Mayor Bloomberg won’t allow 311 operators internet access because he’s afraid they’d shop at work.

The 311 non-emergency government information system is a program Mayor Bloomberg loves to brag about, touting it as among his greatest accomplishments during the 05 campaign.

311 operators’ mission is to help citizens navigate the often confusing government agency maze. Theoretically, 311 could duplicate much of what the Public Advocate’s office is charged with doing as the people’s ombudsman. But that’s theory. In reality, 311 is not much more useful than 411 directory assistance operators, with 311 often referring callers back to the agency whose non-responsiveness or unavailability, if the problem arises after the agency is closed, prompted the 311 call to begin with. One reason for the department’s relative uselessness, is their lack of internet access.

It blows my mid, that in 2007, 14 years after the web became a mainstream information resource, that New York City won’t allow people whose primary responsibility is to provide information, internet access.

David Saltonstall of the Daily News has a very interesting piece on the unusually, shall we say, sanitary condition of Rudy Giuliani's mayoral archives. Seems Rudy's people snapped up over 2,000 boxes of records from City Hall when he left office, with the promise that the newly-ex-mayor would personally pay to have them privately archived.

And he did. Only, the files were returned without a detailed index -- which makes it extremely difficult to search them. What's more, based on what reporters have found so far, history seems to have decided to be somewhat kinder to Rudy since his people borrowed the records:

A file labeled "Private Life/Divorce" offers nothing more than a few old press clippings about his breakup with Donna Hanover, as well as a transcript from the May 2000 press conference where he described his then-girlfriend and now-wife, Judith Nathan, as "a very good friend."

Meanwhile, Hanover's papers as First Lady have been all but erased. "This subgroup was not filmed," is all the archive says.

Documents from the historic weeks after 9/11 seem similarly scant. Instead of memos detailing concerns about air quality or coordination among agencies, the record consists of a few dry reports that sketch efforts to restore the city bureaucracy. [...]

Max Heiman of Rockefeller University's "How Green R U" blog points out one thing that's missing from Mayor Bloomberg's PlaNYC: a mandate for improving the fuel efficiency of New York's taxis. The city has begun experimenting with a small number of hybrid taxis, and as Heiman argues, the logic for converting the whole fleet is pretty compelling:

As this op-ed in the Times City section points out, there are nearly 13,000 taxis in NYC, together driving on the order of 800 million miles per year. More than 9 out of 10 cabs on the street are Crown Vics, which are lucky to get 18 mpg.

The entire fleet turns over every three years, so a fuel efficiency standard put in place today would convert every taxi in the city to a higher standard by 2010. The authors say that the Taxi and Limousine Commission has looked at hybrid taxis that get 39 mpg and average just about $2500 more than the Crown Vic, while saving $3700 in gas each year.

This just seem like a no-brainer to me, and I don’t get why it wasn’t in Bloomberg’s plan.

I agree.

I'm not normally a Bloomberg booster, but the mayor's PlaNYC is really praiseworthy. Daniel has done a great job linking to reporting and analysis on the specific proposal for congestion pricing. He notes, correctly, that the devil is in the details. I want to argue that when you consider the details, congestion pricing comes out looking like an excellent - even crucial - idea.

It's true that congestion charges, viewed in isolation, would constitute a regressive tax (though New Yorkers paying an $8 fee would have it easy compared to Londoners, who pay twice as much). But the regressiveness can be mitigated. As Jackie Ashley wrote in the Guardian in February, "We need sharp, specialised instruments, not blunt ones." Congestion charges could be offset somewhat by reductions in other regressive taxes or fees; those who are particularly reliant on their cars - for instance, people with disabilities - could be provided with exemptions. This article in the Daily News suggests additional ways to ease the burden where appropriate: for instance, by allowing drivers five free trips a year and by reducing bus fares in neighborhoods not served by subways.

Balancing the burden would help make congestion pricing less regressive. But in a larger sense, it's a very progressive idea - especially when you consider that fewer than 5% of New Yorkers actually drive to work in Manhattan. Like a carbon tax, congestion charging would be a means of using tax policy to discourage behavior that hurts the public interest. Traffic congestion damages public health and costs the city billions of dollars a year; it also contributes to global climate change. And it is inherently progressive - redistributive - to focus transportation policy on improving mass transit as opposed to automobile traffic.

The real key, and the reason Mayor Bloomberg deserves a good deal of praise, is that congestion pricing is understood as being only one element in a far-sighted plan to address the considerable challenges New York faces over the next two decades. Give Bloomberg credit - he recognized a moment of fiscal and political opportunity, and rather than squandering it, he's using it to the public's advantage. It's only when you look at how congestion pricing fits into this larger strategy that you realize how progressive it actually is.

Think of PlaNYC as comprising four complementary plans. Congestion pricing is important to and made more progressive by each of them:

It’s been so widely reported, I hesitate to write about it, but Mayor Michael Bloomberg, the mayor I mostly prefer to hate, with much fanfare, proposed an interesting “congestion pricing plan” to charge autos and trucks for entering Manhattan below 86th Street during the hours 6AM to 6PM. The prize for clearest outline of the plan goes to Daily Politics newcomer Elizabeth Benjamin here. . Thanks.

See also this from the News print edition and this and this Monday Editorial from the NY Times as well as this Editorial from Monday's Daily News. In her comments (below) Ann Seligman of Environmental Defense, wisely suggests you & I review the Gotham Gazette article by Bruce Schaller . It's a good article with even better links; click away. Sewall Chan has a story at Empire Zone about a coalition of 70 groups -- including the NYC Central Labor Council supporting the proposal.

While I will write about my views of the plan after I understand it more, others (either quicker studies, more glib, more thoughtful) have written about it already at Empire Zone and here and here at Politiker.

The text of the Mayor’s plan is here .

Transportation Alternatives, my favorite transit advocacy group

Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Christine Quinn, Robert Jackson and UFT president Randy Weingarten reached agreement on compromise to the Mayor's third major school reorganization plan.

Under the agreement, schools wont lose money during the next school year. That had been a major danger in the Bloomberg-Klein plan -- that the effect would be actual reductions in money available even as billions more are added the the education budget.

In addition the UFT appears to have won concessions that may mitigate the incentive built into the reorganization which will encourage principals to shed higher paid senior teachers. Other crucial areas: class size, parent engagement, middle school reform etc. appear to be adjourned to later with precatory language. Community leaders who were at the announcement included: Director of the New York Immigration Coalition Chung-Wha Hong, NY ACORN Director Bertha Lewis, and Irania Sanchez representing the Coalition for Economic Justice and Make the Road by Walking. They were the ones clustered around the Working Families Party which, along with the UFT, put considerable resources into the anti-reorganization effort. .

Consistent with the long Bloomberg-Klein hostility to parent groups, it appears that no leader of a Parent Association was present. The press announcment is here while press accounts from the New York Times and Daily News are here and here.

Oak Point is a very heavily industrialized, isolated neighborhood in the South Bronx. It juts out into the Harlem River, adjoins a rail-line and is close to the Interstate.

After the jump is a somewhat long-winded press release from opponents of a Bloomberg Administration plan to build a jail in the South Bronx at one of the last undeveloped industrial sites in New York City.

The Punch line: the people want Jobs not a Jail on the site. They will march at 5PM on Friday April 13, 2007 from 976 Longwood Avenue (Take the #6 local to Longwood Ave.) to the Oak Point site.

If you have never been to the South Bronx, this is your chance.

There are complex policy issues at the root of this dispute. Those of you who attended the Drum Major Institute conference on the future of middle class in New York City, may recall there was a stark conflict which was never addressed. In a key speech Adam Friedman, director of the NY Industrial Retention Network showed listeners the importance of industry to NYC residents. Unfortunately, in my view, Mayor Bloomberg has vigorously opposed any industrial development in NYC in favor, usually, for luxury housing -- but in this case -- as a special favor to the people of the South Bronx, a jail. For more on the proposals see Maggie Williams DMI post here. Call Kelly Terry-Septulveda 347-539-1191 for more info.

Clyde Haberman gets it. In a good interview with a few of the Billionaires for Bush, Haberman points out what Mayor Bloomberg's office is unwilling to admit:

The spied-upon included many groups that, agree with their views or not, engaged purely in political activity; they had no history of violence and no agenda other than a constitutional right to oppose the government. The Billionaires are a good example. The only bomb that they’ve been known to throw is a joke that falls flat.

Nobody is disputing that the police had a right and a responsibility to make effective security plans for the RNC. But it seems the NYPD acted recklessly in engaging in widespread spying that failed to make a distinction between legitimate political speech and conspiracy to commit violence - between Billionaires and bombers. As Haberman quotes one Billionaire, New York's authorities may "suffer from a post-9/11 case of 'not knowing when to stop.'"

Haberman puts it into perspective:

It isn’t as if New York hasn’t rethought other policies that were deemed absolutely essential in the immediate aftermath of the terrorist attacks. With municipal blessing, hideous concrete barriers rose in front of one building after another across town. In recent months, most have finally been torn down — recognition that Fortress New York doesn’t cut it.

Similar questions have been raised about the refusal of the National Park Service, in the name of security, to allow tourists to climb to the crown of the Statue of Liberty. Such a restriction at this potent symbol of American freedom has been strongly criticized by the likes of Senator Charles E. Schumer and Representative Anthony D. Weiner, who hardly see themselves as soft-on-terror types.

Likewise, respect for freedom of speech is not a concession to terror. Many New Yorkers would feel more secure if their mayor would acknowledge that.

We still don't know the extent of the spying program and how far it went across the line. We don't know whether the program's defenders have any basis for their arguments. We won't know until the city agrees to release the surveillance records. So: what are you afraid of, Mayor Bloomberg?

The thing is, to the New York Post, you're all just a bunch of dirty hippies - and potential terrorists. Oh, you may say you're just an ordinary American citizen and New Yorker, who wanted to demonstrate your disapproval of the Republican machine that chose to exploit 9/11 once again by flaunting itself at Madison Square Garden. Your nefarious plans may involve little more than wearing satirical costumes, helping poor folks with AIDS get housing, or even, say, being black and on the City Council.

But, according to the Post's editorial board, there's every reason to believe you're a terrorist like the ones who attacked the World Trade Center. As Oliver Koppel so insightfully noted, "vigorous advocacy can turn into violent acts." So try to keep your advocacy as tepid as possible.

In response to yesterday's revelations in the Times about the extent of the NYPD's pre-RNC domestic spying program, the Post has launched a typical right-wing broadside, once again ditching common sense for fluttery hysteria. Accusing the Times of "smearing the NYPD," the editorial breathlessly asks:

What will it take to make The New York Times wake up? Another 9/11? Madrid-like bombings? Violence like that of the '99 World Trade Organization meeting in Seattle?

(More...)

As reported in the New York Times, a federal judge ruled yesterday that the city will have to defend itself in a trial to determine whether it acted unconstitutionally when it banned protests on Central Park's Great Lawn, during the 2004 Republican National Convention.

The city, as you'll recall, argued that it was merely trying to protect the grass. Protesters pointed out that the city was pretty selective in identifying threats to the turf:

They claimed that the New York Philharmonic and the Metropolitan Opera as well as corporate gatherings had been permitted in the park at other times. They contend that the city is curtailing political protest that was once accepted on the Great Lawn.

The judge, William H. Pauley III of United States District Court in Manhattan, denied the city’s request for a decision before trial on whether it had violated the groups’ rights.

“There is evidence tending to show that rallies are categorically disfavored” by city officials, which could be a constitutional violation, he wrote. He said a trial was necessary to determine if the city had violated the rights of the National Council of Arab Americans, a civil rights group, and the Answer Coalition, a collection of groups with antiwar and other causes.

I'm not the biggest fan of Answer, but Mayor Bloomberg, having worked so hard to get the RNC to New York, made it quite clear where he stood. Let's not forget his comparison of protesters to terrorists:

"It is true that a handful of people have tried to destroy our city by going up and yelling at visitors here because they don't agree with their views," Mr. Bloomberg said. "Think about what that says. This is America, New York, cradle of liberty, the city for free speech if there ever was one and some people think that we shouldn't allow people to express themselves. That's exactly what the terrorists did, if you think about it, on 9/11. Now this is not the same kind of terrorism but there's no question that these anarchists are afraid to let people speak out."

Granted, the mayor was referring specifically to demonstrators shouting at RNC delegates. But it was irresponsible of him to compare nonviolent protesters to terrorists, and it demonstrated a contempt for the anti-RNC demonstrators in general.

Judge Pauley's ruling was a victory for free speech and common sense. The city has some 'splainin' to do.