results-we are excusing our unwillingness to work directly "on economic and public policy solutions to poverty." This is demonstrably a false statement. Heather's supposedly invidious dichotomy is designed to underscore the fact that the most successful public policies for addressing poverty confront the issue of the relationship between values and behavior.



What is clear is that when some poor people adopt the values in question here-you know those "bourgeois values" that our progressive friends are always happy to deconstruct because of their putative role in under girding the power dynamic that they detest-they can be successful in raising themselves up into a more comfortable middle class status. This has been demonstrated historically by wave after wave of immigrants who have come into the United States hoping to achieve a better life.



Somewhere in the middle of the "Great Society" euphoria, however, we lost our way-so intent were we not to make anything the responsibility of individuals when we had a racist society conveniently at hand to blame. As a result, large welfare bureaucracies were established that created a self-perpetuating dependent population; which was great for the "New Class" of social workers and welfare policy makers, but ultimately horrid for those mired in dependency.



All of which is apparently over Maureen Lane's head as she tells here readers: "Generally speaking, poor families are coming from poor communities where poor women and poor men are sidelined from family sustaining jobs." Just how are they sidelined? Doesn't this come back to exactly what McDonald is trying to say? Which gets back to why McDonald said that the one good thing about Bloomberg's "charity" plan for the poor was that it recognized that behavior needed to be changed.



The question here, with welfare rolls declining since the reform measures of ten years ago, is how to reach the intransigent remains of the dependency class. Clearly, for Lane and the DMI bunch, capitalism isn't the answer. She cites, approvingly, the "renowned" Hunter professor, Mimi Abromovitz: "......Meanwhile, the American Dream the promise that work pays faded for the working and middle class. In 2004, 7.8 million people aged 16 or older spent at least 27 weeks either working or looking for a job but earned below poverty-level wages in companies that provided few basic benefits such as healthcare or parental leave. More than 58% of these working poor women and men were on the job full-time and 90% worked at some time during the year."



Conservatives such as Heather McDonald, however, simply don't get it: "Heather MacDonald and other conservative thinkers are also flummoxed in their own way. Their ideas are infused with the dust and grime of worn-out stereotypes. Their solutions reflect the stuffy answers that do not lend themselves to innovation and advancement." Indeed they must not, since the kind of innovations that are likely to come out of the DMI are the same kinds that led to all of the welfare dependency in the first place.



Perhaps, then, we should look to our socialist friends in Europe, whose economies are collapsing under the weight of all of the "innovative" government-driven solutions that have empowered public bureaucracies at the expense of a robust private sector. It is, moreover, to the "fading American Dream" that all of the immigrants-legal as well as illegal-still come in search of; in spite of what any "renown" professor (an oxymoron for sure) might opine.



Beware of progressive innovation, it is free market hostile and government bureaucrat friendly, a combination that has proved to be historically deadly after a brief period of necessary checks and balances on private sector excess. And Lane, et al, should look at what's happening all over the world, where poverty is being addressed by private sector growth. It may be messy and it certainly isn't perfect, but it reminds us, by way of analogy, of the axiom about our political system: "Democracy is the worst political system, except for all of the others."

Getting the Point

According to Crain's In$ider, the business owners at Willets Point have hired environmental attorney Michael Gerrard to fight the city's ULURP process on the Iron Triangle site. Gerrard told Crain's that his role was, to fight "the total destruction of the neighborhood." In addition, the well-respected lawyer told the newsletter that he had fought many "unstoppable" projects successfully.

What's initially at issue here, is the city's effort to ULURP the entire 50 acre site in a pig-in-a-poke manner, meaning that the City Council will be approving a "concept," and not a specific project with clearly identified tenants. In our twenty five year experience this will prove to be a big mistake. General concepts don't really encompass the actual important project details, some of which can prove to be quite nettlesome. For instance, the zoning that allows for a large retail use cannot exclude a Wal-Mart or a BJ's.

It is also true that the need for zoning approval gives the Council the leverage needed to negotiate some important community benefits with an actual development company. Once re-zoned that leverage disappears.

All of which doesn't even begin to deal with the merits of what the city is trying to do on the Point. One of the things that concerns us the most is the loss of so many immigrant businesses and their employees. These are the kinds of firms that are able to give relatively unskilled workers who don't speak English an opportunity to work and prosper.

What is clear is that Gerrard, and the other attorneys the businesses have hired, is geared for a fight; and if the Alliance is asked to help, this will become a battle royal. Stay tuned to the situation as the city prepares its ULURP application.

Wither Columbia?

Yesterday we posted an item on what we termed the "shame" of Columbia University in its provision of an honored platform for the Iranian nutcase. Today, all three tabloids in the city follow suit with their condemnation of the university-here, here and here. The favorite editorial take? That the Columbia forum is a disgrace. As the NY Daily News says: "Columbia University will play host on Monday to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, leader of the foremost sponsor of global terrorism, would-be eradicator of Israel and manufacturer of roadside bombs that are killing American troops in Iraq, in a shameful abuse of academic freedom."

All of which should begin to generate some second thoughts about the lionizing of this ivy league institution, and the eagerness that many in the city are displaying in the support of Columbia's expansion. We don't say this lightly. If Bollinger and the university are so tone deaf on this issue, what does it say about the character and direction of Columbia? Is the university becoming something that most New Yorkers would rather not have in their midst (kind of like the UN itself)?

The NY Sun captures this when it writes: "Our phone has been ringing with calls from New Yorkers appalled, most of them, that President Bollinger is going to permit Columbia University to host President Ahmadinejad — and sick that Mr. Bollinger is personally going to honor the Iranian anti-Semite, an enemy of our country in a time of war, by personally meeting with him and conducting a dialogue that, no matter how sincere Mr. Bollinger is, will be phony."

Up until this point most of us have take for granted that, no matter what are particular objections may be, the university's expansion into West Harlem is-as Martha Stewart would say- "A good thing." Can we be so certain today? That the Bollinger gang would so blithely affront the sensibilities of most New Yorkers-and we are delighted that Speaker Quinn so forcefully gets it-should sound the alarm bells for all of us. Quinn's words need repeating: "The idea of Ahmadinejad as an honored guest anywhere in our city is offensive to all New Yorkers," Ms. Quinn said in a statement. "He can say whatever he wants on any street corner, but should not be given center stage at one of New York's most prestigious centers of higher education."

Bollinger better be careful. He has already, in his non-actions against the Minutemen disrupters, shown that he is no true champion of basic free speech values-more concerned apparently with not affronting the left wing faculty. Does it really make sense to give this university carte blance to expand-and take people's property in the process? This serious question needs to be debated as the ULURP process continues.

Can't They Take a Bank?

In today's NY Sun, the paper reports on the hearing held last night by the MTA in regards to the need to condemn certain properties in order to build the Second Avenue subway line. At the hearing scores of property owners expressed concerns about the process and the threatened loss of the full use of their properties. As the Sun said: "The Metropolitan Transit Authority last night held a public hearing on the acquisition of residential and business property along the subway route under the state's eminent domain law and several property owners were expected to express their concern that the law is being used too liberally, and that construction of the subway should circumvent their property."

In addition, a number of elected officials and/or their representatives testified against the displacement of many rent-controlled tenants from their buildings. Clearly, there needs to be a greater oversight over this process since the MTA is not known for either its expertise or its transparency.

One major issue here, was the possible closure of the popular Gristedes supermarket on 86th Street between 1st and 2nd Avenues. Gristedes owner, John Catsimatidis, prepared testimony that pointed out that we are losing too many supermarkets on the east and west sides of Manhattan; "We're not opposed to the Second Avenue subway, but there's a shortage of supermarkets in New York City right now," Mr. Catsimatidis said. "I would think that the MTA should take that into consideration."

Given the proliferation of banks all over town you'd think that the MTA could have found one of these outlets to gut rather than a retailer providing vital neighborhood services. At the end of last night's hearing, however, it appeared that the agency may be moving away from gutting the Gristedes. We can only hope so, not only for the thousands of New Yorkers who shop there every week, but also for the 88 union jobs that need to be preserved.

Shame on Columbia

Columbia University, the bastion of the first amendment and of free speech, is inviting the cretinous head of Iran to address its students at its School of International and Public Affairs. This is the same school that is headed by Dean Lisa Anderson who helped to whitewash the anti-Israel bias investigation and supports the campaign to divest from companies that do business in that country. And, get this, she is "member emerita" of the board of Human Rights Watch!

Anderson herself belongs on the same stage as Ahmadinenjad. As Campus Watch points out: "Her most recent achievement was in raising money, almost entirely from Arab sources for an "Edward Said Chair in Middle Eastern Studies." Though Edward Said was neither a scholar or teacher of either Islam, or of the Middle East, but a celebrated polemicist, Anderson found nothing peculiar in naming this chair after him—rather as if one had decided to create the "Noam Chomsky Chair in American Political Theory." Indeed, she managed to raise $4 million, and was instrumental in keeping the sources of that funding secret for as long as possible. Much effort had to be expended to persuade Columbia to reveal those sources, though New York State Law requires such information to be reported when it involves foreign funds."

Will we see any protests of the Holocaust-denier leader? Probably not from anyone at Columbia, since there is only an appetite there to protest speakers who may support this country's foreign policy-or support the integrity of its borders. In fact, we're confident that the faculty of the Middle East Studies Department will feel more ideologically at home with the Iranian nutcase than with George Bush-or Hillary Clinton even.

All of which underscores the intellectual hypocrisy and dry rot that exists on the nation's elite campuses. As David Bernstein points out, free speech doesn't really exist in the universities-except for a range of acceptable opinions. It's as if the commissars have taken over, and having read Herbert Marcuse's Repressive Tolerance, have set out to expunge "wrong thought" from the campus. We are in desperate need of a Herculean effort to clean up the Augean Stables.

Rat Tax Infestation

In today's NY Daily News, the Manhattan Institute's Steve Malanga warns New Yorkers about the tax hikes that are sure to come once the city's fiscal situation takes the upcoming downturn. As Malanga points out; "With the national economy apparently heading for a dip and Wall Street firms reporting lower earnings and cutting jobs, New York City may soon be facing its biggest fiscal jam since the recession that occurred in the aftermath of 9/11."

The situation is made worse by the fact that Mayor Mike has not seen fiscal discipline as a high priority-and has turned a blind eye to the plight of overtaxed and over-regulated homeowners and small businesses. As Malanga says, "But the mayor has done little to try to rein in costs." In addition, there has been no effort to trim the size of government or to search for innovative ways to do more with less, which is why he has one the strong support of the "tax 'em till they drop crowd."

All of which doesn't bode well for the small retailers in this city who are constantly under the gun from an over-zealous regulatory bureaucracy. Here Malanga makes his strongest point;
"In the meantime, businesses, which have been paying far higher property tax rates and haven't gotten any rebates, can forget about long-awaited tax relief. They will continue to pay the highest taxes of any business community in the country. If the recent past is any indication, small businesses in particular will bear the brunt of higher licensing fees and increased fines."

When the city really puts its mind to it it is unbelievably effective at extorting money from the small business folks. The just released Mayor's Management Report highlights this larcenous skill in relation to restaurant inspections. As the NY Post reports, the city flunked one out of four restaurants in the past fiscal year, leading our friend and small business advocate Rob Bookman to say; "This doesn't surprise me at all," said Rob Bookman, a lawyer for the New York Nightlife Association. "I think it's probably reflective of the larger number of violations they're issuing in general. Their position seems to be compliance through fines."

And fine they will. And tax they will. And trim the sails of Big Government they won't-not with a mayor who doesn't have a municipal cost-cutting bone in his body and who wanted to use the Charter Revision process to give the Department of Consumer Affairs even more judge and jury regulatory power over helpless retailers. Even the NY Times felt that this went to far.

In six years in office the mayor has not attempted to address the nature of the city's unfair kangaroo administrative courts, procedures that can threaten a business' livelihood without the requisite due process protections. As one keen observer who has defended businesses before the city points out:
"For workers and businesses licensed by the city — street vendors, taxi drivers, restaurants, grocery stores and dry cleaners among others — the courts wield tremendous power...I can also state without reservation that the taxi drivers I have represented have little confidence in the fairness of the commission's court. This is in large measure because its judges are hired by the commission, and can be fired or have their hours reduced at any time. In short, their paychecks depend on the commission."

So all we can hope is that the next mayor has a greater sensitivity towards the tax payers and businesses than does the current out-of-touch billionaire. Until then the two-legged rats will run free and continue to unleash inspector torment on the hard working retailers and restauranteurs of this over-regulated municipality.

Blight Makes Right

In a companion editorial in today's NY post, Tom Eliot exposes the climate of collusion that often is generated when land use decisions are being made in NYC. In this case it is the relationship between the consultant AKRF, Columbia, and the state's economic development agency, ESDC. As we have ourselves pointed out, AKRF is no disinterested consultant since, as CU's land use advisor, it has a vested interest in finding that the area the university wants to expand into is "blighted." So, how can the AKRF folks be working simultaneously for the state?

A local judge wondered the same thing; "While acting for Columbia, AKRF has an interest of its own in the outcome of [ESDC's] action, as AKRF, presumably, seeks to succeed in securing an outcome that its client, Columbia, would favor." But ESDC's appeal of that ruling won't be heard until December, so everything's going ahead for now."

That doesn't take away from the obvious implications that the state has impaneled a hanging jury in this matter, and when people's property is in the balance we should be able to do better than this. The conflicts of interest here, calls into question the legitimacy of the entire expansion plan, something that elected officials should be able to recognize if they can don the cloak of impartiality.

What this should mean is that there are a myriad set of reasons for saying the Columbia plan is badly in need of compromise and serious revision. Nick Sprayregen has offered his own possible olive branch. How long will the university dither, and leave themselves at the mercy of consultants-of all stripes-who may not be able to advise them properly?

Columbia's Turf Toe

Every knowledgeable football fan knows the dangers that astroturf can pose to the health of the players on the field. This unnatural surface yields a wide range of knee, foot and back injuries because of the unyielding nature of the field's composition. Which is why the term astroturf has been applied to phonied up efforts to generate grassroots support for projects that, well, don't really have any. And, just as with the manufactured imitation grass football field, unnecessary harm can come to the players when this tactic is employed.

Which is just the case with the Columbia expansion effort, and the work of Bill Lynch to cultivate some kind of community coalition in support of the university's plan. In today's NY Post, the paper's Tom Eliot slices and dices the Lynch led Potemkin village-like effort to generate grass roots support for Columbia. As Eliot writes: "COLUMBIA University is making great efforts to prevent community objections from derailing its plan for a massive expansion in West Harlem. But its methods seem to rely more on big-money power politics than on listening to the folks who live and work where the school wants to build."

Eliot goes on to describe how folks from a neighborhood drug treatment program were dragooned to a recent community board meeting in order to give some kind of community face to the big money effort that the university is using to inveigle support for its expansion. It transparent phoniness was exposed by, who else, members of the real community coalition that opposes what Columbia wants to do in West Harlem. As the Post points out:
"Visnja Vujica - a recent Barnard grad and member of the anti-expansion Student Coalition on Expansion & Gentrification - says she discovered that the pamphleteers were patients from East Harlem's Addicts Rehabilitation Center (ARC).
"I talked to one man, J.R., I think, who was wearing one of the 'Future of Manhattanville' stickers. He said he was paid; wouldn't tell how much, but said something like, When you're given pretty much a blank check, you don't ask questions," she said."

Which leads us to wonder whether Columbia is only able to garner community support from those neighborhood residents who are so unaware of what's going on because they might be in a drug-induced haze. Kidding aside, the university opens itself up to these criticisms because it has put itself in the hands of consultants who clearly don't know what the hell they're doing-so much so that we might speculate that the university could be in a position to sue for theft of services.

What this means for the expansion plan itself is still up in the air, with the borough president's hearing on the plan is scheduled for tonight. Stringer has already begun to voice reservations. It does appear, however, that the university would best serve its own interests by looking to accommodate some of the community concerns in ways that the community itself (the actual one) will appreciate.

Columbia Contraction

In what appears to be another strong example of the dissent that the Columbia expansion plan has generated, the Office of Manhattan Borough President has indicated that it may well oppose the university's proposal if some significant adjustments aren't made. As the Spectator is reporting: "A representative for Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer said Friday night that unless significant modifications were made, Stringer would vote to reject Columbia’s proposed Manhattanville expansion."

The apparent dissatisfaction of BP Stringer comes on the heels of CB9's almost unanimous rejection of the university's proposal last month. Clearly, some major alterations are going to need to be made here if the university is to successfully navigate the ULURP process. This is something that Columbia now looks like it is finally recognizing. As the Spectator observes: "Columbia officials have signaled that they are willing to make concessions to gain approval for the project. “I anticipate over the coming months concerns that have been raised will be addressed, and a satisfactory outcome will be arrived at,” said Senior Executive Vice President Robert Kasdin."

The Stringer opposition comes from the BP's awareness that Columbia's expansion will likely have a significantly negative effect on the ability of the existing neighborhood residents to remain in the community that they live in. As Stringer's land use chief told the Spectator, referring to the Stringer special district zoning proposal, the CU plan would displace thousands of local residents: "Borelli said the special district aimed to “preserve the existing physical and social character of West Harlem” and “address the potentially negative secondary impacts that large scale development and other real estate pressures would otherwise have on the community.”

All of which should give the Sprayregen Swap some additional momentum. This is the plan that the area's leading property owner has proposed that would allow for the building of a large number of affordable housing units, while at the same time permitting Sprayregen to retain certain of his property rights in the neighborhood that he has helped stabilize for the past thirty years.

Now we all await the proactive response of Columbia. Will they be able to walk the walk? Will Bill Lynch become useful, earning his enormous retainer? These and other questions will be on the agenda tomorrow when the BP holds his land use hearing at City College. Stay tuned.

Wake Up Call for Healthy Breakfast

With all of the vigorous actions being taken by the city's Health Department to try to regulate New Yorkers to better health, there is one thing that is really in the city's control when it comes to insuring this vital goal-classroom breakfast for the city's close to 1,000,000 school kids. As Councilman Joel Rivera says this morning in his editorial in the NY Daily News, "In addition, by providing the majority of our low-income students with a nutritious breakfast, our schools can become an important factor in the reduction of the alarming increase in childhood obesity in our city."

And he's right. Kids who come into the classroom without eating breakfast are less able to concentrate on their school work and educational outcomes suffer as a result: "One study by the Nutrition Consortium of New York State found that the method had a positive impact on education and student performance, including decreased tardiness, reduced absenteeism, fewer disciplinary referrals and fewer visits to the school nurse."

Classroom breakfast has also been endorsed by the California Food Policy Advocates group that recommends that schools should institute a number of different breakfast methods, including the use of the classroom as a preferred venue. The reason? Once again it relates to the health and educational benefits that can be attained when more kids eat a health breakfast.

Staff from the Health Corps, a group that wants to take the lead on this issue, will be meeting with NYC DOE school food heads this week. The purpose of the meeting is to discuss the implementation of a classroom breakfast pilot program in the city schools. Let's hope that educators, parents and educrats can all get together in this worthwhile effort.

NY Times' Farey Tale

In yesterday's NY Times the paper editorializes ("Softening the Blow") once again on the MTA's proposed fare hike. This appears to be part of a series where the paper gets to continually adjust its perspective as the situation dictates. Last month the Times had excoriated the agency for its historic inefficiencies, which led us to say: "In fact, the MTA is a monument to inefficiency and the absence of any real accountability. Certainly, given its governing charter, there is no reason for anyone living in NYC to grant the agency any credibility whatsoever."

So what are we to make of the fact that the Times is once again ignoring this cogent evaluation in its support of congestion pricing? After all, without the kind of agency overhaul that the paper suggests it wouldn't be very prudent to commit more funds-whether in the form of a fare hike or a congestion tax-to the very agency that the Times correctly has no confidence in.

And the Times goes on to further complicate its own convoluted reasoning when it goes on to say: "State lawmakers can strike a blow for more affordable mass transportation by voting by next March 31 to adopt Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s congestion pricing plan...The money would go to mass transit, either helping to hold down fares or supporting the M.T.A.’s rebuilding program." Let's not go there again.

How many times do we have to say that the congestion tax is earmarked, out of absolute necessity because of the poor state of the city's mass transit infrastructure, for the improvement of mass transit options? If these options aren't improved than there will literally be no room at the inn-i.e., no place to go for those taxed out of their cars. That being said, the amount of money a congestion tax would raise would fall far short of the providing the needed funds to address the transit system's immense infrastructure needs.

Which once again demonstrates what we have said-this entire plan is badly in need of a good forensic accountant, and shouldn't be dependent for evaluation on those (like the good editors at the Times) who really don't care how the money is earmarked because they start with absolutely zero concern for the city's tax payers.

Softening in the Middle

In yesterday's NY Daily News the paper's Errol Louis reports on the growing exodus of middle-class New Yorkers. Citing a report done by Comptroller Thompson, Louis worries about what this exodus means for the kind of city New York will become: "It means the backbone of the city is weakening as hundreds of thousands of teachers, cops, firefighters, bus drivers, security guards, transit workers, barbers and administrators - a big slice of the people who make the city go - give up on New York every year."

And Louis is quite right. What he doesn't comment on, however-in his otherwise incisive column-is the way in which municipal government is often directly responsible for this mass exodus. The fact is that the high cost of living in this city-a reality that has often been derided by our wealthy mayor-is a major factor in the reason why people choose to relocate. Louis hints at this when he observes that; "In reality, professionals are statistically more likely to size up their buying power and quality of life and start scanning real estate listings in nearby suburbs or in places like Atlanta, West Palm Beach and Raleigh-Durham."

This high cost is directly related to the outrageous taxing policies that make NYC one of the most expensive places to live. When the mayor pushed through his 18% property tax increase in 2002-an increase that was exacerbated by higher assessments as well-we were treated to a spate of exodus stories that have since died down in the wake of the media's canonization of Mayor Mike.

Now, however, the chickens are coming home to roost, and with them also comes the realization that all of are high tax enablers are almost as big as danger as the elected officials who blithely raise fees in the name of fiscal "prudence." These are the DMI kind of folks who define the middle class down to such a degree that the category loses all recognition. And these are the people who try to insist that are car commuters are privileged by invidiously comparing them to mass transit users in the congestion taxing debate. The reality is that our car commuters are the ones most likely to, in Louis' words, "size up their buying power," and look around for less expensive places to live. The mayor's congestion fee is simply another tax-as New Yorkers in poll after poll scream out.

Which brings us to Louis' political point: we need to craft policy so that we can preserve this vital resource that our middle class represents. This means, as Errol points out, that the cries for "affordable housing" need to be tempered somewhat by the realization that the middle class is being squeezed by the housing crunch. Here's Louis' money quote:
"That means we have to end the zero-sum politics that pits the needs of the poor against those of the middle class. Look at any of the big development projects around the city that include affordable housing - Atlantic Yards, Queens West, conversion of the Domino sugar factory on the Brooklyn waterfront - and there's a fight about whether subsidizing middle-class families amounts to a wasteful "giveaway" of resources best reserved for the very poor."

The size and scope of municipal government needs to be squarely addressed, and the 2009 wannabees will have to do that if they want to make the step up on the governmental ladder. The mayor's wealth has dazzled our media watchdogs and has given him a Reagen-like Teflon status. Those who try to emulate him best beware.

ED Threatens Uniques Businesses at the Point

In today's NY Times the paper takes a look at some of the unique businesses located on the Willets Point site that the city has slated for an eminent domain-drive redevelopment. In some ways, the article creates an impression of a bunch of fly-by-night businesses whose disappearance would create few tears for anyone. Clearly, this is not an accurate picture of the level of economic activity-some of it quite unique-that goes on in this area.

As we have pointed out, and as Tom Angotti's study underscores, there are 225 different businesses at the Point employing around 2,000 workers. A high percentage of the firms are owned by immigrant entrepreneurs, and they in turn service the immigrant communities of Queens. In addition, the area has been pointedly neglected by the city government, to the extent that the businesses would be justified to sue for theft of services-given the fact that the "blight" that is clearly evident is directly attributable to the failure of the city to maintain the neighborhood.

What Willets Point represents, much as the Bronx Terminal Market did, is the vibrancy of minority entrepreneurs. It's too bad that the mayor, who so often praises the contribution of immigrants to New York, can't walk the walk when it comes to immigrant businesses. Instead, he is quick to give them the hook when he friends in the real estate community come salivating.

The fact remains that the displacement of all of these workers and businesses will not be compensated by the building of a retail mall, luxury housing and a hotel-all in an area where transportation infrastructure is weak (so much for congestion pricing). What's fascinating here is that the Bloombergistas want to ULURP the area before there is a developer selected, which if done, would mean that the City Council would be handing the mayor a carte blanche ticket to ride that would denude the body of its Charter-driven oversight role. It will be fascinating to see how this eminent domain battle will play out as the council term winds down.

Et Tu, Calvin?

Last night on NY1, the Reverend Calvin Butts took Columbia to task over its failure to reach out to the Abbysinian Development Corporation's leader on the issue of the university's expansion: "Columbia is moving in a way that is really alienating a lot of the community members who have been really interested in working with them to develop a good plan, particularly where affordable housing is concerned,” said Butts.

As we have pointed out, the third rail for this project is the affordable housing issue, and the university's lack of any revealed plan certainly makes it vulnerable to the attacks that have been coming from a wide range of community leaders. We have already made the overture to Columbia on the issue of swapping land owned by the area's largest property owner to the university in exchange for other space that could then be converted into affordable housing.

So far, the silence has been deafening, but there are elected leaders and other affordable housing advocates who are working behind the scenes to push the university in the right direction. Hopefully, the speak-out by the Reverand Butts will get the Columbia officials off of theirs.

Putting the Horse Before the A La Carte

In the aftermath of the judge's decision to throw out the city's menu labeling rule, the speculation is increasing that the battle may have only begun. As the NY Times' Ray Rivera wrote yesterday (and Rivera has a keen eye for the issue), "The restaurant industry seemed buoyed when a federal judge this week struck down a city health regulation that would have required nearly 2,400 New York City restaurants to post calorie information on their menus. But the ruling may backfire on the industry, leading to a broader range of restaurants’ being bound by a nearly identical menu-labeling requirement."

Which will only mean that the fight will continue to escalate, especially if the city widens its scope to include all 23,000 local eateries. Lost in the legal musings, however, is the philosophy behind the mayor's plan to make all of you eat your spinach. Clearly, Bloomberg believes that it is the role of government, in a paraphrase of Rousseau, to force you to be healthy. As he told the Times: “Anyone who thinks we’re going to walk away from trying to tell the public what they’re eating and what it’s doing to them doesn’t understand the obligation this city’s health department has,” Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said yesterday. “We have to tell people how to lead better lives.”

Which begs the question whether the Department of Health knows how best to do all of this education. Judging by the nature of the department's cockamamie menu rule it hasn't got a clue. After all, as the NY Daily News reported yesterday, most New Yorkers don't have any idea about the calories contained in what they're eating, and if pressed to explain the importance of this calorie information we believe the overall ignorance of this basic nutritional information would be breath taking. Put simply, the information does no good without the appropriate health education that would allow folks to make healthier choices.

And we haven't even gone into the fact that the DOH rule excludes any other kinds of health information being posted-information that many of the fast food chains already have on their web sites or in store brochures. Calorie counts, and calorie counts alone can be confusing and misleading, and this is on top of the fact that the city has no social science research that indicates that posting will lead to better eating habits.

On top of this, the rule itself is so bizarrely constructed that confusion will inevitably reign. As we have commented before, the fact that the chains, because of the multiplicity of offerings, will be forced to post a range of calories (Burritos-400 to 1500 calories), will make the information simply unusable. In addition, the department will not force eateries to post any condiment information which will add to the confusion when a customer chooses the grilled chicken salad-perhaps at 400 calories-only to add on dressing that effectively (and unknown to the eater) doubles the caloric intake.

Thee social experiment here is not without unintended consequences. It will cost the industry millions of dollars in compliance costs yet the DOH, unlike the FDA, never even bothered to do any cost benefit analysis that is required under federal regulations (something Judge Holwell seems to ignore in his questionable ruling). In our view, if the cost of compliance costs one kid an after school job then this whole experiment wasn't worth it. Every one's concerned with health, but the mayor doesn't seem to be concerned with the health of neighborhood business.

Checkbook Morality

The long awaited Bloomberg funded poverty policy was announced the other day, and if possible it looks even worse than we first thought-this is a disaster waiting to happen launched by a paternalistic mayor who hasn't a clue about the kind of impact his program will have, nor the message that it sends to millions of low income people who are already struggling to do the right things for their children.

This is what the Manhattan Institute's Heather McDonald nailed when she assailed the mayor's scheme: "The idea that the residents of Brooklyn and Central Harlem are engaged in a "struggle," as Bloomberg put it, against starvation and depredation is a fantasy. Many teens who will be enrolled in "Opportunity NYC" likely wear the latest sneakers and carry pagers and cell phones. Their problem is motivation, not the unforgiving demands of a subsistence economy."

It is this motivation matrix that the pay for play concept seeks to redress. In doing so, the mayor and his defenders like to make the comparison to the capitalist imperative that gets people to sacrifice in anticipation of monetary reward. They couldn't be further from the truth. In the Protestant Ethic-based capitalist calculus, motivation-the inculcation of a strong system of beliefs- precedes behavior. It deals with the sense of personal responsibility and is based on the support of the family. The financial payoffs come much later.

To think that the placement of a crude bounty on behavior will lead to some sort of transvaluation is mindboggling in its stupidity. What it will lead to is a cynical -and ever-escalating-gaming of a social welfare behemoth, the one that will inevitably have to be created to monitor all of this nonsense. Has anyone bothered to do a business projection of what this kind of sysyem will cost if it ever, heaven forbid, transfered over to the public dime?

Which brings us to plan that was unveiled on Wednesday. Already, in the comments of one lucky recipient, we can see the problems that will unfold: "I'm happy. I'm grateful," he declared, sounding somewhat amazed at his good fortune.
"To get paid to do things I'm doing anyway is a welcome feeling."

Why did this dad get chosen if he was already doing most of what the mayor's plan seeks to encourage? Will choosing the "high-end" recipient skew any efficacy study of the merits of this program? What about the parent whose doing nothing, or is too dysfunctional to really parent properly? Will we need to pay this kind of parent more, and will this be fair to those low-income moms and dads who are strenuously trying to make the daily efforts that all parents should be making?

This is all too much for us to contemplate, and indicates to us that the mayor has too much of his own money to burn. It also fails to address the single most important variable in the poverty equation-the rise of single parent homes. As Steve Malanga points out in the City Journal; "Of course, there’s another road out of poverty: waiting until marriage to have children. In the vast majority of out-of-wedlock births, if the fathers of the children had married the mothers, dad’s earnings would have kept the family out of the poorhouse. In New York, in fact, only 3.5 percent of married families in which the husband works full-time are poor."

Tackling this issue, however, will run the mayor afoul of the bien pensants of his clack of politically correct enablers-those not-so-poor folks who are also waiting expectantly for a small piece of the Bloomberg fortune. Don't expect these do-gooders to provide any real critique of what the mayor wants to eventually foist on the beleaguered tax payers of New York.

The real policy issue here is being obscured, and by doing so, the mayor is obscuring any chance that honest discussion and meaningful change will ever occur for the intransigent percentage of those folks who have not been reached by the dramatically successful welfare reforms of the past 15 years. Mike, keep your money.

Let's Eat!

In yesterday's NY Daily News, the paper's Errol Louis strongly urged Chancellor Klein to make sure that the city's school kids eat their free breakfast. This declaration comes on the heels of the FRAC report that found that NY schools came in second to last among all of the country's major cities. Louis also acknowledged the advocacy role of the NYC Coalition Against Hunger, the group that called attention to the report last month.

As we have also pointed out, the fact that city kids are not availing themselves of the free breakfast has health, educational and fiscal implications. As the Nutrition Consortium of New York State has pointed out, in commenting on its pilot breakfast programs in 20 upstate school districts, eating a good school breakfast has profound educational benefits. In addition, eating the right nutritionally sound breakfast can also have a significant effect on the city's growing obesity epidemic.

Which is why the Health Corps has teamed up with the Got Breakfast Foundation and is pushing, along with the hunger coalition, to get the schools to institute a pilot breakfast in the classroom program. At this writing it appears that the UFT will also be supportive of the effort, and meetings are scheduled with key school food personnel to discuss the potential of a pilot program.

The obesity epidemic must be challenged at all levels of public policy. As HC founder Dr. Mehmet Oz wrote in the Daily News last month: "Our country is facing an unprecedented health crisis, with obesity rates reaching epidemic proportions. This crisis is even worse in New York City, where, for example, the Bronx leads other boroughs in the prevalence of heart disease, diabetes and strokes - symptoms that can all be traced back to the growing legion of overweight New Yorkers."

So kudos to Errol Louis for recognizing this, and for also pointing out the city is losing hundreds of millions of federal dollars in the process: "Not only is this wasteful - the city is passing up an estimated $49 million a year in federal funds by not getting these eligible kids signed up - but it's educationally unsound. A hungry kid - or, worse, a kid eating candy or junk food for breakfast - can't sit and focus on learning." Let's hope this can all be changed for the better.

More Menu Revisions

Confusion continues to reign over Judge Holwell's decision to throw out the city's calorie regulation. No one seems sure, and the press reports are similarly unclear, whether the city can proceed to rewrite its rule in a way that limits its application to the smaller percentage of chain stores. Here's today's NY Daily News take:
"A Manhattan federal judge handed the city a supersized setback yesterday when he junked a rule forcing fast-food restaurants to post calorie contents on menus.
Judge Richard Holwell found the regulation violates federal law, which says eateries don't have to list calorie counts on the menu if they voluntarily post them someplace else - like the Internet. A Manhattan federal judge handed the city a supersized setback yesterday when he junked a rule forcing fast-food restaurants to post calorie contents on menus.
Judge Richard Holwell found the regulation violates federal law, which says eateries don't have to list calorie counts on the menu if they voluntarily post them someplace else - like the Internet."

Advocates of the measure feel that the city can proceed but it's clear that anything that it does would be subject to another legal challenge, a challenge whose results are uncertain. At this time, as the NY Times reports, "It was unclear whether the city would try to adopt a regulation that might satisfy the judge." The tricky issue here is that the judge felt that the city couldn't punish only those restaurants that voluntarily posted calorie information; The city, he ruled, could have required all restaurants or all chain restaurants to post the caloric contents of their dishes, but was not allowed to regulate how those that chose to do so voluntarily went about it because of the existing federal law.

So can the city make calorie posting mandatory for only chain stores? We can't say for sure. This should, however, be a signal for the DOH to sit down with the industry and craft a compromise. Given the animus down at Worth Street to fast food we don't think that this will happen,

Gridlock Sam Speaks the Truth

In today's NY Daily News, former transportation commissioner, and environmental consultant Sam Schwartz makes a dramatic Op-Ed statement on the causes and remedies for congestion in New York city. He persuasively points out how the recent taxi strike immediately made the congested streets much less so, and advises that the elimination of 1,00 medallion cabs would go along way towards making city streets more passable: "So, one way to reduce congestion is to reduce the number of taxis - permanently. I did the math when I was traffic commissioner and found that the optimum number of taxis was just under 12,000. We now have more than 13,000."

Schwartz goes on to suggest that the black cars and limos be restricted, and a tax of $100 be put on out-of-town trucks who use our streets to short cut their travels. In addition, the reinstating of two-way tolls on the Verrazano would also help in alleviating this problem. His money quote: "The third big troublemaker is the through truck, or trucks with neither origin nor destination in Manhattan's central business district. Our current pricing scheme - double tolls to go out via the Verrazano Bridge and no tolls to drive through downtown and midtown - encourages truckers to clog many key arteries inside the city. More than 10,000 trucks a day are doing this."

The former commissioner also goes after placard parking as an additional 8% contributor to the downtown congestion. Towards the end, almost as an afterthought, he supports congestion pricing-but with the following circumspect language: "The final piece of the puzzle is the most controversial: congestion pricing. We should proceed now. But we don't need to wage an all-or-nothing battle on congestion pricing to combat traffic. By targeting the four major culprit vehicles that are the root cause of most traffic, we can create a little breathing room on our streets."

So we begin to see that there are alternatives to the mayor's tax. We wonder, what kind of congestion reduction can we achieve with the Schwartz plan? We think that this approach, and we're certain that there are others, should be put to the test-as of course the mayor's plan should be as well-since there has been no independent review of any of this, only self-serving posturing by folks who believe that they speak ex cathedra.

Let's Take It to the Streets

Yesterday Liz blogs posts about the "blogwars" between the Streetsblog folks and the Alliance. As it turns out, however, the war is a lot less than meets the eye since our fellow bloggers-but not some of their over-heated commenters-really have nothing but kind words for us. As Aaron Naparstek said on their web site yesterday: "He is an entertaining writer, an experienced political player, and a skilled propagandist (in these quarters, that's a compliment). If Mayor Bloomberg's congestion relief efforts are ultimately shot down in Albany, Lipsky will deserve a fair share of the credit."

This fulsome praise does give us pause, and at the same time, gives us a chance to re-think some of the provocative prose we used to describe these folks. What was really concerning us was the way in which the earnestness of the mayor's chorus was being exploited. The last thing we'd like to see is the people with real environmental concerns strapped to the masthead on the good ship permanent government-precisely because we know that most of the congestion price advocates wouldn't hesitate to join us in our battles against the Relateds and Vronados of the world when they seek to litter the landscape with box stores. Yet, these are the real estate forces lining up with the mayor to save the environment.

So, I guess that the advice here is to be careful who you get into bed with, because when the permanent government is using you as an ally it might just not be all about-or even anything about-the saving of the environment. And Aaron, when we say be careful of biting the hand that feeds you, it is sound advice since the attack on Dinowitz can only come back to hurt your cause in the Assembly. We are, however, properly chastised and will move on to continue to battle the disingenuousness of much of the "pay for play" environmentalists who are so eager to suck at the teat of the mogul's millions after years of starving in the policy desert.

Valid Criticism of CU's Land Swap

In the ongoing dialogue between Nick Sprayregen and the community there has been a health exchange over the parameters of the proposed land swap. Many of the concerns raised are valid in their focus on the level of affordable housing that needs to come out of any negotiations with the university.

It seems to us that the key point here is that any agreement between CU and Nick that yields only (approx) 1,000 units of affordable housing is not sufficient to address the real needs of the community. This is especially true since the university's expansion is projected to directly and indirectly displace more than 5,000 residents.

Therefore, it makes sense for the community to treat the swap as simply a good start-not a dramatic breakthrough that absolves Columbia of all of its housing responsibilities. So we were probably way too expansive when we remarked that the swap would give the community the affordable housing that it "desperately needs." Better phrased would have been that the swap would be a good start toward giving the community the affordable housing that it deserves!

What's on the Menu?

In what is at first blush somewhat of a convoluted decision, Judge Richard J. Holwell tossed out the city's menu labeling regulation that would have required those fast food restaurants that currently provide nutritional information to their customers-and only those-to post calorie counts on their menus and menu boards. As the NY Times is reporting, Judge Holwell "banned the city from enacting the regulation, but only because federal law already covers some of the same provisions it sought to put in place."

What's curious, however, is the judge's reasoning here: "The judge made the somewhat strange point that the voluntary nature of the regulation was the reason he had tossed it out. The city, he ruled, could have required all restaurants (or, say, all chain restaurants) to post the caloric contents of their dishes, but was not allowed to regulate how those that chose to do so voluntarily went about it."

This doesn't make much sense to us, and seems to open the door to: (a) requiring calorie posting; and, (b) requiring the posting of the calories in a prescribed manner. How this would make the rule more legally palatable isn't really clear, and seems to be the narrowest of technicalities.

The AP story seems to imply a different take on all of this: "Howell said that conflicted with federal regulations because the rule wasn't mandatory for all restaurants. Federal regulations already advise restaurants how to post the information voluntarily." So can the city still narrowly apply its rule to only the chains, or will it have to place all 23,000 city eateries under the law's rubric? We don't really know.

The NY Sun's story adds to this confusion (through no fault of its own): "The ruling suggests that if the city required restaurants to disclose calorie counts in the first place, it could then regulate how the calorie information was displayed. The city is 'free to erect mandatory disclosure requirements,' the ruling said."

All of which elides the key contention made by the city-that the posting of calorie counts would aid in the fight against obesity. This is pure speculation since there is no empirical data that suggests that this outcome is likely. It all amounts to an expensive social science experiment that fails to understand how consumers are currently making their dining choices. Hopefully, we can devise a better way to combat the serious obesity crisis that threatens the health of so many New Yorkers.

A Limited Idea

In today's NY Sun, the paper reports on the rumored effort by a number of former council members to return to their old seats on that legislative body. This possibility was met with scorn from a number of folks who thinks that it would violate the spirit of the term limits law; "One of the reasons people twice voted for term limits was an expression of wanting new blood, new thoughts, new ideas," a founder of the group, People to Stop a Self Serving Council, Kenneth Moltner, said. "One would have hoped that the City Council would have heard the will of the voters and wouldn't try to go against that will."

With all due respect to Mr. Molter and his group, neither of which we've ever heard of, this is all a load of crap. New ideas indeed! What Molter fails to understand is that the basic structure of New York City government singularly favors the chief executive. Term limiting the council has the effect of eroding the necessary checks and balances on mayoral excess. A term limited member, with an eye on the next possible office, is less likely to want to challenge a chief executive who holds almost all of the budgetary purse strings.

This is especially true if a mayor is fairly popular-often the precise time when a check on mayoral power is most needed. Much of this is already visible under the current council leadership and, even if we admit the possibility that the Speaker's extraordinarily close relationship with Mayor Bloomberg is an anomaly, it doesn't take away from the fact that a two-term council-with an inevitable one term leadership-is no match for a mayor. The inevitable result is what we have seen-the erosion of the legislative prerogative and the aggrandizement of executive power.

The optimal solution here, from a simple good government perspective, is to minimally increase the council term limit to twelve years. This increase would give council members a greater stake in the integrity of their own institution, and give New Yorkers a needed counterweight to chief executives who have never been known for papal infallibility.

Bank Shot

The Times' City Room Blog posted a story about the proliferation of bank branches in so many areas of the city. This story should be read as a companion piece to the NY Sun article about the decline of mom and pop stores in the city-the subject of a hearing conducted by David Yasskey's Small Business Committee.

The bank explosion, and similar phenomenon with drug stores, is causing the disappearance of local small businesses-stores that provide vital services to their neighborhoods. In addition, the result of all this is a loss of diversity and vitality as all the city's neighborhoods begin to resemble each other as a result of this homogenization process. As one City Room commenter said: "I think it’s a blessing that in my neighborhood I am no more than 100 steps from an ATM. Not to mention only 100 steps from a place to buy dental floss. OK, so I can’t buy a good piece of fruit without several blocks, and one of the best pizza places in the city (in my neighborhood) is under dire threat, etc. But who needs fruit or a Mom and Pop pizza joint when you have such great access to cash and floss?"

Another really big concern here is the loss of neighborhood supermarkets, driven out by the rents that the banks, drug stores and national chains can afford to lay out. As an another City Roomer remarked: "Supermarkets around Manhattan are forced to close as their leases expire. They cannot pay the levels of rent that bank branches pay. The New York Times actually ran a story about the dwindling number of grocery stores in the city. Now we can understand the reason."

All of this was the focus of the Yassky hearing (Gale Brewer was a co-chair). At the hearing Rob Walsh, commissioner of Small Business Services, expressed sympathy with the law makers concerns but told the hearing that there weren't many easy solutions. Walsh might want to think outside of his boss' narrow big business perspective and examine how the use of overall tax reductions, leavened with some creative zoning ideas, could stem the exodus of one of the features that make this city so interesting.

Bollinger and Free Speech

The Sun is reporting today on a "free speech" panel, hosted by Columbia University, that will include the anti-Israel academic John Mearsheimer. Mearsheimer has written on what he perceives is the power of the "Israel Lobby" to push American foreign policy in a direction that harms this country's national interest. He has written nothing, of course, on the hundreds of millions of petro dollars that have been used to support pro-Arab positions, nor has he opined at all on the Saudi funding of extreme Islamic madrases in this country and around the world.

What we always find fascinating in all of this is how universities like Columbia are always doing free speech back flips when the speakers have an anti-American or ant-Israeli message. Heaven forbid that they would take the same position if the speaker's were conservative or took strong nationalistic positions.

We saw this clearly when the Minutemen tried, but failed, to exercise their free speech rights at a Columbia forum last year. As we said at the time, rights and obligations only seem to flow one way up a Morningside Heights, and the first amendment concerns of President Bollinger are clearly selective-he barely manged a slap on the wrist to the fascists that disrupted the Minutemen event.

Yet when it comes to an anti-Semite like Mearsheimer, Bollinger becomes Sir Galahad: "The president of Columbia University, Lee Bollinger, defended the university's decision to host Mr. Mearsheimer on the panel. "This clearly falls within the core principle of academic freedom," Mr. Bollinger said in a statement. "One would hope that those committed to a robust First Amendment would see the vital importance of ensuring that our universities are places where free speech can be exercised, as well as taught."

Quite the Captain Courageous, our friend Bollinger. Without double standards Lee wouldn't have any standards at all.

Dinowitz: Kiss My ReButtal

In our just posted rebuttal of the Streetsblog attack on Assemblyman Jeff Dinowitz, upbraided for his failure to uphold "progressive" values, we described these kinds of critics-and we'll add the Transportation Alternatives folks into the mix-as "useful idiots." Useful because they are being used as a poignant choir for, not only the mayor's own political ambitions, but also for the commercial interests of the real estate permanent government. Idiots, because they are persistent in making broad and unsupportable statements about the overall impact and efficacy of the mayor's congestion tax scheme.

As it turns out, Dinowitz is quite effective in defending his own position, as he does in his rebuttal in the New York Press. The assemblyman is particularly incisive in underscoring just how the mayor and his dimwitted amen choir were so willing to cut off any debate on the congestion tax: "We only got this commission thanks to Speaker Silver and the Assembly majority, but if supporters had their way debate would have been cut off on July 16 without a single hearing or town hall meeting being held by the city."

Dinowitz goes on to point out that the advocates are creating a false dichotomy between the folks who drive to work and those who take mass transit. He cogently highlights the fact that, although only 5% of Bronxites drive, the mayor's plan is overwhelming rejected by borough residents in poll after poll. As he tells his critic: "Since, according to Mr. Naparstek, only 5.2% of my constituents actually drive into Manhattan, it must mean that most people who take mass transit in the Bronx also oppose congestion pricing. Could it be that they don’t have faith that the MTA will actually deliver on mass transit improvements? Is it possible they don’t really believe that the plan is fair? Maybe they just think that a lot more work needs to be done to improve the plan."

As we have said, the critics are not doing their cause much good. Over the top statements and personal invective, so characteristic of some denizens of the netroots, will only make the legislature that much more skeptical of a plan that they think needs a great deal more thought. This biting the hand that feeds you approach, which we can only hope will continue into total self-immolation, is not a very smart lobbying strategy.

Street Sleepers

It appears that the Dinowitz Op-Ed piece that we commented on, has caused quite a stir with the street corner ideologues. The Streetsblog, apparently dedicated it appears to returning New York back to the 19th century, takes strong issue with Dinowitz, and does so with the invidious mention of the fact that, by opposing the congestion tax, he's doing so "on behalf of 5.2% of his constituents."

What we have here is a phony zero-sum characterization of the policy dispute, one that pits the bad (read rich and white) car commuters against the good (less affluent) transit riders. All of this Dinowitz trashing is done with a level of self-righteousness that will not do the supporters of the mayor's scheme much good in Albany. In fact, we'd almost believe it if we were told that Lipsky and McCaffrey were orchestrating the campaign-so counterproductive is the level of vitriol.

The reality is that you can oppose the mayor's tax for many good reasons-the primary one being that it is an expensive method to not achieve certain environmental goals. That all of the enviros are willing to swallow whole the rationales of the Bloombergistas would be laughable, if it weren't so sad. Folks, you're being used as cannon fodder for two special interests here: the promotion of the mayor's quixotic national run on the one hand, and the cultivation of real estate greed on the other. All of those phony developers putting out lachrymose crap about asthma are interested in development rights on the far west side and other lucrative venues. They should be running those ads with knee pads.

So we disagree with the Streetsbloggers, and caution them about Lenin's observation about "useful idiots." This plan of the mayor's is far from the "most realistic opportunity for traffic reduction and increased transit funding in decades." It is, however, a great way for the Parsons Brinckerhoff's of the world to get even richer than they are; all at the expense of those disparaged middle class commuters.

And as for the folks at something called the Albany Project who also attack Dinowitz for not being sufficiently "progressive," we wonder who they'd replace the Dinowitzes, Jaffees and Brodskys with? Chris Quinn and her loyal council brigade?

More Skepticism On Congestion Tax

In this week's Riverdale Press (with a heads up from Liz), Assemblyman Jeff Dinowitz writes about how he feels about the mayor's proposed congestion tax. His reaction? "I applaud the mayor for attempting to take bold steps to improve the environment, but I deplore the efforts by proponents to steamroll a plan that may have a good intent but has many problems which must be overcome. While I am very open to taking major steps to reduce traffic in Manhattan and throughout the city and am not totally closed to a different form of congestion pricing, if I had to vote on this plan today as presented I would vote "no."

Dinowitz describes his initial positive response to the mayor's plan, but goes on to say that the more he looked at the details, and the more the mayor and his minions refused to answer some important questions, the more skeptical he became. He is particularly troubled by the way the mayor tried to bum rush this radical remake of the city's traffic: "I have been very troubled by the efforts of the mayor and supporters of congestion pricing to ram it through with as little discussion as possible. Something which involves such an important change in the way New York operates should have been brought up much earlier than nine or 10 weeks before the end of the legislative session."

He goes on to question the asthma argument and the expensive ad campaign that accompanied it. Dinowitz fails to see just how CBD traffic reduction will ameliorate congestion in those neighborhoods where asthma is a serious health threat. In addition, he envisions his neighborhood being turned into a Park-and-Ride by commuters looking to hop mass transit-and avoid the tax- on their way in from the suburbs.

Finally, Dinowitz ridicules the make-up of the congestion commission and, much like Councilman Fidler, sees the stacked deck as not very conducive to a fair disposition of the efficacy of the mayor's plan: "Unfortunately, the commission, whose members are appointed by the mayor, governor, council speaker and the four state legislative leaders, appears stacked in favor of one side of the argument, putting into question its ability to be fair. The 17 members consist mostly of Manhattan residents and, it appears, no residents of the Bronx or Staten Island."

Which is exactly what we have been saying all along. If the mayor and his supporters felt that stacking the commission made any political sense, well, I've got a West Side Stadium that I'd love to sell them. All they have really manged to do here is to alienate the most important constituents: the legislators who will deliberate and vote on the congestion tax.

Bloomberg and the Poor

The DMI has a post on the mayor's new poverty policy initiative, and Maureen Lane describes some of what the mayor's trying to do without really evaluating either the philosophical underpinnings of the program, or the practical implications-something that we have done at length elsewhere. Lane's focus, however, is on the overall welfare situation, and she feels that the current stipend is too small, while the work requirement of 35 hours a week is too onerous.

Perhaps it is, but we remain somewhat skeptical, especially when Lane's lachrymose prose describes the arduousness of single moms who are working and going to school. "Where are the fathers," one is tempted to ask, but of course such questions are left unsaid by most for fear of being labeled callous or politically incorrect. It has always been hard for people to go to school and work at the same time, and to do so with young children is indeed hard.

Is is useful public policy, however, to increase the subsidies for these folks? Will this encourage others to behave in ways that has led to the difficulties these people find themselves in? If the current allocation is "shamefully inadequate," than what is adequate, and will this lead to a slippery slope of greater dependency among more people?

These are not silly questions. Let's not forget that so many of the folks that are most vocal about "inadequacy"-and we have no idea if Lane is one of them-were the same people who excoriated Clinton and Giuliani for their efforts to reduce welfare dependency. Let's also not forget that the mothers Lane talks about are also the victims of some of the terrible choices that they made, and that these choices also have consequences. The goal of public policy should be to strike the proper balance between compassion for the struggle and concern for the perpetuation of dependency.

After all, someone has to pay the bills for all of this, and there are hard working middle class New Yorkers who have to get up at 5 o'clock, juggle the kids and work, while making sure that they get all of their bills paid. Their concerns, and the taxes that they pay, need to be part of this discussion. We need to be sure that the policies we support are the best ones for insuring that the, "aid people receiving welfare {will enable them} to get family sustaining jobs" (and not just sustain the bureaucrats in their oversight roles).

No ExSpectorating CU Land Swap

In a follow-up to the post done by the Observer's Matthew Scheurman, the Columbia Spectator has written a more comprehensive story on the proposal by Nick Sprayregen to swap properties with the university in order to build affordable housing. As the paper reports; "For the past three to four months, Sprayregen and his 'advisers,' as he referred to his architects, his lawyer Norman Siegel, and other professionals he is working with, have been creating a new proposal that, while a second choice to holding on to his current property, would give Sprayregen more space and allow Columbia to build a contiguous campus."

While Sprayregen told the Spectator that he feels the almost unanimous opposition to the Columbia plan makes his fight against the use of eminent domain that much more winnable, he's willing to compromise if it means that the community can come out ahead; "As part of Sprayregen's plan, he would build about 1,000 units of housing. A percentage of the units would meet West Harlem residents' standards of affordability, but he does not know exactly how much."

The level of affordability is something that needs to be worked out with the university and the area's elected officials. However, given Columbia's stated desire to help spur affordable housing for West Harlem it isn't a stretch to envision that the university could, through the creation of a housing trust fund- if it really wants to be a major stakeholder in keeping the neighborhood truly diverse- insure the affordability of the great majority of the 1,000 units.

To its credit Columbia, while not commenting on the specifics of the Sprayregen concept, has been responsive to the public appeal of the swap, saying that it was open to negotiation. As university spokeswoman Laverna Fountain told the Spectator; "'We absolutely would talk to him, no questions asked.'"

In the coming weeks, we believe that the Sprayregen Swap will begin to gain more and more adherents, in the community as well as among elected officials and housing advocates. It will because it makes so much sense; and especially if it ends up with the neighborhood getting the affordable housing that the community desparately needs, and the current Columbia expansion plan lacks.

Mom and Popped

As the NY Sun is reporting today, the City Council's Small Business Committee will hold a hearing to explore the possibility of providing tax breaks for small local retailers in an effort to preserve the diversity of neighborhood shopping. The council action is in response to the proliferation of national chain stores-the West Side is particularly overrun-in neighborhoods that are losing their distinct local flavor as a result.

We are totally sympathetic with the effort, no one has been more out front in the defense of neighborhood stores than we have over the past twenty five years; at the same time that we realize how difficult it is to craft any legislative response to this homogenization process. We do know, however, that this administration would be the last one we'd expect to have any real concern about this process: there has never been a bigger cheer leader for the national-Wall Street financed-chains than the mayor, someone who grew up in Medford and has no empathy for neighborhoods.

That is why the comments of "small business commissioner" Walsh don't surprise us at all. As the Sun reports: "The city's small-business commissioner, Robert Walsh, who is scheduled to testify at a council hearing today on small businesses, said he is concerned that during a strong economic period, people "are frowning upon, if you will, many of the nationally recognized businesses."

Clearly, this is someone who not only doesn't get it, it is someone whose comments indicate that it is time for a change at the top of the agency that he so poorly represents. Let's not forget, Walsh is the same guy who defended Ikea against the efforts of the Fifth Avenue BID to stop the giant retailer's push into Sunset Park; and Walsh, as the commissioner ostensibly in charge of the city's public markets, sat mutely by while 23 small distributors were evicted from the Bronx Terminal Market.

New York City neighborhood need retail diversity, it's what makes the city vibrant and unique. This is something that the Municipal Arts Society has recognized, as its current tribute to Jane Jacobs underscores. MAS executive director Vanessa Gruen makes the point well: "We are losing much of what makes New York so special," she said. "There are so many neighborhoods that are losing their neighborhood services. Banks are moving in. Duane Reades are moving in. It is going too far." And she goes on to point out; "" Jane Jacobs was all about neighborhoods. Not only preserving your neighborhood, but enjoying your neighborhood," Ms. Gruen said. "We are trying to get ordinary New Yorkers to become active in what happens to their city."

Clearly, what we need is a policy that recognizes the importance of diversity, but at the same time, one that is sensitive to the need to not enact well-meaning regulations that unwittingly dampen entrepreneurism. Our friend Steve Malanga is right about what the council should, in general, be doing: "Their goal should be to lower property taxes for all businesses in the city," he said, adding that the proposal to create targeted property tax cuts for neighborhood retailers is "a very narrow approach to a very large problem." Malanga's right, although we'd add the amelioration of the regulatory burden to his prescription.

At the same time, however, and perhaps zoning is one approach, we need to try to preserve the affordability of neighborhoods so independent retail activity can be preserved. This is especially important because some vital retail services-such as supermarkets-are disappearing from many neighborhoods of the city. Maybe health concerns will stimulate the mayor and his minions to have some needed rachmones for neighborhood stores?

"It Ain't Easy Being Green"

In today's NY Sun the paper reports on a conference at the New School that is looking to develop ways to get produce from the state's family farms to the urban tables in NYC. As the paper says; "At a forum scheduled to be held today at the New School, local and state elected officials and family farm supporters will discuss ways bolster farmers and ensure their products make their way to New York City markets."

The idea, one of the key initiatives launched by Speaker Quinn, is to promote healthier eating in communities that are experiencing the worst of the city's epidemic of obesity. As she told the Sun: "Some neighborhoods simply don't have the resources at their disposal to maintain a healthy lifestyle," Ms. Quinn said. "When we increase access to green markets, we not only provide another outlet for family farms to sell their product, we also get locally grown produce on the tables of the people that need them the most."

While we see this approach as well meaning, we believe that it is based on a fundamental misconception. It isn't that inner city families lack the resources, after all, the farmer's markets aren't giving away their produce, are they? It's that there is a lack of awareness about healthy diets and living that dampens the demand for the produce the Speaker rightfully wants these folks to eat.

If the demand was there, the local stores-the supermarkets, and even the bodegas-would be stocking their shelves with as much fresh fruit and vegetables as the neighborhoods could want. In the absence of this awareness and concomitant demand, the injection of greenmarkets into some of these areas will hurt local stores something, as mayoral hopeful John Catsimatidis points out, that is not in the interest of local economies. Here's how the Sun puts it: "Supermarket mogul John Catsimatidis, who is planning to run for mayor, said his grocery store chain, Gristedes, likes to support local farmers whenever possible, but added that it's not in the city's interest to focus on farming.

The right approach in our view is to encourage a partnership between farmers and store owners, with the city acting as a catalyst for increasing awareness and demand. This is the essence of what the "Healthy Bodega" initiative seeks to do; and is what the Health Corps also wants to accomplish as part of a collaborative effort to address the city's serious health crisis. This is the kind of collaboration that, if properly done, will spur local economic development while at the same time increasing healthier eating.

Swapping Unilateralism

The Columbia expansion proposal has been attacked mercilesssly by the community of West Harlem. One of the biggest criticisms has been that the university has no concrete plans for building of any affordable housing in a community that not only desparately needs it, but is also afraid that it will be swept aside by the gentrification that the CU expansion is bound to generate. Into this "our way or the highway" approach comes Nick Sprayregen, a local property owner who we have been advising since the first of the year.

As the Observer Real Estate Blog reports, and as Errol Lous had mentioned last week in passing, Sprayregen is willing to swap the bulk of his holdings west of Broadway for properties that Columbia owns on the east side, with the idea of using the east side properties to build 1,000 units of mostly affordable housing. Now, keep in mind that the main interest of the university is to have a continguous campus footprint, something that the proposed swap would allow to happen-especially if Nick can persuade the other property owners to join with him in his bold proposal. It would appear, then, that this innovative idea could, if people of good will can come together, be the "win, win, win," situation that Sprayregen sees it as.

In addition, the Sprayregen proposal also has the potential to remove the legally contentious-and to the university time consuming-issue of eminent domain from the table, another aspect of the Columbia plan that has roiled community opposition. It would seem to be in the university's interest to find a way to reach out to Nick on this, especially since it has been publicly proclaiming its willingness to engage its opponents.

The swap idea also has the potential to address the concerns that are encompassed in the zoning proposal advanced by Manhattan BP Stringer. The BP is worried, as he should be, that the university's billion dollars worth of expansion will create an inexorable wave that will sweep out many of the area's long time residents.

As we have argued, however, the way to mitigate the CU wave is to have the university invest in affordable housing as part of its main re-zoning plan-something that all major developers have been asked to do by a city that has made affordable housing a key policy goal. This is something that the university says it is coming around to doing.

If Columbia is sincere then there is much that can be accomplished here. In particular, Sprayregen's swap concept provides an actual venue where housing could be built. It is an area that already has similar sized residential units all along the Broadway corridor. With the aid of a Columbia housing trust all 1,000 units of proposed housing could be made affordable-and the community would score a big win at the same time that Sprayregen gets to maintain his property rights.

It's time for Columbia, and its allies among area elected officials, to step up and put their money where their mouth is. There are 18 acres eyed by the university's expansion; the Sprayregen proposal would target only 5% of this devlopment footprint. If CU can't see the benefit, than someone with the necessary clout needs to step forward and let them know that the time to sit down is now.

Congested Bronx, No Thonx

In today's Bronx edition of the NY Daily News, the intrepid Bob Kapstadter questions why there is no Bronx rep on the recently created congestion commission. "Kappy" also points out that, "The Bronx faces a flood of drivers from the northern 'burbs parking on asthma-choked South Bronx streets, then hopping on a $2 subway ride into central Manhattan instead."

He also refers to the fact that Bronx BP Carrion has stated that any congestion tax scheme, "'must address the parking and traffic concerns expressed by outer boroughs residents.' Stay tuned. Stay tuned indeed.

Bike to the Future?

In today's NY Times there is a featured article on the city's new policy initiative to promote cycling as an alternative to automobiles. As the paper reports: "The Bloomberg administration says it wants to develop cycling as a viable transportation alternative to ease traffic congestion, reduce carbon emissions and encourage physical activity. But the new attention to cycling has also encountered resistance in some neighborhoods, especially when it threatens to remove traffic lanes for cars and trucks."

So we now have the Luddites at Transportation Alternatives being elevated to the ranks of policy gurus by our besotted leaders? Or maybe its the disruptive bikers from Critical Mass who will be given seats at the table.

All of which is punctuated by the picture of our bike-riding transportation commissioner, another feature in the elitist attempt to stick a knife in the heart of the tax paying citizens of this city; good folks who are already finding it impossible to park or drive their cars as the real estate barons continue to congest the streets with the spillover from their building boom.

Malcolm in the Middle

In today's Daily Politics Blog, Liz reports on the frosty exchange between Senate Minority leader Malcolm Smith and Mayor Mike. The coolness derives from the fallout over the mayor's disastrous Albany sojourn during the denouement of the congestion tax debate. In his typical regal fashion, the mayor expected that the subjects would bow, scrape, and eventually do his bidding. When it didn't happen, he got, well, royally peeved.

What this means for the upcoming debate is hard to predict. We'd venture to say, however, that whatever does transpire will not be as a result of all of the goodwill the mayor has managed to cultivate. As one of Liz's commentators pointed out, the care and feeding of the legislature is not something that Bloomberg has been given much attention to, since the city's own legislative body has been supine when it comes to challenging his agenda.

Fare Hikes and a Congestion Tax

We have been arguing that the issue of a fare hike and the mayor's proposed congestion tax. need to be seen as part of one policy puzzle-and the NY Daily News agrees. In yesterday's editorial the paper argued that a fare hike should be put off until a commitment is made by state leaders that would address the waste in the agency and the need to infuse the MTA with "major boosts in transit aid."

Our agreement, however, stops there since the paper continues to make the mayor's congestion tax an essential feature of transit planning going forward. At least this time the News says that any congestion tax money collected should, with an "ironclad guarantee...be dedicated to building and repairing the system, not used to cover standard operating expenses."

We're no going to get into the fact that "ironclad guarantee" is somewhat of an oxymoron when talking about New York State politics, but we will say that, given the size of the capital budget deficit, the use of any congestion tax revenue is a grossly ineffective method for funding the system's glaring infrastructure needs. Not only does the projected tax money woefully fall short, the complex management necessary to make the whole experiment function eats away a hugely unnecessary chunk of the revenue. There are easier and fairer methods for funding the state's transit needs.

The imposition of a congestion tax, especially one that targets the NYC middle class commuter, is just another economic burden on top of a mountain of such levies that combine, as the NY Sun reported yesterday, to give the city a "C" rating from the Business Council of New York State. With both the city and the state growing at a slower rate than the rest of the country, we simply don't need another tax, especially one that funds a dysfunctional and wasteful transit agency.

Save Us From Ourselves

Sunday's political column by Dave Seifman in the NY Post, provided a great deal of unintended humor. It appears that some council folks are upset by the recently passed campaign finance "reform" bill, and are urging lobbyists to sue to have it overturned:

"SOME City Council members who voted for a landmark bill that limits campaign contributions by lobbyists are privately urging the lobbyists to file a lawsuit to overturn the legislation.
"They're telling us we should sue," confided one well-known lobbyist. "They don't really want this."


What a joke! We have already commented on just how much we think this so-called reform is actually a step backwards, that is if you are really a true believer in this kind of legislation. The step back, of course, is contained in the bill's exemption of labor-already the preeminent power player in the local political matrix.

But to call on lobbyists to sue to overturn the law is the height of pusillanimity: "One council member - who spoke on condition of anonymity - told The Post that he's been privately advocating that the law be overturned even though he voted for it." Too late. If you can stand up for your own self-interest when it counts, don't advocate others to do your bidding for you-and do so without the gumption to be quoted for attribution.

The Real Middle Class

In Sunday's NY Times, there is a fascinating look at NYC's middle class. The initial focus is on a family from Whitestone, and the portrait painted by Joel Kotlin should be seen by all of those ideologues who, in their eagerness to promote the mayor's tax on commuters, bowdlerize the concept of middle class into an unrecognizable caricature.

The reality is that, for NYC, middle class means the neighborhood and the interconnections of church, social clubs, the little league, and the local shopping area. These Whitestone folks, just like their counterparts in Bayside, Pelham Bay, Laurelton, Throggs Neck, Mill Basin and Tottenville, are often working two jobs and they make up the bulk of those city residents who drive into the city to work (the only 5%).

These folks quite often drive because the transportation infrastructure isn't there for them, or because they need to be able to use their cars to commute to a second job outside of the CBD. They are, however, the bedrock constituency that New York needs to counterbalance the growing polarization between rich and poor that is coming to characterize this city.

And, as Kotlin underscores, many of these solid folks are leaving town: "From 2004 to 2006, New York experienced a net exodus of 330,000 people. Many were blue-collar workers, but there was also a net loss of salesmen, middle managers, technicians, engineers and other members of the middle class, heading to places like Florida, North Carolina and the expanding outer exurbs in the metropolitan area. For all that, Whitestone continues to be a place where families come, settle and stay, sometimes two or three generations living under one roof."

The major reason for the exodus is the cost of housing, a cost that was exacerbated by the anti-middle class property tax hikes by the mayor in 2002. But it is also the overall tax burden that militates against keeping the bulk of these people in the city. By itself, the mayor's $2,000 a year commuter tax might not seem to be all that much, but as with everything else, we ned to put it into the right context.

In this case, it is the fact that NYC remains at the top of most lists when it comes to the overall municipal tax burden on residents. Elitists like the mayor simply don't get it-Whitestone may just as well be Istanbul as far as the Manhattan-oriented intelligentsia is concerned. And for those like the tax-till-you-drop folks at the DMI, well, these outer borough people are seen as no-nothing inhabitants of Dumfu*kistan.

We have a feeling that it will be these middle class folks, a diverse and increasingly vocal group, who will be the deciding factor in the next election cycle. All of those current elected officials who are looking to move up should be cautious about trying to mimic the mayor. What he's been able to get away with, will become an albatross for the imitators; and the electoral chorus will be singing: "Send in the clowns."

Those Myriad Benefits

Last week we were discussing the dispute over the accuracy of the polling data on the mayor's congestion taxing plan. We were particularly peeved when Azi at the Politicker argued that, when a poll described the "myriad benefits" of the mayor's proposal, it elicited a more favorable response from the respondents. Our dispute over this issue was related to the way in which a push poll can be used to influence a poll's result.

On Friday Liz at the Daily Politics Blog posted a range of reactions to the Q-Poll results, with those folks in favor of the plan returning to the theme that, once New Yorkers were able to discern the benefits of the scheme-"reduced traffic, better mass transit and cleaner air"-they would undoubtedly be more supportive. If it were only that idyllic.

What has been missing is an honest discussion of the issue of MTA governance, and how a congestion tax will be implemented in the context of an already dysfunctional oversight structure. If, for instance, the system is already deeply in debt, with a capital budget seriously in arrears, how will a congestion tax function as a real remedy?-especially since so much of the proceeds are eaten away by the management of the pricing system (all hail Parson Brinckerhoff!).

In addition, with existing tolls defraying a large percentage of the cost for many commuters, will the $8 fee really generate sufficient funds to really make a difference to the system? The more likely scenario is that this variable is already being accounted for by planners eager to really sock it to commuters with a $16 or $20 tax to enter the CBD. Because if $8 isn't enough to generate funds, it's also insufficient to deter motorists. In any case, as we have stated before, this entire proposal desperately needs a forensic accountant.

Which is something that Staten Island State Senato Diane Savino grasps inuitively. She's not buying the "myriad benefit" pitch. As the SI Advance reported last week, "In keeping with a common sentiment that the Island is neglected, particularly insofar as transit projects are concerned, Ms. Savino believes the potential revenue would fund pet projects in Manhattan and not benefit her constituents.

All of which, when combined with the fact that the commission is stacked with "homers," leaves opponents both skeptical and angry; concerned with a plan, packaged as a magic elixir, that will hit their homeowner constituents hard without providing any where near the "myriad of benefits" that the acolytes allege. We leave the last word for Councilman Lew Fidler (as cited by Liz): "This appointed panel, which by the way does not include anyone from the Bronx or Staten Island, is rigged from the beginning," Fidler said. "Its appointees have overwhelmingly taken a public position on this issue which is inconsistent with the public’s position." And, as he told City Hall, "There may be great minds on the commission, but I doubt there's an open one."