Controller William Thompson Scores a Hit on the NYC Board of Education

City Controller William Thompson lashes out at Education Department
BY Meredith Kolodner, DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER, Thursday, July 23rd 2009, 4:00 AM
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City test conditions are "ripe for cheating," an audit released Wednesday by city Controller William Thompson's office charged.

For the second day in a row, mayoral candidate Thompson blasted the Education Department for "systematic failure" and "manipulation" of student progress data.

"We did not find new specific instances of cheating," said Thompson, "but we found conditions that were ripe for cheating."

One-third of the monitors assigned to oversee state math and English exams for third-, fourth- and fifth-graders arrived at the testing sites late, the audit found.

There was no documentation that almost half the monitors even showed up.

The report criticized the Education Department's decision to stop tracking test performance irregularities, but city officials said the program was a waste of money.

Audit Report Overview
AUDIT REPORT

AUDIT REPORT IN BRIEF

Download the Complete Audit Report (pdf 1,333 kb)

The New York City Department of Education (DOE) provides primary and secondary education to more than 1 million pre-kindergarten to grade 12 students in over 1,400 schools. DOE prepares students to meet grade level standards in reading, writing, and math and tests students to determine how well they are meeting these mandated learning standards.

Students in grades 3 through 8 take both the New York State standardized English Language Arts (ELA) Test and the New York State standardized Mathematics (Math) Test. This audit focuses on the administration of ELA and Math tests for students in elementary school grades 3, 4, and 5 only. The audit determined whether DOE has adequate internal controls over the administering of New York State standardized tests for grades 3, 4, and 5.

Audit Findings and Conclusions

DOE has adequate internal controls with respect to ensuring that schools are familiar with established procedures when administering the New York State standardized tests at elementary schools. In addition, the schools that we visited generally complied with the State testing guidelines, the DOE Handbook, and testing memoranda. However, DOE lacks sufficient preventive and detective controls aimed at deterring inappropriate manipulation of test scores, which would help to ensure the overall integrity of the assessment process.

DOE has established procedures for the administration of New York State standardized ELA and Math tests at elementary schools. DOE provides a Handbook and distributes test memoranda to its staff in an effort to keep them informed of all required procedures in administering State and Citywide tests. DOE also offers its staff annual training on proper methods in administering the tests as well as training of scoring staff to help identify testing irregularities when grading the long-answer portions of the exam.

We also found that for the most part, the schools that we visited complied with the State guidelines and the guidelines outlined in the Handbook. Our own review of the data and documentation collected by DOE for the 2007–2008 ELA and Math tests and our observations conducted at the sampled schools on the day of testing did not reveal any instances of cheating. However, as more fully explained in the audit report, we cannot be assured that cheating did not occur.

Since achieving a positive school performance rating provides an added incentive for school officials to ensure that students perform well on standardized tests, there is a potential risk for inappropriate test manipulation. Based on our observations, we identified significant weaknesses that DOE has not addressed to help prevent or detect the manipulation of test scores. Specifically, DOE should improve its oversight of testing monitors to ensure that they are carrying out their duties properly and are using monitoring checklists more effectively. In addition, DOE should re-implement the use of analytics to identify possible testing irregularities and tampering and should institute stronger controls over the second and third sections of the tests. Finally, DOE should formalize a process to ensure that substantiated allegations of cheating are shared with the Office of Accountability (OA), the office primarily responsible for coordinating yearly testing and for compliance with New York State Education Department (NYSED) testing guidelines and DOE controls over the tests.

Audit Recommendations

Based on our findings, we make 14 recommendations, 5 of which are listed below.

DOE should:

* Accurately track the assignment of testing monitors to ensure that they are being used effectively.

* Discuss with NYSED the possibility of obtaining the answer keys promptly after the administration of each test to enable DOE to perform a timely erasure analysis. However, DOE should perform erasure analysis to identify possible improprieties regardless of when it receives the answer key.

* Compile, maintain, and track data on the number of make-up exams that are taken for the Day Two and Day Three ELA and Math exams.

* Identify indicators to use in detecting unusual patterns that may be indicative of test tampering or irregularities and collect sufficient data to adequately track those indicators. Based on the information collected, DOE should target those schools with unusual patterns for further follow-up.

* Ensure that the Office of Special Investigations (OSI) formalizes a process to make certain that all instances of substantiated cheating are shared with OA, so that OA can strengthen existing controls or develop new ones in an effort to prevent cheating from occurring in the future.

Agency Response

DOE officials generally agreed with the audit’s recommendations but disagreed with one of them and did not address one of them. They also disagreed with the tone of the report. After carefully reviewing their comments, however, we found them to be without merit.


New York City Comptroller William C. Thompson, Jr. charges in a new audit that the New York City Department of Education is making excuses for poor controls over testing. Thompson held a news conference on July 22, 2009. Pictured (l to r) are: John Graham, Deputy Comptroller for Audits, Accountancy & Contracts and Thompson. Photo credit: Marla Maritzer.

Education Department press secretary David Cantor said the audit validated the city's reported test scores.

"After spending 18 months and untold city resources looking for cheating and other irregularities in the administration of standardized tests," he said in a statement, "the controller found none."

The report came a day after Thompson called for Schools Chancellor Joel Klein's firing in the wake of the controller's audit that accused the Education Department of inflating high school graduation rates.

Education officials denied the charges, firing back that Thompson's office misunderstood the school data used in the report.

The issue of school reform has moved front and center in the upcoming mayoral race.

mkolodner@nydailynews.com

City Controller William Thompson raises a ruckus over Mayor Bloomberg's pay hikes
BY Brian Kates and Celeste Katz, DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS, July 12th 2009, 4:00 AM
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Mayor Bloomberg's decision to dole out millions in raises to his top commissioners and staff proves he just doesn't get what the average New Yorker is going through, rival William Thompson said Saturday.

"I think it's disgraceful. I think it's offensive. And I think it's the wrong thing to do - but it also shows how Mike Bloomberg doesn't understand what's happening in this city," said Thompson, the city controller who's trying to block a third Bloomberg term.

On Friday, the mayor quietly authorized raises worth $69 million over two years for 6,692 of his managers and nonunion employees. The hikes match union workers' raises.

Boosting the pay of already well-compensated managers while New Yorkers scrimp and struggle shows Bloomberg is "out of touch," said Democrat Thompson, who kicked off a citywide campaign push yesterday at Brooklyn Borough Hall.

Bloomberg spokesman Jason Post said the mayor "did the responsible thing" by aligning the raises of supervisors and their subordinates.

"It's revealing that the comptroller is more interested in playing politics than making sure that the city government is functioning smoothly," Post said.

Thompson's criticism meshed with a broad theme of his campaign - that billionaire Bloomberg wants to buy the votes of people whose lives he doesn't comprehend.

He also claims Bloomberg is inflating the number of jobs federal stimulus money will create via a $174.4 million project at Staten Island's St. George Ferry Terminal.

Thompson says Bloomberg's estimate of 4,865 new jobs shows more "puffery" than honesty, although he did not offer an estimate of his own.

Bloomberg aide Marc LaVorgna called Thompson's claim false and said the city is correctly applying federal guidelines in tallying job creation.

He also noted the Obama administration projects that stimulus spending will create 215,000 jobs in the state, and Bloomberg claims 38,000 of those jobs will come here.

"Does that sound out of proportion considering the size and importance of the city?" LaVorgna asked.

ckatz@nydailynews.com

Joel I. Klein Continues to Lie to New York City About Money, Statistics, Everything

Joel Klein is ready to give firm without offices new $95 million DOE contract
Juan Gonzales, Daily News, July 22nd 2009, 9:16 AM
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After cutting the schools budget by $400 million and ordering a hiring freeze, Chancellor Joel Klein is on the verge of handing a new $95 million contract to a little-known Florida computer firm.

Future Technology Associates has enjoyed a no-bid DOE contract since its founding in 2005 to integrate the school system's financial software with those of other city agencies.

City records show the previous contract, along with several extensions, has nearly doubled in cost - to more than $40 million from an original $22 million.

Under the latest extension, which expires next month, 13 FTA consultants are being paid an average compensation of nearly $190,000 annually by the DOE.

Company President Tamer Sevintuna, for example, receives $306,000 as "senior manager." Three other FTA "managers," John Krohe, Derek Wong and Nilo Natural, each get $245,000.

With that much money flowing, you'd think the firm could afford a real office.

It appears to have none.

Sevintuna officially lists corporate headquarters as 9378 Arlington Expressway, Jacksonville, Fla., Suite 305. A Daily News check of that address revealed it to be only a rented post office box.

He also lists a Brooklyn address for the firm, 41 Schermerhorn St., Suite 275. A visit there showed it to be a small residential building - with no sign of any Future Technology Associates.

FTA's employees do all their computer work out of DOE facilities.

Sevintuna declined to discuss his firm or what it does for the school system.

"Talk to the Board of Education," he said before hanging up.

Late last year, the DOE put out a request for proposals for a new five-year contract to carry on the computer integration work FTA has been doing. This occurred after Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum blasted a DOE plan to simply hand the firm a new $38 million no-bid contract.

This, of course, is nothing new under Klein and Mayor Bloomberg. Both state Controller Tom DiNapoli and city Controller William Thompson have issued scathing reports in recent months about DOE's mushrooming use of no-bid contracts and the runaway costs that often result.

DiNapoli's report, released in May, found that the DOE awarded 291 no-bid contracts between July 2005 and June 2008 for more than $340 million and in most cases "failed to properly document" the reason why.

One of the great dangers of mayoral control of the schools, Klein's critics say, is that the chancellor gets to hand out whatever contracts he wants and pays only lip service to the age-old governmental practice of competitive bidding.

On the surface, the proposed new contract did go through a competitive process, with the bids due in February. Sources in the DOE's technology division said the bid requirements appeared to be tailored for FTA, and no one was surprised when the firm emerged as the apparent winner.

FTA's price came in at $95 million, the sources said.

DOE spokeswoman Melody Meyers denied a final price has been reached, but refused to say any more.

"We are still in negotiations and accordingly will not discuss specifics," Meyers said.

"Everyone is shocked that they're paying these outside consultants so much money for work that DOE's own people could be doing," one source said.

Once DOE officially announces the winner of the computer mega-contract in the next few days, the lucky firm will presumably hire a slew of new six-figure consultants to do the work.

Not a single one of those new hires will appear in any record of the DOE as an employee. Klein will continue to tell us there is a financial crisis and a hiring freeze, and the school system must tighten its belt.

jgonzalez@nydailynews.com

Salaries of Future Technology Associates

From Betsy Combier: I love the articles below. Joel Klein gives what seems to be his opinion on building new public schools in Brooklyn, 2008, to handle overcrowding (Klein: no need for this); he supports charter schools because kids perform better in these schools; he praised the new pre-k admissions process (that left thousands of kids without seats for Sept. 2009); etc., etc.


June 18, 2008
Chancellor Joel Klein Discusses Brooklyn Schools
LINK

While the city's Department of Education continues to grapple with crisis-level graduation and proficiency rates, Chancellor Joel Klein is finding himself saddled with another problem: growing demand. Thousands of apartments are being added to Brooklyn and more parents are deciding to raise their children here — a positive quality of life indicator, but one that causes overcrowding at schools like P.S. 8 in Brooklyn Heights. Klein told us in an interview that he would add two trailer classrooms to P.S. 8 and "reduce the number of students attending the school from out of the school zone." He also said no new schools, including the middle school DUMBO parents have been asking for, are planned for that district because they aren't needed. "District 13 overall is enrolled below the total district-wide capacity, even taking into account additional planned residential units," he said. In November, the department will reveal its next five-year plan. "We plan to look at the potential need for school construction based on demographic patterns within districts ...Additionally, we will pursue partnerships with developers outside of the Capital Plan to build new schools where it makes geographic, financial, and programmatic sense."

On the controversy surrounding Pre-K admissions, he said overall the system has been "a real improvement over the days when parents had to camp outside schools to have a chance at a seat." Nevertheless, he said the process would be improved.

In other areas of Brooklyn like Bed-Stuy and Bushwick, charter schools are giving their district counterparts a run for their money, beating them in competency exams by wide margins. Klein said this is a good thing "because a charter school reaching 100 percent student proficiency in math or English with a challenging population of students forces other educators across the City to acknowledge that outstanding results are achievable." He goes into detail about why he thinks students are performing better at these schools. And finally, Klein busted out some math on potential budget cuts, including a link detailing the potential cut for each city school. Brooklyn Tech could lose the most money citywide — $1.08 million or 4.5 percent of its total budget. Other Brooklyn schools that could receive among the highest percent cut are P.S. 8 in Brooklyn Heights, P.S. 282 in Park Slope and the Urban Assembly academies. The city wants to spread cuts across schools equally, but can't because of state rules that favor the lowest-performing schools.

Brownstoner: The city's new Pre-K enrollment system has been hotly criticized. Parents are upset they now send their application out of state, whereas before they enrolled at the school, and are now finding siblings are separated and their children are being sent to programs far from their district. Did you know these things would happen when you changed the enrollment system?

Chancellor Klein: Because this was a new process two things were inevitable: we made some mistakes and many parents were anxious about the changes. I understand that sending your four-year-old to school is anxiety-producing to begin with. But I don’t want to lose sight of the fact that we made important improvements for the parents of four-year-olds. For the first time, parents enrolling their children in pre-K programs were given information about all the programs available to them and could rank their choices on their applications. And we placed children based on a clear set of priorities. This is a real improvement over the days when parents had to camp outside schools to have a chance at a seat.

We received complaints, though far fewer than one would guess from reading the papers or blogs. Some of the alleged mistakes weren’t actually mistakes: siblings were given the highest priority, for instance, but some pre-K programs were so popular that there were more sibling applicants than available seats. We reviewed thousands of applications by hand and identified about 120 cases where a child wasn’t assigned to the appropriate school. We corrected each of these mistakes.

I should add that while we used a New York City-based vendor (with out-of-state offices) to perform bulk mailing and data entry, all of the matching and placement work was done by our enrollment office. We do not have the ability to process thousands of applications in-house; like other city agencies, we contract with vendors to perform basic services.

Do you think separating Pre-K students from their siblings or sending them to programs farther from their district has an effect on the child's education? Are you considering any new changes to the system?

To be clear, of 20,000 applicants 17,000 were placed in pre-K programs and 15,000 received their first choice. We made errors, and corrected them, on about 120 of 20,000 applications. Any parent who didn't get a placement can enter the second round starting June 23.

We will definitely work to improve the pre-K process.

Parents are complaining the system gives them a lack of control in their child's education. Coupled with their complaints about the poor quality of certain schools and the lottery system, are you concerned they will be turned off to the public education system, and ultimately the city? How would you respond to those concerns?

We want parents to be as involved in the education of their children as possible. And we’re making this happen. We put a parent coordinator in every school to assist parents in resolving school issues. We created a new Family Engagement Office to help with problems that can’t be resolved in the school, to reinvigorate the voices of parents on school leadership teams, and to support organized parent bodies in addressing larger district and system-wide issues. We are reaching out to immigrant families in their own language through Native Language Forums across the city.

When I visit schools or attend public meetings where a lot of your readership lives, in Brooklyn Heights, Park Slope, or Fort Greene, parents tell me how improved the schools have become in recent years. Obviously there’s frustration as well and many of our schools aren’t close to where they should be. But what I’m hearing is that more parents than ever believe that public schools offer viable choices for their children.

Currently there are thousands of new or under construction residential units in District 13, which includes Brooklyn Heights, Downtown Brooklyn, DUMBO and Fort Greene. Yet there are no new public schools planned. How will the department handle this growth?

The current Five-Year Capital Plan, which allocates funding for school construction projects, does not currently include new building construction in district 13 because district 13 overall is enrolled below the total district-wide capacity, even taking into account additional planned residential units. That said, there are some individual district 13 schools whose enrollment is over capacity. In the next Five-Year Plan, which we will put out in November and which begins in July 2009, we plan to look at the potential need for school construction based on demographic patterns within districts and the accessibility of existing schools. This will be a first: we haven’t previously drilled down below the district level. Additionally, we will pursue partnerships with developers outside of the Capital Plan to build new schools where it makes geographic, financial, and programmatic sense. For example, the Beekman School in Lower Manhattan is being built in conjunction with a residential project by Forest City Ratner.

Clarification: Would students at below capacity schools have the option of attending these new schools built within their district, or would districts be somehow further delineated?

The capacity of a student’s current school is not relevant to whether that student is accepted into a school that he or she is eligible for.

Could you give examples of potential partnerships with developers in Brooklyn ? What about Two Trees’ Dock Street project in DUMBO?

We don’t name our partners, in Brooklyn or elsewhere in the city, before we reach agreements.

How long, from planning to enrollment, does it take to complete a new school? Should we get a start on these new schools now, before all the families move in, or wait?

It takes about 18-24 months to build a new school, depending on the scope of work; this doesn’t include identifying a site and designing the building. The timing for construction is established by criteria in the Capital Plan. We don’t “wait” to build until schools are overcrowded, at any rate.

Despite the schools in District 13 operating at 66 percent capacity, parents are complaining the middle school in particular is of poor quality, and are asking that a new one be built. How will you address their concerns?

We recognize that in the current Capital Plan the way we look at overcrowding on a district-wide level may not take into account pockets of overcrowding in certain neighborhoods. In the next Capital Plan, we will take a look more closely at these pockets of overcrowding. A draft of the next plan is scheduled for publication in November.

Opening new schools has been an extremely effective form of improving a neighborhood’s school options. Each year, we accept proposals typically submitted by a range of educators, community members, community non-profit organizations, and other education stakeholders who are interested in opening a new public school, usually in a specific neighborhood.

With so much of the land spoken for in these communities, what types of property does the department envision using for new schools once it's determined they're needed? Why isn’t the city taking this opportunity to claim space in some of the many new buildings under construction, especially if it's being offered, like in DUMBO's Dock Street project?

We do look for alternative ways to build schools because of the challenges around finding appropriate sites for new school construction. For instance, we revived a 1969 initiative created by the State Legislature called the Educational Construction Fund, which allows the DOE to lease property to a developer in exchange for building a new school on the property.

At P.S. 8 in Brooklyn Heights, there are trailers out in the parking lot, enabling the school to keep its Pre-K program, but the elementary portion of the school is still overcrowded. What’s going to happen as that school continues to grow?

There aren’t any trailers at P.S. 8 this year. However, in order to maintain the school’s pre-K program and accommodate growing enrollment, the school will have two trailers containing portable classrooms next school year. We are working with the school to reduce the number of students attending the school from out of the school zone. As always, we will continue to track growth so that we can address the school’s facility needs.

There are also no new schools planned to serve the district that includes Boerum Hill and Gowanus, where 1,000 units are under construction and 700 are in advanced planning. How does the department intend to handle this growth?

Projections for residential buildings around the downtown Brooklyn area, as elsewhere in the city, anticipate fewer than one child per unit, and our current Capital Plan addresses this growth. As new development occurs, we will re-assess and, if need be, update our new school seat projections.

Many charter schools outperform their local districts on standardized tests by wide margins - Brooklyn Excelsior in Bushwick and Excellence Charter School for Boys in Bed-Stuy by between 15 and 48 percent last year, depending on the tests. Why do you think this is?

Charter schools must meet the same performance standards established for all public schools as well as the goals in their charter. If they don’t, they can be put on probation or shut down. Additionally, families enroll their children in charter schools entirely by choice — in other words, students are never “zoned” to attend a charter school. This means that charter schools must compete with other schools for students and must educate students well in order to continue operating. Charter schools - like Excelsior and Excellence in Brooklyn, and many others across the City - are pushing the boundaries of what students can achieve in public school. I believe that charter schools are good for the entire system because a charter school reaching 100 percent student proficiency in math or English with a challenging population of students forces other educators across the City to acknowledge that outstanding results are achievable.

Has the department studied why these schools are performing higher than their district counterparts? If so, what are the findings so far? And is the department implementing any similar solutions?

An informative report about New York City public charter schools was published last year. One significant finding published in the report is that charter school students benefit because charter schools can be flexible in the amount of time that students spend in school. It is intuitive that students who spend more time in school, learn more at school. Working with the United Federation of Teachers ⎯ the NYC teachers’ union ⎯ we increased the school week by 150 minutes in 2006, adding an extended session to the school day. We have also worked with the UFT to create salary differentials based on factors other than seniority, which is historically the only measure taken into consideration when determining teacher salary in district schools. We can now reward teachers who agree to work in our highest need schools and who reach achievement goals with students at these schools. Specifically, we offer teachers a housing stipend of $15,000 if they agree to come to work in New York City schools from another district. We also created a lead teacher position that is remunerated an additional $10,000 annually for experienced teachers who work in high-need schools and mentor their colleagues. Most recently, more than 200 high-need schools agreed to participate in a school-wide performance bonus program, which will reward teachers in schools that meet student achievement goals.

Charter schools are able to make their own decisions around things like the amount of time students spend in school and how teachers are compensated because charter schools operate outside of many rules that district schools are subject to ⎯ including Chancellor’s regulations and labor contracts. In exchange for the ability to manage more freely, charter schools are held rigorously accountable. As I described earlier, charter schools are closed down if their students are not learning. The principle of accountability is at the center of our public school reforms: school leaders must be held accountable for the results they achieve; in order to hold them accountable, they must be empowered to make the critical decisions that affect the school. You can read more about the Children First reforms here.

Which Brooklyn schools would be most affected by the proposed $400 million budget cut? What programs should be cut?

Before getting into specifics about schools, I want to give a little background about the overall education budget for next year. For Fiscal Year 2009 (which applies to the 2008-09 school year), the Department of Education will receive a $664 million budget increase over FY08. This includes $535 million in new state aid and $129 million in new city aid. Unfortunately, we also anticipate $963 million in new expenses, due to increased costs of labor, energy, food, and special education services, among others. This leaves us with a net shortfall of $299 million in school funding.

After careful review, we were able to achieve $200 million in savings from non-school budgets, leaving $99 million remaining to be trimmed from school budgets, but due to restrictions from Albany that burden cannot be shared equitably among schools. The State has provided $242 million in funding under the "Contracts for Excellence," and requires that roughly 75 percent of those funds be spent in only 50 percent of our high-need, low-performing schools. If these restrictions remain intact, some schools will face up to a 6 percent reduction in purchasing power, while others may see their budgets grow by as much as 4 percent. We are asking Albany to give us flexibility over how we can spend $63 million out of that $242 million; if it agrees, the budget cuts will be shared equitably by all schools, with each facing a manageable ⎯ though unpleasant ⎯ 1.4 percent reduction in purchasing power. Pending the outcome of our appeal, we have withheld disbursement of those $63 million in funds.

In mid-May, the DOE released preliminary school budgets. A spreadsheet detailing the impact of those cuts for every school is posted here (see clarification). If the state grants flexibility over the $63 million in withheld funds, schools currently showing budget cuts larger than 1.4 percent will see those cuts reduced to 1.4 percent. If the State denies our request, schools currently showing a 1.4 percent budget reduction will see their budgets grow.

As always, principals make decisions about their budgets in consultation with parents and teachers on their School Leadership Teams. The DOE will provide support and guidance as needed to help principals identify strategic solutions that minimize the impact of cuts on students and classroom learning.

Clarification: City schools collectively face a $99 million budget cut. The state restricts how a portion of its money can be spent to favor the lowest performing schools, so higher performing schools, like Brooklyn Tech, face an even greater budget cut, sometimes up to 6 percent, while the lowest-performing schools would see an overall increase of up to 4 percent. The city is asking for flexibility so each school would have an equal, 1.4 percent cut. That request is currently pending in Albany. The spreadsheet reflects each school's cut without flexibility, except the schools marked with a 1.4 percent cut ⎯ those schools are the ones favored by the state's formula, and could see a budget increase of up to 4 percent.
Giorgio Armani, Caroline Kennedy, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Chancellor of the New York City Board of Education Joel Klein arrive for the opening of the new Armani 5th Avenue store on February 17, 2009 in New York City.

June 5, 2008
School Admissions Changes Causing 'Chaos'
LINK

This year the Department of Education changed its admissions process for pre-K'ers, according to the Brooklyn Eagle, and the shift means a lot of parents are grappling with the fact that their kids have been placed in schools far from home. About 3,000 parents, "including those in large swaths of Brownstone Brooklyn," recently found out their kids didn't get into any of the schools they'd put down on application forms. Yesterday Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum and Councilman Bill de Blasio held a press conference to decry the new pre-K placement system, and Gotbaum said the changes "have had some chaotic consequences for parents." The new admissions process is apparently affecting older kids, too. Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn has been writing about how her child didn't get in to any middle schools, apparently because of a DOE computer glitch. The blogger is describing the experience as traumatic: "And then [my daughter] heard me talking on the phone to the New York Times. She doesn't know who I was talking to but she can tell that I am agitated, annoyed, on edge, shakey, not happy and so on."

Pre-K Snafu Leads Brooklyn Parents To Protest at Tweed [Brooklyn Eagle]
Middle School SNAFU: My Daughter Isn't On The List [OTBKB]

Brooklyn Heights school's gone from underused to overcrowded
BY RACHEL MONAHAN, DAILY NEWS WRITER, April 17th 2008, 4:00 AM
LINK

Brooklyn Heights might seem like an unlikely place to find trailers, but students at the neighborhood's increasingly popular public school will attend classes in two next fall.

"The school has been a victim of its own success," said Councilman David Yassky (D-Brooklyn Heights).

Department of Education officials told Public School 8 parents this week that portable classrooms would have to be put in the parking lot so prekindergarten classes can be offered in the fall.

The need for additional classrooms at PS 8 was quite a change from just five years ago, when scarcely any neighborhood children attended the school.

A full-fledged effort to improve the school began in spring 2003, and enrollment has since increased by 91%.

"It's a Cinderella story school," said Joanne Singleton, PTA co-president.

Former Superintendent Carmine Farina, who helped turn the school around, said all she had to do was find the right principal: Seth Phillips.

"I feel a personal connection to all schools," she said. "To me, every school should be good enough for my grandson" - who is in fact zoned for the school but is still too young to attend.

But the trailers sparked anger among some parents.

"I was one of the first families to take a chance on this school," said Melissa Milgrom, mother of two PS 8 students. "Others followed. ... This is an awful reward."

Many seemed ready for the compromise, setting their sights on the more long-term project to get a permanent annex for the school or even expand it into a middle school.

"Of course, we have to keep pre-K," said Judy Stanton of the Brooklyn Heights Association. "Of course, we're not happy with transportable units."

School officials have twice looked at a former NYPD building at 72 Poplar St., around the corner - once as recently as last week - said Yassky, who has been working to expand PS 8 into a middle school.

"That seemed to be the most promising option," said Nancy Webster, a PS 8 parent on Yassky's task force.

Department of Education officials, however, dismissed ideas they were looking to expand the school.

Sunday Protest of Mayor Bloomberg's Temper Tantrum

Ten New York senators, including Eric Adams, center, and Hiram Monserrate, left, demanded concessions from Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg over the bill that would extend his lapsed control of the school system.

July 20, 2009
Democrats Lash Out at Mayor Over Control of Public Schools
By A. G. SULZBERGER

The mayor wanted members of the State Senate to be dragged back to Albany. Instead, nearly a dozen of them showed up on the front steps of City Hall on Sunday.

In the increasingly acrimonious battle over mayoral control of New York City’s public schools, 10 senators, all of them Democrats, held an hourlong news conference, ostensibly to demand that Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg make some concessions before they consider extending his control.

All of the senators spoke, and they proclaimed the issue too important to be sidetracked by political rhetoric. Then some proceeded to vilify the mayor, calling him everything from a dictator to a yenta to a plantation owner.

“The days of being intimidated are over,” said Senator Eric Adams of Brooklyn. “We will not surrender our children, and he needs to understand that.”

The war of words escalated as the mayor and Senate leaders settled into an impasse over extending Mr. Bloomberg’s lapsed control of the school system. On Friday, Senate leaders shelved the legislation as they adjourned for the summer — violating their pledge to bring the matter to a vote — citing the mayor’s refusal to submit to any changes to the bill.



During his weekly radio show on Friday, Mr. Bloomberg questioned the intelligence of some of the senators who wanted to scale back mayoral control — including John L. Sampson of Brooklyn, (picture above) the Democratic conference leader — and called for the State Police to “drag” senators to the Capitol for a vote. Dipping into his Yiddish dictionary, the mayor added that taking the summer off without extending mayoral control would be “meshugenah.”

Several of the senators present on Sunday — including Pedro Espada Jr. and Hiram Monserrate, whose defection from and return to the Democratic caucus bookended the monthlong power struggle that paralyzed state government — cited those remarks during their rebuttal.

“We believe it would be meshugenah not to include parents in the education of our children,” said Mr. Monserrate, of Queens. “As opposed to loosely using the word ‘meshugenah,’ we would also say we don’t need a yenta on the other side of this argument and this debate.”

Andrew Brent, a spokesman for Mr. Bloomberg, chided the senators for failing to honor their promise to bring the matter to a vote last week. “We’re at an impasse because a handful of state senators would rather return to an old school board system well known for being better at handing out patronage than educating our city’s kids,” he said in an e-mail message.

At the heart of the conflict is the question of how the city’s school system, with its 1,500 schools and 1.1 million children, should be run. Mr. Bloomberg took control from the fractious Board of Education in 2002, a move he maintains gave him the authority to make the changes that have improved test scores and graduation rates.

That oversight officially expired on June 30, though control of the schools effectively remains with the mayor, as officials and allies of his administration make up a majority of the reconstituted Board of Education and they voted to retain his schools chief, Joel I. Klein. [See also "Fire Joel Klein"]

The Senate Democrats who gathered on Sunday complained that mayoral control gave far too much power to Mr. Bloomberg, and they questioned his claims of improvements, which they said were a result of massaging statistics and focusing on teaching to standardized tests. The senators said they wanted changes that would allow for increased parental involvement, establishing a commission to study school security and implementing more checks to the mayor’s authority.



On Sunday, Senator Bill Perkins of Harlem (pictured above) accused the mayor of “treating us like we’re some people on his plantation.”

In a telephone interview, Senator Martin J. Golden, a Brooklyn Republican, called for the Democratic leadership to put the issue to a vote. “It’s amazing that they’re looking for civil discourse and they’re using words like ‘plantation,’ ” he said. “This is all about embarrassing the mayor.”

Jeremy W. Peters contributed reporting.

NYS Senate Pork Power Rankings

Senate Pork power rankings
July 17, 2009 at 3:48 pm by Irene Jay Liu, Capitol Confidential
LINK

Early Thursday morning, the Senate approved this year’s member item resolution. There’s already been much written about the pork, but we thought it might be helpful to have a round-up of all things pork in one post.

The member items approved totaled $84,953,600, just under the $85 million appropriated in the 2009-2010 budget.

Of that total, $76,700,000 went to Democrats; $8,253,600 went to Republicans. As a result, given the distribution of the each respective conference, there was a significant loss of pork upstate compared to previous years. (See maps of distribution here.)

The resolution passed is identical to the member item resolution that was going to be put on the floor on June 8, according to Senate Democratic spokesman Travis Proulx.

According to other sources, however, while the majority-minority breakdown stayed the same, there were some changes in allotments to individual senators.

Despite wrangling back and forth over member items since the stalemate ended last Thursday, Republicans and Democrats agreed to go with the original resolution. In exchange, Republicans will be allotted 1/3 of member items next year (the crucial, do-or-die 2010 election that will determine who controls redistricting).

In addition, Democrats agreed to release millions of capital project dollars that were allocated before Republicans lost the majority last November, according to Senate GOP spokesman Scott Reif.

As for this year’s allotment of member item dollars, the top recipients were:

1. Senate President Pro Tempore Malcolm Smith D $5,700,000.00
2. Deputy Majority Leader Jeff Klein D $5,000,000.00
3. Deputy President Pro Tempore David Valesky D $4,500,000.00
4. Vice-Finance Chair Liz Krueger D $4,000,000.00
4. Finance Chair Carl Kruger D $4,000,000.00
6. Sen. Bill Stachowski D $4,000,000.00
7. Senate Conference Leader John Sampson D $3,040,000.00

It is worth noting that Stachowski - who faced a surprisingly heated race last fall against Republican Dennis Delano, a local celebrity cold case detective who refused to talk with the press during the campaign - received a significant amount of pork. Stachowski was slated to become Finance Chair, and ran on that platform last November, but was ousted from the position by Kruger, who withheld his support of Smith as majority leader for nearly three months before finally backing him in January.

Smith doled out his $5.7 million share of the pork around the state, often at the request of other senators. Klein sent all of his $5 million into the Bronx and Westchester, areas that he represents.

Other notables:

* Sen. Suzi Oppenheimer received $3 million. One of the longer-serving senators of the Democratic delegation, Oppenheimer’s seat was targeted by the GOP last fall, but without success.
* Turncoat Democrat and now Senate Majority Leader Pedro Espada received $2.05 million. A fellow former dissident Democrat, Sen. Hiram Monserrate, received $650,000.
* Two senators from more marginal districts - Sens. Darrel Aubertine and Craig Johnson - each received $1 million.
* Somewhat surprisingly, freshman Democratic Sen. Brian Foley, who fought to win his seat last November against longtime GOP incumbent Caesar Trunzo, received $539,500. Apparently Democrats are not concerned about losing that seat.
* Not surprisingly, the GOP doled out their significantly smaller pot to support their most vulnerable members. Sen. Frank Padavan (who nearly lost to NYC Councilman Jim Gennaro, who has said he will challenge Padavan again in 2010) received the most out of all the Republicans $510k, more than double Senate Republican Leader Dean Skelos received. Sens. Joseph Robach and Kemp Hannon, who were targeted by Democrats in heated challenges last fall, each received $400,000.
* In a new development, caucuses divided by geography, race or ethnicity each received separate pots of funding from the Senate majority - Brooklyn. Bronx, Manhattan and Queens delegations each received $250,000. The upstate delegation received $1 million; the suburban caucus received $875k. The conference of Black senators and the Latino senate delegation each received $1 million.
* Most rank-and-file GOP senators each received $250,000, but so did GOP leaders Senate Minority Leader Dean Skelos and Deputy Minority Leader Tom Libous. GOP Sen. Betty Little received the least in member items - $183,600.

For more information than you would ever want on member items present and past (well, last year), please see the following spreadsheets, provided by NYPIRG data whiz Bill Mahoney.

Senate Pork 2008-2009-detail

Senate Pork 2009-2010-detail

Senate Pork Side-by-Side Comparison 08/09 and 09/10

For a summary of last year’s Senate pork, click here.

Full power rankings after the jump.

1. Smith D $5,700,000.00
2. Klein D $5,000,000.00
3. Valesky D $4,500,000.00
4. Krueger D $4,000,000.00
4. Kruger D $4,000,000.00
6. Stachowski D $4,000,000.00
7. Sampson D $3,040,000.00
8. Breslin D $3,000,000.00
8. Duane D $3,000,000.00
10. Montgomery D $3,000,000.00
10. Oppenheimer D $3,000,000.00
10. Schneiderman D $3,000,000.00
13. Onorato D $2,974,500.00
14. Espada D $2,050,000.00
15. Diaz D $2,000,000.00
15. Dilan D $2,000,000.00
15. Hassell-Thompson D $2,000,000.00
15. Parker D $2,000,000.00
15. Stavisky D $2,000,000.00
20. Thompson D $1,200,000.00
21. Savino D $1,100,000.00
22. Adams D $1,050,000.00
23. Aubertine D $1,000,000.00
23. Craig Johnson D $1,000,000.00
23. Huntley D $1,000,000.00
23. Perkins D $1,000,000.00
23. Serrano D $1,000,000.00
23. Stewart-Cousins D $1,000,000.00
29. Conference Black Senators D $1,000,000.00
29. Delegation Latin Senators D $1,000,000.00
29. Upstate Senate Delegation D $1,000,000.00
32. Suburban Delegation D $875,000.00
33. Monserrate D $650,000.00
34. Foley D $539,500.00
35. Squadron D $521,000.00
36. Padavan R $510,000.00
37. Addabbo D $500,000.00
38. Griffo R $410,000.00
39. Hannon R $400,000.00
39. Robach R $400,000.00
41. Morahan R $300,000.00
41. Nozzolio R $300,000.00
43. Saland R $250,600.00
44. Alesi R $250,000.00
44. Bonacic R $250,000.00
44. DeFrancisco R $250,000.00
44. Farley R $250,000.00
44. Flanagan R $250,000.00
44. Fuschillo R $250,000.00
44. Golden R $250,000.00
44. Lanza R $250,000.00
44. Larkin R $250,000.00
44. LaValle R $250,000.00
44. Leibell R $250,000.00
44. Libous R $250,000.00
44. Marcellino R $250,000.00
44. Maziarz R $250,000.00
44. McDonald R $250,000.00
44. Owen Johnson R $250,000.00
44. Ranzenhofer R $250,000.00
44. Seward R $250,000.00
44. Skelos R $250,000.00
44. Volker R $250,000.00
44. Winner R $250,000.00
44. Young R $250,000.00
44. Bronx Delegation D $250,000.00
44. Brooklyn Delegation D $250,000.00
44. Manhattan Delegation D $250,000.00
44. Queens Delegation D $250,000.00
70. Little R $183,000.00

5 Comments »

1. It’s funny how misused the term pork is now. Pork used to refer just to unassociated monies crammed into a federal bill. For instance, a bill to reform Health Insurance might have $500k to build a bridge in Alaska.

Now it’s used for any money that goes to good causes in the name of an elected official. Pork used to be untraceable. Now it’s actually best referred to as earmarks and you know who put it in there. This is not really pork.

You people in the press are so ready to criticize member items, but ask the kids in some areas how they like their after school program, or the supplemental health care an agency provides. Ask those fire departments how much safer they feel with new turnout equipment. This evil “pork” really helps people and you can’t expect 32 Senators to approve money for a project in one district, but if you bulk all of their projects together, they vote in favor.

It’s disgusting that the member items have been distributed so unevenly over the years. I understand why some of the 10-year incumbents wanted their share, but I hope they had good groups to give it to and took the time like I know Upstate Senators of both parties have over the years, to make sure really good projects get this funding.

Oh, and Soundview Healthcare, I mean, the Bronx Chamber of Commerce does not count as due dilligence on these things.

Comment by Learn Your Terms, It's not Pork — July 17th, 2009 @ 4:14 pm

2. This is outstanding work and journalism - well done. I’ve never seen this on a blog. Awesome!!!

Comment by TheDeadRepublican — July 17th, 2009 @ 4:35 pm

3. I was very glad to see the Upstate Democrats do so well. #3, #6, and #8.

This is a good sign that my worst fears, that a Democratic Majority would ignore Upstate, may have been misplaced.

Please, please, prove me wrong, Democrats. This list is a good start. Now how about finally giving Senator Stachowski the Finance Committee after the 2010 elections, when you’ve picked up enough additional seats that you don’t need to keep C. Kruger happy.

Comment by Albany Exile — July 17th, 2009 @ 6:12 pm

4. Here’s a question. Why are the minority delegations getting ANY money when they are already getting money through their representations on the Geographic caucuses. Does this money only go to blacks and Latinos as opposed to other citizens in the state.

Comment by NY Constitutionalist — July 17th, 2009 @ 9:30 pm

5. This is bull. They should ban member items. Let the groups raise their own funds and not have “special” favors for the pols and thire supporters. I wonder how many relatives/friends are working for the groups getting the money.

Comment by XDOH — July 18th, 2009 @ 8:02 am

Breaking it down: the ‘Gang of Four’
by Irene Jay Liu, November 6, 2008 at 4:52 pm
LINK

There’s been a lot of breathless excitement over the “Gang of Four”/ Independent Caucus and its potential impact on Senate majority leadership in the coming weeks/ months, so I thought that it might be useful to take a little time to break down what we know, what is being spun, and the various factors that may determine how this all plays out.

Of course, we’re in Day 2 of the Dems-Senate-majority-elect watch, so this is bound to evolve over time.

What we know:

* The four members of the “Gang of Four”: Sens. Carl Kruger and Ruben Diaz, Sr. and Senators-elect Hiram Monserrate and Pedro Espada, Jr.
* Gov. David Paterson met with the four yesterday, confirmed Independent Caucus spokesman Juda Englemeyer.
* Contrary to a published report yesterday, the four members did not meet with the Senate GOP yesterday. “They did not meet with the GOP. It is wrong,” said Englemeyer 0f the AP’s story.
* As it stands, the Senate count is 32 Democrats, 29 Republicans, and 1 contested seat (which at current vote tally goes to the GOP, though there’s a recount/ paper ballot count ongoing).
* The official vote for majority leader is held by the full Senate. In the past, each conference picks their leader, and the party votes along party lines. Given the slim 32-29 (for now) Democratic majority, the potential of defection or abstention of Democrats in a majority leader vote presents a tantalizing theoretical that has observers (including reporters) all in a tizzy.

Who the members are and the factors that may be motivating them:

Sen. Carl Kruger: The Democratic senator from Brooklyn who caucused with the Senate GOP. He is the only Democrat to have a chairmanship in the Republican-controlled Senate and received more pork than Senate Minority Leader Malcolm Smith.

He often voted with the Senate Republicans, and must find a place for himself in a Democrat-controlled Senate. As one lobbyist put it, “this is about Carl Kruger seeking absolution for past sins.” Kruger has expressed interest running for Brooklyn borough president.

Sen. Ruben Diaz, Sr.: The Democratic senator from the Bronx has been a longtime, outspoken social conservative on issues such as abortion, stem-cell research, and gay marriage. This precedes Tuesday’s election and Diaz was always speculated to be one of the more likely people who would consider flipping - it happened after Democrat Darrel Aubertine took a previously Republican senate seat in February.

Putting himself out there and leveraging this “potential flipper” reputation helps to elevate his position on social issues. Horsetrading aside, Democrats have set aside the idea of introducing a gay marriage bill in the short-term. It isn’t clear that they’d be able to pass the legislation, even if it was introduced - a number of Democratic senators from conservative districts on Long Island and upstate might face backlash if they voted in favor. Diaz has also expressed concern over the lack of Latinos in leadership positions in Albany. Diaz’s son, Assemblyman Ruben Diaz, Jr., may want to run for Bronx borough president someday.

Senator-elect Pedro Espada: The Democratic-turned-Republican-turned-Democrat from the Bronx has had a complicated relationship with Senate Democrats. In 2002, he announced his intentions to switch parties, was lost in a Democratic primary by the aforementioned Diaz, Sr., and the switched and ran and lost as a Republican. Espada then moved to an adjacent Senate district, ran against Efrain Gonazalez, who is under federal indictment for corruption, and won the primary.

Senator-elect Hiram Monserrate: The Queens Democrat primaried and nearly beat former Sen. John Sabini in 2006. He was spared a bloody primary fight this time around when the Queens Democrats (of which Malcolm Smith is a key figure) and Gov. David Paterson delivered the Senate seat on a platter by appointing Sabini as head of state racing and wagering.

Before Sabini was appointed, Monserrate positioned himself as the Latino senator for an increasing Latino district - which was one reason Democrats went to such length to avoid a bruising primary. Monserrate, like Diaz, has expressed his concern for the lack of Latino representation in power. He issued a statement yesterday which said, in part: “We must continue to fight for representation for our diverse communities…our community does not have a single state or citywide elected leader in any legislative body.”

Who can give what:

As it stands, the Democrats have a majority in the Senate. As such, they approve appointments, determine committee chairmanships, the budget, and divvy up member items.

As the minority, Senate Republicans cannot deliver any of those things. They may be able to promise things if they can wrangle a majority through a political maneuver, but the key word is “if.” That’s a big risk, especially when the GOP would need at least two Democrats to flip to elect a GOP Senate Majority Leader.

As governor, Paterson holds significant political clout, as well influence over delivery of goods - jobs, appointments, economic development projects, etc. And he’s a Democrat, so he might be less inclined to do things for someone who defects to the other party.

Read about who benefits, hazards of flipping, and a little history after the jump.

Who benefits in perpetuating the story:

* The “gang”:The members get their names in the paper, their respective agendas out in the press, and can leverage for committee chairmanships, pork, legislation, any number of things. The longer this story is out there, the more leverage they have.
* The Senate GOP: By keeping this narrative alive, the defeated party stays relevant, instead of diminishing into lame-duck status (though they will have a key role to play in the upcoming budget cuts). It also distracts the Senate Democrats as they try to implement a transition, attaches a public perception of “circular firing squad” instability and weakness to the majority-elect, which buys them time and hope as they try to keep their own conference members in line (fending off thoughts of retirement, etc.)
* The press: Because it would be too boring to write about procedural transition and budget cuts. (sarcasm intentional)

The potential hazards of flipping:

* Flipping may come back to bite in 2010: With Democrats in the majority, count on a whole new crop of good, viable candidates clamoring for the Senate. It was a less attractive gig when Democrats were in the minority - now, look for Assembly members and NYC electeds contemplating primaries, or general election challenges (if they switch).
* The Working Families Party would be none-to-pleased to see the hard-fought Democratic majority lost to a flipper and they may very well wield their significant campaign field operation on behalf of one of the aforementioned challengers.

Consider history:

* The cautionary tale of Olga Mendez: The former senator from the Bronx was cozy with Republicans, thinking that it would benefit her district. She switched parties in 2002, and was soundly beaten in the 2004 general election by political upstart Jose Serrano.
* After Democrat Darrel Aubertine won the special election in February, bringing the margin to 32 Republicans to 30 Democrats, there was speculation on both sides that would be party-flipping, but it never materialized on either side. (granted, the sudden resignation of former Gov. Eliot Spitzer certainly changed things) But the difference this time is that any flippers would be going against their own party when it is ascending, rather than defecting from a sinking ship.

Where the “Gang of Four” could matter

* Regardless of what happens with majority leadership, a place were the “gang”, or any block of senators for that matter, could really gain power would be as a block vote on legislation. By voting as a collective, the group could effectively block any legislation that Democrats would want from passing, giving them significant clout with lobbyists and and special interests.

8 Comments »

1. once media outlets like this get over their post election hangover and start focusing again on state government, maybe they will start reporting on the real story here. namely that the paterson administration has no control over anything-state agencies in complete chaos, no idea how to deal with the upcoming tsunami of pain due to budget cuts and no allies in the assembly or senate who are willing to take the lead in making tough decisions.

All this senate takeover-”gang of four” baloney is diverting attention from the real story that will begin to unfold in the coming weeks. and when homeowners see the double digit school tax increases likely to come down the pike, this fluff story will all be irrelevant.

Comment by sydney1 — November 6th, 2008 @ 5:08 pm

2. Boy oh boy, this Monserette is a genius: “our community does not have a single state or citywide elected leader in any legislative body.” Maybe because no one has wrong big guy???

I love these guys who whine about NOT being mayor, when they never ran for it.

Comment by Peterburg — November 6th, 2008 @ 5:57 pm

3. …no one has RUN…

Comment by Peterburg — November 6th, 2008 @ 5:57 pm

4. Patterson will not let anyone flip parties except for Malcom Smith. Mean Dean is out of a job!!

Comment by joe from france — November 6th, 2008 @ 7:22 pm

5. Ms. Liu: An outstanding bit of reporting. Thank you. This is the kind of information we (those unfortunates who are really into this stuff for personal and/or professional reasons)are looking for and can’t readily find on our own. Too much reporting is biased and based on info that is available to anyone who is interested enough to find it. We can see for ourselves what is a reasonable interpretation of that info and what is clearly the result of an agenda. That’s why newspaper’s are hemorrhaging readership. This is an example of what is much more difficult for us to do for ourselves. I have my own info and opinion but all day long I wanted to find someone who knows even more than I do and ask what they think - something that feels inside and goes far beyond what one reads in the articles you linked this morning. Thanks again.

Comment by scorpio33 — November 6th, 2008 @ 7:40 pm

6. Excellent reporting.

If any of these NYC Hispanic guys conspire to return the Senate majority to suburban/upstate Republicans, they will suffer the Olga Mendez treatment.

Mean Dean can’t protect them from that, just as Boss Bruno couldn’t protect Mendez.

Comment by devtob — November 6th, 2008 @ 10:48 pm

7. To come this far and to allow such pettiness to rise at the very moment of victory? Unacceptable! this is about all the Democrats of NYS, not just the Latino ones! I hope that, and im confident that our political leadership can surmont this issue, But to resort to political blackmail when there is clearly no need to is appalling! What goes around comes around and i hope that is A lesson my lation brothers dont have to learn the hard way! UNITY DEMOCRATS UNITY!!!

Comment by nyrehd — November 7th, 2008 @ 3:21 pm

8. We need some primary challenges, push them out if they don’t represent and support the DEMS.

Comment by XDOH — November 13th, 2008 @ 4:21 am

Is Anyone Watching Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer?

and no-bid contracts?

It's High Line robbery! City Controller Thompson rips park concession plan as 'back-room deal'
BY Erin Einhorn, DAILY NEWS CITY HALL BUREAU, Thursday, July 9th 2009, 4:00 AM
LINK

MANHATTAN'S dazzling new park in the sky was sucked into the mayor's race yesterday.

City Controller William Thompson, who hopes to unseat Mayor Bloomberg, condemned a lucrative no-bid city contract that would give a politically connected group exclusive rights to sell food and merchandise on the High Line park.

"It almost appears to be some sort of back-room deal," said Thompson, who called for a competitive bidding process and ordered his delegate on a city contracting board to vote against the deal. "We have seen this again and again and again from this administration, and almost every time New York City could have gotten a better deal."



The Daily News reported yesterday that backers of the nonprofit Friends of the High Line have lavished campaign contributions on city officials, including more than $100,000 for Council Speaker Christine Quinn.

Three board members including High Line Founders Joshua David and Robert Hammond have publicly endorsed Bloomberg's reelection, appearing on a list of gay and lesbian New Yorkers who support Bloomberg.

They are connections that Thompson said may have affected the plan to put the group in charge of food concessions.

High Line Park, aerial view

"I don't think it hurt," Thompson said.

A spokesman for Bloomberg's reelection campaign called Thompson's objections "transparently political."

"It's ironic given that he has taken tens of thousands of dollars from lobbyists and others with business before the city," said Bloomberg campaign spokesman Howard Wolfson.

The mayor's office says the deal is the natural outgrowth of a partnership with Friends of the High Line, which raises money to run the day-to-day operations for the park in the path of a former elevated train line. It will use the proceeds from the food concessions to pay for maintenance.

The deal "will improve this world-class amenity," said mayoral spokesman Jason Post.

The contracting board, called the Franchise and Concession Review Committee, voted to authorize the city Parks Department to negotiate a 10-year, no-bid contract with Friends of the High Line to run all food concessions on the elevated park and the city streets just below it.

Thompson's was the only no vote. The other votes came from four Bloomberg delegates and a rep for Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer.

eeinhorn@nydailynews.com

Reader Comment:

kvasir Jul 9, 2009 8:11:12 AM
'tens of thousands' is different than $100,000. quinn is the most corrupt pol in a long time because she has the help ,and payment, of the mayor. the gays in her district and her extended group are more interested in being gay than in being nyer's.

In a Manhattan Minute
The High Line Park Opens
by: Carmen Boon | 6/8/2009
LINK



Today, Borough President Scott Stringer joined Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, Council Speaker Christine C. Quinn, US Representative Jerrold Nadler, and Friends of the High Line Co-Founders Joshua David and Robert Hammond to open the first section of the High Line, the highly-anticipated, new public park built on top of a 1930s-era elevated rail line.

The High Line is the first public park of its kind in the United States, built 30 feet above Manhattan’s West Side. The opening of the first half-mile section of the High Line is the culmination of more than three years of construction and ten years of planning.

"Over years, many diverse segments of our city and our country embraced this exceptional project and I am so excited that we all here today to celebrate the opening of this uniquely inspired, community-minded initiative that will bring new life to the whole west side of Manhattan," said Manhattan Borough President Scott M. Stringer. "Open public space is a cherished entity in New York, and the High Line will help everyone appreciate the outdoors and the beauty of our city. I am honored to be able to support its creation and want to thank Mayor Bloomberg, City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, Former City Council Speaker Gifford Miller, the City Planning Commission, Friends of the High Line Board, Community Boards 2 and 4, preservationists, open-space advocates, design professionals and community-minded individuals and businesses from New York for making it happen."

The High Line’s design is inspired by the wild, self-seeded landscape that grew up naturally on the High Line when the trains stopped running in 1980. It retains the original railroad tracks from the industrial structure and restored steel elements including the High Line’s signature Art-Deco railings. An integrated system of concrete pathways, seating areas and special features blend with naturalistic planting areas to create a singular landscape.

Access points to the High Line from street level are located at Gansevoort Street, 14th Street, 16th Street, 18th Street and 20th Street and will be open during the park's operating hours, from 7:00 AM to 10:00 PM. The High Line's landscape is fully ADA-accessible, with an elevator at the 16th Street access point, and another at 14th Street to open in July. Visitor access may be limited during the High Line's first summer season due to the anticipated high volume of visitors and the High Line's limited capacity, as well as ongoing construction and horticulture work. During this opening season, visitors will be directed to enter the park at the Gansevoort Street access point, unless an elevator is needed.

To read the New York Times story click here.

June 8, 2009, 2:52 pm
First Phase of High Line Is Ready for Strolling
By Robin Pogrebin, The New York Times

Standing on a newly renovated stretch of an elevated promenade that was once a railway line for delivering cattle — surrounded by the community activists, elected officials and architects who made the transformation happen — Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg cut a red ribbon on Monday morning to signify that the first phase of the High Line is finished and ready for strolling. (Panoramic view here and a map above).

Calling the High Line, which opens to the public on Tuesday, “an extraordinary gift to our city’s future,” Mr. Bloomberg said, “today, we’re about to unwrap that gift.’’ He added, “it really does live up to its highest expectations.”

The first portion of the three-section High Line, which runs along the Hudson River from Gansevoort Street to West 20th Street, will be open daily from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. There are entrances at Gansevoort Street (steps) and at 16th Street (elevator); exits are located every few blocks.

The second phase of the project, which extends to 30th Street, is under construction and expected to be completed by the fall of 2010. The third phase, up to 34th Street, has yet to be approved.
Librado Romero/The New York Times A view along the newly opened High Line public park.

The High Line project is something of a New York fairytale, given that it started with a couple of guys who met at a community board meeting in 1999 — Joshua David, a writer, and Robert Hammond, a painter — and discovered they shared a fervent interest in saving the abandoned railroad trestle, which had been out of commission since 1980 and was slated for demolition. Thus began a decade-long saga that involved rescuing the structure from demolition by the Giuliani administration and enlisting the Bloomberg administration in its preservation and renovation.

Scott M. Stringer, the Manhattan borough president, called the project “a great West Side story.”

City Council speaker Christine C. Quinn described it as “a miracle of perseverance,” and said “the idea could easily have gone into a file, ‘great ideas that will never happen.’”

With all the bureaucratic hurdles the project had to overcome, it was perhaps no wonder that so many representatives of different arms of local government were there for Monday’s celebratory news conference, including Amanda M. Burden, the city planning commissioner; Adrian Benepe, the parks commissioner; and Representative Jerrold Nadler, Democrat of New York. Also present were two couples who have been the project’s major benefactors Diane von Furstenberg, the fashion designer, and her husband, the media mogul Barry Diller, and Philip Falcone, a hedge fund billionaire, and his wife, Lisa Maria Falcone.

The landscaped walkway, designed by Field Operations and Diller Scofidio & Renfro, includes more than 100 species of plants that were inspired by the wild seeded landscape left after the trains stopped running, the Mayor said. He added that the High Line has helped usher in something of a renaissance in the neighborhood; more than 30 new projects are planned or under construction nearby.

These include a new home for the Whitney Museum of American Art, designed by Renzo Piano, which will anchor the base of the High Line at Gansevoort. The Mayor announced on Monday that the city was finalizing a land sale contract with the museum.

The first two sections of the High Line cost $152 million, the Mayor said, $44 million of which was raised by Friends of the High Line, the group that led the project.

All of the speakers’ comments echoed the triumphal — and perhaps somewhat incredulous — subject line of an email put out by Friends of the High Line right after the festivities had concluded: “We did it.”


Manhattan DA candidates should compete to crack down on City Council scandal
Errol Lewis, Daily News, Sunday, July 19th 2009, 4:00 AM
LINK

New York's season of scandal heated up with the conviction of Miguel Martinez, who abruptly resigned from his upper Manhattan City Council seat and days later pleaded guilty to stealing $106,000 in public money.

The handsome 39-year-old pol will spend at least five years in federal prison pondering the sick folly of his crimes, which included pocketing funds earmarked for children's arts programs and housing for the poor.

Martinez joins two thieving Council staffers, one of them the chief of staff of Brooklyn councilman Kendall Stewart, who last year pleaded guilty to stealing $145,000 that was supposed to help schoolchildren.

The Stewart aides, Joycinth Anderson and Asquith Reid, each face up to 20 years when they are sentenced this fall.

We're nowhere near finished with the Council corruption probe, but it seems clear that the city Department of Investigation and the U.S. attorney's office could use some help in rooting out the crooks at City Hall.

Don't get me wrong: DOI Commissioner Rose Gill Hearn (pictured at right) and acting U.S. attorney Lev Dassin (pictured at right) are doing a great job of uncovering corruption at the Council.

In June, they charged Richard Izquierdo Arroyo - the nephew of Bronx councilwoman Maria del Carmen Arroyo and grandson and chief of staff to Assemblywoman Carmen Arroyo - with embezzling $200,000 in public money.

But the probe has been going on for two years now, and we're long overdue for an update on the explosive allegation that triggered the current probe: The acknowledgment by City Council Speaker Christine Quinn that over $17 million in Council discretionary funds were allocated to non-existent organizations.

With fewer than 60 days to go before the all-important Democratic primary election, most voters will head to the polls without knowing for certain whether their favorite Council candidate should be making laws or making license plates.

Manhattan voters, who are due to select a successor to retiring District Attorney Robert Morgenthau, should insist that all three candidates for the office promise to create a special, permanent division of the Rackets bureau just to watch over the Council's disbursement of money.

The sad truth is that it's a full time job - one that not all of Gotham's district attorneys take seriously.

Consider the high-profile political corruption cases in the Bronx in recent years. Ex-Sen. Guy Velella and former assemblywoman Gloria Davis each went to jail in unrelated bribery cases.

In both instances, it was Morgenthau, the Manhattan prosecutor, who brought the charges, not Bronx D.A. Robert Johnson.

Morgenthau, in fact, has displayed a delightful penchant for jumping into public corruption cases that some believed fell outside his New York County jurisdiction. In 1986, at the start of the last major municipal scandal, Morgenthau publicly clashed with then-U.S. Attorney Rudy Giuliani over who should take the lead in chasing down accused chiselers in public office.

And decades before that, in 1968, Morgenthau - who was U.S. attorney at the time - got into a feud with local prosecutors over who should lead the corruption case against the city's water commissioner.

We need more of that fire. Prosecutors should be shouldering one another aside in a citywide competition to find, bust and prosecute every one of the crooks in the council.

Each of the three candidates for Manhattan D.A. - Leslie Crocker-Snyder, Richard Aborn and Cyrus Vance Jr. - should vow to watch the Council like a hawk. They might even propose legislation explicitly requiring Council members to report discretionary expenditures to the prosecutor's office.

It just might head off the next scandal - or, even better, convince petty crooks to ply their trade somewhere besides City Hall.

elouis@nydailynews.com

New York City Council Member Miguel Martinez Admits Stealing Public Money

Martinez (pictured above) is a Robbin' Hood is there ever was one. And, it looks like there are more members of City Council who will be proven as violating the public trust... Maria Del Carmen Arroyo (pictured below)looks like she might be next.



Other big losers in the last few days: The Daily News, whose Editors need to try to wipe the egg off of their faces now that their support for City Council members who railroaded a third term without a public referendum is seen as exactly what that was: payola, journalistic corruption, foolery. Read the comments to the article below!

Manhattan City Councilman Miguel Martinez admits he stole tens of thousands of taxpayer dollars
BY Thomas Zambito, Robert Gearty and Greg B. Smith, DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS
NY Daily News, July 17, 2009
LINK

City Councilman Miguel Martinez Thursday admitted he'd stolen thousands of taxpayer dollars through a series of scams that began in his first days in office.

Martinez pleaded guilty to conspiracy charges and revealed he'd pilfered $106,000 in Council funds through various schemes from October 2002 through spring 2008.

The Daily News first reported Martinez's self-dealing in April 2008 - triggering a city Department of Investigation probe, which led to the criminal charges.

He began stealing almost from the day he arrived at the Council in 2002 to represent Washington Heights and Inwood.

Martinez funneled money meant for children's art programs and low-income housing into bank accounts he controlled under cover names. He submitted bogus invoices to pocket money meant for office expenses.

And nobody was the wiser.

Standing before a Manhattan Federal Court judge, Martinez admitted to his crimes in a matter-of-fact manner, saying he "was able to engage in these schemes because I was a New York City councilman."

Released on $250,000 bond in a deal that offers him prison time of 57 to 71 months, he dodged waiting reporters when he fled the courthouse.

Half the money came from a controversial slush fund Council members use to pay for pet projects. That fund is the subject of an ongoing inquiry by the DOI and Acting Manhattan U.S. Attorney Lev Dassin.

Until Thursday, that probe had netted only two Council aides. Dassin said his office will continue "to scrutinize allocations of New York City taxpayer funds most vulnerable to abuse."

DOI Commissioner Rose Gill Hearn wouldn't criticize the Council but called Martinez's pattern of stealing from nonprofits he subsidized with public money a "textbook case."

"I never really like to tar everybody with a broad brush," she said. "[But] several years ago, our offices decided to focus on this area of money that goes out through the Council and where it's going and how it's being spent and what are the checks and balances on that money."

Hearn praised Council Speaker Christine Quinn's reforms to better monitor the money, but added, "Whether or not people will get around those and engage in additional fraud, I don't know. It's our job to be there if they do."

Quinn called Martinez's admissions "a shameful breach of public trust" but declined further comment.

In recent months, several politicians - both city and state - have been caught pocketing money from nonprofits they subsidized with public dollars. Some of the groups employ their relatives or legislative aides.

In Martinez's case, his sister, Maria, sat on the board of the Upper Manhattan Council Assisting Neighbors. In the past two years, Martinez sponsored nearly $800,000 for U-CAN.

After The News reported that conflict, DOI discovered that in 2004 and 2005, Martinez arranged for U-CAN to partner with an unnamed developer building low-income homes.

The developer got millions of dollars in tax credits. In return, Martinez had the developer pay U-CAN $96,000, of which $40,000 went into bank accounts the councilman controlled.

He did the same with the Washington Heights Arts Center, which received $163,000 in city funds since 2003, most sponsored by Martinez. In that time, the center wrote $15,000 in checks to Martinez-controlled bank accounts.

He also submitted invoices for bogus "expenses" for "media outreach" and "staff development." The vendor - a shell corporation - would write checks to his bank accounts.

Prosecutors did not identify the co-conspirator involved in U-CAN, Washington Heights and one of the shell corporations, Greater Manhattan Group.

Former U-CAN Director Tacito George was a board member of the arts group and the shell corporation. He could not be reached for comment.

The councilman even used fake names to conceal his corruption, controlling one account under the name Samajulis. His sister, Maria, controls a company with that name.

gsmith@nydailynews.com



Stop the thieves: City Council must end pork-barrel member items
Friday, July 17th 2009, 4:00 AM
LINK

Two days after resigning as a Manhattan city councilman, Miguel Martinez pleaded guilty yesterday to having been a cheap crook from almost the day he took office in 2002.

He ripped off his expense account and he used his ability to tap into Council slush funds as a way to finagle kickbacks. All told, Martinez made off with more than $100,000.

Some people are just determined thieves. The question for the Council, most notably for Speaker Christine Quinn (pictured below): Why make it easy for them?



Martinez's pocket-lining is an example of how corruption-prone the Council's system of doling out so-called member items has become.

Each lawmaker gets money every year to give to favored groups under the loosest of controls. No surprise, many of these pork-barrel grants go to organizations with ties to friends or family of the members.

Two aides to Councilman Kendall Stewart have pleaded guilty to stealing grant money. Council members Larry Seabrook and Maria del Carmen Arroyo are under scrutiny. And now, Martinez.

Last spring, amid a phantom grant scandal, Quinn and colleagues David Yassky and Dan Garodnick proposed ending member items. The 48 other Council members killed the plan.

It's time for Quinn to try again. End all member items.

Poetic Justice Jul 17, 2009 4:17:03 AM Report Offensive Post
Funny how the DN editorial board want to "stop the thieves" but never considered this about going along when you used your editorial judgment to extend term limits. This same crook of a politician you mention he was going to run for a 3rd term and most likely would have won. This is the reason why the people voted for term limits twice but you and your board members had the gall to go along to allow these crooks and the Emperor of the city to have their way and open the floodgate again for corruption. Be careful of what you ask for your might get it goes the saying.

Batsen Jul 17, 2009 8:23:33 AM Report Offensive Post
"End all member items." RIGHT ON!!! .... When did it become accepted that public coffers were piggy banks for the whims of politicrooks???? No monies without at least a vote!

dreamrequest Jul 17, 2009 11:44:46 AM Report Offensive Post
Public coffers used for Noblesse Oblige? Thought we got rid of that back in 1776... Term Limits.... isn't that what a vote is for?

BobbyM Jul 17, 2009 12:04:33 PM Report Offensive Post
I"ve eaten swiss cheese with fewer holes than this editorial. If the City Council is such a den of thieves, how come you didn't point that out when they overturned the twice-expressed will of the people to permit Bloomberg to purchase a third term? How come you didn't call them out for that crooked, thieving, low-down dirty deal? Gentlemen: you need to make up your minds. Either you admit the City Council is crooked all the time, or you spend your editorial ink on something else for which you have a better grasp.

BelleHarborGuy Jul 17, 2009 5:13:58 PM Report Offensive Post
I think it is painfully obvious that this "slush fund" misappropriation comes right from the top of the city council and points directly to Christine Quinn. Where is her resignation? Where is her indictment?



Councilwoman Maria del Carmen Arroyo on radar in slush probe
by Greg B. Smith, Daily News Staff Writer, Friday, July 17th 2009, 4:00 AM
LINK

Hours after Councilman Miguel Martinez admitted being a thief, prosecutors and investigators emphasized their inquiry into City Council slush money was far from over.

Already on their radar screen is Bronx Councilwoman Maria del Carmen Arroyo.

Like Martinez, Arroyo funneled hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars from the slush fund into a nonprofit controlled by relatives.

The relative was her nephew, Richard Izquierdo, (pictured below) and the nonprofit was the South Bronx Community Corp. Last month Izquierdo was arrested for stealing money from an SBCC affiliate.


Richard Izquierdo Arroyo and Margarita Villegas: Accused of looting nonprofit for pols' trip.

The charges included using funds from the nonprofit to pay for flights to Puerto Rico and other warm locales for Arroyo and her mother - and Izquierdo's grandmother - Assemblywoman Carmen Arroyo.

Izquierdo also had the nonprofit supply a new floor for the assemblywoman's Bronx office, a criminal complaint said.

Before Martinez's plea, the DOI investigation netted two aides to Brooklyn Councilman Kendall Stewart. Both pleaded guilty last month to stealing $145,000 from a nonprofit Stewart subsidized from the Council slush fund.

Stewart has not been charged and has denied knowing anything about what his aides did with the money.

Lulu of a bill: Speaker Christine Quinn's pay scheme makes case for Council reform
NY Daily News, Friday, March 6th 2009, 4:00 AM

The City Council today will begin considering legislation that would bar some of its own abuses of power.

The timing is exquisite.

Just a short few days ago, Council Speaker Christine Quinn proved by her own conduct why reform rules are necessary.

Among other things, the bill would ban the speaker from doling out so-called lulus to favored members. These payments on top of salary - ranging from $4,000 to $18,000 a year - enable the speaker to reward loyalty. The credo is: Vote right, do well.

A new crop of loyalists last week felt Quinn's love in their assignments, if not their paychecks.

She gave six members new, more desirable committee posts, four entailing nice raises.

The money winners were Darlene Mealy of Brooklyn, (pictured at left) who went

from no lulu to $10,000; James Sanders of Queens, (pictured below) who went from nothing to $10,000; Jimmy Vacca of the Bronx, who jumped from $4,000 to $10,000; and Melissa Mark Viverito of Manhattan, who climbed from zero to $4,000.

Simcha Felder of Brooklyn and Miguel Martinez of Manhattan got to lead more prestigious committees while staying at the $10,000 level.

The six generally follow Quinn's lead in voting. And all but Viverito stood with her on the most controversial Council action in years - that being the vote to extend term limits.

Mealy, Vacca and Sanders were particularly valuable to Quinn in getting the measure through because they switched their votes from no to yes at critical junctures.

The speaker's ability to, in effect, purchase support undermines representative democracy by giving individual lawmakers the incentive to vote on behalf of their wallets rather than in the interests of constituents.

The way to end that conflict is to ban lulus, as good government groups have urged for years.

Nearly two years after Queens Councilman Tony Avella requested a bill, the Council staff has now drafted a measure that includes such a bar. It will be ready for introduction today, fulfilling a commitment Quinn made a long, long time ago.

The bill would bring the Council in line with the best practices of the United States Congress both in equalizing compensation for all members and in setting proper procedures for voting pay raises.

Avella refuses to accept his $8,000 lulu on principle. He will be looking for support among colleagues who are only too happy to supplement their $112,500 salaries. We wish him luck in finding co-sponsors.

Eric Gioia, also of Queens, is in Quinn's good graces. He gets a $10,000 stipend, but he donates it to charity. He tells us that he's for banning lulus. That's two. Passage needs 26. Who's next?

Manhattan DA candidates should compete to crack down on City Council scandal
NY Daily News, Sunday, July 19th 2009, 4:00 AM
LINK

New York's season of scandal heated up with the conviction of Miguel Martinez, who abruptly resigned from his upper Manhattan City Council seat and days later pleaded guilty to stealing $106,000 in public money.

The handsome 39-year-old pol will spend at least five years in federal prison pondering the sick folly of his crimes, which included pocketing funds earmarked for children's arts programs and housing for the poor.

Martinez joins two thieving Council staffers, one of them the chief of staff of Brooklyn councilman Kendall Stewart, who last year pleaded guilty to stealing $145,000 that was supposed to help schoolchildren.

The Stewart aides, Joycinth Anderson and Asquith Reid, each face up to 20 years when they are sentenced this fall.

We're nowhere near finished with the Council corruption probe, but it seems clear that the city Department of Investigation and the U.S. attorney's office could use some help in rooting out the crooks at City Hall.

Don't get me wrong: DOI Commissioner Rose Gill Hearn and acting U.S. attorney Lev Dassin are doing a great job of uncovering corruption at the Council. In June, they charged Richard Izquierdo Arroyo - the nephew of Bronx councilwoman Maria del Carmen Arroyo and grandson and chief of staff to Assemblywoman Carmen Arroyo - with embezzling $200,000 in public money.

But the probe has been going on for two years now, and we're long overdue for an update on the explosive allegation that triggered the current probe: The acknowledgment by City Council Speaker Christine Quinn that over $17 million in Council discretionary funds were allocated to non-existent organizations.

With fewer than 60 days to go before the all-important Democratic primary election, most voters will head to the polls without knowing for certain whether their favorite Council candidate should be making laws or making license plates.

Manhattan voters, who are due to select a successor to retiring District Attorney Robert Morgenthau, should insist that all three candidates for the office promise to create a special, permanent division of the Rackets bureau just to watch over the Council's disbursement of money.

The sad truth is that it's a full time job - one that not all of Gotham's district attorneys take seriously.

Consider the high-profile political corruption cases in the Bronx in recent years. Ex-Sen. Guy Velella and former assemblywoman Gloria Davis each went to jail in unrelated bribery cases.

In both instances, it was Morgenthau, the Manhattan prosecutor, who brought the charges, not Bronx D.A. Robert Johnson.

Morgenthau, in fact, has displayed a delightful penchant for jumping into public corruption cases that some believed fell outside his New York County jurisdiction. In 1986, at the start of the last major municipal scandal, Morgenthau publicly clashed with then-U.S. Attorney Rudy Giuliani over who should take the lead in chasing down accused chiselers in public office.

And decades before that, in 1968, Morgenthau - who was U.S. attorney at the time - got into a feud with local prosecutors over who should lead the corruption case against the city's water commissioner.

We need more of that fire. Prosecutors should be shouldering one another aside in a citywide competition to find, bust and prosecute every one of the crooks in the council.

Each of the three candidates for Manhattan D.A. - Leslie Crocker-Snyder, Richard Aborn and Cyrus Vance Jr. - should vow to watch the Council like a hawk. They might even propose legislation explicitly requiring Council members to report discretionary expenditures to the prosecutor's office.

It just might head off the next scandal - or, even better, convince petty crooks to ply their trade somewhere besides City Hall.

elouis@nydailynews.com



n the coming weeks I am going to be looking at some of the hottest races for City Council. Bill deBlasio’s seat is up for grabs in Brooklyn, and John Liu’s vacancy in Queens is provoking a fiery race. Helen Sears and Kendall Stewart are facing opposition as well. Keep posted here for more…much more.

But today let’s take another look at one of my least favorite City Council members. Miguel Martinez represents Upper Manhattan’s District 10…the part “East of Broadway” as locals like to characterize it.

Looking over Mr. Martinez’ own website it is difficult to figure out what he and his staff believe his greatest accomplishments to be. A recent press release lauds the Member for sponsoring, “in collaboration with the New York Hispanic Cosmetology and Beauty Chamber of Commerce…a Women's Fair on Health, Beauty and Self-Esteem.”

OK, the neighborhood has more than its share of beauty parlors, and giving them a city-funded chance to showcase their wares probably fulfills a basic obligation to the local business community. And the Fair apparently offered “FREE on-site HIV testing”—sounds great. So who’s complaining?

Fallout from the U-CAN scandal reveals that Washington Heights has directly suffered from the incompetent management of City funding. Recall that U-CAN (Upper Manhattan Council Assisting Neighbors) began receiving large earmarks after Mr. Martinez’ sister became a board member of the group.

Part of the City’s settlement with Con Edison after the notorious 1999 blackout was for the utility to set aside $1 million to build a community center in Washington Heights. U-CAN’T was ingeniously given control of the project, which went nowhere for a decade. Fortunately the money appears to just be sitting in a bank account, and hasn’t been spent on anything else. But, as the Post puts it, “now there's no community center, $1.2 million of a $5 million pot Con Ed allocated exclusively for use in Washington Heights is sitting in a bank account 10 years later, and a legislator and his pet group are under intense investigation.”

It is always instructive to look at politicians as viaducts…or maybe “sewers” is the right word. Money flows in and through them, so it is useful to see who is contributing, and to hazard a guess or two as to why.

Recently Miguel Martinez had a new contributor to his campaign…someone who has never donated money to a City politician in the past. Carlos Ruiz gave $500 to the Martinez campaign on April 30, 2009. Mr. Ruiz is the President of Inwood nightspot Ambaroom, a popular Dominican club on 10th Avenue.

Perhaps as a matter of coincidence, or maybe not, a class-action lawsuit was filed in Federal court in February alleging massive minimum-wage labor law violations by Mr. Ruiz at Ambaroom. Now some people might say that the minimum wage in Inwood is honored more in the breach than in the observance, but it looks like Carlos Ruiz is playing a little cover-your-ass to the tune of five bills.

More salient perhaps is the case of Jack Brown of Brooklyn, who generously gave the Martinez campaign $2750 in February 2009. Mr. Brown lists himself as a Vice-President of Geo.

What is Geo? Geo is a NYSE-listed international provider of correctional services to governments across North America, the UK, Australia and South Africa (!). It was formerly known as Wackenhut but presumably underwent rebranding after some bad publicity emerged about the company.

Geo continues to make news. A Geo-run youth prison in Texas recently lost its contract after state corrections officials were horrified by conditions there. In April Texas courts upheld a $42.5 million dollar award against Geo, affirming that the company was responsible for the murder of inmate Gregorio de la Rosa. Apparently a Geo guard stood by and laughed as de la Rosa was beaten to death…this was established by the 13th District Court of Appeals as a matter of fact.

Want more? Eight inmates died in the span of five months at a Geo-run Pennsylvania prison, the George W. Hill Correctional Facility in 2007-08. Geo has also gone into the growing and richly lucrative business of detaining undocumented aliens in a sprawling network of gulags. I could literally go on and on for pages about the abusive and vile practices of this prison-for-profits enterprise.

Jack Brown lists his business address as 988 Myrtle Avenue in Brooklyn, which is the home of Brooklyn Community Correctional Center, a minimum-security coed facility, probably not among the worst of Geo’s prisons. His donation to Miguel Martinez’ campaign makes perfect sense when we recall that Mr. Martinez chairs chaired the Fire and Criminal Justice Services Committee, which oversees corrections and probation matters for the City.

Warden Brown has donated money to City politicians in the past, but usually in the $200 range. According to CFB documents he used to work for the Correctional Services Corporation, another for-profit prison company which was fined $300,000 by the state of New York in 2003 for bribing state legislators.

So Miguel Martinez, outspoken champion of the rights of the heavily-immigrant 10th District, takes big money from an executive of a company that locks up illegal aliens, and which smiles on the dog-pit environment of the prisons that it runs for profit.

Nice work Miguel. Can somebody get this guy out of office?

Reader Comments (4)

Many folks here in District 10 distrust the Councilman, his CFB scandal last year really did some damage. UNfortunately there seems to be few candidates in the November race who can challenge his name recognition or match his funds. There is hope in one challenger who's run against him several times now, but in my opinion chances are slim.
June 17, 2009 | Unregistered CommenterF.

MM is no longer the Chair of the Fire & Criminal Justice Services Committee.
June 17, 2009 | Unregistered CommenterCRK

True, he is no longer Chair of the Committee. However he was Chair when he accepted the contribution from Mr. Brown.
June 17, 2009 | Unregistered CommenterSeth

Well, that is not really true about Miguel Martinez, not having a viable contender to challange him. Perhaps the Luis Facundo is new to some readers, but not new to hundreds of small business men and residential tenants who Luis has so valiantly stood up for for over 10 years in district 10. Luis walks in some parts of Washington Heights, Inwood and Marble Hill and is treated as a celebrity, which is evident from the number of pats on the back and hugs he recieved from local residents and businessess he walks into. Some many people just love this guy. Maybe just real smart people.

On the short and long of it, Luis is a noted architect having worked with HPD as a senior designer and would've known exactly where and how to use those funds. Perhaps Miguels inabilty to find some proper professional consultation on this matter or possibly use it to turn the old beaten down marina at the end of Dykman Ave into a viable community center. Well just my opinon. Well trust me his distrust is well noted in District 10, i don't see him much in the community either? Humm!
June 29, 2009 | Unregistered CommenterBMS

NONPROFIT $$ DEBACLE COSTS WASH. HTS.
By DAVID SEIFMAN, NY POST
May 24, 2009 --
LINK

MORE than $1 million set aside by Con Ed to improve Washington Heights after the 1999 blackout is sitting unused a decade later because the group the city selected to build a community center never produced a viable proposal.

The group -- Upper Manhattan Council Assisting Neighbors (U-CAN) -- isn't likely to produce anything soon but legal papers.

Last month, authorities investigating how legislators steered government funds to favored nonprofits as part of the City Council "slush funds" scandal raided U-CAN and seized boxloads of records. The city immediately shut off its funding.

Councilman Miguel Martinez (D-Man.), U-CAN's chief sponsor, said the organization is "barely" operating, and that he intends to move the Con Ed funds, plus another $2 million put up by the city for the community center, to another local sponsor.

"According to my understanding, the money is still in the budget," Martinez said, a remarkably upbeat assessment considering the situation.

City officials said talks with U-CAN on the community center stretched on for years and ended in September 2008, five months after it was disclosed that Martinez allocated hundreds of thousands of dollars to the group once his sister joined its board in 2005.

The Post has also learned that a second board member, Cindy Espinoza, used to work for Martinez at the council.

"They were never able to present us with a viable project that met the city approval process," said one city official.

Martinez countered that the group was busy "looking for sponsorship" for operating expenses, and he blamed the city for contributing to the delays.

"It takes awhile in terms of getting details from the city -- square footage, how the city money is going to be used," he claimed.

One source said the administration was willing to work all those years with Martinez because it "wanted to maintain a positive relationship with him. He was very supportive of the Washington Heights rezoning."

But now there's no community center, $1.2 million of a $5 million pot Con Ed allocated exclusively for use in Washington Heights is sitting in a bank account 10 years later, and a legislator and his pet group are under intense investigation.

david.seifman@nypost.com