Bloomberg always touts the idea of running the city like a business as his strength. Well, one can certainly argue whether running things like schools and hospitals on a business model makes any sense at all, but even if you buy into that premise, in what way is hiring someone with no experience for a job good business sense?

Bloomberg has always made it amply clear that he doesn't care at all about Public Education in NYC. All he has done is increased testing, often awarding the expensive contracts for this testing to out of state buddies, thus draining money from NYC itself, and has done nothing to improve class size. Objective test scores have shown that NYC has in no way improved more than surrounding districts which didn't "benefit" from Bloomberg's "reforms," thus showing Bloomberg's reforms have made NO IMPACT AT ALL on education in NYC, but rather have merely concentrated yet more power into Bloomberg's hands and allowed him more options for awarding paid positions to his cronies. And then he blames the problems on teachers rather than take responsibility for the failure of his own so-called reforms.  read more »

Josh Skaller, community organizer and candidate for the 39th Council District, just articulated exactly what I have been thinking as I see more and more glossy Bloomberg mailers:

All that is certain in New York these days are death, taxes, and propaganda from Michael Bloomberg.

While the city's working families face the worst budget crisis since the Great Depression, their mailboxes are stuffed with mailings from the Mayor hyping his five-borough economic plan that claims it will create or save 400,000 jobs - and the airwaves are crammed with countless advertisements repeating the same claim.

City Council candidate Josh Skaller is tired of big talk. He wants results - jobs for New Yorkers and a clear plan to get the City out of its current crisis.  read more »

GOP Leaders Use Ballot Access to Fight for Patronage and Power

It is not only challengers to local offices who are held hostage, even billionaire mayors must contend with Tammany Hall’s control of New York's Ballot Box. The dance in the media about some Republican county leaders who are unhappy with the mayor is really the result of a behind the scenes, closed-door battle on who gets to be Number 1 with the current mayor: Giuliani, Pataki or the county leaders themselves. What the Republican county leaders are saying is: we don’t want the former mayor and governor acting as our middle men with the mayor. The buzz is that Bloomberg is demanding that Pataki and Giuliani deliver the Republican leaders before their meeting on February 25th.

Even A Dead Party Has Power in NYC  read more »

According to the Daily News, on September 7 the Mayor told top aides that the "Office of Management and Budget would approve only 'critically necessary' hires."

Since then, there have been a lot of new hires.

The best line in the article is probably this: "The mayor's office hired 26 salaried staffers since Sept. 8 for $1.2million a year; 19 are paid with city funds."

Seriously, what kind of hiring freeze is ignored by the guy who ordered it?