Lest We Forget: Quinn, Bloomberg and Secrets (2009)

The Secret Bloomberg Administration

Mayor Bloomberg, with City Council's Christine Quinn standing behind him

I wonder why citizens of New York want a Mayor that closes the door to public scrutiny of all policy determinations. Bloomberg's disdain for accountability is obvious to anyone who has tried to obtain information about him, and/or his staff pursuant to the freedom of information law.

If you read the new website of the Committee on Open Government, you will read about the many violations of FOIA and FOIL by both Mayor Bloomberg and Mr. Joel Klein. More about Mr. Klein's violations in a later article. So let's go now to the New York Times' requests for information on Mayor Bloomberg's successful campaign to get himself into a third term as Mayor, as you can see in the Times' article posted below.

By the way, I have heard that any New York City Council member who can win a third term on the Council gets free health insurance paid by the New York City taxpayer for the rest of his/her natural life. This is good to know, isnt it?

Wake up, New York.

Betsy Combier

April 25, 2009
E-Mail Sheds Little Light on Term Limits Campaign in City Hall
By MICHAEL BARBARO, NY TIMES

“Many thanks.”

In the middle of the pitched battle over Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s plan to re-engineer the city’s term-limits laws, those are the only two words that the first deputy mayor, Patricia E. Harris, (pictured below with Mayor Bloomberg) wrote about the topic.



Or at least those are the only two words that City Hall will allow the public to see.

On Friday, six months after The New York Times requested copies of all e-mail messages about term limits sent or received by six top aides to the mayor under the Freedom of Information Act, the Bloomberg administration released 66 pages of correspondence.

Much of what the city released amounted to fan mail for the mayor, from businesspeople, friends of his aides or ordinary citizens.

“My husband and I fully support your bid for a third term,” a husband and wife wrote the mayor. Their names were withheld.

In an e-mail message to the mayor, Edward B. Ryder IV, from Farmington, N.Y., wrote a ringing endorsement of the third-term plan. “If there was a case to be made for lifting term limits, I’m sure you will make it and make it well,” he wrote.

The Times sought e-mail messages written or received by Mr. Bloomberg; Ms. Harris; Edward Skyler, deputy mayor for operations; Kevin Sheekey, deputy mayor for intergovernmental affairs (pictured below); Stu Loeser, the mayor’s press secretary; and James Anderson, communications director.

The administration did not release any e-mail messages written by Mr. Bloomberg, Mr. Skyler (pictured below)or Mr. Anderson.


The mayor’s office released 17 e-mail messages that encouraged him to change the law and seek a third term, and four others opposing the move. The remainder consisted of press releases, poll results and inquiries about Mr. Sheekey’s young twins. None of the messages reflected discussions of strategy, support-building or organizing the broader campaign around the issue, which consumed the administration for months in the second half of 2008.

In a letter to The Times, a lawyer for the mayor, Anthony W. Crowell, said the administration was withholding other correspondence because it falls under an exemption for “interagency or intra-agency” materials.

Gene Russianoff, (pictured at right) a senior lawyer at the New York Public Interest Research Group, which also sought the records, said that the city’s release of the e-mail messages “can’t be the full story.”

“It sounds like a very selective release of memos and that support for term limits was spontaneous combustion,” Mr. Russianoff said. “It’s hard to believe this was conceived by spontaneous combustion. People on the scene felt like it was well orchestrated. But you can’t orchestrate without an orchestra.”

A spokesman for the mayor, Jason Post, said on Friday afternoon, “We released all the e-mails that were subject to disclosure.” He noted that Mr. Bloomberg did not personally respond to many of the e-mail messages on term limits.

Even those e-mail messages that offer a window into City Hall’s thinking about term limits are long on logistics and short on substance.

An e-mail message to Mr. Sheekey from an official at 32BJ, a union representing custodial workers in the city, bears the subject line “Term Limits.”

The union official wrote: “Are you back in the U.S.A. for good? Want to talk on this A.S.A.P.” Mr. Sheekey responded: “Just back this a.m. Let me know where/when to call you.”

And even while citing the exemption for correspondence between agencies in City Hall as a reason for not disclosing other messages, the administration nevertheless included one e-mail message from Mr. Loeser, sent on Oct. 3, 2008, in which he forwards the result of a poll to his City Hall colleagues, including Ms. Harris, Mr. Sheekey and Mr. Anderson. The poll found that most New Yorkers backed the idea of a third term for Mr. Bloomberg.

Mr. Post said that because the e-mail message contained “final statistical tabulations,” the city determined it should be disclosed.

Still, the documents do provide a glimpse of the ego-stroking and subtle hierarchies that govern the political world.

When writing last October to Patrick Gaspard, (picture at right) a Barack Obama campaign aide who is now deputy political director at the White House, Mr. Sheekey urged him: “Focus on winning the national election. If you can take some time out from the transition, find some time for me.”

Then Mr. Sheekey quoted the character Leo McGarry, the White House chief of staff on the television series “The West Wing.” (Picture at left is actor John Spencer as Leo McGarry).

“We have the ability to affect more change in a day at the White House than we will have in a lifetime once we walk out these doors. What do we want to do with them?”

Mayor Bloomberg's e-mail stormed by New York voters - pro and con - after OK'd 3-term bid
BY Kathleen Lucadamo, DAILY NEWS CITY HALL BUREAU
Saturday, April 25th 2009, 1:09 AM
LINK

3rd time's the charm

How do you feel about Mayor Bloomberg running for a 3rd term?

Great - He's doing the best he can - all he needs is another chance.

Disappointed - I've lost hope in him - we need a new mayor.

Angry - I belive in term limits - you should only get two terms.

Mayor Bloomberg got an earful from New Yorkers last fall when he tossed term limits so he could run for reelection, according to e-mails released Friday by City Hall.

"This is a sad day for New York City. How dare you?" wrote one disgruntled citizen to Bloomberg the day after City Council voted to make the change in October.

Another urged him not to run for mayor again because "fatigue can set in," while a third wrote, "The way this is being handled is hurting you - it really is."

Others were more encouraging.

"We are thrilled to hear the news about the third run. THANK GOD," Mara Manus of the Film Society of Lincoln Center e-mailed the mayor.

"We only regret you didn't run for President," an enthusiast e-mailed after urging him to seek a third term.

The exchanges between City Hall and outsiders suggest Bloomberg was trying to line up labor support days before the Council voted on the controversial measure.

Deputy Mayor Kevin Sheekey was arranging meetings in early October to discuss the term limits debate with Stuart Applebaum of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (at right) and Peter Colavito of SEIU 32BJ, records show.

"Want to talk on this ASAP," Colavito wrote.

Sheekey also appeared to discuss the issue with President Obama's political director, Patrick Gaspard, who wrote on Oct. 21 he "wanted to talk term limits."

Gaspard was previously an operative at SEIU 1199, which opposed term limits. Bloomberg is now courting the union for a reelection endorsement.

The Council narrowly voted to extend term limits for itself and citywide elected posts on Oct. 23 despite opposition from good-government groups and several politicians.

Bloomberg received support from Intrepid Sea-Air-Space Museum chief Bill White, who ended his e-mail with, "Hope to see you at the Intrepid for the Grand Reopening."

Adrian Flannelly, chairman of Irish Radio Networks, wrote after the vote, "Congratulations. We look forward to your leadership of New York City for the next five years."

The e-mails were provided to the Daily News through a Freedom of Information request, though the names of most e-mail senders were redacted.

klucadamo@nydailynews.com

Appealing 3020-a decisions of Arbitrators Without Subject Matter Jurisdiction in NYC

I posted the article below in July 2012 after some Article 7511 appeals overturned the decisions of 3020-a Arbitrators. I am posting it also as a heads up about the story I will do very soon on the most unfair and biased Arbitrator on the UFT-DOE panel in NYC right now: Eleanor Elovich Glanstein.

People who receive unfair decisions in the 3020-a process should appeal these biased decisions!

Betsy Combier

The NYC Rubber Room Gotcha Squad Is Slammed By The New York State Supreme Court

Betsy Combier

betsy.combier@gmail.com
Editor, Advocatz.com
Editor, NYC Rubber Room Reporter
Editor, Parentadvocates.org
Editor, New York Court Corruption
Editor, National Public Voice
Editor, NYC Public Voice
Editor, Inside 3020-a Teacher Trials

Link - Parentadvocates.org

Arbitrator David Hyland ruled in February 2011 that a NYC Dean had to "learn her lesson" and pay $7,000 for after she left her office for several minutes and the father of the student who was being discussed as threatening to commit suicide took home a note his son had written on a napkin. Hyland punished Dean Nicole Moreno-Lieberman for not preserving a copy of the note and for her "serious negligence...impeded the investigation". NYS Supreme Court Judge Lucy Billings says this fine is "shocking to the conscience...By delegating unbounded latitude to respondents and Hearing Officers in these administrative actions, the statutory and regulatory scheme leaves their decisions subject to untrammeled discretion." From Betsy Combier: Thank you, Judge Billings!!!

When I first started looking into the "NYC Rubber Rooms" and the teacher trials for tenured teachers, (3020-a) in 2003 after speaking with Polo Colon, teachers David Pakter, and Teddy Smith, I was stunned to see what was going on.
In my opinion, Mayor Bloomberg had made a business out of framing people.
Children and their parents were, and still are, bribed to lie about what a teacher has said or done, and the rewards are diverse, such as a higher score on a test, graduation from school, promotion to another grade level, etc, all done in secret with the administrators of the school and the Superintendents and even higher-ups, Deputy Chancellors and the Chancellor himself - or herself, as in the case of Cathie Black. Putting all of this together is not difficult, as few people believe that a public servant is actually out to "get" him or her until it is too late. If a teacher knew that the child(ren) were lying, all they had to do was contact the parent(s) or tell a superior what was going on, and sooner than a blink of the eye, the teacher is shot down with charges either about some corporal punishment that he/she didn't do, or the ever-ready charge of "actual" tampering with an investigation, (which was slipped into Chancellor's Regulations A-420) is charged against him/her. Anyone can interpret what the term "actual tampering" means. My point here is, once the train has left the station, there is no stopping it. At least, that's what Mayor Bloomberg, the UFT, NYSUT, and private Attorneys - who do not have the experience in doing these hearings yet say that they do - want teachers subjected to the rubberization process to believe. It just is not legally sound.

What is "Actual Tampering?" "Actual" tampering, according to Federal law, specifically 18 U.S.C. §1503: "unlawful to "influence, obstruct, or impede the due administration of justice" and §1512, which proscribes intimidating, threatening, or corruptly persuading, through deceptive conduct, a person in connection with an official proceeding". Under 1503, a government agent must prove that a defendant acted "corruptly" with the specific intent to obstruct or interfere with the proceeding or due administration of justice. See United States v Bucey, 876 F.2d 1297, 1314 (7th Cir. 1989); United States v Smith, 729 F. Supp. 1380, 1383-84 (D.D.C. 1990).

Acting "corruptly": some courts have defined this term as acting with "evil and wicked purposes" see United States v Banks, 942 F.2d 1576, 1578 (11th Cir. 1991), but at the very least to "act corruptly" under the statute, a defendant must have acted with the specific intent to obstruct justice. See United States v Moon, 718 F2d 1219, 1236 (2d Cir. 1983): United States v. Bashaw, 982 F.2d 168, 170 (6th Cir. 1992); United States v Anderson, 798 F.2d 919, 928 (7th Cir, 1986; ) United States v Rasheed, 663 F.2 843, 847 (9th Cir. 1981). Thus it is not enough to prove that the defendant knew that a result of his actions might be to impede the administration of justice, if that was not his intent.

Section 1512 specifically applies to "witness tampering": a defendant was proven to have knowingly engaged in intimidation, physical force, threats, misleading conduct, or corrupt persuasion with intent to influence, delay, or prevent testimony or cause any person to withhold objects or documents from an official proceeding. The defendant must be aware of the possibility of a proceeding and his efforts must be aimed specifically at obstructing that proceeding, whether pending or not; §1512 does not apply to defendants' innocent remarks or other acts unintended to affect the proceeding. See United States v Wilson, 565 F. Supp. 1416, 1431 (S.D.N.Y. 1983).

None of this applies to most of the specifications currently charged teachers in NYC, but the DOE Gotcha Squad spends hundreds or thousands of dollars trying to prove "actual" tampering, anyway. As I mentioned above, this is a business and everyone profits (except the Respondent).

From 2003 to 2008 there was little, if any, opposition to the false claims business run by the NYC DOE and the Office of General Counsel, headed by Theresa Europe ("the Gotcha Squad"). See also my article on the misinformation of the Bloomberg/Klein/education mafia, Steven Brill for more on exactly how the Gotcha Squad works at 3020-a. Many people gave up, settled out of the 3020-a, resigned or retired. The effect of getting out early, before an arbitrator determined punishment for your supposedly horrific misconduct or incompetency at 3020-a was to put you in a precarious position as an ATR ("Absent Teacher Reserve") without rights or without any job at all.

In Rethinking Wrongful Discharge: A Continuum Approach by Robert C. Bird, (University of Cincinnati Law Review, Winter, 2004, 73 U. Cin. L. Rev. 517) Bird writes: “Employers acting with just cause treat their employees with punctilious concern for fairness and equity. Only the most qualified employees are promoted. Office politics and arbitrary decision-making do not infect the employment relationship...We hold "just cause" is a fair and honest cause or reason, regulated by good faith on the part of the party exercising the power. We further hold a discharge for "just cause" is one that is not for any arbitrary, capricious, or illegal reason and which is one based on facts (1) supported by substantial evidence and (2) reasonably believed by the employer to be true.”

The NYC panel of Arbitrators are told by the Gotcha Squad to disregard these well-known rules. Alan Berg, an Arbitrator on the panel, exonerated a teacher brought to 3020-a before him, and told me that he was punished by Theresa Europe for making the decision that he did; following his determination, he was moved from the Administrative Trials Unit (ATU) to the dreaded Teacher Performance Unit or TPU. I have heard Gotcha Squad member Dennis Da Costa screaming at Arbitrator Anne Powers that she "better do what he says, "or else".She does as she is told by Dennis.

Additionally, Theresa Europe places everyone who has been charged on a blacklist which will hamper any employer from hiring you in the future. This blacklist is the notorious "Ineligible/Inquiry" List from which attorney Ed Wolf was able to remove Philomena Brennan. Ms. Europe can take people off if she wants, and she puts people on there also whenever she wants to, it seems to me. NYS Supreme Court Judge Alice Schlesinger ordered Ms. Europe to tell her how she, Europe, put people on the list and took the names off, in the case of Philomena Brennan v NYC DOE (Index no. 112977/09).
The rubberization process is arbitrary, malicious, and discretionary.

First of all, the Rubber Room Gotcha Squad is a group comprised mostly of attorneys who are given the authority by Mayor Michael Bloomberg and his allies in NYC to remove tenured teachers - or non-tenured, depending on the circumstances - from their classroom duties because someone in the chain of command at the NYC Department of Education wants them to be out of the school. It's very simple, really.

Secondly, the initial targeting is followed by a strategy of threats, humiliation, fear and retaliation supported the Gotcha Squad as the group denies rights to anyone who opposes their false claims and conspiracy of harm. All anyone has to do to be a target is to ask, "Why?", or "Where's the money?"

Thirdly, the agents or messengers of harm must be protected, and given special status, so that those people who are fearless and refuse to be squashed by the Gotcha Squad's lawless lies and then the retaliation, threats, and verbal abuse used to punish anyone who remains standing after #1 and #2 above, can be denied a resolution to the "problem", which is basically that these fearless souls won't go away never to be heard from again. Thus the Gotcha Squad's subgroups such as the Office of Equal Opportunity (OEO), Special Commissioner of Investigation (SCI) and Office of Special Investigation (OSI) are given authority similar to the SS in World War II (but not military; mostly civilian attorneys or people willing to follow the orders of the Mayor, the Chancellor, and the New York Law Department).

The UFT and NYSUT, the legal arm of the teacher's union, can and do act in the interest of the Unity caucus, and not in support of individual members. Very few members believe me when I tell them this before they are brought to 3020-a, but many believe this is true after the 3020-a is over, and the Hearing Officer has made a decision that often does not rest on any fact or law. NYSUT attorneys often do not do a good job defending the member at 3020-a because, I was told, everyone charged is presumed "guilty". In fact, the Unity brass told me over and over again that all people housed in the infamous "rubber rooms" - which today are smaller rooms with a few re-assigned DOE employees in each room in an office or school - are not supposed to talk to each other, cannot dispute an investigator, and are guilty of whatever he or she is accused of, so dont try too hard to find a way to save his or her career. I worked for the UFT from 2007 to 2010, and I was hired by Randi Weingarten. I did not agree that everyone was automatically guilty of the specifications they were given, and I looked into each case.

The DOE and UFT, in order to stop any employee targeted for termination from getting a vacatur or dismissal of the decision of an arbitrator, changed the rules for appealing a determination made at 3020-a in 1994 and several times afterward. The New York State Education Department Commissioner no longer was the office of jurisdiction where decisions were made to sustain or vacate the decisions made at 3020-a. After 1994 people dissatisfied at 3020-a had to file an Article 75 to the New York State Supreme Court instead of NYSED. To many non-Attorneys, filing anything in court is frightening. That was, I am sure, a main reason for the change.

To further hamper anyone from appealing, the statute giving a petitioner 30 days to file an Article 75 was shortened to 10 days, with another 15 to amend. NYSUT attorneys never take on a case that was lost at 3020-a, this is another problem. After a 3020-a is closed and decided, NYSUT attorneys always write the client and say, in general, sorry you did not win at 3020-a, however, we are not going to help you appeal. Goodbye.

The New York State Supreme Court is a mangled mess right now, desperately in need of a total overhaul. The judges are arrogant with their immunity from prosecution, and some judges, like Cynthia Kern now on the First Department Appellate Division, could not care less about the facts in a case. She grants dismissal of any and all petitions filed by a teacher or any other DOE employee. Her loyalty is very much in the interests of the New York Law Department and the DOE.

Sometimes good decisions do come out of the supreme court. The case of Christopher Asch is a case that won a vacatur of the decision of arbitrator David Hyland. Asch signed his petition as "pro se". NYS Supreme Court Judge Manuel Mendez overturned the 6-month suspension, gave Chris his backpay, and ordered the reimbursement of the money spent on a psychiatrist.

Recently David Hyland was again overturned, this time by NYS Supreme Court Judge Lucy Billings in the case of Nicole Moreno-Lieberman. Arbitrator Hyland ruled in February 2011 that a NYC Dean, Moreno-Lieberman, had to "learn her lesson" and pay $7,000 for after she left her office for several minutes and the father of the student who was being discussed as threatening to commit suicide took home a note his son had written on a napkin. Hyland punished Dean Nicole Moreno-Lieberman for not preserving a copy of the note and for her "serious negligence...impeded the investigation". NYS Supreme Court Judge Luck Billings says this fine is "shocking to the conscience...By delegating unbounded latitude to respondents and Hearing Officers in these administrative actions, the statutory and regulatory scheme leaves their decisions subject to untrammeled discretion."

Kudos to Judge Billings, who seems to see that the 3020-a arbitrators in New York City need a reality check, and not just a check from the Gotcha Squad for throwing a case.

COMMENT from Attorney Joy Hochstadt:

Its just the beginning, thousands of teachers are harassed and resign before they are brought up on charges. I was told that if I resigned before the charges were presented to me (four months after I was told I was under"investigation"), then I would leave with a clean record--Klaus Bornemann forgot to tell me I'd be on the I/I list forever unless I fought it in Court. I was naive, I believed the arbitrators would not debase themselves and be biased.

Then my NYSUT Attorney told me my arbitrator fired everyone; in fact the UFT had voted her off the panel, ten years ago, but the DOE offered the UFT an extra seat on the collective bargaining committee for as long as the UFT allowed Eleanor Glanstein to remain on the 3020-a permanent arbitrator panel. And so I was fired for being assigned by my Principal self-contained special ed classes for my entire program for an entire year when I have no license or background in dealing with special ed; most of the classes had students diagnosed as Emotionally Disturbed. Then they stipulated to my exemplary subject matter skills but said I was incompetent in classroom management, the administration had seen a student walk out without a pass to get a drink at a water fountain 1 foot from the classroom door.

Another called out his answer in class during an observation, the "do now" was 7 minutes for a class of students who find it difficult to focus and are distractable--it should be no more than 5 minutes, etc. What a waste when I was the best-prepared biology teacher that ever worked for the DOE. Therefore, the Principal would rather put me in a position where she could find B.S. fault with me than to allow the advanced and capable students benefit with what I could imbue then with. The DOE attorney at the 3020-a said the assignment to special ed classes should not be mitigating because I would have had to grieve it and win (and my chapter leader told me it was too late in the term to change every teacher's program--but I grieved it before school started--the Principal elected not to hear it for 7 weeks!) 

Funny part I offered to help--I wrote a comprehensive plan of incentives to get out students to strive to achieve starting with color coded IDs which would let everyone know what grade placement the student had earned sufficient credits for along outings, Broadway shows, meals in Restaurants, to students of the "month" (a short enough time that students could show improvement--and there would be two cohorts --for best grades and for most improvement. Principal was so threatened she tried to put a letter in my file for distributing my proposal without her consent --UFT chapter leaders consent was all that was necessary, by precedent.

Principal lost her school, DOE settled my lawsuit in my favor, and now all the other similarly situated teachers ask for my help --- but it takes the rare judge not to go along with the "program." What observers fail to understand is the scale at which this is being done. I try as best as I can to get the number of teachers given "U" ratings over the last 15 years, the number removed from regular assigments, the number unlawfully brought up on charges by their Principals who are afraid of losing their own jobs--the great old Principal with grandfathered tenure --do not do this --their schools are happy places to works at and have been for decades--it says more about the Principals than the teachers when one Principal sends 9 teachers to the rubber room in 2005-2006 and is voted Principal of the Year for 2006-2007--the Bloomberg Administration is rewarding the Principals for ousting tenured, high paid, and long-service teachers to save billions of $$$$$ by replacing them with cheap inexperienced, teachers who will never earn tenure, will never get vested in a pension plan that the city does not want to honor. 

Tier I teachers, almost a relic of the past if they worked from 22-62 retired a 100% final years salary plus no FICA, no Medicare tax, no state or city income tax ergo a pension payout equivalent to 125% prior take home. Tier I who worked from 22-42 and then did something else, as long as they had their QPP in Variable A, 13 years later at age 55 would retire at greater than 100% of what their final years pay was when they left--and only now is the life expectancy for teachers (no hard labor, nor dangerous assignments and adequate medical care covered by the employer) 30-40 years after they begin to get the payout. To avoid that cost, there is an overwhelming pressure to lock in the pensions where they are rather than accrue an additional liability of ~$80,000.00 in lifetime payout for each year the teacher continues to teach beyond this year for teachers with 20 or more years in the system and $72,000.00/year for each year the teacher teaches until 20 years of service. 

So economics demand they get out all tier1-2 immediately if not before, that they get out tier 3-4 teachers ASAP and that only tier V teachers where the teacher pays most to the accummulation remain so the city does not go bankrupt. More important so that Bloomberg and his other billionaired friends do not foot the bill.

When confronted with these facts. they answer that they are improving the schools as well--but they are not--its Rumplestiltskin without the elf! The "bottom line" Principals do not know how to achieve higher test scores, so they blame the teachers who know that they can't do it, keep the submissive new and cheap teachers so at least they get kudos for savings. They scrub the scores and get big bonuses for student achievement, (they even embezzle to milk the system as their days are always numbered). And Bloomberg in behalf of himself and his friends have ended tenure, drastically reduced future pension obligations, lowered average salaries--and enriched the union because if there are 70,000 teachers earning S50,000.00 per year instead of 50,000 teachers earning $70,000/year then the UFT earns an additional $22,000,000.00 in union dues so it goes along.

Betsy and I should write a book "Why the DOE does not care that Tyrone does not want to learn to read" --Mayoral control of the schools for reform was for the purpose of saving massive amounts of money. whether or not the students benefited, or even whether the students got less--Because just as the teachers assumed to be guilty or incompetent before the fact--it is worse that the students going to the public schools of NYC are presumed to not be amenable to getting an education, in any event--so at least we should save the money--and not all go bust in the process.

It is a social Darwinism approach that the best teachers and the best students will outmaneuver the system and benefit from it. They'll even give me as an example, that I came to Randi's and her counsel's attention as someone wrongly removed and UFT hired NYSUT attorneys to prosecute a case in my behalf which the NYC Law Department settled almost immediately. They told me there was at least one case that did as well if not better. Demonstrable provable sexual harassment by a superior administrator against a DOE subordinate employee, usually can do well. But wrongful 3020-a charges do not--I was very lucky. A group of us need to go to the legislature and get hearings, because the problems that are seeking a solution need the legislature to intervene. 

The false accusations, defamation, loss of profession, mental anguish, blackballing I/I list--is simply criminal and intentionally so. Every prosecutor in the ATU and TPU must understand that they all are committing prosecutorial misconduct. It is as bad as prosecutors sending defendants they know to to be innocent to life sentences just so they can add to their conviction rate! Please contact me to volunteer to work on a legislative initiative both to clue in the legislature as to what is going on, and to write and lobby new legislation for NYC that will restore integrity to a corrupt and misused disciplinary process.

Joy Hochstadt, Ph.D., J.D.

Mayor Hopeful Bill Thompson is Funded By Madoff Supporter

New York Court Corruption

LINK 

EXCLUSIVE: Bill Thompson received $4,000 from Bernie Madoff-tainted financier in current bid for mayor

Thompson’s donor, Seymour Zises, also gave in $4,950 in 2009 – which the former controller promised to donate to charity after it was revealed that Zises had invested clients’ money with Ponzi schemer Bernie Madoff. But Thompson has yet to make the charitable contribution.

Comments (3)

BY JENNIFER FERMINO / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

LINK

Bill Thompson

 

The last time William Thompson ran for mayor, he promised to donate thousands of dollars from his campaign war chest to charity after the Daily News discovered that one of his biggest longtime donors was linked to Bernie Madoff.

But four years later, Thompson not only hasn’t donated the money — he’s also pocketed even more campaign contributions from the Madoff-tainted financier Seymour Zises.

Zises — who was sued by victims of the Ponzi schemer for secretly investing the majority of their money with Madoff — has given more than $21,000 to Thompson’s various campaigns over the years. When The News uncovered Zises’ link to Madoff four years ago, Thompson promised to give $4,950 from his campaign coffers to charity.

RELATED: WILLIAM THOMPSON ON CITYTIME SCANDAL: 'WISH I HAD DONE MORE'

That’s the amount Zises donated to Thompson’s 2009 mayoral run.

But despite the vow — given four months after the reviled Madoff was sentenced to 150 years in prison — Thompson has not doled out the money.

Meanwhile, two years later, Thompson — with his eyes still on City Hall — accepted the first of what would be four donations from Zises for his 2013 run.

RELATED: WILLIAM THOMPSON STOOD BY AS CITYTIME SCANDAL UNFOLDED

A financier linked to Ponzi schemer Bernie Madoff (right) has donated money
to Bill Thompson's mayoral campaign, as well as given to Joe Lhota and Anthony Weiner.

In total, Zises has given $4,000 for Thompson’s latest bid for the mayor’s office.

Thompson declined to comment.

A group of Madoff victims sued Zises and his firm Family Management Corp. in 2008.

RELATED: BILL THOMPSON'S DAD STEPS IN TO AS PEACEMAKER OVER LICH

The victims claim Zises told them their $25 million was diversified over various funds, when the majority of it was secretly stashed in a Madoff-feeder fund.

They also claimed Zises grossly mismanaged their money by conducting no due diligence into Madoff’s too-good-to-be-true returns.

Some of the lawsuits against Zises were dismissed or dropped, but one of the victims — David Newman — has appealed the ruling in his case, which is pending in the 2nd Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals.

The deep-pocketed Zises has also donated $1,000 Joe Lhota and another $1,000 to Anthony Weiner in this year’s mayoral race.

jfermino@nydailynews.com

From Betsy Combier:
Under Bill's watch, CityTime had a free rein, as Juan Gonzalez wrote:

  Juan Gonzalez' greatest scandalous scoops

 

 

LINK

To mark his 25th anniversary as a columnist, Juan Gonzales

 relives bombshell stories over the years.

Comments (17)

NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

Sunday, December 23, 2012, 8:51 PM

Democratic Rep. (California) Mark Takano Uses a Red Pen To Correct GOP Hardliners

 

High School Teacher Turned Democratic Congressman Trolls Republicans With Red Pen

California freshman Mark Takano whips out the correction pen to give GOP immigration hardliners “an F.” Update: Republican calls Takano’s edits “everything Americans hate about Washington.”posted on July 11, 2013 at 1:22pm EDTLINK

WASHINGTON — When Democratic Rep. Mark Takano got his hands on a draft letter to Speaker John Boehner from conservatives on immigration, he did what any pro-reform member of Congress who was a high school literature teacher for two decades would: took out his red pen and marked up the draft.

Unsurprisingly, he gave the Republican letter an “F.”

“If you don’t understand the bill come by my office and I’ll explain it,” he wrote at the bottom in his best teacherese.

The letter, which is being circulated by Louisiana Republican Rep. Bill Cassidy and is addressed to Boehner, is a rebuke of the Senate’s comprehensive immigration reform bill. It includes complaints that the Senate bill is “over 1,000 pages long” and was created in a “secret and underhanded way.” Cassidy’s letter calls on the House to reject a comprehensive bill in favor of several smaller bills targeted at specific immigration arguments, like border security.

The signatories of the letter are a Who’s Who of Republican comprehensive reform opponents in the House, including Reps. Tim Huelskamp of Kansas, John Culberson and Mike Conaway of Texas, Charles Boustany and Rodney Alexander of Louisana, Steve Palazzo and Alan Nunnelee of Mississippi, Joe Pitts of Pennsylvania, Tom Price, Paul Broun and Austin Scott of Georgia, Paul Gosar and Trent Franks of Arizona, Andy Harris of Maryland, Doug Lamborn of Colorado, Jeff Duncan of South Carolina, Bob Latta of Ohio, Michele Bachmann of Minnesota, Blaine Luetkemeyer of Missouri and Richard Hudson of North Carolina.

Outside the White House Thursday, leaders of the Senate Gang Of Eight, which authored the immigration bill, rejected similar complaints made by conservative Republicans in the past.

“Those extreme opponents, they keep coming up with new reasons to oppose the bill. One of their latest is, ‘oh, our bill is a thousand pages and complicated,’” said Sen. Chuck Schumer, a Democrat from New York. “Well, from what I understand, the bills they are putting together — and they only have half of them done — are already 500 pages.”

“It’s what in those pages that’s important, and what’s in those pages is supported by the American people overwhelmingly — Democrats, Republicans, business, labor, the whole religious community,” Schumer added.

Takano’s office says the marked-up version of the letter, which staff posted to both Takano’s Facebook and Tumblr pages, has been a hit. After about two hours on Facebook, the letter had already been shared more than 1,000 times.

Update: In a statement, Cassidy responded to Takano’s edits.

“Representative Takano’s action and grandstanding represent everything Americans hate about Washington, but I won’t let his partisanship stand for all of us,” Cassidy said. “My colleagues and I are absolutely going to keep requesting that the Speaker listen to the American people, not the big money interests and rank partisans trying to bully and intimidate members of Congress to quickly pass this massive amnesty bill.”

 

The Chicago Battle Against Charter Schools' Take-Over

President Barack Obama left, talks with Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel right, after arriving at O’Hare International Airport in Chicago, Wednesday, Aug. 3, 2011

Chicago School Closings And The Joyce Foundation: The Obama Connection

By Steve Horn | July 9, 2013

LINK

The Windy City is is undergoing a tumultuous historical moment, with the uprising of the Chicago Teachers Union occurring alongside the ongoing restructuring and privatization of the Chicago Public Schools system.

Most recently, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel oversaw the closing of 50 public schools, many of which will be replaced by charter schools. A bulk of the 550 laid-off teachers will be replaced by Teach for America contractors, many of whom teach in charter schools.

“Statewide enrollment in charter schools has surged from 6,152 students in 2000 to 54,054 this school year — with most of them in Chicago — according to the Illinois State Board of Education,” an April Chicago Tribune editorial explained. “The first charter school in Illinois opened in 1996. Now there are 132 campuses operating under 58 charters.”

A thus-far underreported story of the retooling of CPS concerns a foundation close the epicenter of it all: the Joyce Foundation.

Joyce is a major liberal foundation. President Barack Obama sat on its board of directors from 1994 to 2002, as did Valerie Jarrett, his former senior advisor and assistant to the president for intergovernmental affairs and public engagement .

A look at major organizations dedicated to restructuring U.S. education turns up a slew of current and former upper-level Joyce staff and board members.

Between 1995 and 2012, the Joyce Foundation spent $135.58 million on education reform.

“They’re really in bed now with conservative elements nationwide,” said Mike Klonsky, a Chicago public schools activist and professor at DePaul University, in an interview with Mint Press News. “Anything that has to do with corporate-style school reform, you’ll probably see Joyce’s name in it.”

A Mint Press News investigation reveals the veracity of Klonsky’s statement — and then some.

In the sphere of school privatization, Joyce mirrors Milwaukee’s Bradley Foundation, a key foundation of the Republican Party referred to by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel as the “Bradley Empire” in a November 2011 investigation.

In his book, “The Gift of Education: Public Education and Venture Philanthropy,” Kenneth Saltman, Klonsky’s colleague at DePaul, describes the activity of Joyce and allied foundations in the sphere of education reform as “venture philanthropy” — transforming a once-public education system into a for-profit market.

“Such a view carries significant implications for a society theoretically dedicated to public, democratic ideals,” Saltman explains in the book’s introduction. “This is no small matter in terms of how the public and civil roles of public schooling have become nearly overtaken by the … perspective [of] public schooling as principally a matter of producing workers and consumers for the economy and for global economic competition.”

With assets of over $900 million, Joyce has helped in applying “shock doctrine”-type “venture philanthropy” to CPS, with tight-knit ties to the highest levels of the Democratic Party and the Obama administration.

Nuts and bolts: Mayoral takeover as launching pad for reform

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel — derided as “Mayor 1 Percent” by some activists and “One-Term Mayor” by others — formerly served as White House chief of staff under Obama.

Obama’s secretary of education, Arne Duncan, is the former CEO of CPS. Duncan’s federal policy agenda — notably the Race to the Top program — is Emanuel’s agenda in Chicago.

To understand the origins of that agenda, rewind to 1995, when Chicago joined numerous major U.S. cities in granting full control of the public school system to the mayor. Other members of that club included Boston, Cleveland, Washington, D.C., New York City and Los Angeles.

Photo of a September 2012 protest against school closings and budget cuts in Chicago, Ill. (Photo/Shutter Stutter via Flickr)

”I think the reason for the crisis in American education is that no one was accountable,” Duncan, then CEO of CPS, said in a 2002 article published in The New York Times. ”Mayors could throw rocks and criticize, but they couldn’t really do anything about it. If you have a mayor who says he’s in charge of the schools, he’s the one on the line, and he has to get results or he’ll be voted out.”

Mayoral control, though described by Duncan in terms of “accountability” because of the ability to quantify things like standardized test scores, is key for advocates of reconfiguring K-12 education systems.

“This is when the role of power philanthropy really began to play its role,” said Klonsky. “They were very much worried about this democratic movement. It was too broad, too difficult to control and there were too many radicals involved in it. Thus, they were afraid of how it would play out politically.”

Put most concisely, the mayoral takeover in Chicago served as a launching pad for the modern school reform movement in the Windy City.

The Chicago Public Education Fund and its Obama-run precursor

Not long after the mayoral takeover took place, the Chicago Public Education Fund was created. The fund is a public-private enterprise bankrolled in part by Joyce. Its precursor was the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, which launched in 1995 and morphed into its current form in 1999 via $2 million in seed money.

Obama, well before his rise to national fame, served as the chair of the board of directors of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge. He also sat on the board of the Joyce Foundation.

“[A] group of corporate and civic leaders in the Chicago area believed they could help their home city do a better job educating its students, so they put their minds, financial assets, and talents together, and the result was The Chicago Public Education Fund,” the right-wing organization Philanthropy Roundtable wrote. “The Fund’s strategy is to serve as a catalyst and investment partner … to invest dollars and ideas into high-impact programs that will improve student achievement and school leadership system-wide.”

An ode to “venture philanthropy,” Joyce invests somewhere between $1 million and $2 million of its assets in the Chicago Public Education Fund, according to its website. Joyce was the key funding stream behind the fund’s launch.

“Joyce… was one of the first foundations to commit significant dollars to The Fund,” Janet Knupp, former CEO of CPEF said in an interview with Philanthropy Roundtable. “They played a critical role in helping us forge relationships with larger foundations across the nation. They saw the value of our work on a local level but had enough of a national reach to start connecting us.”

The fund’s connections to power centers are illustrative:

– CEO Heather Anichini once worked in the CPS Office of Planning and Development under Duncan, leveraging that gig to become vice president of Teach for America.

– Jesse Rothstein, former chief economist at Obama’s Labor Department, sits on the fund’s External Advisory Council.

– Alice Phillips, who lobbied on the fund’s behalf in 2006 and 2007, formerly worked alongside Loretta Durbin — wife of U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) — as a lobbyist for Government Affairs Specialists Inc.

– Penny Pritzker, once a member of Obama’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness and now his secretary of commerce, served on the fund’s board of directors and the Chicago Board of Education.

– Elizabeth Swanson, now the deputy chief of staff for education to Emanuel, formerly served as executive director of the Pritzker Traubert Family Foundation, which is overseen by Pritzker’s family. Earlier, Swanson led the CPS Office of Management and Budget under Duncan.

Arne Duncan: ‘Tapping into’ CPS restructuring with teacher incentive fund

As CEO of CPS, Duncan “tapped into” President George W. Bush’s No Child Left Behind policy. He subsequently rebranded it as “Race to the Top” when he took over the U.S. Department of Education.

“Pushing competitive market approaches and armed with unprecedented funding and support from the president, he is possibly the most powerful education secretary ever,” The Christian Science Monitor wrote in an August 2010 article.

Education Secretary Arne Duncan, speaks to the U.S. Conference of Mayors 81st winter meeting in Washington, Thursday, Jan. 17, 2013. (AP/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

A cornerstone of Duncan’s agenda as CPS head was the Recognizing Excellence in Academic Leadership/Teacher Advancement Program, funded by a five-year, $27.5 million U.S. Department of Education grant.

The program fit under the umbrella of Bush’s No Child Left Behind: standardized testing, “teacher accountability,” charter school promotion and the creation of an online charter school market. Its origins center around right-wing financier Lowell Milken’s System for Teacher and Student Advancement program, now overseen by his National Institute for Excellence in Teaching, founded in 2005.

The Teacher Advancement Program, or TAP, “was launched in 1999 as a comprehensive school reform that restructures and revitalizes the teaching profession by providing teachers with powerful opportunities for career advancement, ongoing professional development, a fair evaluation system and performance-based compensation,” the program’s website explains.

The now-extinct Chicago Teacher Advancement Program website explicitly states that the program is modeled after Milken’s program. Furthermore, Milken’s website lists the Joyce Foundation as a financial supporter of its national TAP system. The Chicago Teachers Union, then run under different leadership, signed the original contract to take part in TAP.

“When teachers are given powerful opportunities for career advancement, ongoing professional growth and recognition for outstanding achievement, we see increased student achievement in TAP schools,” Lowell Milken said in a December 2008 press release. “Chicago TAP schools are off to a strong start in continuing efforts to achieve these goals.”

Milken, unmentioned in most accounts, has a vested financial interest in school reform efforts and “fixing failing schools.”

That’s because Milken is a major investor in K12 Inc., a corporation traded on Wall Street that sells online schooling and curriculum to state and local governments. Milken invested $10 million in K12 Inc. in 2000, a stake that is now worth over $125 million, according to a July 2008 article in Forbes.

“If it were a school district, K12 Inc. would rank among the 30 largest of the nation’s 1,500 districts. The company, which began in two states a decade ago, now teaches about 95,000 students in virtual schools in 29 states and the District of Columbia,” The Washington Post reported in a November 2011 investigation.

Duncan now oversees the federal Teacher Incentive Fund, which “supports efforts to develop and implement performance-based teacher and principal compensation systems in high-need schools,” according to its website. It’s the funding arm for Race to the Top and served the same function for “No Child Left Behind.”

Yet another player is Deane Mariotti. According to her biographical sketch, she “led [the] joint effort with the Chicago Public Schools to secure the … Teacher Incentive Fund” while working as manager of program investments for the Chicago Public Education Fund in 2007.

In fall 2010, CPS received another five-year Teacher Incentive Fund grant, this time worth even more: $34.1 million. It did so, once again, with the helping hand of the Chicago Public Education Fund.

In a clear depiction of aligned interests, the Michigan-based Mackinac Center for Public Policy — funded by the right-wing Devos Foundation and Koch Family Foundations and a key proponent of “emergency financial managers” of cities in fiscal trouble, such as Detroit and Benton Harbor — praised Chicago’s TAP system and “merit pay” for teachers in a September 2008 policy briefing.

The prominent liberal group Center for American Progress — run by John Podesta, who served as co-chair of Obama’s transition team after he won the 2008 presidential race — also praised “merit pay” in a May 2009 report funded by Joyce. One of the co-authors of that report, Raegan Miller, is now the vice president of research partnerships for Teach for America.

Revolving doors, interlocking directorates: Joyce’s K-12 restructuring machine

The government-industry revolving door and what sociologist G. William Domhoff coined as the “interlocking directorate” are the name of the game with Joyce. Joyce’s ties go straight to the commanding heights of power of CPS and national K-12 school restructuring.

The executive director of Joyce, Ellen Alberding, serves as a case in point of how intricately the web is wound.

Alberding was personally invited to an Obama-led event convened in June 2009 to “highlight innovative non-profits programs that are making a difference in communities across the country.” She also sits on the advisory board of Obama’s Skills for America’s Future initiative, which was launched in June 2011. Prior to being named secretary of commerce, Pritzker also served on the advisory board.

Alberding also sits on the board of directors of Advance Illinois, a powerhouse pro-charter school and school restructuring think tank.

Alongside Alberding on Advance Illinois’ board sits Obama’s former chief of staff, Bill Daley, who has tossed his hat in the ring to run for governor of Illinois in 2014. Dennis Hastert, former speaker of the U.S. House, also sits on Advance Illinois’ board, as does Timothy Knowles, who simultaneously serves on the board of the Chicago Public Education Fund.

Advance Illinois took $1.37 million from Joyce from 2010-2012, according to Joyce’s annual reports. Its policy director, Benjamin Boer, worked as an interim project manager for Obama for America during the 2008 election cycle.

The group’s lobbyists work for Taylor Uhe LLC, which is co-owned by Mark Taylor and Rob Uhe. Taylor formerly served as legal counsel for the Democratic Party of Illinois, while Uhe formerlyserved as chief counsel to Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan.

John Luczak, former Joyce Education Program Director, left his gig to became a co-owner at Education First. One of the clients Education First highlights as a success story is Advance Illinois.

“Over the course of nearly a year, Education First, together with … the Joyce Foundation … researched effective practices and staffed a steering committee and launch team of prominent Illinois leaders,” the Education First website says. “Education First also prepared the organization’s first major report, a case-making analysis of why Illinois education performance must improve dramatically if Illinois and its residents are to prosper.”

That report, titled “The State We’re In: Advancing Public Education in Illinois,” served as Advance Illinois’ launching pad on Nov. 18, 2008, just two weeks after Obama was elected president. The report and the public relations pageantry surrounding it followed the “tobacco playbook” — the tactic of using of industry-funded research to promote industry objectives.

That’s because the Hill & Knowlton, the multinational firm that did PR on behalf of Big Tobacco during that industry’s zenith, also did the groundbreaking PR for Advance Illinois, a press release announcing its entrance into the public square demonstrates. Hill & Knowlton also did graphic design work for that initial report.

Luczak’s successor at Joyce’s education program was Angela Rudolph, now policy director for Democrats for Education Reform’s Illinois branch and vice chair of the Illinois State Charter School Commission.

Rudolph, wearing her Democrats for Education Reform hat, aided in spearheading a media blitz called “Put Students First” in fall 2012 to fend off the nascent Chicago Teachers Union strike.

Despite a campaign clearly meant to discredit teachers and unions, Rudolph told Catalyst Chicago in a June 2012 article, “What we have been most troubled by is this notion that we are anti-teacher or anti-union. We are a Democratic organization and one of the cornerstones of the Democratic Party is unions.”

The “man behind the curtain” in that PR campaign was Ben Schaffer, the owner of Media Mezcla andmedia consultant for Howard Dean’s 2004 run for president, according to a web domain search for the “Put Students First” website.

Rudolph’s successor, now head of Joyce’s education program, was Butch Trusty, who before coming to Joyce in May 2012 worked at The Bridgespan Group, a Bain Capital offshoot. Obama’s 2012 Republican Party opponent in the presidential race was Mitt Romney, a former upper-level executive at Bain.

Though most famous for its Romney ties, Bain actually gave far more money to Democratic Party candidates for elected office before the 2012 election than it did Republicans.

Teach for America’s ‘scabs’ and principal (CEO) development

Just over a month after the 50 CPS school closings and firing of 550 teachers, the Chicago Board of Education announced an increase from $600,000 to $1.58 million in spending to hire 570 Teach for America teachers. Klonsky told Mint Press News that Teach for America contractors serve as de facto strike-breaking “scabs”  – usually unknowingly.

“They’re providing the non-union teachers for the charter schools and they’re almost like a scab organization,” he said. “What you do is you close public schools and fire hundreds of teachers like we’re doing here, then you open neighborhood charter schools and bring in Teach for America 5-week wonders who work cheap and last for about two or three years. Then they’re gone and another batch comes in.”

The Joyce Foundation gave $23.77 million to Teach for America in its first 20 years in existence, according to The Washington Post. It is one of 10 foundations whose funding accounted for over half of Teach for America’s budget during that time period. Joyce gave Teach for America another $400,000 grant in 2012.

The Chicago Public Education Fund also has lended a modest amount of money to Teach for America. Between 2000 and 2005, the fund gave just under $400,000 to the organization, tax filings reveal.

Since 2001, the Chicago Board of Education has doled out close to $6.6 million in contracts and hired 1,931 teachers from Teach for America, Board of Education contract records show. During that same period, thousands of CPS teachers got pink slips.

The rubber meets the road in the relationship between the Chicago school restructuring movement’s goal of creating CEO-type school principals and Teach for America’s Principal Leadership Pipeline, which was launched in September 2007. The Principal Leadership Pipeline was a collaboration between CPS and Teach for America, financed by the Chicago Public Education Fund and the Pritzker Family Foundation.

“CPS will recruit high-performing Teach For America alumni to attend a school leadership program at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and then enter into a one-year residency under the tutelage of a principal at a Chicago elementary or high school,” a press release announcing the program’s launch explains. “After the residency, the new principals will then take the helm of some of Chicago’s most challenged schools…Over the next five years, Teach For America could have as many as 50 school leaders in the pipeline, a group that would reach some 15,000 Chicago children a year.”

The program arose out of the Public Education Fund’s “Great Principals Blue Ribbon Task Force,” formed in 2005. Its members included Pritzker and Duncan.

“A consensus has developed over the last few years that a principal is the most important person in the school building,” Pritzker said. “Just like a [CEO], the principal sets the tone, creates the culture, manages the team and ties it all together by articulating a shared vision for what the organization ought to be. So if we get the principal right, other things can fall into place.”

Battle for the ‘right to the city’

Pauline Lipman, an education policy studies professor at University of Illinois-Chicago and author of the book “The New Political Economy of Urban Education,” says that what’s taking place in Chicago — the heart and soul of the Democratic Party — is fundamentally a battle over the “right to the city.”

The concept, she explains in her book, was coined by French sociologist and philosopher Henri Lefebvre.

“[T]he city’s vitality is its diversity of people, ways of living, and perspectives — and thus its potential as a creative space of vibrant democratic dialogue and debate,” she wrote in the book’s conclusion. “Education is integral to a movement to reclaim the city… It is also a cry for education that develops our human potential, that prepares us to be subjects of history — to read and write the world.”

It’s a battle for the “right to the city” in Chicago, then, pitting the moneyed interests of Joyce and Friends against the Chicago Teachers Union and grassroots activists. The weeks, months and years ahead will determine who comes out on top.

Thousands of public school teachers rally for the second consecutive day outside the Chicago Board of Education district headquarters on Tuesday, Sept. 11, 2012 in Chicago. (AP/Sitthixay Ditthavong)