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From
Metro:
New Yorkers may feel like this is one of the best cities in America, but a new report has named New York City one of the worst-run cities in the United States.
New York City ranked as the third-worst-run city in the country according to a WalletHub study published on Monday.
This is the second year in a row New York landed near the bottom on WalletHub’s ranking of the best-run cities. Out of 150 cities measured on a variety of “quality of services,” New York came in at number 148, above only Detroit and Washington, D.C. Gulfport, Mississippi and San Fransisco came in above New York, rounding out the top five worst-run cities.
WalletHub's list looks at how effective the local leadership is, but how can that be measured?
"One way is by determining a city’s operating efficiency," per the report. "In other words, we can learn how well city officials manage and spend public funds by comparing the quality of services residents receive against the city’s total budget."
The study’s “quality of services” score looked at different details across several categories: financial stability, education, health, safety, economy and infrastructure and pollution.
New York fared well in the safety area, but its finances and economic issues dragged down its overall score. According to the report, New York has some of the highest long-term outstanding debt.
The report also dinged New York City when it came to education. The high school graduation rate here is 74.3 percent, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced in February.
From the
Times Ledger:
A city pilot program to ban curbside deliveries in Queens has small business owners warning that they may have to close their doors because customers unable to find parking have fled.
City Councilmen Francisco Moya (D-Corona) and Mark Gjonaj (D-Pelham Bay) along with the DOT Commissioner Polly Trottenberg and the NYPD toured the bustling thoroughfare of Roosevelt Avenue last Friday to speak with residents and small business owners affected by the mayor’s Clear Curbs Initiative.
Under Mayor Bill de Blasio’s Congestion Action Plan -- a series of steps designed to ease congestion in busy thoroughfares across the five boroughs -- the Clear Curbs Initiative six-month pilot program was implemented in March banning curbside loading along the Roosevelt Avenue corridor in Jackson Heights from Broadway to 180th Street in Corona during peak hours from 7 a.m. to 10 a.m. and from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m.
The rules allow for expeditious pick-up and drop-off of passengers and delivery trucks to off-street loading docks. NYPD staff were assigned to pilot locations to enforce the new restrictions of keeping curbs clear.
The tour was at the halfway mark of the six-month pilot program, which has crippled businesses, created perilous traffic conditions, and led to steeper ticketing for residents and delivery drivers along Roosevelt Avenue, according to Moya.
From the
NY Times:
Rather than retreating from flood-prone neighborhoods after Hurricane Sandy, some developers are wading deeper into waterfront markets, especially in Queens and Brooklyn, where they are finding large parcels of land close to mass transit. These are calculated risks, bolstered by years of flood-zone price growth and unwavering demand.
Whether these new apartment buildings can endure another major storm does not seem to be a concern for most residents, who are glad to have new options in inventory-starved markets. Critics, though, ask whether the neighborhoods can withstand the surge of new development and the stress it will add to an already strained infrastructure. These new buildings might remain unscathed in a flood, they say, but what about the damage caused by the torrent around them?
Waterfront building has continued apace since Hurricane Sandy, and it could soon accelerate. As of January, there were roughly 12,350 new apartments under construction or planned in the city’s worst flood zones, according to Localize.city, a real-estate data website. That means 12.4 percent — or roughly one in eight new apartments — will be built in a high-risk flood zone, up from 10.7 percent in 2014, said Tal Rubin, the company’s vice president of research. And last year, 2,362 flood-zone units were completed — nearly double the number delivered in 2014, she said.
The largest share of these buildings is on the southern tip of Brooklyn, in areas like Brighton Beach, Coney Island and Gravesend, where a total of 45 projects — about a third of all flood-zone buildings — are rising. They represent a combined 1,571 units. Pricier precincts near Manhattan, like Long Island City in Queens, and Greenpoint and Williamsburg in Brooklyn, had the most units overall, with a total of 5,561 apartments in 20 buildings, accounting for 45 percent of new flood-zone units.
From
CBS 2:
Mayor Bill de Blasio is facing criticism for using the NYPD’s $3 million counterterrorism plane to shuttle him to and from his Canadian vacation for a street renaming in the Bronx.
“This is a bad use of resources. God forbid there’s an emergency somewhere in the city that needs this vehicle, and we have a big problem,” Joe Giacalone, a former NYPD sergeant, told CBS2’s Political Reporter Marcia Kramer.
Giacalone said it’s unusual to turn the sophisticated plane, which is outfitted with sensitive radiation sensors, into a commuter airline for one.
“This is something that I find very strange,” he said.
Data from the flight tracker website Flight Aware shows the Cessna Caravan left its hangar at MacArthur Airport and flew to Montreal, where it picked up the mayor at 9:09 a.m. Wednesday, then landed at Westchester County airport at 10:58 a.m. De Blasio was driven to a street renaming in honor of slain NYPD Det. Miosotis Familia, then back to the airport for the return trip to Canada, landing at 3:34 p.m., records show.
A City Hall spokesperson first directed questions to the NYPD, then said, “We don’t have a comment on the plane.”
From the
NY Post:
Scandal-scarred former New York City Comptroller John Liu is attempting a political comeback — emboldened by the stunning upset pulled off last week by Democratic congressional candidate Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, sources said.
Liu and his hard-left supporters from TrueBlueNY are racing to gain 3,000 signatures so he can run against incumbent Sen. Tony Avella of Queens in the Democratic primary Sept. 13.
The deadline to submit the petitions is Thursday at midnight, according to the city’s Board of Elections.
Avella is the last member of the Independent Democratic Conference to be challenged by a Democrat, even after the mainstream party called a truce with the rogue group that aligned itself with the GOP in a power-sharing agreement.
