Paul caught playing Pinocchio

From the Queens Gazette:

On June 27, the City Council passed the fiscal budget for 2015. This budget was significant on many fronts as our children, seniors, schools, cultural institutions and many new initiatives were included and protected in the $75 billion budget. However, for residents of District 19, history was made. Councilmember Paul Vallone secured more than $6.7 million for much needed capital and expense projects throughout his communities. To put this year’s budget in perspective, the amount is triple that was received from the previous Councilmember, Dan Halloran ($2.2 million). This increase in funding will allow Vallone to provide nearly $3 million for his district’s schools and more than $1 million each to both libraries and parks in his district.

So Vallone insults his constituents' intelligence by insinuating that it was his great skills as a negotiator that got him triple the funding of what Halloran had received, when, in fact, it was because of new council rules that divided the funding evenly between the council districts? And the Gazette goes along with this?

Council Members act clueless at park hearing

From the Daily News:

Hundreds of millions of dollars are being generated each year in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park by big-money operations like the Mets, but Queens lawmakers say the park isn’t getting its slice of the pie.

The Mets and the U.S. Tennis Association pay a total of $2.5 million to lease their sites from the city. Meanwhile, the 900-acre park operates on $11.6 million in city funds and counts only 18 full-time city maintenance workers.

“It’s incredibly frustrating that this city has not identified a way to have our park be able to collect on the revenue it generates,” said City Councilwoman Julissa Ferreras (D-East Elmhurst), who called a Council hearing on Friday to address the lack of city funding to help pay for the park’s upkeep.

Ferreras said during the packed hearing that she is in talks with the city to create a public-private alliance — similar to the Central Park Conservancy — to fund much of the maintenance of the nearly 900-acre park, which is surrounded by predominantly immigrant and low-income communities.

Ferreras would like to fill the coffers of the alliance with private donations and a cut of the almost $7 million in annual concession fees and rents that are paid by the businesses and stadiums in the park.

Queens officials and parks advocates blasted the city after learning Citi Field pays only about $155,000 a year to lease its Flushing Meadows site from the city. That amount is slated to jump to $400,000 in 2014.

The U.S. Tennis Association, which hosts the U.S. Open in the park, pays roughly $2.4 million a year.

Meanwhile, Terrace on the Park, a banquet hall in Flushing Meadows, pays the city roughly $2.5 million a year.

“It’s ridiculous,” said Geoffrey Croft, president of New York City Park Advocates. Citi Field is “clearly not paying their fair share.”

City Councilman Peter Vallone Jr. (D-Astoria) said, “there’s something fishy in those numbers.”

“It sounds to me like Citi Field and the USTA are getting off really easy,” added Vallone, who said he will introduce a bill requiring all park conservancies with more than $5 million of annual income to give 20% to maintain other needy city parks.

So let me get this straight... The City Council voted to give the Mets a sweetheart deal when they came to them for permission to build a new stadium, yet now this same legislative body is shocked that the Mets have a sweetheart deal? Nice try, but we weren't born yesterday. And what difference does it make how much rent each entity pays under the current system? It goes into the general fund and hardly any of it goes back to Flushing Meadows anyway.

Hey City Council, how about DOING YOUR JOB by budgeting adequate funding for ALL city parks as you are required to, so there will be no need to further privatize our parks or have dog-and-pony show hearings?

Meanwhile, we have Parks Commissioner Veronica White, who conveniently skipped the FMCP hearing, telling Brian Lehrer (at about 14:00) that Parks chose to fund the High Bridge instead.

No respect for Flushing Meadows

From the Queens Chronicle:

We’re tired of Flushing Meadows Corona Park being the Rodney Dangerfield of the city’s crown jewel green spaces. Why do we in Queens get no respect?

For weeks we’ve been covering Major League Soccer’s plan to eat up about a dozen acres of the old fairgrounds for a new stadium. Even leaving aside the myriad logistical, environmental and economic problems with the very vague plan, we’ve concluded that simply proposing it is offensive because Flushing Meadows is a public park —one that’s already suffered enough through city neglect.

Note that one selling point for the stadium is that MLS would refurbish the soccer fields in the park if its plan is approved. That should be a city function. But it’s no surprise that the city isn’t doing its municipal duty at FMCP. Though it’s far larger than the city’s true crown jewel, Central Park, the latter gets much more funding and much more staffing.

Underappreciated by the power brokers, the cocktail hour class and even our elected officials, yes. But not by the working-class and poor people, many of them immigrants, who live in the neighborhoods surrounding FMCP. Yes, the fact that they litter and tend to damage trees when they dump hot coals out of their barbecue grills is an affront — but one that better code enforcement could put a damper on. Still, the people who come to the park for a break from the concrete and steel of their neighborhoods love the place. Look at how adamantly many of them oppose the MLS plan —not to mention the much smaller, much more reasonable, much more feasible bid by the United States Tennis Association to take just another two-thirds of an acre.

While Central Park’s amenities are kept pristine, our Queens landmarks in Flushing Meadows, such as the New York State Pavilion, continue to deteriorate as if this was still the crumbling New York City of 1977. Meanwhile, the city plans to spend $4.5 million to turn the old Astoria Pool diving well into an amphitheater, in one of the more overpriced, harebrained schemes we’ve heard of late. How much plain old park maintenance would that money buy at FMCP?

As this page has said before, it’s City Councilwoman Julissa Ferreras who holds the key to saving the park from the MLS plan. If she says no, the rest of the Council will fall in line and that will be that. She’s been noncomittal, and never said a word to us about laying the future of the park at her feet. We again urge you to urge Ferreras to reject the soccer stadium. And now we take it a step further: Demand that she and the rest of our City Council delegation start treating our park the way it should be treated. Fix the soccer fields. Restore the historic structures. Maybe even landmark the park, as state Sen. Tony Avella is asking — the first person ever to do so, according to the city (Prospect Park was landmarked in 1973, Central Park in 1974). And above all, pledge that the long period of neglect at FMCP is over.

A question of fairness

From Bloomberg:

New York devoted about $338 million, less than 0.5 percent of its $68.5 billion operating budget this year, to its 29,000- acre park system, down from $380 million. The city budget supports about 15 percent of Central Park’s $45 million annual operating costs, according to the conservancy website.

By comparison, the Chicago Park District, a semi-autonomous authority funded through dedicated property taxes, revenue from facilities such as Soldier Field and private donations, intends to spend $407 million on its 7,800-acre system, plus more than $80 million in capital improvements, said Jessica Maxey- Faulkner, a spokeswoman. Los Angeles spends $189.5 million of its $7.2 billion budget on parks.

In fiscal 2013, the city has earmarked $28.8 million for parks in Manhattan, almost double the amount in the Bronx, which has more than twice as much park acreage. The city budgeted $25.3 million for parks in Queens, $23.4 million for Brooklyn and $10.2 million for Staten Island. Staffing in city parks has declined 25 percent since 2009, to 5,744 employees.

Flushing Meadows Corona Park, a 1,255-acre expanse in Queens that was the site of the World’s Fair in 1939 and 1964, is marred by barren fields where grass once grew and shuttered recreation facilities “where the city could easily spend $100 million,” [NYC Park Advocates President Geoffrey] Croft said.

Ferry Point Park in the Bronx “now functions as a public toilet,” Croft said, after officials reduced staff, abandoned ball fields and closed public restrooms. “Without any security or supervision, men set up roulette tables for open-air gambling,” he said.

[John] Paulson’s gift “is a good thing not just for Central Park but for parks generally because it highlights how important parks are to people,” said Holly Leicht, executive director of New Yorkers for Parks, an advocacy organization.

“It also puts the onus on the city to make sure there’s enough money in the maintenance budget to properly maintain the 1,700 other parks that can’t draw this level of private funding,” Leicht said.

The best solution to the problem of funding all the parks would be the creation of a citywide conservancy-like institution to attract private and public funding, said Melissa Mark- Viverito, a Democrat who heads the City Council’s Parks and Recreation committee and whose Manhattan district of East Harlem includes a portion of Central Park.

“The challenge is to prevent our parks from becoming a two-tiered system where some have conservancies and some don’t,” said Mark-Viverito.

“We can’t have the city walking away from its obligation and responsibility for upkeep and maintenance,” she said. “That’s not the message we should be sending.”

Sanders the next one in trouble?

From the NY Post:

Southeast Queens residents traded one politician who’s under indictment for allegedly covering up the theft of state funds for another who is in hot water with the state Board of Elections.

State elections officials said last week that they were preparing to sue James Sanders for failing to file proper expenses in his campaign report due 10 days after his Sept. 13 state Senate primary. After The Post’s inquiry, the Democrat updated his filing over the weekend.

Sanders, a councilman who’s had similar issues in a prior race, last month defeated Sen. Shirley Huntley, who is under indictment for allegedly covering up the theft of $30,000 in state funds from a charity she funded.

The board has also sued Sanders four times over the past three years for ignoring required disclosure reports from 2009 Council race, which he won easily.

“(Campaign) people have called over the years to find out what’s missing and then promised to make the filings and then they haven’t made the filings,” Board spokesman John Conklin said.

Sanders' campaign directed questions to his Council office; a spokesman there acknowledged the error with the recent forms but said he could not speak to the 2009 campaign filings.

Bill to reduce matching funds

From the NY Post:

City Council Republicans have a new idea on how to rein in public spending: Trim their own taxpayer-subsidized campaign budgets.

The five-member GOP delegation plans to introduce a bill this month to sharply reduce the city Campaign Finance Board's required matching payouts to candidates as Mayor Bloomberg grapples with a nearly $4.6 billion deficit for the upcoming fiscal year.

Under current rules, the CFB uses public money to provide candidates in the system with a 6-1 match for every donation up to $175 from city residents. Council Republicans want to drop that ratio to 2-1 in citywide election years when the budget deficit is at least $2 billion as of the mayor's annual January budget presentation.

Council Minority Leader James Oddo said the bill could save enough money to rescue teaching jobs and firehouses slated for closure in future years.

"Show me the firehouse you will accept to be closed in order to ensure you get a 6-1 match. Tell me which group of seniors you want to put out of their center because you want to do the matching game," Oddo said. "It's a choice between a high-falutin palm card or keeping a senior center open."

Oddo admitted he has accepted the 6-1 match because his opponents were doing the same.

The Republicans penned a letter to their council colleagues last night asking them to consider the measure, which faces an uphill battle among lawmakers who rely on the CFB's matching funds.

If the rule on matching funds is changed, candidates accustomed to getting as much as $1,050 in city funds for each $175 contribution would only get $350 instead.

Bloomberg restores community board funding

From City Pragmatist:

Mayor Bloomberg’s Fiscal Year 2011 Executive Budget calls for the restoration of community board funding to $198,895.

The restoration comes after almost $60,000 in reductions proposed by the mayor’s Office of Management and Budget earlier this year.

Those proposed reductions prompted many community board members to argue for “baseline budgeting” at April’s charter revision commission public hearings. Many boards also reached out for help to their borough presidents and City Council members.

In the end it was Mayor Bloomberg who proposed the budget restoration, possibly to dispel growing criticism that he was not supportive of the boards. Community board leaders had expected Mr. Bloomberg to leave any possible restoration to the City Council, which still must approve his Executive Budget.

Cops spared, but not teachers

From NBC 4:

Mayor Michael Bloomberg already said a few weeks ago that he would not lay off police officers due to budget cuts, but now NBCNewYork has learned his executive budget tomorrow will also restore 892 police officer jobs who he planned to eliminate through attrition.

The reconsideration comes following a result of the failed car-bomb plot in Times Square over the weekend.

The plan to reduce headcount by 892 officers was in the mayor's January plan, which is just a preliminary budget. On Thursday Bloomberg will announce the final plan that goes to the city council for negotiation and approval.

How can he afford to spare these cops? Tax revenues are slightly higher than the city's conservative estimates, so a few of the worst budget cuts are off the table.

There are currently approximately 35,000 uniformed officers at NYPD -- nearly 6,000 less than the 40,800 officers the force had in 2001 when Bloomberg was first elected.

The budget cost for restoring the funding for the nearly 900 positions will be about $55 million.

Hey, Bloomberg also is begging for more homeland security funds, although he has no intention of reversing the sanctuary city policy which leaves the city more vulnerable to terrorism.

The teachers won't be spared, however.

City pushing forward with Governors Island takeover

From the Villager:

The city and state now share control of the island and also share responsibility for funding it, an arrangement that often results in a tug of war during budget season and perpetual uncertainty over the island’s future.

The city wants to end that uncertainty by committing a larger chunk of money to the island over several years — but only if the city gains complete political control over the island as well. The Mayor’s Office is shopping the idea around to politicians and won support from Community Board 1’s Waterfront Committee last month. The Governors Island Alliance is also cautiously backing the proposal.

Josh Wallack, a senior policy advisor for the city on economic development, attended the Dec. 21 Waterfront Committee meeting but did not make a presentation. He promised that the city would put both operating and capital funds into the island and agreed with the board’s requests for transparency and accountability.

Remember: The City ALWAYS comes up with money for tourist park projects while it rejects park projects geared toward its taxpayers by crying poverty. Even when the economy is in the toilet.