City's betrayal of the green cabs

 

CBS New York 

 Green taxi drivers say their business is on the fast track to failure due to the pandemic and the increase in ride shares.

A longtime green cab driver tells CBS2's Ali Bauman the city is leaving drivers sidelined.

Nancy Reynoso has proudly held the city's first ever green taxi permit for nine years, but now she's hanging up her meter.

"Today I turned in my Taxi and Limousine Commission plates at DMV," she said Wednesday.

Reynoso was first in line to drive a lime-colored car when City Hall introduced them in 2013 under Mayor Michael Bloomberg as an outer-borough alternative to yellow cabs and black cars.

"This is the dream that we were sold for a better perspective, a better future, and I guess the dreams have just fallen," she said.

Ride-sharing apps have been cutting away from business for years, and Reynoso claims the city's Taxi and Limousine Commission has done little to help drivers like her.

"It's just gradually sinking, and I see my drivers leaving every single day and I don't see any change," she said.

"Those drivers are going to lose their jobs. They're going to be on the street," said Javaid Tariq, co-founder of the New York Taxi Workers Alliance.

According to TLC data, there were 1,162 green cab drivers working in January. That's an 80% drop from five years ago when there were 5,751 green cab drivers working in a month.

"The yellow cab and green cab industries are under so many rules and regulations," Tariq said.

In 2021, City Hall agreed to cap medallion loans for yellow cabs.

The green drivers don't pay for medallions, but Reynoso says TLC requires they pay higher insurance and get more inspections, and with fewer fares, it's hard to keep up. Unlike yellow cabs, green taxis are not allowed to pick up fares at the airports or below 96th Street.

Meet Eric Adams agents of the city committee

 

To be the next mayor, the old medium is still the message

  

The Jewish Voice

The city comptroller, Scott M. Stringer, is kicking off his first television ad campaign this week, marking the beginning of a new, intense, and expensive phase of the race eight weeks out from the June 22 primary that is likely to determine the next mayor of New York.

 The first phase of the most important mayoral campaign in our lifetime did nothing to help the public find a new mayor who can reverse the economic destruction caused by COVERT to the city.   Phase one of the campaign consisted mostly of candidates taking selfies with supporters around the city for twitter and Facebook and zoom calls. The zoom calls often had several candidates speaking to special interest insider groups, were not debates, but talking point discussion written to gain the support of the group hosting the call, written by the candidate’s public relations consultants

 So far, we know the candidates want more money for bike lanes, animal rights and everything else, but they do not explain where the city which is suffering the worse fiscal crisis since the depression, will get the funding.  The voters have no idea which of the candidates will better manage or fix the city’s long-term problems like homelessness or the new ones like 40% of the city’s businesses closed permanently, because they are not discussed beyond the candidate promising to fix all the city’s problems.

   There has been no vetting by debates or by journalists of any of these candidates’ promises or plans.As the TV phase of the campaign now begins more New Yorkers will be exposed to the better funded mayoral candidates as their TVs, Phones and Computers will be bombarded with campaign ads, but those commercials will still be talking points written by campaign consultants.  However if the past is prolog those TV ads, if done right. could be enough to elect the next mayor.

In 1977 the Brilliant TV commercials created by media genius the late David Garth were enough to elect Ed Koch as mayor.   Mario M. Cuomo was running for mayor against Mr. Garth’s come-from-behind creation, Edward I. Koch, Mr. Cuomo sardonically demanded: “What hath Garth wrought?”   

Koch often said he would never have been elected mayor without Garth’s commercials.  He was 10 points behind before Garth started his commercials.

 The late Roger Ailes, former Fox News president and political consultant himself, said “Garth was a political guy who learned how to use television rather than a television guy who learned politics,” Mr. Ailes said. “Nobody knew New York better.   Years after his lost to Koch, Mario Cuomo would recruit Mr. Garth for one of his own campaigns for governor, which he won.   So did Rudolph W. Giuliani and Michael R. Bloomberg who both became mayors of NYC.

Shout out to @UnitedNYBlogs, who wrote this post for the Jewish Voice and ran the essential True News blog, for still tagging me in his tweets even though I'm still unreasonably and unjustifiably deplatformed.

  #FreeJQLLC

Governor Cuomo taps billionaire Bloomberg to implement a COVID-19 tech surveillance apparatus

Amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and Mike Bloomberg today announced a new nation-leading COVID-19 contact tracing program to control the infection rate of the disease. Mike Bloomberg and Bloomberg Philanthropies have committed organizational support and technical assistance to help build and execute this new program. The contact tracing program will be done in coordination with the downstate region as well as New Jersey and Connecticut and will serve as an important resource to gather best practices and as a model that can be replicated across the nation. There has never been a contact tracing program implemented at this scale either in New York or anywhere in the United States. The program will launch immediately.

As part of this effort, The Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University will build an online curriculum and training program for contact tracers. The New York State Department of Health will work with Bloomberg Philanthropies to help identify and recruit contact tracer candidates for the training program, including staff from the State Department of Health, investigators from various state agencies, hundreds of tracers from downstate counties and SUNY and CUNY students in medical fields. Bloomberg Philanthropies will also work with New York State to establish an expert panel to review the work of the program, and create a best in class model that other states can use for contact tracing.

 We're all eager to begin loosening restrictions on our daily lives and our economy. But in order to do that as safely as possible, we first have to put in place systems to identify people who may have been exposed to the virus and support them as they isolate," said Michael Bloomberg, founder of Bloomberg Philanthropies and Bloomberg LP, three-term mayor of New York City. "I'm honored to partner with Governor Cuomo and New York State to help do that, by creating a new contact tracing program on a widespread scale. Coupled with far more testing, it will help us drive the virus into a corner -- saving lives and allowing more people to begin getting back to work."

Good riddance oligarch. Bloomberg quits presidential race, endorses Biden

NY Post

Mike Bloomberg suspended his presidential campaign a day after his dismal showing on Super Tuesday – and will endorse former Vice President Joe Biden whose campaign surged to win nine states.

The billionaire former New York City mayor spent hundreds of millions of dollars on his failed campaign.

“I’ve always believed that defeating Donald Trump starts with uniting behind the candidate with the best shot to do it.
 
After yesterday’s vote, it is clear that candidate is my friend and a great American, Joe Biden,” Bloomberg said in a statement released Wednesday.

He said he has always used “data to inform decisions.”

OK Oligarch

Politico

Michael Bloomberg announced Sunday he is running for president, bringing a narrow following but boundless bank account to the crowded Democratic primary.

The 77-year-old former New York City mayor, positioning himself as a centrist alternative to Joe Biden, launched his candidacy in an online video that is part personal story, part attack on President Donald Trump. 

Michael Bloomberg announced Sunday he is running for president, bringing a narrow following but boundless bank account to the crowded Democratic primary.

The 77-year-old former New York City mayor, positioning himself as a centrist alternative to Joe Biden, launched his candidacy in an online video that is part personal story, part attack on President Donald Trump.

“I’m running for president to defeat Donald Trump and rebuild America. We cannot afford four more years of President Trump’s reckless and unethical actions. He represents an existential threat to our country and our values,” Bloomberg declared in a statement Sunday. “If he wins another term in office, we may never recover from the damage.”

 The former mayor, who is worth an estimated $54.1 billion, plans to forgo competing in early voting states and instead focus his resources on Super Tuesday, when 15 states head to the polls March 3. His aides believe the strategy will help him lay claim to delegate-rich territory that has been somewhat overlooked as the top-tier candidates focus their energies in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada. 

Bloomberg's presidential quest is a hedge for his business.

 And to his campaign rivals, this is an extension of his "philanthropy"

Huffington Post

In a memo to staff, the editor-in-chief of Bloomberg News told the newsroom that the publication will continue its “tradition of not investigating” its CEO and namesake, Michael Bloomberg, or his family and foundations after he declared his candidacy for president on Sunday.

The head of Bloomberg News, John Micklethwait, said the policy not to investigate will be extended to other candidates in the Democratic primary.