Results tagged “mayorbloomberg”

It's official. Mayor Bloomberg has signed into effect a controversial street renaming that will honor an unarmed man who was gunned down by police in a barrage of 50 bullets on the day of his wedding.

For the first time ever, black, Hispanic and Asian residents of New York City outnumbered their white counterparts at the polls. In what the Times describes as "a seismic political shift," voters who identified themselves as minorities constituted 51 percent of the vote in November's citywide elections, compared to white voters who made up 46 percent of the total.

A state judge has again ordered Mayor Bloomberg to follow the city's land use review procedure and hold public hearing about his controversial plan to construct new sports fields on Randalls Island and rent them to 20 private schools. Under the Mayor's plan, private schools like Buckley, Chapin and Dalton would pay $45 million for exclusive access to a part of the new athletic facilities during peak after-school hours — a move that critics contend would turn public land into private land.

City Council voted to override Mayor Bloomberg's veto of a bill that will give drivers a five-minute grace period at certain metered parking spots. Last month, Council voted 47-2 to pass the bill, which will prevent ticketing agents from issuing violations until five minutes after alternate side parking regulations take effect and five minutes after MuniMeters run out. Supporters have said the proposal will help eliminate "gotcha" ticketing, while opponents including the Mayor say it will lead to "chaos and enormous increases in the number of contested tickets."

City Council overwhelmingly approved a plan to rename the street where police shot and killed Sean Bell, voting 41-7 (with two abstentions) in favor of the proposal, according to a Council insider. The decision clears the way for converting a three-block-long Queens strip into "Sean Bell Way" to honor the 23-year-old who died in a salvo of police bullets on the day of his wedding.

Mayor Bloomberg has implemented a controversial report card system for the city's teachers and schools and he's pushing restaurants to display their cleanliness grades on their windows — but he has no interest in grading the president. As a guest on CNN's "State of the Union" yesterday, the Mayor declined to issue a letter grade to President Obama. "I'd give him a pretty high grade," he said, adding that "[f]or a new president, he's in a very tough time" with issues including the war in Afghanistan, a "partisan," and the economy.

Mayor Bloomberg called out two EMTs accused of refusing to aid a dying pregnant woman because they were on break. According to onlookers, the medics told employees at a Downtown Brooklyn Au Bon Pain to call 911 when cafe worker Eutisha Revee Rennix, 25, collapsed and began having a seizure on Dec. 9. "It was unconscionable, [an] outrage, pick some adjectives and stick it in," said the Mayor. "The Fire Department, including EMS, is responsible for life-saving, and their first responsibility is to do that … [b]ut even if they weren't part of the Fire Department sworn to protect all of us, just normal human beings, drop your coffee and go help somebody if they're dying. C'mon."

According to the NY Post's sources, "Mayor Bloomberg is planning to convene a Charter Revision Commission in the coming year... Reimposing term limits for city politicians is one issue definitely on the table, sources said. And the mayor might also press to eliminate the Public Advocate's Office -- a position he's publicly said is no longer needed. He may also seek to clip the wings of the city's five borough presidents -- who earn $160,000 a year for government jobs that have largely become advisory since 1989." He's supposed to decide whether he'll convene the commission next month—maybe by then we'll stop laughing about the idea of him reimposing term limits by then.

After spending a record-shattering $100 million to win his third term in office, Mayor Bloomberg has decided against throwing a lavish inauguration party like he did after his first two City Hall victories. The wealthiest man in New York spent $2.5 million of his own fortune for a gala in the former Tweed Courthouse after his first election, and $1.7 million after his reelection for an event in a Downtown Bank with a performance by Liza Minnelli. But after he's sworn into office this time, he'll spend the day volunteering.

If you thought the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's financial situation was miserable now — just wait until next year. As the MTA moves closer to implementing "doomsday" service cuts that would eliminate train and bus lines, lessen service, and force city students to pay to get to school, the agency could get hit with more cuts in state funding and declining revenues next year, according to a new report.

Earlier this month, Mayor Bloomberg tried to halfheartedly quell an old man fight between himself and undead Manhattan DA Robert Morgenthau, telling reporters, "As long as he's in compliance with the law, that's fine with me." But it's exactly those kinds of passive aggressive insinuations—that the DA might not be following the law—that drives Morgenthau to call Bloomberg names like "chickenshit." And now it's emerged that their war without end has cost tens of millions of dollars that would have gone to the city if Bloomberg had just kept his mouth shut and not tried to lean on Morgenthau for more.

Even while haggling in Copenhagen, our politicians are still hard at work for us: case-in-point, Mayor Bloomberg did an interview with CNBC yesterday to discuss the MTA funding crisis, and alluded to the possible re-birth of his congestion pricing plan:

One of the city's wealthiest neighborhood is also among its most polluted, according to a new air quality study. Researchers examined data from 150 sensors mounted atop light poles to figure out which communities had the highest levels of air pollution from contaminants like elemental carbon, nitrogen dioxide and sulfur dioxide, which "can irritate lungs, worsen asthma and boost the risk of heart attacks" — and the Upper East Side turned out to be one of the worst, according to the Daily News.

Could wind power be coming to Queens? According to the Daily News, Mayor Bloomberg took a look at high-tech windmills in Cophenhagen, anchored miles offshore — and now wants to build replicas in Rockaway.

The NYPD has not revealed any more details about a man who was charged over the weekend with ten felony counts of using Manhattan pay phones to make "terroristic threats" to kill Mayor Bloomberg. Jeffrey Fisher of Philadelphia (not Robert Morgenthau of New York) is accused of calling 911 to make statements such as, "There are bullets now aimed at the mayor’s head everywhere." NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly and his family were also threatened.

Last week, Mayor Bloomberg vetoed the 5-minute grace period bill which was overwhelmingly passed by the City Council. He also vetoed a similar bill which would allow clergy to receive city-issued free parking permits. Today it was expected that the Council's Transportation Committee is expected to overrule the vetoes on both bills. This would be followed by the full Council voting to overrule on Dec. 21, with both bills becoming law 90 days thereafter.

Since May, a Philadelphia man has used Manhattan payphones to make 10 calls to 911 threatening to kill Mayor Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Kelly, authorities tell NBCNewYork.com. Jeffrey Fisher, 48, is being held on $100,000 bail after his arraignment Saturday in Manhattan Criminal Court on 10 counts of making a terroristic threat. According to prosecutors, his calls included such threats as, "I'm gonna come and kill your Mayor," and "The Mayor's office, he's a target, we will kill him." During one of four calls in October, he allegedly asked the operator to "tell Commissioner Kelly he is dead," and during another call he threatened to "kill the mayor if he shows up to the marathon." (This proved to be an empty threat.)

Even though the average New Yorker has a smaller carbon footprint and uses about one-half less energy than other Americans, our Mayor — who has been widely praised for his ambitious environmental agenda — might be one of "the worst individual polluters ever to hold public office," according to the Times.

The gun used in a brazen Times Square shootout was stolen from its owner in Virginia last month. The knock-off MAC-10 pistol was sold at Dale's Guns on Oct. 18 in Powhatan, Virginia before being reported stolen from a car 10 days later in Richmond, Virginia, according to the Daily News.

The saga continues: At some point last night or early this morning, the impromptu bike lane painted by activists on Bedford Avenue in South Williamsburg was painted back to black by the DOT. This Sunday, bereaved cyclists will hold a "New Orleans-style funeral procession" for the deceased bike lane, so perhaps the black paint is fitting? Baruch Herzfeld, an Orthodox Jew who runs a South Williamsburg bike clubhouse, tells us, "I can't believe they are dedicating resources to make sure cyclists are less safe than more safe. There are tons of bike lanes that need repainting and they spend their time repainting one away? Whoever is in charge of the DOT bike lane painting must have a consignment deal with the Malach ha'mavess (angel of death)."

Yesterday, the City Council passed legislation "to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from existing government, commercial, and residential buildings." Mayor Bloomberg praised the Council's work and said, "By requiring buildings to conduct energy audits and improve their energy efficiency, the Greener, Greater Buildings Plan will reduce the city’s total greenhouse gas emissions while creating thousands of jobs and dramatically reducing annual energy costs. I thank Speaker Quinn and the members of the City Council for their efforts to make New York a greener, more sustainable city.”

Mayor Bloomberg loves to travel, so it should come as no surprise that he and aides are going to Copenhagen next week for the U.N.'s climate change conference. The NY Times reports, "His schedule, for now, includes delivering a speech at a reception for mayors and other delegates, and attending another reception for 100 mayors from around the world who are taking steps locally to address climate change."

       

This morning Mayor Bloomberg and Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz held court at McCarren Park Pool for a groundbreaking ceremony. Over the past few years the pool has come back to life with JellyNYC's concerts (now still in search of a new home with help from Senator Schumer) — but soon it will return to being a community pool, thanks to Bloomberg's $50 million PlaNYC renovation. Today he promised he'd be the first to take a dip when the project is done, but so did Marty. Who will make the first splash?! We'll have to wait til 2011 to find out...

Mayor Bloomberg has abandoned the most ambitious part of his plan to reduce greenhouse gases, which would have required the owners of the city's largest buildings to undergo mandatory energy audits to determine green renovations — and forced the landlords to pay for the improvements.

As Mayor Bloomberg and Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau continue to beef about the $83 million in settlements, fines and forfeitures that the DA's office has stored in 62 bank accounts, inside sources tell the tabloids that personal disagreements are the cause of the squabble.

Mayor Bloomberg is fighting with Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau, and Morgenthau is hitting back with "barnyard" vulgarity, as the Times decorously puts it. Speaking to reporters yesterday, Morgenthau said, "If you all weren't newspapers of record, I'd say these were chickenshit comments." He was referring to the Bloomberg camp's supposed discovery of $80 million in settlement money that's being held by the DA's office in what one official described as the equivalent of "offshore accounts." The heated feud underscores long-standing tensions between the mayor and DA.

According to City Comptroller Bill Thompson's latest campaign fiance filings, the Observer reports that he spent "$9,003,711...on his campaign, which came within a few percentage points of beating Michael Bloomberg's $102 million re-election campaign...In his latest filing period, Thompson spent $1,040,000 on television ads, along with $309,887 on consultants. Among Thompson's notable expenditures is $400 for a makeup artist Sue Crystal. A campaign spokesman said it was for the debate in El Barrio, whose television sponsor, New York 1, did not offer the candidates makeup before appearing on air." Factoid: "Anthony Weiner's campaign also donated on $4,950 on October 29, the day Thompson's pollster released numbers saying the race was tightening."

The 13-month, multinational search to find a new commissioner of the Department of Environmental Protection came to a surprising close this week when Mayor Bloomberg selected a 36-year-old aide with limited environmental experience who works a few desks away from the Mayor in City Hall.

In the aftermath of three November shootings in which innocent Bronx teens were gunned down, friends of one of the victims are urging witnesses to come forward. Following the death of 17-year-old Issi Ariel Dominguez — who cops believe was not the intended target when a gunman fired into a crowd after a party this weekend — friend Ruthie Gomez told NY1: "You better snitch, we are going to find him. We are going to find whoever did it, I don't care."

Today is World AIDS Day, and while there are many events planned around the city, there is currently a 24-hour vigil at City Hall, with volunteers reading of the names of people who had been lost to HIV or AIDS at City Hall. And just now, during Mayor Bloomberg annual breakfast at Gracie Mansion in honor World AIDS Day, 10 Housing Works activists were arrested for protesting outside.