Council GOP celebrates Thanksgiving

Council Republicans celebrate Easter

Do as we say, not as we do

From CBS 2:

CBS 2’s Derricke Dennis obtained a copy of the councilman’s complaints, a long list of 944 city properties with broken or missing sidewalks. Ignizio wants the city to fix what’s on the list, while cutting homeowners a break.

In response, a city spokesman said in the last five construction seasons $5 million was spent repairing sidewalks at city-owned properties. Another $4.5 million was spent on sidewalk repairs to private properties, said to be proof the city is on the job.

But Councilman Ignizio said there are still too many areas with no sidewalk at all.

“Really the city needs to check its own inventory before it starts going after people and violating them when they don’t have sidewalks in most of their own properties in my district,” Ignizio said.

He’s demanding the city not only talk the talk, but walk the walk.

Safest areas are where legal gun ownership is highest

From the NY Post:

A middle-class enclave on the South Shore of the city's southernmost borough is the gun capital of New York, with 509 residents -- or about one in every 57 males -- legally packing heat.

The neighborhood is filled with single-family homes on 40-by- 100-foot lots and attached town houses, largely populated with conservative-leaning civil servants like cops and firefighters, as well as Wall Streeters.

"That's the quintessential group that owns guns for their home and family protection," said the area's city councilman, Vincent Ignizio.

Many of those gun-toting residents practice their aim at two private gun ranges on the island, and many also head upstate to unload.

"There are a lot of hunters," said longtime resident Guido Cadunzi, a gun-safety instructor.

The well-armed area is also one of the city's safest. The 123rd Precinct has seen a 27 percent decrease in major crimes over the past 10 years, and there were just two homicides there in 2009 and 2010.

Bike lane backlash reaching fever pitch

From the NY Post:

Mayor Bloomberg conceded last night that his administration hasn’t done enough to consult with communities about bike lanes after irate residents of the Rockaways heckled a top Transportation Department official who extolled their virtues at a town hall meeting.

"Bicycle lanes are one of the more controversial things, obviously," the mayor said following the outburst at the Bayswater Civic Association.

"Some people love ‘em and some people hate them... It’s probably true that in many of these cases we could do a better job and we’re going to try to do that."

The meeting was proceeding routinely, dominated by local issues such as school closings and flooding, when Michael Gliner, a printing company owner, asked whether the bike lanes installed last summer on the main thoroughfare of Beach Channel Drive could be relocated.

Maura McCarthy, the Transportation Department’s Queens Borough Commissioner, responded that numerous neighborhoods were getting bike lanes and "Rockaway is one place we’re very proud to have put them in."

The boos that ensued from the crowd of about 250 were so loud that the moderator felt compelled to warn, "We will not have any of that at this meeting."

From the Brooklyn Paper:

Two former top city officials — including an ex-Transportation Commissioner who emphasized car travel over bikes during her tenure — have emerged as the principal leaders of the opposition to the city’s controversial Prospect Park West bike lane.

One day after the Department of Transportation announced last week that the lane has improved safety for drivers and cyclists, two members of the city’s old guard — former Sanitation Commissioner Norman Steisel and former Transportation boss Iris Weinshall — struck back, claiming that the agency fudged numbers to make the lane appear more successful than it is.

“We’re skeptical,” said Steisel, whose group is called Neighbors for Better Bike Lanes. “They’ve been opportunistic about the way they’ve used their numbers.”
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Steisel said that current Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan is so driven by her passion for bicycles that she may be “pushing facts so hard that they don’t paint a proper picture of the truth.”

From the NY Post:

Two city councilmen are pressing Mayor Bloomberg and his bike-lane-loving transportation chief to require that any new bicycle lanes go through the same exhaustive public review as other road changes.

Staten Island Councilman James Oddo, the Republican minority leader, said plans for new bike lanes should undergo the city's lengthy environmental-assessment process, or the city should allow other, more minor traffic changes to bypass the review.

Oddo and Councilman Vincent Ignizio (R-SI) penned a letter last week demanding an explanation from Deputy Mayor Stephen Goldsmith and Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan, an avid cyclist and bike-lane proponent, of why the lanes don't require the scrutiny.

"The creation of bike lanes and the removal of vehicle travel lanes represent a major reordering of Department of Transportation priorities that may affect the environment and appear to qualify" for a formal environmental review, the letter reads.

Oddo told The Post, "To add one left-handed turning lane [on Staten Island], it's taking us eight to 12 years, yet there have been all of these bike lanes installed without any bumps in the road. How is that possible?"

From the NY Post:

The NYPD is "sick" of brazen bicyclists -- and has started a major campaign to slam the brakes on riders' out-of-control behavior.

Early this month, the police began a ticket blitz targeting bike scofflaws by handing out a slew of summonses to riders who refused to follow basic traffic-safety laws, sources told The Post.

In just the first two weeks of January in Manhattan, cops handed out nearly 1,000 tickets charging wayward riders with breaking the kind of laws many seem to constantly ignore: going the wrong way, running lights, making illegal turns and riding on the sidewalk.

"Bicyclists should travel like vehicles and must obey the same laws," said a police source familiar with the crackdown. "The department and the people are sick of it."

The sources said that bike riders -- including messengers and pedicab drivers -- had better get used to the hardened approach toward violations.

"It's from now until forever," a source said. "There is no set time."

The NYPD did not have the exact number of bicycle tickets written out in Manhattan over any other two-week period, but sources are sure they broke a record in early January.

"It's an all-time high," one high-ranking source said.

In addition to 979 Manhattan tickets, 315 were issued in Brooklyn and 167 were doled out in Queens.

Sources said that lawbreaking by cyclists has become the top quality-of-life complaint in some neighborhoods.

From the NY Post:

Not long ago, a confidant of Mayor Bloomberg's cornered me with a blunt question: "Can you figure out what his third term is about?"

I paused before offering the only thing I could think of: "Bike lanes?"

"Thank you very much," the frustrated Bloomy backer answered. "That's exactly my point."

Jerry Seinfeld made a successful TV show about nothing, but governing has to be about something. A year into his third term, even strong supporters wonder if Bloomberg has a clear focus.

It must be more than sailing through ribbon cuttings and gimmicks like splashing white paint on rooftops and streets to call yourself "green." Trips and speeches around the country definitely do not qualify.

What would qualify is a push that ties together the loose ends of the first two terms and secures the city's progress and his legacy. So far, there is no vision or energy for that closing argument.

But nature abhors a vacuum, so failures are defining City Hall. The snow disaster, the $80 million CityTime ripoff and citizen reports that the Bloomies are fudging data to defend unpopular policies help explain the mayor's 37 percent approval rating.

He said recently he hoped to be considered "the greatest mayor ever," but time is running out to make the kind of gains that could stand history's test.

Republican elves prepare for Christmas

Parks to proceed with demolition of Cedar Grove

Lame Parks Dept rendering of Cedar Grove's future

From the NY Post:

This is a real-estate story that bears not a lick of sanity. Because after midnight Sept. 30, city honchos -- made to look foolish by a renegade posse of mainly elderly homesteaders laying claim to a bucolic stretch of beach --are fighting back.

They're destroying Cedar Grove Beach Club, an immaculate summer village plunked in the distant borough a century ago. Once, little Cedar Groves dotted the city from Brooklyn to The Bronx, offering respite to overheated city dwellers. Now, it's the last of its kind.

But, given the chance by the state to landmark the historic site, which costs taxpayers nothing to run, officials chose to bulldoze it. Now residents fear, with good reason, that their beloved beach will wind up an abandoned, city-controlled condom and needle depository, like so many others.

Why so stubborn?

A century ago, land on Staten Island was cheap and no one cared about the boroughs. Cedar Grove began with tents. Cottages followed. By the 1940s, more than 200 houses dotted the 307-acre parcel, plus a community center and even a summer camp. Six generations played here from June to October, trudging back to other parts of the city come winter.

But in 1962, the houses were seized via eminent domain for a Robert Moses-planned highway. When the road never materialized, Islanders were offered a deal: Rent the property from the city, or get lost. This arrangement worked well for 48 years.
The city has put aside $1.9 million to fix up Cedar Grove -- money, ironically, from the rent paid by Grovians. It's not enough, officials admit, to get through even one summer.

Face it. Government just can't run things more efficiently than private citizens. In 2002, Mayor Bloomberg sold 11 East Village townhouses -- worth millions -- for $1 apiece to squatters living in them illegally. I propose the city make the same offer at Cedar Grove.

Better yet, build a mosque on the property. That will make it untouchable.

From the Village Voice:

Parks announces that it will be opposing all efforts (namely, that of local public officials, historians, and the members of the beach club) to give the beach club a designation on the national registry.

How are they going to pay for all this loveliness? As we reported, the Parks Department says it is going to use $1.8 million collected from fees from the residents. Phase III, which appears to include the greenway construction as well as "picnic grounds" and "pedestrian pathways," Parks admits, is still "unfunded."

From SI Live:

There is no funding in place for the remaining work, a cause for concern among elected officials who for weeks have been pressing Parks on its ability to finance such a project while other beaches and parks languish across the borough and as the city continues to tighten its belt.

Parks' budget was slashed by 11 percent this year -- and Mayor Michael Bloomberg this week ordered his commissioners to trim $800 million from the current $63 billion city budget and an additional $1.2 billion next year to avoid layoffs.

"It's a typical rope-a-dope by the Parks Department," said Councilman Vincent Ignizio (R-South Shore), whose district houses Cedar Grove. "They're going to get in there with their $1.8 million, knock the bungalows down and then walk away and we will never see the real plan implemented."

Yup. You can count on that. It's also interesting that Parks has been telling other communities they have to have all the funding in place for a new park project before they can proceed, yet here they are making an exception.

Inside the GOP Christmas Party

Back by popular demand....more footage of the GOP, this time at their holiday hoedown!

GOP pals enjoy snow day

Did you have fun in the snow this weekend?

Jim, Vinny, Eric, Pete and Dan sure did.