De Blasio horse deal is a no-go

From DNA Info:

The City Council won't be voting Friday on the carriage horse deal after the union representing the industry backed out, according to the mayor.

The deal that would've cut the number of horse carriages in the city and confined their services to Central Park has been scrapped after the Teamsters announced Thursday they could no longer support the bill.

"With the legislation now finalized, our members are not confident that it provides a viable future for their industry. We cannot support the horse carriage bill currently before the City Council," said George Miranda, president of Teamsters Joint Council 16.

The Council had sufficient votes to pass the legislation, but without support from both sides of the agreement, the vote cannot happen, according to the Mayor's Office.

Deal done for horse carriages

From NY1:

The Mayor's office and the Teamsters Union announced a tentative deal late Sunday that would reduce the number of horses and permanently move the carriages to Central Park.

Under the agreement, the number of licensed horses would drop from about 180 to 110 by December 1.

That number will eventually be reduced to 95 by the time a new stable is built in Central Park.

That stable is expected to be complete by October 2018, and will have room for 75 horses and 68 carriages.

Once the stable is finished, all travel and operations will be confined to Central Park.

There are still a number of issues to be ironed out, including how to compensate carriage drivers who will lose their jobs under the deal.

Horses may be moved to Central Park

From the Daily News:

The city is close to a deal with the horse carriage industry that would permanently move their stables inside Central Park — and could have a City Council hearing on the proposal as early as Friday, multiple sources told the Daily News.

Reps for Mayor de Blasio have been in meetings over the past few days with the Teamsters, the union that reps the drivers, according to the sources.

The city has agreed to pay to build new stables in Central Park as part of the plan to move the horses — who currently live in stables in Hell’s Kitchen — off the city streets.

The Teamsters also want the city to give buyouts to the drivers who will lose their job because of the move to Central Park, which won’t be able to accommodate the current number of 220 horses, the sources said.

The city has not agreed to buyouts, according to the sources.

The new bill calls for licensing 68 carriages and 75 horses to operate in Central Park. Those carriages will be in place by October 2018, sources said.

How convenient that this will free up valuable real estate on the west side!

Big mob bust (with Viagra!)

From the NY Post:

Manhattan prosecutors today announced a big blow against the Bonanno crime family: the indictment on enterprise corruption charges of seven crew members, including jailed Donnie Brasco-era gangster and alleged underboss Nicholas "Nicky" Santora.

Two leaders of Teamsters Local 917, which handles liquor store and parking lot employees, were additionally indicted for allegedly helping the Bonannos gain loansharking and book-making footholds among members.

They are the local's president, Nicholas Bernhard, and shop steward Scott O'Neill, of Howard Beach.

Investigators had pulled an illegal, loaded gun from under the pillow of Bernhard's Congers, NY, bed when search warrants were executed on the suspects in February, a source told The Post.

Additional illegal firearms had been seized at that time from Bernhard's home and from that of alleged soldier Anthony "Skinny" Santoro, including a Tech-9 pulled from a stash of guns in Santoro's Staten Island house.

"Many mistakenly believe that the mob has disappeared entirely except when you watch HBO," Manhattan DA Cyrus Vance, Jr., told reporters.

"Whatever name it's called, the Mafia, La Cosa Nostra, the Mob, this indictment demonstrates that organized crime is still operating in New York City and still has its hooks in the labor movement," Vance said in announcing the fruits of a two-year joint investigation by his office and the NYPD Organized Crime Control Bureau and Organized Crime Investigation Unit.

The top enterprise corruption charge against the nine men includes pattern acts involving the traditional mob mainstays: loansharking, offshore gambling, extortion, union corruption and weapons possession.

But in a nod to more modern tastes, the gangsters allegedly also dabbled in the distribution of Viagra, Cialis and the suburban party drug Oxycodone.

The Sunset Diner in Greenpoint and the Jackson Hole Diner in Queens were favorite meeting spots, a source said.

Shafran campaign headscratchers

When you take a look at Austin Shafran's website, the top of the page under the banner contains tabs highlighting the candidate's endorsements. Here's the one for the Teamsters.  (His mom works for their president, you see.)



But when you get to the tab for Governor Cuomo, it's not an endorsement, just a screenshot of an old announcement from when Austin was appointed as a spokesperson for the Empire State Development Corporation, one of those useless money pits of a state agency (think Atlantic Yards and Columbia University eminent domain projects and Moynihan Station).  Also of interest is the following press release that contains some grammatical/spelling issues. And this guy was once a state spokesman...



Team Shafran likes to post photos of themselves hard at work.  At this strategy meeting was Manhattan Young Democrat Sarah Dinhofer, who was apparently the target of this Facebook page and, as evidenced by the comment on the bottom right corner of the page, thinks it's hilarious.  She's also apparently a fan of very politically incorrect language, and either likes or dislikes it "when Tanvir scoops her chesticles." This is going to be one interesting campaign!



Now here comes the one part of this post that I made up for April Fool's Day:

Austin Shafran:  District 19's man of mystery.