You Dirty Rat!

The more that we continue to here about the problems of rat infestation the more that it becomes clear that we need to really attack the food sources that the rodents feed on. In yesterday's NY Post there is a story about how Yum Brands, the owner of Taco Bell and KFC, is bringing one of the country's leading rat experts into NYC to help the chain combat the rat.

The expert, Dr. Bobby Corrigan, told the Post that the rat problem was "pervasive" in many American cities, "'And if someone leaves a door open, displaced rodents will follow their nose to the food.' But he said filth and leftover trash-particularly leftover food-is what lures rodents to the restaurants on a daily basis."

In the meantime, the city's DOH, having been found asleep on the job, is overreacting and coming down on the restaurants like the proverbial ton of bricks; issuing thousands of violations in an effort to appear to be proactive. All of which leaves the city's eateries, the $20 million yearly cash cow for the municipal treasury, in an even more precarious financial position.

Rats are a persistent urban problem. The storage of food waste exacerbates the problem in NYC and the city has been slow to attack the problem at the source. It began when the Sanitation Department forbid the storage of food in outdoor dumpsters. We were at the hearing where Commissioner Doherty told the City Council of the public health menace emanating from these outdoor trash storage bins. We were incredulous at the commissioner's failure to realize, however, that moving the problem indoors, where food is stored and prepared, would not eliminate the problem but only make it worse.

Shutting down the city's restaurants in a media-driven panic is not any kind of solution. We need to provide the eateries with a tool that will help them control the rat infestation in a sensible and cost-effective manner. That is why the mayor and the council should immediately negotiate a new agreement that allows for the implementation of Intro 133.

The use of food waste disposers would reduce the rat's food supply and help to dramatically mitigate a major public health menace. That it would also help local food stores and restaurants to reduce the cost of disposal, while lowering the number of garbage trucks on the city streets, is simply an added bonus of a sensible public policy.

Ratting Out Frieden

The exposure of the DOH's non-feasance when it comes to addressing the rat/health issues in the city's restaurants continues. Yesterday in Newsday Justin Silverman pointed out, citing Chuck Hunt of the NYSRA, that "with the millions of dollars the city collects in fines from restaurants, it should hire more health inspectors." In the Wonkster, Gail Robinson avers and even gives some unusual props to the NY Post's editorial excoriating Dr. Frieden for being "asleep at the switch."

There, however, are some better alternatives that would also be useful in addressing this issue. As we have been tirelessly pointing out for the past three years, the use of food waste disposers at the city's eateries would go a long way towards addressing the rodent epidemic, precisely because it goes right after the food supply that nourishes the pests. This is especially true since the Sanitation Department regulations prohibit the storage of garbage in outdoor dumpsters (because of health issues). The city of Philadelphia, on the other hand, will not issue a dumpster permit unless a business has installed a disposer.

Apparently no one in this city is bright enough to figure out that the storage of this garbage where food is prepared and sold is not a good public health policy. It would be a good time now to reintroduce the bill, Intro 133, that propose to initiate a pilot program for commercial food waste disposers.

The deal that the council and the mayor struck on doing a study to determine whether a pilot program should be launched for disposers is the worst kind of scam. It is so because it not only puts off any decision for almost three years, but it leaves the decision in the hands of folks at the DEP that have stated publicly that they don't think even a pilot is a good idea. The agency's obscurantism is incomprehensible, and hints at a larger malfeasance that seems to be pervasive in an agency that has stuck it to homeowners with fraudulent water bills for years.

Schooling the Mayor

In today's NY Sun the paper's Andrew Wolf continues to highlight the deficiencies of the mayor's control of the school system. In fact, so egregious are the mayor's errors, and those of "Top-Down" Klein the chancellor, that Wolf believes that they may prove to be the death knell for continued mayoral control of the schools.

Which would be a shame, because we believe that it is important to have political control and accountability in education-and a return to the past would conceivably be worse even than the mess that Bloomberg has made in running the system. We're not terribly surprised by all of this because we have commented in the past on the complete lack of policy expertise that Bloomberg brought to the mandate for mayoral control.

What this means is that the next mayor needs to lay out a clear picture of how he/she would attack the educational malaise that Bloombergistas have wrought; and how one can creatively meld mayoral control with parental input to make the system function more effectively. Clearly, however, simply being a "good manager" without any concomitant educational vision is a recipe for disaster. Mike Bloomberg has proven this.

Rats in Their Belfrey

There's more on the calorie posting controversy in this morning's NY Post editorial on the obsessions of the Department of Health. As the paper opines on the crusading commissioner, "While he's been hard at work redefinig what constitutes 'public health,'-think Nanny State on steroids-the city's rat detectives have been asleep at the switch." The editorial doesn't directly attack the Department of Health's calorie posting rule, but focuses on its obsessive concern with everything but, apparently, its core mission in New York City.

You see, while Don Quixote de la Frieden is attacking secondhand smoke and trans fat, and examining the intimate health details of the city's citizens, his department has failed abysmally in its core inspection function. So much so that we have become the butt of the late night comedians because of the rat carnival in, yes, a fast food outlet.

As the Post points out the DOH, having failed to notice a herd of rats at the Taco Bell in the Village, proceeded to go on an inspection rampage, targeting hundreds of local eateries with scores of violations. This is from an agency that has already collected over $20 million this year in fines. The point is obvious, and is underscored by the rat failure: the inspections have more to do with revenue generation than the protection of citizen health.

The Post's observations here hit the mark: "Of course, none of this would have been necessary had Frieden been in charge from the get-go. Instead he was busy unveiling New York City-brand condoms, lecturing new mothers on breast feeding and warning of the dangers of secondhand smoke to pets. Meanwhile the rats were running wild. Back to basics, Dr. Frieden."

Unhealthy Policy Protest

The furor over the Board of Health's requirement that fast food restaurants post calorie information was stepped up another notch when two chains pulled some of their nutritional information off of their web sites or from their food outlets. As the NY Times reports this morning, at least another six chains may have followed suit, but the paper hesitated to name them because spokesman couldn't be reached.

As we have already remarked this action was predictable since the Board's rule will have some serious business impacts on the fast food industry, impacts that the Board had no interest in exploring when it decided to implement the calorie rule. That being said, it is also important to point out that most of the major chains did not take this same kind of drastic measure even though they might have been tempted to send a message to the meddlesome Department of Health that it has no business, or competency, legislating.

What is especially perverse is the response of Commissioner Frieden to the chains' actions. He wondered whether the restaurants who resisted were "ashamed" of posting. The perversity here is that, Wendy's at least, is still posting extensive nutritional information at store level and is clearly willing to continue to provide all kinds of information to its customers; just not in the rigid and unhelpful way that the Board has required. As Chairman Rivera, the sponsor of the more reasonable alternative, points out, "We should be working with the industry that's already been voluntarily providing information, not working against it."

What is being lost somewhat in the controversy is the question of whether the Board of Health ruling makes any sense from even a health perspective. Certainly the fact that the Board seems to have cribbed the entire proposal from a questionable advocacy group with a historical anti-business bias does little to inspire confidence that the proposal has been properly vetted.

This group, the self-described Center for Science in the Public Interest, has long targeted the fast food industry and certainly has little care that the industry employs tens of thousands of workers in this city, or that their pet proposal may increase the cost of doing business here. The group's nutrition director told the NY Sun that this calorie posting plan, a plan with no consensual support in the research literature is "one of the strongest obesity prevention policies passed in any city or state."

My God, we don't even have good data to show that packaged food labeling, in place for over a decade, has any positive impact on obesity-an observation given heightened salience since the obesity epidemic in this country is basically coterminous with the period in which that labeling requirement was put into effect. This doesn't stop the fat heads at CSPI, however, since their goal is to cripple the fast food industry with regulations first, and lawsuits second. The City Council should know better and resist this mesasure by supporting the Rivera bill.

Wendy's Resists

In a direct response to the Board of Health rule requiring calorie counts on menus and menu boards, the Wendy's International, Inc., has decided to stop posting calorie information on its in-store nutritional posters. The story carried this evening on Bloomberg News makes Wendy's upsetness with the Board of Health crystal clear: "We were forced into this position by the Board of Health because of their regulation, which we find too onerous to comply with," said Denny Lynch the spokesman for the corporation.

Still the Wendy's decision, one that leaves the online calorie information with a "not for New York City" disclaimer, is not clear in terms of the compliance terms of the Board's regulation since it has kept its web information intact. The reaction of Health Commissioner Frieden was lamely predictable: "We wonder what they're so ashamed of."

This underscores the invidious nature of the Frieden-inspired action. If Wendy's, which has provided all kinds of nutritional information to its customers for decades, must be "ashamed," then where does that put the thousands of other restaurants that have never provided any health data?

We certainly would love to see just how many calories a meal at Ruth Chris' or Le Cirque would pile up, including the rich deserts and the wine and liquor. Does it not matter with the fine dinning establishments because they cater to the wealthy? Is it the poor and the ignorant alone, you know those misguided souls who are force to eat in these "low-life" outlets that Dr. Frieden feels he is here to "save?"

This is the same haughtiness that we saw, dripping with contempt, in the Times editorial last Tuesday; the one that said how the fast food meals were of"minimal nutritional value." God save us from all of this elitist paternalism (more stories will be forthcoming in tomorrow's papers).

Quintissential Leadership

The media response to the restaurant news conference yesterday was extremely good, over 20 outlets attended and reported on the industry's support of the Rivera bill. In the NY Post this morning the paper reports that Speaker Quinn, in spite of the fact that she says that she "fully supports" the actions of the Board of Health, will give the Rivera bill, "a full review."

This, if true, is encouraging. It is important that the city's legislature act as a responsible check on the power of the mayor. Allowing an unelected Board to write legislation and in effect make law should prompt a swift response from the City Council. There should have been a clear statement from the speaker that the Council, and the Council alone will make the laws for the city.

This is especially true for the Board's menu labeling rule, a measure that the body has not even bothered to demonstrate has any justification in the existing public health research on the topic. The impact on local business, however, could very well be significant and a Board of Health will typically avoid any evaluation of non-health impacts, Which only underscores why the Board should not be in the law making business.

The masterful presentation by Councilman Rivera yesterday is captured in a story this morning in Hoy Newspaper. Rivera tells the paper that there is no cost benefit analysis for the Board of Health's rule and without this kind of due diligence it is important to tread carefully before adding regulations to an already overburdened business community.

As we move toward a hearing on this issue we will be watching closely to see just how much of an open mind the speaker exibits on this issue. As we approach the next election cycle it is important to observe the ambitions of our elected officials, and the extent to which they are going to be responsive to the legitimate concerns of retailers and restaurant owners. So far, the speaker's small business score card is not highly rated, but there is plenty of time for her to turn this around.

Waste Not, Want Not

Crain's In$ider is reporting today that your truly is going to attempt to use the threatened rise in the city's carting rates as a lever for the push toward the pilot program for food waste disposers. The rate hike, which we believe is inevitable, will hit the city's food stores and restaurants very hard.

It is also true, however, that the recent furor surrounding the Taco Bell rats gives this issue even more salience. The use of food waste disposers, by eliminating the rodent food source, is a major public health measure, and should be supported as such. The two issues: relieving food businesses of higher disposal costs, and enhancing the public health of neighborhoods, should make for a compelling argument for disposers (and another chance for the speaker to stand up for the city's neighborhood businesses.

Choice Remarks

In today's NY Post the always provocative libertarian writer Jacob Sallum takes off on the "anti-choice" policies of the nanny state advocates. In particular he cites the policies of the Bloomberg administration around banning trans fat and requiring calorie posting. As he points out clearly the only restaurants required to post are those who are already providing this information to their customers.

So the posting requirement is not "a way of giving consumers useful information," but "...really a way of nagging people who would rather not be reminded how many calories are in that cheeseburger." All of which was pointed out today at our noon press conference at City Hall, an event that was extremely well-covered by the media.

Major shout-outs go to Joel Rivera, who really stood tall in not only defending the city's franchisees, but in underscoring how the needs of health can be balanced with a concern for the well-being of the city's business. Rivera was joined by his colleagues Annabel Palma, David Yassky and Hiram Monseratte. We are still waiting, however, for the speaker to take her first strong stand in support of the city's small businesses. The menu labeling bill would be a good start.

Times for Truth?

The NY Times continues to reach for new lows; in the first instance it is for new records in declining readership, but in today's paper it manages to scrape the proverbial barrel bottom in its editorial on the Department of Health's menu labeling rule. The editorial, filled with misinformation and dripping with a venomous disdain for the city's fast food restaurants, accuses Councilman Rivera of being a cats paw of the industry for introducing legislation that would "gut" the DOH reg.

One way to get things wrong is to get all of your information from a single source. Which is, of course, exactly what good reporters seek to avoid doing. The same should be said for a good editorial writer, if she is interested in getting a full and balanced picture of an issue (and to avoid the embarrassment of mischaracterizing basic positions of opponents of a policy). Which is exactly what our intrepid Timeswoman failed to do.

For instance, the Times alleges that the industry is claiming that the DOH rule will force restaurants to post calorie information for thousands of meals. This is simply untrue but when you don't talk to folks directly you can avoid the bald face lie charge. This is also the classic straw man argument. Put simply, the attack on the regulation is because it allows the food outlets to post a range, something that will sow confusion and will not lead to healthier dietary choices.

The Times doesn't stop there, however. It insists on attacking the fast food industry with the kind of class hauteur that has come to typify folks who are all for the common man as long as they don't have to associate with him. Here's what our Times writer says about fast food meals: The daily caloric allowance for the average adult is around 2,000 calories. A seemingly unremarkable fast food meal can consume half or more of that allotment. Without nutritional guidance, it's not too hard to polish off a day's worth of calories, with minimal nutritional value, in one setting." (emphasis added)

So the hamburger at Wendy's has "minimal nutritional value," while the $75 burger at the Old Homestead is good for you! Can you feel the contempt of the editorialist? "Without nutritional guidance," is another phrase that drips with paternalistic disdain for the ability of the average New Yorker to understand that a salad at Mickey D's might be healthier every once in a while instead of a Big Mac.

The Times also fails to get the essence of the Rivera bill. Why? The likelihood is because it didn't even bother to read it. When you are imbued with the truth why risk cognitive dissonance. The paper says that fast food restaurants "list calories now, but usually online or on place mats in small print." But the Rivera bill would require that the nutritional information be posted clearly at the point of sale. And the chains are not just posting calorie counts, something of limited dietary utility.

Fast food outlets and chain restaurants employ around 100,000 New Yorkers and are owned and operated by independent, often minority entrepreneurs. They have risen in some of the city's worst neighborhoods, and have contributed to the renaissance of the economies of low income communities. That the Times would exhibit little or no sympathy for these folks is unsurprising.

The small businesses of New York have never had a friend at the paper, and the Times has no real awareness of what kind of business is being done in the neighborhoods. They have made fun of bodegas and slandered Hispanic supermarket owners as exploiters in the big Pathmark controversy of last decade ("Where Supermarkets are Never Super" was one contemptuous headline). This editorial is in that tradition and, to paraphrase Bill Buckley, I'd rather be governed by the first 100 names in the Manhattan phonebook, than by the editorial writers at the NY Times.

Bottle Bil Battle

In a story in yesterday's Times Union Confidential blog it is reported that the Food Industry Alliance is upset that its long time nemesis, Judy Enck, now Governor Spitzer's top environmental assistant, has been meeting in secret with representatives of Tomra, a company that manufactures and distributes reverse vending machines. The beef? Apparently Ms. Enck has excluded any discussions with the industry group.

The thrust of the attack, however, is that Spitzer is somehow violating his pledge of open government by not talking to the industry. I suppose they have a point but the Governor seems committed to the expansion and the industry's arguments are unchanged, and have remained so since around 1981. Our take is that if they want an audience it would help if they had something new to add to the debate.

We've been trying to get the industry folks to look at a different approach since we offered up the third part redemption center concept almost thirty years ago. The theme there was to create a deposit bank that would supervise a third party collection system that would be based on an infrastructure of redemption centers. With increased handling and collection fees it would be feasible to take deposit containers out of the food stores.

The reality is that deposits are an efficient collection and recycling methodology that are much more so than the antiquated and expensive municipal curbside programs. The mistake of the so-called environmentalists is that they want to maintain both systems simultaneously. An expanded deposit system/redemption center infrastructure would make curbside in NYC thankfully obsolete; and relieve the redemption burden for space-constrained stores.

Calorie Showdown at Council

The showdown between restaurants and the Board of Health over the inane calorie posting regulation is about to go to the City Council. The showdown, written about extensively in a balanced piece in this morning's NY Times, is stimulated by the introduction of a modified proposal introduced by Health Chair Joel Rivera. However, because it makes business and public health sense, the measure is being attacked by the non-public interest group that is the rule's real author.

The Rivera bill would allow for greater flexibility because the rigid posting of calories right next to menu items is, as the NRA's Sheila Cohen Weiss has said, "a recipe for confusion." This is graphically illustrated in the Times story when the paper illustrates the difficulty of posting calorie information on Wendy's Mandarin Chicken Salad. A standard salad is 170 calories but, when you add crispy noodles, roasted almonds and sesame dressing the calorie count rises to 550 calories.

Now as we have pointed out, the DOH has permitted the industry to post a range of calorie counts in just this kind of situation but, as Wendy's spokesman Denny Lynch tells the paper, "If that's on the board, 170 to 550 calories, how does that help you?" Indeed it will not, and the DOH has no scientific evidence at all to give any sense that the posting will improve dietary decision-making.

And the compliance costs will be borne by some two thousand local franchisees. Which is no problem to "health advocates" who told the Times that "the chains already have calorie information available and that the main expense would be altering the menu, which is done any way when items are introduced." Maybe we should allow these business savvy advocates to run the stores as well.

The Times story also focuses on the issue of using the Board of Health venue instead of the legislative process. Here we see, in all of it unalloyed disdain for democratic politics, the contempt that the public interest fakers have for the truth. When they lose its not because legislators all over the country think that the regulation is inane and intrusive-no its politics.

As CSPI s director of nutrition Margo Wooten tells us, "When I've worked on menu-labeling bills all over the country, there aren't strong arguments against it based on the merits. The reasons these policies haven't passed is because of politics." Ms. Wooten then goes on to tell the Times, in a clear underscoring of the group's contempt for the people, "New York City found away to bypass politics by having the policy put in place by health experts."

So when it comes to health why not just cede all authority to the health experts? The reasons are two-fold. In the first place public health is now being taken over by ideological zealots who want to impose their visions of how people should be living their lives-whether they like it or not. Secondly, as the NY Sun article this morning indicates, the failure of the Board to even consider the costs of its rule shows, the "health experts" have zero knowledge or expertise about the economic and social impacts of its edicts, while legislators typically do.

Put simply, the DOH doesn't know squat about the food business but this lack of knowledge in no way inhibits it from issuing edicts in the name of health that could very well impair the ability of local firms to do their business. It appears that the Bloombergian concern about "burdensome regulations" is a concern that is limited to the financial sector. Small businesses, as policy after policy in this administration shows, is simply a"minor economic issue."

Columbia Posted and Toasted

In today's NY Post the paper editorializes against Columbia's failure to discipline the protesters who forcefully disrupt a speech last year by the Minutemen. Whatever one feels about the group's philosophy, it is without doubt that it is the duty of a major university to enforce the constitutionally protected free speech rights of all Americans, not just those we happen to agree with.

This is something that the university chose not to do. As the Post observes that the university also has failed to inform the citizens of the city about this latent fascist disruption of the free speech rights of an unpopular group. Yet the university believes that its great mission should prompt the city and state to condemn the property of its neighbors and evict longstanding low income tenants.

As the Post says; "And this same university-which clearly is unwilling to police its own grounds-seeks to extend its reach into surrounding neighborhoods by using the government's power to condemn and seize private homes and businesses. City Hall needs to consider this proposition very closely." Indeed. In the neighborhood I grew up in, not too far from the Columbia that my father graduated from, we use to characterize this attitude as, "They think that their s**t don't stink."

Rights and obligations seem to flow in only one direction when it comes to Columbia; and this haughty attitude is enshrined in its Columbiacentric development plan that shuts the local neighborhood out from any meaningful partnership. The rallying cry here should be that no development application should be certified until the university sits down to negotiate an inclusive plan that adheres closely to the community board's 197-A plan.

Playing Ball With Bruce

Errol Louis, despite all of the derision from those who would feel that going down with the ship is an honorable course of action, once again is a voice for sanity on the Atlantic Yard project. In his column in today's NY Daily News he advises the persistent critics of the development to "accept the reality of the plan and see what can be done to make it better."

He does so, however, firmly convinced that such a course of action is about as palatable as suggesting a detour to a herd of lemmings. The reality here is that if the critics had taken a less rejectionist stance there is a great possibility that even more creative compromises could have been devised. FCRC, unlike the "my way, or the highway" greed merchants at Related (who would brook absolutely no alternative vision for its grand larceny of the BTM), would have done a great deal to avoid the knockdown-drag-out fight that the spirited crew at DDD waged.

As someone who has often been counseled to get off the tracks because the train has left the station (and who just as often ignores the advice) I know how hard it is to give up the fight. It is time to do so, everything from now on is just postscript.

Columbia's Lebensraum

Columbia University, hell bent to expand so that its crack neuroscientists can quickly find the cure for Alzheimer's Disease somewhere in the footprint of its new West Harlem campus, has failed miserably in reaching out and working with the folks caught in the headlights of the waiting bulldozers. This failure is captured by Doug Feiden's in-depth special report in today's NY Daily News.

As Feiden reports, "Faced with the threat of forced evictions, eminent domain and the wrecking ball minority residents and employees in the thinly populated neighborhood are fighting back." As one resident, living in the neighborhood for over thirty years told the News, "'I came from the Dominican Republic to find a place like this. Why should I be forced to leave?"

The key issue here is that the university, unlike the FCRC folks in Brooklyn, has not sought out the community and its business owners to see just how it might be possible to create a larger inclusive vision that doesn't entail the displacement of those who have a stake in the neighborhood. It has one goal and one goal only; the creation of a campus enclave that excludes the existing declasse residents and businesses.

In fact, Columbia praises its ability to negotiate with "professionalism," at least with those who signal that they have thrown in the white flag and are wiling to relocate. This, however, is not engagement, it is disengagement-or to use the more current terminology-it is the deployment of the folks that are in the footprint so that they no longer can "blight" the neighborhood.

The real crux of the problem with the Columbia plan (and why it is put to shame by the Harvard vision), as we have pointed out before, is that it not only dispossesses existing low income tenants, but it has no larger vision for an inclusive neighborhood where the university incorporates the life of the existing community instead of eliminating it entirely. Can't the Columbia planners do any better than sheer self-aggrandizement? As a 66 year-old cardboard box-maker from Ecuador told the News,"Why would Columbia threaten our well-being? Where will we go if they kick us out?"

The Columbia plan is badly in need of modification. The university has the capacity to do this and is working with Bill Lynch as a consultant, someone who knows how to craft a creative compromise. As much as Bruce Ratner was raked over the coals for his Atlantic Yards project, the end result was a huge piece of affordable housing and thousands of permanent jobs for the community. Columbia will evict tenants and build no housing in the neighborhood. As Damon Wayons once said; "Homie don't play that."

Another Hispanic Marketplace Bites the Dust?

NY1 is reporting today that the city is planning to close "La Marqueta" on Moore Street in Williamsburg. The market, much like the Bronx Terminal Market, "of blessed memory," is considered to be an institution among the city's Hispanic population. As State Senator Martin Dilan told the station, We have to get them to understand that this is a cultural institution and if you have to subsidize that cultural institution then let's do it..."

The Brooklyn market goes all the way back to the LaGuardia administration but the city says that it is losing around $270,000 a year for the past four years which has the local community board manager shaking his head: "'They said that the Marqueta was 100% occupied and flourishing', said Community Board District Manager Gerald Esposito. "'So what has happened between the end of 2006 and now to cause EDC to want to close the facility, is beyond me.'"

What indeed! This is the kind of situation that needs to be seriously looked at because, as we have seen at the BTM, when this administration sets its sights on property than it will stop at nothing to get rid of existing tenants, especially if they are minority retailers.

Oh, and one more thing."EDC says that it will help relocate the 15 businesses located at the Marqueta..." The relocation of wholesaler/retailers who are "junto," will lead to their dispersion and eventual death without the synergy that they have built up. Let's hope that something can be done to help these merchants.

John Vliet Bloomberg

It is becoming increasingly clear that Mike Bloomberg's philosophy of government is extremely close to that of the late John Lindsay. His response to the recent report released by the IBO underscores his view that the government that delivers the most "services" is the exemplar for good government. To his credit, the mayor is a much superior manager to JVL and is, of course operating in a political and fiscal climate that is much different from that of the mid-sixties.

The NY Post captures all this in its Bloombergian headline yesterday: "You're Taxed More, 'Cause You Get More." In the story the mayor told the paper that he would "love to reduce taxes more" but the level of services that the public "wants" precludes him from taking this approach. There appears to be no awareness on the mayor's part that the services that he touts is part of a dysfunctional bureaucratic government that is badly in need of reinvention.

The entire reinventing government approach has never really gotten into the mayor's mindset, and he appears to have a philosophical outlook that views government as a paternalistic aid for its less than self-sufficient citizens. Bloomberg adds to this a patrician's desire to aid those who are less fortunate and gifted than he is. All of which comes out clearly in his desire to force people to live healthier lives. It is true of course that those with great wealth are free to live libertarian lives unencumbered by the heavy hand of government, something that the average citizen is unable to do.

The Post captures this misguided paternalism and cavalier attitude to government spending in today's editorial: "On hizzoner's watch, population has grown slightly,yet city-funded spending is up more than 40 percent, to $40 billion a year. Of the ten largest cities, Gotham spends nearly twice as much per capita than the average of the nine runners-up." And this is excluding the city's Medicaid bogeyman.

But in spite of this stark evidence of profligacy the mayor remains resolute in his refusal to cut spending and reduce taxes, touting the need to keep the money in a "rainy day" fund. As the Post points out, however, in the world of most politicians it is always raining.

Rat Epidemic Redux

As we mentioned yesterday, the city has been experiencing a rat epidemic over the past few years and in response a new approach to the problem has been implemented. Instead of extermination through the putting down of poison the city has started to go after the food supply that the rodents feed on. This new method may be showing some success as rat complaints were down about 13% last year from the year before.

Still, it boggles the mind that there is such a wide disconnect between the city's new methodological awareness of how to cope with the rat epidemic, so graphically highlighted by yesterday's "Templeton-like" feast at a local KFC/Taco Bell, and its refusal to allow a pilot program for the testing of food waste disposers at local food outlets. The prime culprit? The extraordinarily inefficient DEP!

Here Come the Rats!

New York 1 is reporting that a local Taco Bell and KFC outlet has been closed because of rat infestation. It certainly doesn't surprise us in the least. Not because we think that this particular chain is a bad actor; but because the city's failure to allow restaurants and other food stores to use food waste disposers prevents the rapid elimination of food waste that attracts the rodent population.

So it appears that the city, despite the fact that it has recognized that the rat control strategy that makes the most sense is elimination of food sources, still feels that controlling the algae growth in the Jamaica Bay (because of alleged nitrogen effluents from waste disposers) is more important than controlling rats in our food supply.

As the rat epidemic continues to plague the city perhaps we should look to bringing the giant rat that is usually used to shame non-union contractors over to 40 West 20Th Street, the home base of the National Resources Defense Council, a supposed environmental group that has worked to block the use of commercial food waste disposers. Let's place the shame where it belongs.

DOH!

There is a trenchant column in today's NY Daily News by Sheila Cohen-Weiss, the director of nutritional policy for the National Restaurant Association. The editorial highlights the shortcomings of the shortsighted rule, passed last December by the Board of Health, that would require chain restaurants to post calorie counts on their menus and menu boards. It also underscores just how dangerous it is for the City Council to allow an unelected body to, in effect, act as a legislator in matters of public health.

The danger lies in the fact that the Board of Health, acting as a beard for the Department and the commissioner, is simply stone ignorant about how food businesses are run. and given this lack of basic knowledge, are simply not equipped to make policy that would impact the viability of this vital economic sector.

If only that was all the healthocracy was ignorant of. In the case of menu labeling the folks on the public health beat also are ignorant of the scientific analysis in the area of calorie posting that, in Cohen-Weiss' words finds "no definitive research data to support the public health benefits of posting calorie content on menus..."

Which is why we are delighted that City Council Health Chair, Joel Rivera, will be introducing his modification of the Board's rule at the Stated Council meeting next Wednesday. This Intro will allow for the chains that are currently providing nutritional information to their customers to continue to do so; but in a more reasonable manner that is congruent with their successful business models. There is no reason why the health of New Yorkers and the health of New York's businesses have to be mutually exclusive.