Political Snow on New Year's

Courtesy of Thomas McNeil

It's New Year's Eve. Here's a brief round-up of politicians-of-interest and what they're doing:

• Rep. Eliot Engel, City Council Majority Leader Joel Rivera and Comptroller William Thompson all released statements recently siding with Israel in the recent troubles in Gaza.
  
  Engel: "I stand firmly with Israel as it exercises its right of self-defense against the terrorist group, Hamas. Israel has done everything it could to avert war in the face of a constant rocket barrage from the Hamas terrorists in Gaza."
  
  Rivera: "The people of Israel have already conceded too much. The United States must continue to endorse Israel’s ability to secure its borders and to safeguard its people. And I call on President-elect Obama to make one of his top priorities the continued support of Israel’s right to live freely as the one true democracy in the Middle East."
  
  Thompson: "I once again express my strong support for Israel in its conflict with Hamas militants in Gaza. For years, Israel has endured persistent air attacks on southern towns like Sderot. In the wake of Hamas’ recent decision to end the six-month cease-fire and renew its hostilities toward Israel, the Israeli government has no choice but to defend itself and bring an end to this violent threat."



• City Councilman Oliver Koppell and the council itself announced Monday he's introducing legislation that would require banks to have bulletproof partitions between tellers and customers. Coming after a recent day on which five banks were all robbed, this resurrects legislation he introduced in 2003.



• The Bronx County Democratic Committee held its holiday party last night — see the picture above, courtesy of Tom McNeil, a staffer for Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz. Azi of the Politicker reports that party leader Carl Heastie, also an assemblyman, met with state Senate holdouts Ruben Diaz Sr. and Pedro Espada Jr. at lunch earlier that day.

Parking rule relaxation may not spell relief

When Community Board 8 members first started talking about relaxing alternate-side parking rules as a way to make it less difficult to find parking in parts of Riverdale and Kingsbridge, they pointed to Park Slope — where members of that nabe's community board had lobbied for years for the same thing, and finally received it this year — as precedent.

According to a study released Tuesday, however, that sweet spot won't be so easy to find.

The city Department of Transportation compared the use of Park Slope's available parking spaces when alternate-side rules were in effect (the nabe was at 98 percent capacity) with the availability of spaces this summer, when the rules were suspended as DOT pulled down the old signs and put up the new ones.

During the free-for-all summer of parking in Park Slope, the neighborhood was also at 98 percent of its parking capacity, according to the DOT survey.

We first saw this in the New York Times.

The city announced Dec. 15 it would also cut street-sweeping days in Riverdale and Kingsbridge, answering Board 8's request.

While fewer street-sweeping days didn't necessarily ease Park Slope's parking problem, according to the study, it did thin morning traffic. On days with no alternate-side regulations, including summer days, there was 19 percent less traffic flow between 8 and 9 a.m. in the neighborhood.

And regardless of DOT's findings, almost half of neighborhood drivers polled in a Web survey said they thought it was easier to find a spot without alternate-side regulations.

Holiday warmth

A meeting between representatives from Councilman Oliver Koppell’s office, the union representing striking Stella D’oro workers, representatives from the 50th Precinct and community members last week, has resulted in a plan to keep the strikers warmer and more comfortable as the standoff with the company’s owners, Brynwood Partners, continues into its fifth month.

According to Mr. Koppell, after the 5-0 forced the strikers to remove their tarps, chairs and tables from the picket line in October, they have now agreed to allow members of Local 50 to bring some of the tables and chairs back, as long as they don’t leave them unattended.

Mr. Koppell said the 5-0 has also agreed to a bus that can be parked outside the Broadway factory to shelter striking workers from the blistering cold, and has allowed a heater for the bus so that strikers would not have to keep it idling in order to maintain a comfortable temperature inside.

“I must say the police were very cooperative,” said Mr. Koppell.
Mr. Koppell said he has offered to help the strikers find an appropriate vehicle and also to help them get a permit to use a nearby streetlamp to power a heater for the bus.

The strike began in August to protest what workers describe as an unfair contract. The union claims the new contract reduces some workers’ salaries, eliminates holidays, vacation and sick pay and imposes higher healthcare costs.

City rethinks plan to consolidate senior centers

There’s good news and bad news when it comes to the future of the area’s senior centers.

The good news is, the city’s Department for the Aging and City Hall announced plans to withdraw their request for proposal (RFP) that would have consolidated the city’s 300-plus senior centers, forcing many to close.

City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, who has been vocally opposed to the consolidation effort, and the new Aging Commissioner Lilliam Barrios-Paoli announced they would hold off on the RFP in order to re-evaluate the modernization effort.

Area senior centers have been in a panic over the RFP, which pitted centers against one another in the fight to keep their doors open.

Local seniors have been writing letters, making calls and even protesting on the steps of City Hall by the busload for weeks, in an effort to keep their centers open.

Directors of area centers have been working together — despite the competition — to fight the city’s plan. And Community Board 8’s Aging Committee recently signed a resolution opposing the RFP.

“The withdrawal of this misguided plan to restructure senior centers is good news for the city’s aging population,” City Comptroller William C. Thompson said in a statement. “This proves that the voices of seniors across this city count for something. City Hall has finally listened, instead of digging in its heels and moving forward with an ill-considered plan.”

The bad news is, the City Council did not vote to restore funding for the city’s adult day programming, putting Riverdale Senior Services’ Social Adult Day Activities program even more at risk of closing.

Citing the failing economy and tightening budget, the city pulled its funding for the memory-loss program earlier this month. The only hope left, according to Executive Director Julia Schwartz-Leeper, is for the community to raise $30,000 by the end of the month, which will keep the program running until the city’s next funding cycle in July.

So far, the community has raised $20,000.

The beep race gets tougher

Nobody really believed Assemblyman Jose Rivera when he said his son Joel wasn't going to run for borough president, but the Daily News' omnipresent Bob Kappstatter got Joel committing to it last week. Ruben Diaz Jr. — "Rubencito" in some circles — has already said he'll run if Adolfo Carrión Jr. doesn't go for re-election.

Now Pedro Espada Jr., another perennial beep contender, has let slip that he's strongly considering a run, too.

It's another one of those moments where the word "surprise" comes with heavy sarcasm. Mr. Espada's always wanted to be borough president. He tried in 2001, but couldn't beat the organization of party boss Roberto Ramirez, who backed Mr. Carrión.
He told Liz Benjamin of the Daily News that he'll basically run for borough president if he doesn't get what he wants out of the state Senate leadership fight.

Mr. Espada tried several weeks ago to seal a deal with the Senate Democrats that would install him as majority leader but separate that gig from that of the Senate president. It would basically make him number three in the Senate power structure. The same deal also promised him a $700,000 payroll. In a nod to his colleague in the deal, Ruben Diaz Sr. — Rubencito's father — it also promised no legislation supporting gay marriage in that legislative session.

Many Dems cried that their de-facto leader, current Minority Leader Malcolm Smith, sold the store. Upon further examination — as it came out that the minority leader position came with no stipend and no constitutional authority — Mr. Espada seemed to figure out that he didn't. Saying he was angry that the deal would see him gain no real power, Mr. Espada backed away from the deal at about the same time Mr. Smith announced that the Democrats would rather be a minority than sacrifice too much control.

If he can't have power in the Legislature, Mr. Espada in essence told Ms. Benjamin, he'll have power in the borough.

Change expected in street-cleaning rules

In case you missed it, the big news in the Riverdale-Kingsbridge area this week is the likely change in the neighborhood's street-cleaning rules. With some nudging from Community Board 8, the city Department of Sanitation announced on Monday that local residential streets will be cleaned half as often, although commercial streets will get cleaned more frequently.
The Riverdale Press ran a front-page story this week, and the news was reported on The New York Times' City Room blog — receiving some yeas and nays from local residents who posted comments — as well as the Daily News.
The community board will vote on the matter at its Jan. 13 meeting — and is likely to approve the change — meanwhile The Press has created a map of the community, allowing residents to see what change, if any, they can expect on their block. To view the map, click here.

Agent gets reassigned

Traffic agent T. Flight is no longer on duty in Riverdale, according to the NYPD’s Department of Internal Affairs.
But Riverdalians, as well as people who work in the Riverdale area, are still unearthing bogus tickets signed with her name.
The city agency has been interviewing recipients of the so-called phantom tickets over the last couple months and says a thorough investigation is underway. They would not say, however, whether Ms. Flight is writing tickets in another neighborhood.
Meanwhile, Councilman James Vacca recently introduced a bill that may help to prevent phantom ticketing. The bill would require traffic enforcement agents to photograph offenses and attach the photo to each notice of violation, giving drivers a basis on which to argue tickets they feel were wrongly issued.
Violations like vehicles blocking a ramp or crosswalk, edging into a no-standing or bus zone or double parking — as most of T. Flight’s tickets alleged — would be easily identified in a photograph.
Mr. Vacca’s bill was inspired by a slew of questionable tickets in his east Bronx district, much like the rash of bogus tickets in Riverdale.
“The is a serious issue, and we need to make sure that parking violations are being give out judiciously,” Mr. Vacca said in a press release. “We also need to make sure that when someone’s guilty of breaking the rules, they know the argument’s over and that they shouldn’t do it again.”
The bill introduction follows the release of a survey by The New York Times that found the city issued nearly 10 million parking violations last fiscal year, worth over $624 million in fines. That figure represents a 64 percent increase over 2002.
In case you haven't seen it, The Times has created an extensive city map, plotting parking tickets given out during over a year period.

Post-Thanksgiving politics

With the Thanksgiving holiday over, New York pols are talking turkey about how to solve the state Senate's leadership crisis.

After the city dailies got the story yesterday, the "Gang of Three" — Riverdale-Kingsbridge's incoming state Sen. Pedro Espada Jr., who will take office in January, and his colleagues Bronxite Ruben Diaz Sr. and Brooklyn legislator Carl Kruger — released a statement today trumpeting the results of months of negotiations for their allegiance in the battle to pick a party leader.

The agreement will separate the office of Senate majority leader, a party post, from president pro tempore, a constitutional one, The Times reports. Mr. Espada, according to the statement, will become majority leader. He will be the highest-ranking Hispanic official in the Legislature. The deal vaults Mr. Espada from a party outcast, against whom the Senate Democratic Campaign Committee campaigned heavily against, to one of the most powerful people in the Legislature.

Mr. Diaz is supposed to become Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz's opposite number in the Senate, chairing its committee on aging. Mr. Kruger is supposed to receive the Finance Committee chairmanship.

The Times also leaned on Mr. Diaz's past pledge not to support anyone who would bring gay marriage to the table, and presumably some reporting done with sources speaking on background, to verify that his allegiance comes at another cost: the state Senate won't consider the right for gays to marry in the state of New York this year, says that paper.

In conversations before the Thanksgiving holiday, Mr. Espada pooh-poohed the suggestion that he and his colleagues were holding out for committee chairmanships.

"What we’ve been talking about is can we achieve a consensus with either side so that the priorities that we think are important will receive the most support," he said in mid-November. His priorities included the state budget, redistricting and job creation, he said at the time.

He also wasn't shy about how he was leveraging his position as a swing vote to get his way.

"My community wants me to be smart and leverage the political capital that we have," he said at the time.

There has been a lot of tension in Albany over the possibility of these three relative outsiders brokering their way to prominence. The deal would require changing the rules of the Senate, which itself will be put to a vote in that house. So nothing is final yet, and likely won't be until the votes are cast for a leader in January.