Stalled

In the last couple of weeks, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and the Riverdale/Kingsbridge area's Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz have both been inundating the media with announcements about bills passed and laws poised to change.

On Tuesday, Mr. Silver's staff issued a statement indicating that the Legislature's lower house convened for 13 hours and 2 minutes on Monday and acted on 202 bills, while holding 15 committee meetings.

None of these bills are going anywhere; they have to pass both the Assembly and the state Senate, and given the state of the Assembly's august companion chamber, it's highly unlikely even the most time-sensitive work will be done this year.

On Tuesday alone, Mr. Dinowitz also issued releases announcing three of those bills: One announcing harsher penalties for those who cause physical injury to someone who is obtaining, providing or assisting someone with reproductive health services; another creating an alert system for missing adults; and a third attempting to curb illegal debt collection practices.

Monday was the last regular day of the legislative session. There was an extraordinary state Senate session yesterday to vote on as many bills critical to the continuance of government in New York as possible, since Albany has been wrought for weeks with a dispute over who is in charge in the Legislature's upper house: the Republicans, the Democrats, or the small cadre of registered Democratic politicians who shuttle or threaten to shuttle between the two depending on the issue of the day and the state of negotiations.

But, as we report in this week's issue of our paper, that session went nowhere because the Republicans refused to acknowledge it and the governor's office may not have provided the documents necessary to vote on bills. In fact, there were two legislative sessions yesterday; the Republicans held their own. It's becoming increasingly apparent that none of the votes held yesterday will count for anything.

While Gov. David Paterson has said he'll call the state Senate to Albany every day until critical bills are passed, Assembly members have all gone home.

I sent Mr. Dinowitz a text message yesterday asking if he would be present upstate for the show.

"In Bx," he replied. "We did our job. No time for the circus."

The Grinch who stole Eid al-Adha?

Oliver Koppell

Perhaps the only school holiday kids should have off is Christmas, City Councilman Oliver Koppell just told me.
He voted "no" earlier this morning on a resolution asking the state to allow the city Department of Education to close city schools on two Muslim holidays. His was the only "no" vote.
I first saw this on PolitickerNY, who first saw it on Gotham Schools' Twitter.
"I just feel that we can’t, we shouldn’t deprive kids of school," said Mr. Koppell. "And we should make accommodation for everybody’s religious observance."
In fact, he in effect said, asking the state to add two more days off for religious observance pushes the city farther down a slippery slope.
The city is taking a similar tack in reducing the number of alternate-side parking days to accommodate religious observance.
Reducing school days or alternate-side parking days until everyone's holidays were recognized would be onerous, he said.
"I regret it," said Mr. Koppell, "because I think we should expand as I say the policies that we have to allow kids freedom to practice their religion."
He has asked his counsel, he said, to draft legislation that would call on the state to ensure that any city schoolchild who needs to take a day off for religious observance would not be penalized; allow for make-up exams for children who miss exams thanks to religious observance; and require city schools to take religious observance days into consideration when scheduling major events.
And he thinks the city should "consider" revoking days off on Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, and Good Friday.
He stopped at Christmas.
"Well, Christmas, I think, is celebrated by so many people we probably shouldn’t change that," he said.

Security increases after D.C. attack

The New York Times City Room blog reports that sites of Jewish interest citywide — including Riverdale Temple and Riverdale Jewish Center — are under the increasingly watchful eye of the NYPD after a gunman identified as an 88-year-old white supremacist opened fire inside the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C., fatally wounding a security guard.

The shooter was identified as James von Brunn, whom, according to The New York Times, attempted in 1981 to storm a board meeting of the Federal Reserve with revolver, a hunting knife and a sawed-off shotgun in order to take board members hostage.

Dinowitz: "I told you so"

State Sen. Pedro Espada Jr. has apparently struck a deal with Senate Republicans in which he is now president pro tempore of the Senate, and Republican Dean Skelos is majority leader.
That means that after not-quite five and a half months of Democratic control, the Republican Party may once again seize control of the state Legislature's upper house.
This, a frustrated Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz just called to tell me, is exactly the set of circumstances he and the Riverdale political establishment sought to avoid — by supporting the incumbent, Efrain Gonzalez Jr., even though he was under indictment.
Mr. Gonzalez pled guilty earlier this month to fraud charges in connection with routing $400,000 in taxpayer money to his own pocket while a state senator. He was under indictment before last year's primaries, in which Mr. Dinowitz and Riverdale's Benjamin Franklin Reform Democratic Club endorsed him.
"He would have been returned to office and he would have lost his job … and we would have had neither Efrain Gonzalez Jr. nor Pedro Espada. Of course we knew that at the time," Mr. Dinowitz said.
He later added he knew they were endorsing someone who was likely guilty of stealing taxpayer money, not that they knew for a fact that Mr. Gonzalez had done the deed.
Given what was at stake, he said, the ends justified the means.
"You already saw the difference in having a Democratic senate … in terms of the bottle law, the Rockefeller law," Mr. Dinowitz said.
The Democratically controlled state Senate has passed reforms to the much-maligned Rockefeller drug laws, loosening sentences for low-level offenders.
The reforms also allowed judges to seal the records of some criminals, which caused a stir the Republicans used to their advantage.
The Senate also extended the Bottle Bill to add a deposit to bottled water.
"Now they’re going to put into power people who are going to oppose the interests of New York City when it comes to housing … who are going to oppose a lot of other positions," Mr. Dinowitz said.

Mayoral Control

Parents, teachers and educators:

What do you think about mayoral control of the schools? Should the City Council let the law sunset? Should it be revised? Or should it be left intact?

Let us know what you think by writing a blog post, sending an e-mail to kpastor@riverdalepress.com or calling 718-543-6065 ext. 302.

Names and contact information will be appreciated.

Scharper steps down from principal post

By Kate Pastor
kpastor@riverdalepress.com

Philip Scharper has officially resigned from his post as principal at PS 24.

The announcement was made by Interim Acting Principal Deidre Burke at the school’s parents’ association meeting last night. It comes more than two weeks after Mr. Scharper was sent to the “rubber room,” where educators await the outcome of Department of Education investigations.

The resignation creates a formal vacancy and will allow the C-30 process for finding his replacement to begin after June 16, according to Department of Education spokeswoman Ann Forte.