This could have been the time for changing New York’s incumbent protection election system. During the last council election in 2005, almost two thirds (28 out of 34) of the incumbents running had no primary. Four of the other six incumbents being challenged won with more than 80% of the vote. The controversial term limits vote is the only opportunity to negotiate with enough councilmember to get the votes needed for Charter change that will insure real competitive elections in this one party town. It is a failure of the Citizen Union and other good government groups as well as the newspaper editorial boards and the reform clubs of this city not to demand changes that could have been used as a bargaining chip by both sides in this forced debate.

Changes needed to give challenges a better chance against incumbents include: a reduction in the number of petition signatures required to get on the ballot; non partisan redistricting; reductions in constituent mailings and office staff; equal time on the city’s cable TV stations and council web sites for challengers and opposition voices and an end to member items.

Petitions

Councilman Domenic M. Recchia told the New York Times on October 7th that he favors the extension of term limits, “A lot of us Council members feel that passing it through legislation is giving ample opportunity to the voters of the city to voice their opinions.” He added: “If the voters don’t like their council member, they can vote him out of office. And if they don’t like the mayor, they can get rid of him too.”

In a landmark announcement Tuesday, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg declared that all 100 city agencies that serve the general public are now required to translate key documents and provide interpretation for the city’s millions of immigrant residents in the top six languages spoken by New Yorkers.

The new policy, outlined in Executive Order 120, reflects the linguistic diversity of New York, where half of city residents speak a language other than English at home. Now communicating to residents in Spanish, Chinese, Russian, Korean, Italian, and French Creole will be given the same priority as English. The new citywide policy is expected to assist the nearly 1 in 4 New Yorkers who have a limited ability to read, write or speak English with accessing city services.

What’s more, the announcement of Executive Order 120 spins the government requirements as a matter of customer service and government accountability. The new policy mandates the creation of a new Customer Service Group, housed within the Mayor’s Office of Operations, to help city agencies figure out how to make sure their services and programs are reaching immigrant New Yorkers.

The announcement establishes New York City at the forefront of policymaking efforts to encourage immigrants to access government services. It also provides a stark contrast to the reinvigorated local initiatives that seek to declare English the sole language for signs and services. Many cities and states are also increasingly opposed to policies that help immigrants access government services, even if they are legally eligible for them.

(Read the full post by checking out Feet in 2 Worlds blog...)

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

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

** 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.