It shouldn't come to anyone's surprise that a George W. Bush sycophant like Mike Bloomberg would lie. It only took three months of prodding to get noticed by the Democrats.

Freddy's Public School/Private School flap last week apparently spurred the Ferrer camp to not just factcheck their own site and fire the staffer who had been writing Freddy's diary, but also got them to do a little Oppo at Mike's place.

Where they found Mike's lie to me.

• Fred from Manhattan: How do you plan to get the homeless of this City permanent and secure places to live?

• Mike Answers: We're already bringing down the overall number of homeless New Yorker [sic]; that's why we were able to close the biggest family shelter in New York...

Gifford Miller shot back...today: “When Bloomberg can’t confuse New Yorkers with millions in television ads, he’s willing to downright lie about his record. In the ‘Ask Mike’ section of his website, which Bloomberg said he personally oversees and approves, he writes that he is already bringing down the overall number of homeless New Yorkers."

FACT: Under his four years as mayor, homelessness has skyrocketed a staggering 26%! And he knows it.  read more »

If you have not done so yet, go check out the Gotham Gazette's Campaign 2005 - Mayoral Candidates: Grid.

Chockfull of information it really is a fast way to check where the candidates stand and compare in issues such as immigrant voting rights, the smoking ban, city finances, anti-terror plans and civil rights.

I hope they do the same next time with all major electoral positions in the city. This would be an amazing resource to have in the future.

[via Quinnipiac University | Ferrer still short of 40% in NYC dem primary, Quinnipiac University poll finds; three others in horse race for second place]:

New York City likely Democratic primary voters give mayoral candidate Fernando Ferrer 33 percent, short of the 40 percent he needs to avoid a Democratic primary runoff, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released today.

The other Democratic contenders are in a horse race for second place, and a chance to be in the runoff, with 17 percent each for Council Speaker Gifford Miller and Manhattan Borough President C. Virginia Fields and 16 percent for U.S. Rep. Anthony Weiner, the independent Quinnipiac (KWIN-uh-pe-ack) University poll finds.

Even among these likely Democratic voters, 16 percent remain undecided and 51 percent say they still might change their mind before the September 13 primary.

And 44 percent of these likely Democratic voters say they will vote for Republican Mayor Michael Bloomberg if the candidate they support does not win the primary.

Unfriggingbelievable.

I am just flabbergasted by this. I really am. If there is anything that reflects the problems of the Democratic Party, from a local to national level, is this race. There is no unity, no desire for a Democratic Party win. What we have are four factions vying to undercut each other, and not interested at all to bring back New York City to the Democratic Party.  read more »

The New York Post printed FERRER: AX 'PARK DISS' COMMISH, this morning; giving the impression that Ferrer was somehow calling for a firing squad; but I have here the audiocasts that will paint a better picture of the incident.

Fernando Ferrer's Call for Accountability

Mayoral Candidates Follow-up on Ferrer's Call for Accountability

The podcast, raw and unedited, is a whopping 9+ GIGABYTES.
Daily Gotham's audiocast of Parks1 26 July 2005 Mayoral Forum

Oh, and just in case you wondered, I signed the pledge too

Now, the question you've all been waiting for me to answer : Who came out in front?

And the answer is ...  read more »

Ferrer:

(1) Ensure every dollar of the consession money goes back into the parks.

(2) Minimum staffing and maintenance standards
(3) Compeltely clear & transparent way for people to judge the city in its maintenance of its parks

"Lovely to have wifi but we first need the benches."

Fields
(1) Funding would be a priority .. that's why I signed the 1% pledge

(2) Planning, so that when decisions made about development, parks are on the table

Miller
(1) Reclaim bottom 50 parks

(2) $10 million for maitenance & $25MIL capital

(3) Enforce maintenance & make sure there's security

(4) Create relationships with private funding

Ognibene
(1) The first thing I would do is to rethink my position about community gardens

(2) I went to all the community organizations and the most important thing to do is to find out what they need and what they want and make sure they interact with the new parks commissioner ... there's no reason why every park has people's input