BDB defends unnecessary routine

From DNA Info:

Mayor Bill de Blasio said his regular 12-mile trek from Gracie Mansion to his Park Slope gym is a reminder of his roots as he brushed off criticism Friday over his gas-guzzling routine.

De Blasio, who hails from Cambridge, Mass., and bought his home on 11th Street in 2003, said his trips to the Y on Ninth Street help him stay connected to where "I came from," he said.

"I don't want to be someone who's seeing the world through the prism of Gracie Mansion," the mayor said Friday morning. "I want to be someone who's seeing the world through the prism of the neighborhood I come from in Brooklyn, and remembers where I came from and all the people who have been part of life here."

His comments, made during his weekly call in to "The Brian Lehrer Show," came amid a barrage of bad press about his near-daily SUV trips from the Upper East Side to the Park Slope YMCA to exercise.

Does this group deserve taxpayer cash?

From the Daily News:

A scandal-scarred Queens nonprofit is getting $69,000 in taxpayer cash from City Council pols doling out member items, budget records released Monday show.

The Sports and Arts in Schools Foundation was picked for the grants as part of more than $60 million the Council is giving out to favored nonprofits in the $85.2 billion city budget set to pass later this week.

The Council’s discretionary spending adds up to $61.5 million — a $1.7 million spike since last year.

The Daily News reported the foundation — which has been represented by powerful lobbying firm Constantinople & Vallone — got $1.88 million in city contracts in the past year despite a string of criminal charges against employees, city probes and bad performance evaluations.

The group has twice been penalized for losing a child on a field trip, and is currently being investigated for payroll discrepancies and conflicts of interest.

Sports and Arts is set to receive 12 new grants, ranging from $3,000 to $10,000, from 12 different Council members, according to the budget documents.

EDC won't give up on Sunnyside Railyards

From the Queens Chronicle:

When the New York City Economic Development Corp. released a feasibility study on building over sections of the Sunnyside Yard railroad facility in February, EDC officials knew they would have a massive public outreach campaign ahead of them.

On Tuesday morning, Nate Bliss, senior vice president at the EDC, was doing just that at a breakfast hosted by the Queens Chamber of Commerce.

The 209-page study lays out the case for erecting apartment buildings, office towers, schools, commercial and open space on platforms that could be constructed above 70 acres of the 180-acre site, which has been a rail yard since 1910.

Portions of the yard are controlled by Amtrak, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and New Jersey Transit. All work would be done while allowing a fully operational rail yard to continue, and the EDC back in February estimated the cost at between $16 and $19 billion.

But the EDC, with plenty of support from City Hall, believes such a project is doable both from technical and economic aspects, and worth examining further.

“It isn’t often that you can come across 180 acres to develop in New York City,” Bliss said. He said the potential for job growth and economic development are huge.

Based on priorities, such a project could bring 14,000 to 24,000 residential units to the site over time. Bliss said the study accounts for the space and money needed for the schools, roadways and green space that would be required.

The illustrated 209-page report and a 22-page summary can be read or downloaded online at nycedc.com/project/sunnyside-yards.

Don't open hydrants without a cap

From the Queens Gazette:

The Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) has launched its 21st annual crackdown on city residents who insist on opening fire hydrants without an approved “shower cap.”

DEP officials are sending teams of teens into local neighborhoods to educate New Yorkers about the dangers of illegally opening fire hydrants.

Illegally opened hydrants can release more than 1,000 gallons of water per minute, reducing water pressure and making it difficult for firefighters to battle fires, in addition to lowering water pressure to neighboring homes and buildings, DEP officials said.

Queens residents are urged to report illegally opened hydrants by calling 311 immediately, DEP officials said. Illegally opening a fire hydrant can result in a fine of $1,000, 30 days behind bars, or both, a law enforcement source said.

BIG budget approved early

From Crains:

The City Council approved an early $85.2 billion budget for its 2018 fiscal year Tuesday, the last under term-limited Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito.

The council added funding for summer jobs and a property tax exemption for veterans to Mayor Bill de Blasio's fiscal agenda but for the most part avoided the elaborate "budget dance" that involved the proposed removal and subsequent restoration of certain expenditures, a practice Blasio vowed to end. It was the earliest budget the council has delivered in 20 years, according to City Councilman Fernando Cabrera, D-Bronx.

But while the mayor and speaker declined a dance, they stepped into the ring on the issue of legal help for immigrants. The council added a provision ensuring universal representation regardless of criminal history; the mayor wants certain immigrants blocked from services.

Deadly Manhattan construction accident

From the Daily News:

A construction worker plummeted more than 10 stories to his death after a wooden platform gave way underneath him by the Hudson Yards Monday night.

Roger Vail, 62, of Montgomery, N.Y., was working at 400 W. 33rd St. — which is part of the massive Manhattan West development project by Brookfield Properties — doing a survey on the 16th floor at about 6:40 p.m., when he fell through a platform, police sources said.

He dropped to a 6th floor landing, and medics pronounced him dead at the scene, cops said.

The victim, a surveyor hired by 50 States Engineering — a firm hired by the general contractor, Tishman Construction, officials told the Daily News. He was working to raise a “cocooning system” designed to cover areas of active high-rise construction and prevent falls, officials said.

The city Buildings Department issued a full stop-work order at the building Monday, and issued a violation to the contractor for failing to safeguard the site.

Should we send more trucks to the GCP?

From DNA Info:

Elected officials are calling on the Department of Transportation to allow large trucks to drive on a portion of the Grand Central Parkway — an effort to alleviate "paralyzing" traffic the big-rigs are causing on Astoria's residential streets, they say.

Commercial vehicles are currently banned from the parkway, with the exception of the stretch between the RFK-Triborough Bridge and the western end of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway. Currently, that approximately 14-block area allows for smaller trucks as long as they have "no more than three axles and ten tires," according to the DOT.

Astoria officials want that same stretch open to trucks of any size, which they say would keep larger vehicles making their way to the bridge on the parkway instead of on residential streets like Astoria Boulevard, where they're causing traffic mayhem, they say.

Smaller trucks have been allowed to drive on the Grand Central between the BQE and the Triborough Bridge since 2004, when the state legislature passed a bill — sponsored by Gianaris — in an earlier effort to combat Astoria traffic.

The senator said expanding that to include larger trucks would be a "win-win" for residents as well as commercial drivers, who would have a more convenient route between the bridge and the BQE.

City, Wilpons suffer devastating court defeat

From the Village Voice:

After eight years, two lawsuits, countless delays, & three city reversals, the plan for a mall at Willets Point has finally been defeated. And much like the Mets these days, it lost badly.

In a 5-1 decision, the Appeals Court upheld a lower court ruling that held the owners of the Mets could not build a mall on city-owned parkland. The land in question, the former site of Shea Stadium, which was demolished in 2008, is currently the Mets parking lot. A 1961 law allowed that parkland to be used for stadium purposes, a cut-out that a mall would not have satisfied, the court found.

“There is no dispute that the Willets West development is proposed to be constructed entirely on city parkland,” the judges wrote, continuing that the “public trust doctrine,” which dictates the uses for public lands “is ancient and firmly established in our precedent.” Nowhere in the Mets owners arguments, was a mall found to be in line with the public trust doctrine, the court found.

The Mets owners were arguing that by using the mall to fund the remediation of Willets Point (a parcel of land on the other side of their current stadium), and eventually the construction of both affordable housing and a school, the mall was fulfilling the public trust doctrine. The court found that too to be unconvincing, and also didn’t believe the Mets owners were actually going to build the housing or schools.

But wait...these tweeders may not yet be finished! From NY1:

Although the ruling does block the developer from moving forward, the legislature can still step in and intervene.

The legislature would have to vote to use the land for Willets West for non-park purposes. It would also have to find a replacement property to designate as parkland.

Public is subsidizing apartments for the well off

From the Daily News:

When David Sans applied for a $722-a-month two-bedroom in a luxury Manhattan apartment tower that includes taxpayer-subsidized affordable units, he claimed a full-time salary of $24,745.

At the time, however, records Sans filed as a registered stockbroker listed him working full-time for securities firms as an investment banker specializing in health care companies.

When he came up for recertification to continue living in his ninth floor low-rent aerie, he now provided a 2012 tax form showing his income had suddenly jumped to $238,000.

The next year, Sans — who added a second job as a top executive at Mount Sinai Hospital three months after snagging his low-income apartment — reported an income of $456,502.

Sans’ sweet housing deal surfaced in an audit released last week by state Controller Thomas DiNapoli that looked at how tenants with six-figure incomes are able to obtain “affordable” apartments subsidized by the public.

DiNapoli found that as of December 2015, 160 tenants living in affordable units in New York City were making $100,000 or more, with eight making $250,000 or more.

3rd candidate joins Hiram's primary race

From the Times Ledger:

One of the borough’s foremost street safety advocates decided over the weekend to join state Assemblyman Francisco Moya (D-Jackson Heights) and former state Sen. Hiram Monserate for the seat held by City Councilwoman Julissa Ferreras-Copeland (D-East Elmhurst), who won’t seek re-election for a third term.

Jackson Heights resident Cristina Furlong, the co-founder of Make Queens Safer, will file the paperwork and start on petitions this week for the Democratic primary,

“After the presidential election in November showed how quickly a change of leadership could change our quality of life in the neighborhoods of the 21st District, suddenly everyone had to identify a certain way and the world suddenly got a lot angrier,” Furlong said. “District 21 is unique, even to New York City. We need smart growth of our small economies and honest and independent oversight of the major projects like Willets Point, Flushing Meadows Corona Park and LaGuardia Airport.”

Trump's boyhood home has gone to rack and ruin

From DNA Info:

When President Donald Trump’s boyhood home in Jamaica Estates sold in March for $2.14 million, locals expected property values in their neighborhood to soar.

Months-long media buzz surrounding the sale of the property at 85-15 Wareham Pl. near Henley Road — where Trump was born and lived until he was 4 — included speculations that one day it might become an official historic site.

But a little more than two months after the sale closed, the house appears to be deserted and knee-deep grass which has not been trimmed since March shelters various pests and neighborhood cats, neighbors complain.

“It’s been left unkempt and anyone who sees it is going to consider it abandoned,” said Deborah Ayala-Braun, who lives next door, and worries that properties in the area may now see a drop in value instead.

BDB now claims he really didn't want OLR honored at parade

From CBS 2:

The mayor, who is running for reelection, was asked repeatedly if he would join Gov. Andrew Cuomo, Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, Goya Foods, the New York Yankees, AT&T, Coca-Cola, and many others in refusing to participate. Each time, he said he would march.

“I’m going to do everything I would normally do with the parade,” de Blasio said on May 19.

But on Monday, de Blasio said he was just being “diplomatic.”

The mayor claimed he had privately voiced concerns to parade organizers about López Rivera – whose sentence for sedition, armed robbery, and conspiracy to transport explosives was commuted after 36 years by President Barack Obama.

The mayor said to get the parade committee to sever ties with López Rivera, he privately threatened not to march.

“I made it clear to them that I was uncomfortable with the situation and I wanted them to resolve it,” de Blasio said, “but if it wasn’t resolved, I wasn’t going to be comfortable being a part of it.”

The mayor said he didn’t make his efforts public because “sometimes to get something done, you hold your tongue in public.”

Hunters Point South still waiting on sign offs

From Crains:

One of the final large-scale projects of the Bloomberg administration is languishing on the Queens waterfront despite its having been approved three and a half years ago. But there are signs that the development may finally be moving forward.

TF Cornerstone was selected in December 2013 to build a 1,197-unit apartment complex as part of the Hunters Point South complex on the Long Island City coast. Such projects typically take two or three years to complete, yet this one's design hasn't been finalized.

Sources with knowledge of the development told Crain's that delays piled up because of the tangle of utility lines and a train tunnel that run beneath the site. The complications of accommodating these subterranean obstacles was not initially apparent and led TF Cornerstone to alter its design of the building last year.

"The plan changed, and it needed to change based on what they discovered underneath the site," City Council Majority Leader Jimmy Van Bramer said at the time.

But changing the blueprints was not enough. Both Amtrak, which owns the rail tunnel running beneath the East River, and the New York Power Authority, which controls underground electrical lines, must also sign off on an agreement covering the building's design and construction to ensure no harm comes to their infrastructure.

Negotiations with Amtrak began more than two years ago, a spokesman for the rail line said, and are ongoing. However, project insiders said that a resolution is nearly at hand and other aspects of the project are now moving forward rapidly, suggesting that the building may get off the ground early next year.

Here we go again...congestion pricing resurfaces

From the Wall Street Journal:

New York City could impose a congestion charge on motorists driving into Manhattan’s busiest streets—and could do it with or without state approval, an advocacy group says.

Move NY, which is making the argument, will outline a new toll proposal to the City Council’s transportation committee Monday.

Under the group’s plan, the city would impose a $2.75 fee on cars entering Manhattan’s central business district south of 60th Street. Trucks would pay a higher fee, while taxis and other for-hire vehicles would pay a congestion surcharge based on travel within the zone.

Recent congestion-charge proposals faltered in the state legislature. But Move NY says the city doesn’t need state approval to charge drivers. It cites a 1957 state law giving cities with a population of more than one million people the power to toll their own roads and bridges.

Scott Gastel, spokesman for the city’s department of transportation, said the city would analyze the legal theory. “This subject has been reviewed closely over the years and the legal experts in both the current and previous administrations determined the city does not have this authority,” he said.

Disagreement over immigrant defense fund

From the Observer:

Mayor Bill de Blasio and Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito failed to reach an agreement on whether the $26 million the city will set aside to provide free legal counsel to undocumented immigrants will cover those convicted of violent crimes—though the mayor emphasized that the contracting for the program will lie entirely in his hands.

The “budget handshake” at City Hall—touted as the earliest since 1992—was all smiles and self-congratulation until a reporter inquired whether the mayor and speaker, both liberal Democrats and longtime allies, had resolved their difference on the matter. New York’s “sanctuary city” statutes forbid the NYPD or Department of Corrections from honoring federal requests to detain foreign nationals lacking proper paperwork, unless those individuals have been convicted of one of roughly 170 violent offenses, such as rape, murder or terrorism.

De Blasio told the Observer at his proposed spending plan roll-out in April that, while he would meet Mark-Viverito’s request he make permanent a pilot program for attorneys for those fighting deportation, he would not allow city dollars to go toward the defense of someone found guilty of one of those 170 crimes—a stance he maintained today.

Sea level rise response in Staten Island vs Queens

There's a great photoessay on Curbed about the difference in waterfront development in Staten Island vs. Queens. Staten Island is returning to nature while in Queens the attitude is build, build, build!

We live in a strange moment, when on the one hand, the state government is paying millions of dollars to help hundreds of residents move away from the water in an orderly fashion, but on the other hand, the city and private developers are encouraging thousands of new residents to move into rapidly constructed waterfront towers that cost billions of dollars. These diametrically opposed plans for the waterfront are creating very different versions of the future, even as the city has begun to initiate its own managed retreat programs in Edgemere and beyond.

De Blasio: "Do as I say, not as I do"

From CBS 2:

As he vows to lower emissions in the city, Mayor Bill de Blasio is defending being driven from Gracie Mansion to a Brooklyn gym in an SUV every day.

During the mayor’s weekly radio appearance Friday on WNYC, de Blasio said cities have to take the lead on following the goals of the Paris climate accord after President Donald Trump announced the United States is exiting the deal.

A caller later criticized the mayor for his motorcade rides from the Upper East Side to a YMCA in Park Slope for his daily workouts, saying he needs to “step up his game” and “lead by example.”

The caller said, “You’re not going to be able to lead when you’re sitting in your SUV being chauffeured every day, 12 miles from Gracie Mansion to Park Slope just so that you can ride an exercise bike.”

“I’m just not going to take the bait, my friend,” the mayor responded. “I have instructed folks in my government to turn our fleet into electric cars. We are moving to renewables we are retrofitting our building. We’re doing all the things, that’s the real leadership, it’s not whether or not I go to the gym.”

Police impersonator strikes in Flushing

From CBS:

Cops are still looking for a police impersonator who made a fake stop in Flushing, Queens last week.

He told an 82-year-old man he could pay him $700 to avoid a traffic violation for running a stop sign.

The suspect drove the man to a bank where he handed over the cash

Sound familiar?

From CBS 2:

Residents of a Staten Island neighborhood say it’s a mystery who owns the cars that are showing up on their blocks.

They say the cars appear not to be abandoned, and just sit on their streets for months.

As CBS2’s Jessica Borg reports, it’s not easy to get them towed.

CBS2 has been told that it has to be determined whether the cars are legally registered, or whether out-of-state pates are part of insurance fraud before cars can be ticketed and towed.

That could take some time, especially since the cars seem to be parked legally.

Douglaston residents request park space

From the Queens Tribune:

The grassy lot next to the St. Sarkis Armenian Apostolic Church on 234th Street has been vacant for years. Currently owned by the city’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD), the lot has withstood several proposals from both the city and the church over the years—including plans for a street, nursery and parking lot. But for the past 10 years, local civic associations have opposed each attempt, calling on HPD to transfer the property to the city Parks Department to create a new public green space.

“The community remains solidly in favor of this as a park,” said state Sen. Tony Avella (D-Bayside) during a Tuesday press conference adjacent to the property, alongside representatives from several civic associations.