Life in NYC: 2020 edition

This is satire. Or is it?

Enjoy the weekend.

NYPD raids store operating legally under Cuomo order

EXECUTIVE ORDER 202.6

"Any business that only has a single occupant/employee (i.e. gas station) has been deemed exempt and need not submit a request to be designated as an essential business."


From Fox News.

On April 18, Besshtanko said a number of officers approached her door asking to come in. Besshtanko said her door was locked and the officers failed to present a warrant. “They just started aggressively knocking on my door and I wasn't sure what happened, so I opened the door," she said, "They told me that I had to let them in, and I did. The officer did not present a warrant.”

During the encounter, Besshtanko said the officers searched her store and asked to go into her basement all without telling her what they were looking for. "They just went through every bag, they looked at every shelf of my showcase, they checked little bottles just to see what's in them, but they never actually said, we are looking for such and such, they were just looking. The only time they asked for my permission was to go to the basement, they also asked if there [were] any boxes from China. That [sounded] funny to me, but obviously I had none. They went downstairs to check for it, came back with no results. And that was that,” Besshtanko told Fox News.

“The police are not only coming to these shops one or two times, but it's a pattern. Meaning, they're coming in the morning, in the afternoon, in the evening. And they're making remarks again about importing products from overseas, particularly Asian countries and that is unnecessary. I’m not sure what they're trying to accomplish by doing that. No one has presented a search warrant or any order from a judge to confiscate anything. There's no customs investigation. There's nothing that would lead to this sort of behavior. So it seems to me like these are frustrated officers who are essentially taking out their frustrations on retail shop owners," Spodek told Fox News.

I don't vape, but I may just have to support this woman's business in some way.

Big protest banner against Governor Cuomo found on highway in Monticello

This happened on Mother's Day. Someone draped this monster protest banner on the I-86. Surprising this didn't make the news at all, or maybe it didn't because the establishment news media is unabashedly in adoration of the Governor of New York.

This is the source

The city paid a big price for a toxic site to place an animal shelter in Ridgewood

Just like de Blasio's deal with the Podolsky's it looks like the city way overspent again. This time for the animal shelter in Ridgewood. The city paid 13.2 million dollars for property worth about $946,000. That's 12.3 million dollars that could have been used in an emergency like, oh, I don't know, in case there was a global pandemic or something less catastrophic but economically devastating.

The real kick about this is that this deal was made when Bill de Blasio was running for president and was barely showing up to City Hall at the time.



 Thank you Lucky for this scoop.

Chancellor Carranza proposes crisis advantage school admission changes and rails against Councilman Holden for being tardy for caring for his ill mother.

 

NY Post

New York City Schools Chancellor Richard Carranza said he doesn’t have “a nefarious plan” to use the coronavirus crisis to overhaul middle and high school admission policies, but so far he has given no hint of the “tweaks” he has in mind.

Carranza, who was caught on tape last month telling a national group of Latino school leaders, 
“Never waste a good crisis to transform a system,” seemed to back-pedal Thursday while addressing a virtual public meeting of the advisory Panel For Educational Policy.

“We are not planning a nefarious plan to use this pandemic to change policy,” the chancellor said. 
“We know there must be some tweaks to admissions, not permanent changes.”

Adding to the confusion, Mayor de Blasio at a press conference the day before bluntly spoke about using the pandemic to change the “status quo.”

“Many things are going to be reevaluated as a result of this crisis,” he said. “We are not just going to bring New York City back with the status quo that was there before. But we’re going to try to make a series of changes that favor equity and fairness.”

Both Carranza and de Blasio have voiced their disdain for selective “screened schools,” even though their own children attended them.

A DOE spokeswoman had nothing to add on the issue Friday, but parents are buzzing about the possibilities. Among those under discussion:

• A lottery system: This would eliminate all “screens” and accept students randomly, perhaps with priority fo the disadvantaged. This plan would mirror the controversial system in Brooklyn’s District 15, where the middle schools no longer select students based on report-card grades, test scores, or even auditions for performing arts programs. The District 15 lottery sets aside seats for kids from low-income families, those learning English as a new language, and the homeless.
• Use prior test scores: Schools could use scores from the 3rd- and 6th-grade state exams. Schools with a ranking system could simply plug in metrics from the previous year. But it’s not the fairest way to go, parents say, because kids were told that the 4th- and 7th-grade scores counted for admissions and tried harder then.

NY Post

 Schools Chancellor Richard Carranza angrily scolded a City Council member for being late to a virtual public hearing, ignoring the elected official’s explanation that he was tending to his ailing 96-year-old mother.

Carranza’s outburst, which came during a meeting of the advisory Panel for Educational Policy on Thursday, recalled the time he walked out of a Queens district meeting when parents complained their children were physically and sexually assaulted. He later accused the parents of “grandstanding.”

This time, Carranza blew up at Queens lawmaker Robert Holden, who was not logged in to the video meeting when called upon about 7:30 p.m.

“I had a number of issues to handle tonight including my mother in a nursing home fighting for her life and may have COVID,” Holden explained when he was finally called upon two hours later.

 Holden then criticized the chancellor’s recent comment to school leaders — “Never waste a good crisis,” as reported in The Post.

 That comment “was an insult to everyone fighting COVID,” Holden said. “That comment was disgraceful, and he should apologize for it.”