Everyone remembers former Governor of New York Mario Cuomo's famed speech at the 1984 Democratic Convention. Even me (and I was 5).  In it he said:  "President Reagan told us from the very beginning that he believed in a kind of social Darwinism. Survival of the fittest. `Government can't do everything,' we were told, so it should settle for taking care of the strong and hope that economic ambition and charity will do the rest. Make the rich richer, and what falls from the table will be enough for the middle class and those who are trying desperately to work their way into the middle class."

The speech could have just as easily been delivered in 2007 as 1984. So as the country plunges into another Presidential election cycle, Governor Cuomo, a practitioner and one of the left's most eloquent voices, once again asks to candidates to step back and examine their governing philosophy and the challenges the country faces, arguing that pat answers and rhetoric are insufficient to address them.

[EDITOR'S NOTE: Glad someone got around to posting this. Promoted to front page by mole333]

Everyone should read Juan Gonzalez's column today in the Daily News, in which he details Vito Lopez's attempt to sneak a massive tax abatement clause for Bruce Ratner into the new state property tax exemption bill. It is a sweetheart deal that will give Ratner, according to Juan, from $100 to $170 million in tax exemptions and allow him to charge hundreds of dollars more a month for the so-called "affordable" housing units he has to put into his new complexes. The article is reposted at DDDB's site (www.dddb.net)

This clause was so secret that Hakeem Jeffries, who represents that district up in Albany, didn't even know about it, and neither did the representatives for ACORN. They are backers of the Ratner project and *they* are upset over this.

The column also points out that Ratner has applied for $1.4 billion in state approved *tax-exempt* bonds to build his high rise condos.

DDDB is encouraging people to call or write Governor Spitzer urging him to veto this bill, to send it back to the legislature and force them to take out the Ratner clause.

Have you noticed how it is almost impossible to find information about New York government online --even if there are state and local websites to provide us with the information we seek?

New York City and New York State government agency websites exist in a world of web 1.0 suckitude and are some of the most offensively unusable sites on the web.

At least by my standards.

So I have made it possible for us here at The Daily Gotham, to start indexing and rating every online resource New Yorkers should know about.

With your help I hope we can index every government agency, every political organization, every think tank, every ANYTHING available to citizens on the web looking for resources to become better citizens.

The best part? Not only do reviewers get to rate in a scale from 1 to 5 how good or bad the site is, but readers will also be able to vote the site up or down.

Here are some guidelines for submission :

- - - - - - - Legislative Calendar - - - - - - - -
**** THIS CALENDAR SUBJECT TO CHANGE *****
Please check schedule at http://www.nyccouncil.info/rightnow/calendarpage.cfm before attending any meeting.

** Monday, April 9, 2007 **
No meetings have been scheduled

** Tuesday, April 10, 2007 **
No meetings have been scheduled

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** Wednesday, April 11, 2007 **

Subcommittee(s) on: Zoning & Franchises
9:30 AM, Committee Room - City Hall
Details: See Land Use Calendar Available Thursday, April 5, 2007 in Room 5 City Hall

Committee(s) on: Transportation
10:00 AM, Council Chambers - City Hall
Oversight - Pedestrian Safety in New York City

Committee(s) on: General Welfare
10:00 AM, Hearing Room - 250 Broadway, 14th Floor
Oversight - The administration of the Section 8 voucher program in New York City
Int 61 - A Local Law to amend the administrative code of the city of New York, in relation to prohibiting landlords from discriminating against tenants based on lawful source of income.

Committee(s) on: Environmental Protection
10:00 AM, Hearing Room - 250 Broadway, 16th Floor
Oversight - The use of biofuels in New York City: opportunities and obstacles

At the Observer, Azi Paybarah brings us a depressing example of how Albany's anti-democratic culture has taken hostage the hearts and minds of so many in our state government. Paybarah interviews 72-year-old Assemblyman Anthony Seminerio (D-Queens), whose review of the budget battle is so cynical you can feel your soul melting as you read it:

“Eliot may wish he had another way, but there’s only one way the budget is ever going to get done, son,” said Mr. Seminerio, sitting by himself in the Assembly chambers Saturday night, hours before the budget deadline. “It’s three people, each getting a piece of the pie, and that’s it.”

[...]

“I don’t know if he learned anything,” Mr. Seminerio said. “I can’t speak for the Governor. I think maybe he understands the process a little better. I think, like everything else, he’ll learn. You know what I’m saying. He’ll learn. And it’s not that he did anything wrong. He thought the process should be done one way, and he thought, you know, he could accomplish it. And now I think he must understand—I can’t speak for him, certainly; you know he’s a brilliant man. I can’t speak for him—but I think he understands now that, hey, you have to sit down, and it’s a give-and-take.”

Waving his left arm in the air toward the empty room, Mr. Seminerio added: “The only thing that ever changes in Albany are the faces. The system stays intact.”

Don't fight it, son. Just take the pills like everyone else and soon you'll see it's all for the best.

Joe Bruno is strutting around like a peacock on PCP after his great budget "victory" this week. The media spin certainly makes him out to be cock of the walk, delivering state bucks to key Senate Republican constituencies - though we'll want to look at the details before we make any final judgments.

What's interesting is how the reaction shows just how much difference there is between Joe Bruno and the rest of New York's (small and ineffectual) right. The state's conservatives are criticizing Spitzer for caving to the Senate majority leader, which means they're also going after Bruno himself. Assembly minority leader James Tedisco, for instance, regretted that "the budget process just knocked the reform train off the tracks." And he was clear about where the responsibility lies:

Tedisco said Spitzer's lofty goals of bringing about major fiscal reform had fallen victim to the "twin buzz saws" of "the insatiable spending levels of the New York state Legislature" and special interests groups. Tedisco said Bruno and Silver were to blame for that.

And Conservative Party chairman Mike Long blasted the budget's spending levels, implicitly acknowledging the Senate's role in thwarting some of the governor's attempts at restraint.

I was surprisingly inspired by John and Teresa Heinz Kerry’s new book, This Moment on Earth, coming out March 26th, 2007. This inspiration snuck up on me around the third chapter. Prior to that, I found the book good, well worth reading, but a little bit like just one more book outlining what humans are doing wrong. Starting around the third chapter I realized I was referring to the book in several conversations and several blog diaries and that several of the people and organizations featured in the book I mentally filed away as worth looking into for future political connections, diaries and general research.

In short, almost without my realizing it, John Kerry’s book was getting into my brain and inspiring me. The book starts a bit dull but by the end is excellent.

My earliest impression, from the press material that arrived with the book and from the introduction, was that this book promised something really new and welcome. The book was billed as the next step in the evolution of the environmental debate. I was ready for a book that took as given the problems and focused primarily on solutions. Having been through way too many “debates” online where I yet again outlined the very clear scientific evidence for global warming only to have yet the same false claims that global warming was some kind of scam or myth (these claims are never backed up by scientific evidence of any substance), I really was ready to have a book that moved beyond that.

I love the snow. Absolutely love it. Grew up in Southern California, so I went camping in the snow but never LIVED with snow.

My first experience with LIVING with snow was, ironically, a White Christmas in Kyoto Japan. GORGEOUS! Japanese architecture seems designed to look gorgeous in the snow. Walked all over snow covered Kyoto that first snowfall in a place I lived.

Most New Yorkers I know hate it when it snows. They say the snow gets dirty too fast and it becomes impossible to walk and all the people who refuse to clean up their dog's shit leave frozen little presents for pedestrians to step on weeks later when the snow melts. All true, but by and large I love looking up at the snow falling through the light of the street lamps, love hearing the snow hitting the window as I sleep and love seeing the snow on the ground before anyone steps on it.

But today, NYC SUCKED in the snow, culminated in iced over stairs at train stations that no one was willing to deal with despite the fact that it made the stairs almost impassable.

First off, in NYC the corners of intersections get all the snow from the streets piled up, making it hard to cross the street. Fine, the road is clear, but the drains are now covered, so the street floods, and pedestrians can't cross without great effort. I used to see that as a minor irritant, but you try pushing a stroller through NYC city streets after a snow. It is terrible! I can only imagine what it is like for someone in a wheelchair or an elderly person. What's with NYC? Can't they figure out how to clear the corners? It's not like no one walks here. I understand that after one day you can't expect them to be cleared. But there are times they don't get cleared away for weeks, except for that tiny path hordes of people have to squeeze past that are formed by the pedestrians wading through themselves.

The big Medicaid battle is at the center of the political dispute over this year's budget process. But I'd like to take a look at a few other items in Joe Bruno's budget proposal. Working backwards through Danny Hakim's excellent article in today's Times, let's consider three issues with the Senate's budget:

1) Transparency. As Hakim reports:

The Senate budget also rejects money for 21 new state workers to oversee compliance with campaign finance regulations and cuts financing for Project Sunlight, a plan by Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo to build a public database to track the activity of lobbyists, donors, elected officials and special interests.

This is as depressing as it was predictable. Bruno's minions are making a shameless play to check the growing trend towards greater openness and accountability in Albany. The Brennan Center has already jumped on this, and we should expect to hear more from good-government advocates. At least the Assembly, to its credit, seems ready to leave these important efforts alone.

- - - - - Legislative Calendar - - - - -

Monday, March 12, 2007

Committee(s) on: Education
10:00 AM, Council Chambers - City Hall
New York City Council Fiscal Year 2008 Preliminary Budget, Mayor's FY '07 Preliminary Management Report and Agency Oversight Hearings
10:00 a.m. - Department of Education and School Construction Authority (Capital)
12:00 p.m. - Public

Committee(s) on: Health
10:00 AM, Committee Room - City Hall
New York City Council Fiscal Year 2008 Preliminary Budget, Mayor's FY '07 Preliminary Management Report and Agency Oversight Hearings
10:00 a.m. - Medical Examiner
10:30 a.m. - Department of Health & Mental Hygiene
12:30 p.m. - Health & Hospitals Corporation (joint with Task Force on Hospital Closings)
2:00 p.m. - Public

Committee(s) on: Youth Services
11:00 AM, Hearing Room - 250 Broadway, 14th Floor
Proposed Int 341-A - A Local Law to amend the administrative code of the city of New York, in relation to prohibiting the use of non-wood bats.

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Tuesday, March 13, 2007

Committee(s) on: Fire & Criminal Justice Services
10:00 AM, Council Chambers - City Hall
New York City Council Fiscal Year 2008 Preliminary Budget, Mayor's FY '07 Preliminary Management Report and Agency Oversight Hearings