Caption Bubba, Kathy Clown and the Muzzled Mayor

Council members want Clinton Foundation to stop using AirBnB

From Crains:

Nine members of the City Council are calling on the Clinton Global Initiative to end its partnership with controversial room-sharing startup Airbnb to provide accommodations to AmeriCorps volunteers.

In a letter sent Sept. 24 to Clinton Foundation CEO Eric Braverman, the council members claim that Airbnb is "the leading operator in the illegal hotel industry that is exacerbating the affordable-housing crisis in New York City." They urge Mr. Braverman to reconsider his group's partnership with the company, which was announced Wednesday during CGI's annual global meeting in midtown Manhattan.

"We believe in the Clinton Foundation’s guiding principle that 'we’re all in this together,' " they write. "But it appears Airbnb does not subscribe to this principle, as it is content to flout our laws, put tenants at significant risk, and deal a serious blow to our efforts to make this city more affordable for working New Yorkers."

The letter is signed by council members Helen Rosenthal, Daniel Garodnick, Corey Johnson, Ben Kallos, Rosie Mendez, Brad Lander, Mark Levine, Antonio Reynoso and Ritchie Torres.
An Airbnb spokesman dismissed the claims of the letter writers.

"We are proud to support AmeriCorps and more than 1,000 new corps members as they embark on their service in schools, health centers, parks and communities recovering from disasters across the country," the spokesman said, referring to the national service program launched during the first few years of the Clinton administration.

Mocker calls out Bloomberg for caring more about tourists than Queensfolk

Mocker went to a press conference recently that the Mayor, DOT Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan and get this - former president Bill Clinton - held in order to brag about how much air quality has improved in Times Square with the installation of the pedestrian plaza there. (Pretty bogus since the pollution didn't disappear, it just was diverted to other streets.) Then Mocker compared that initiative to how Bloomberg has ignored the 5-year plea for parkland in Maspeth. The City is about to dump yet another bus depot on the community, but continues to stall in converting the St. Saviour's site into a park, even though the elected officials have had the money raised for its acquisition for just about a year. Apparently, Bloomie and company would rather make nice with the owner than start the acquisition process. Forget PlaNYC 2030...Developers and tourists rule!