Sunday, August 30, 2009

Thompson's Pension Pals: A Wound Waiting to be Re-Opened


In last week's Democratic mayoral debate, feisty Queens city councilman Tony Avella managed to open one small cut over the eye of his opponent, city comptroller Bill Thompson. It was hardly a bleeder. Thompson closed it quickly. But if incumbent Mike Bloomberg takes aim at the wound, it could easily turn into a nasty gash.

The cut opened when Avella landed a glancing punch of a question, asking Thompson if he'd been questioned by authorities concerning the public pension investment scandal unearthed by Attorney General Andrew Cuomo.

"Absolutely not," thundered an indignant Thompson. "The scandal hasn't touched my office."

Avella's only comeback was to cite a pair of ex- Thompson pension aides who managed to land investment deals after leaving the comptroller's office. Thompson slipped that blow easily, pointing out that the former pension analysts had been recruited from the private sector to work for his office and later had re-joined it after being submitted to what he said was the same routine and rigorous screening given all such pension brokers.

Actually, there are several much tougher questions for Thompson on this subject, although none were raised by Avella, nor in any post-debate analyses offered in the press.

On the comptroller's watch, several long time and close political supporters have scored millions from his handling of pension funds. The Voice reported in May that a pal and supporter of Thompson's named Bill Howell scored a cool $3 million fee on a $150 million investment plan for Northern Ireland strongly championed by the comptroller. When the Voice asked Thompson about it, he claimed not to even know that his friend was the sole placement agent on the deal - the exact kind of insider trading targeted by Cuomo's probe.

Howell, who scored several other lucrative city pension deals as well, has long been occasional business partners with Norman Levy, an influential, below-the-radar lobbyist who is one of Thompson's closest allies and top fundraisers.

A separate Voice story detailed the small fortune reaped in the pension placement business at Thompson's office by another comptroller ally and supporter, Jack Jordan, the former transit police union leader who pled guilty to perjury charges in 1998. Jordan isn't even a registered broker, but has nonetheless been a fixture on the city's pension investment scene for years.

Again, Thompson insisted he was vague on Jordan's dealings. "I think Jack does do some placement," he told the Voice. "I don't know which ones."

Bloomberg's mighty campaign machine offered not a peep about these revelations on his likely opponent when the Voice reported them this spring. But it is a sound bet that they are tucked carefully into the mayor's op research files on Thompson, ready for offering to the rest of the media if necessary this fall. Such spoon feeding is apparently the only way to penetrate the fog at Room 9 in City Hall.

THE POLITICAL ORDEAL OF EFRAIN GONZALEZ

Jose Nicot (left) González (below)

Former state Senator Efrain González awaits sentencing after having plead guilty to charges of fraud and mail conspiracy. However, González maintains his innocence. Lack of funds and support to continue legal representation placed González in a vulnerable position.

González maintains that his political woes began with Bush aide, Karl Rove, when González formed the Hispanic Policy Institute. The organization functioned as a lobby interest to counteract the Clear Channel merger with Hispanic broadcasting stations. The merger would have insured positive press for the approval of then candidate Alberto Gonzáles for Attorney general under the Bush administration. Ties between the Texas-based Clear Channel and the President of the United States were legendary. Clear Channel's vice chairman Tom Hicks "made Bush a millionaire," while Clear Channel stations were a staple at "'pro-troop rallies,' which, by many accounts, "were virtually indistinguishable from pro-Bush rallies."

New Jersey senator, Robert Menendez was the only other senator to oppose the nomination. Not long afterwards, both Menendez and González were under legal investigation on various charges under separate incidents.
Menendez was vindicated but González later plead guilty.

Gonzalez's case centers around monies spent through member item privilege. Throughout the process, the total amount of alleged misspent member items has been decreased considerably by the feds. Not to mention that the funds in question were raised through private contributions, not public.
In effect, if González is guilty of anything, it is sloppy bookkeeping . Not much for formality, González states that much of the expenses were paid for "out of pocket." He was later reimbursed for those expenditures by his organization. He also heeded the advice of then
West Bronx board vice president, Jose Nicot.

Nicot was briefly questioned by the feds but has been curiously absent and silent. Nicot has subsequently "left town" and now works as a beverage manager for a company in Atlanta, Georgia. Seen as the man who could possibly shed a light on González's innocence, Nicot, through his attorney has declined comment.

Abandoned by the Democratic party that he served, González awaits sentencing in October.
However, there are many unanswered questions. Why have the feds continued to reduce the initial amount of member item spending charges? If González heeded the accounting advice of Jose Nicot, why wasn't Nicot indicted? Was González's indictment a directive of Karl Rove?
Perhaps in the weeks to come, these issues will be answered. The following is an excerpt from an article that was written by a publication in 2005.
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Though he is the third-highest-ranking Democrat in the State Senate, it was not unusual that Senator Efrain González Jr. of the Bronx missed the leadership's final news conferences of the legislative session last month.

In the 16 years that Mr. González, a former city bus driver, has been walking the marble hallways of the Capitol, he has never been one to seek the spotlight. His Senate Web site lists no news releases. His aides say he is more comfortable flying below the radar, working person-to-person in informal settings.

Even the neighborhood organization he has long served as a benefactor and mentor is a decidedly low-key affair. Seldom has the organization, the West Bronx Neighborhood Association, been mentioned in news articles. Few in the borough know much about its work.

For months, though, Senator González and the organization have been the recipients of unwanted notoriety, as subjects of a joint city and federal investigation whose premise and possible consequences remain unclear.

Last August, investigators from the United States attorney's office in Manhattan arrived with subpoenas for the neighborhood organization, which occupies an office next to the senator's on the first floor of a commercial building on the Grand Concourse in the Bronx.

Since then the senator, who has shared staff members and $32,000 of his campaign money with the organization over the years, has also turned over records, according to his lawyer, Murray Richman.

Over the past few months, city and federal investigators have questioned several people associated with the neighborhood association or the senator, but they will not disclose what has piqued their interest. Emily Gest, a spokeswoman for the city's Department of Investigation, which is involved in the inquiry, said, ''We decline comment due to the ongoing investigation.''

But Mr. González's lawyer said the finances of the neighborhood organization appeared to be a focal point. ''They are just looking at the allocation of moneys,'' Mr. Richman said.

Last month, as the senator went home for the summer to prepare for surgery to remove a tumor from his right kidney, allies and friends said the specter of the investigation still hung in the air.

''There are all these accusations flying around,'' said Michael Jones-Bey, an aide to Senator David A. Paterson, the Democratic minority leader. Mr. Jones-Bey said of Mr. González, ''He said there is nothing there.''

Just a few weeks ago, Attorney General Eliot Spitzer skipped a fund-raiser for Mr. González for which he had been listed as a host. An aide to Mr. Spitzer, Paul Larrabee, said that the attorney general had never agreed to serve in such a capacity. Mr. Larrabee attributed the mix-up to confusion that occurred in the planning of the event.

Allies and friends of Mr. González, who describe the investigation as unfair, say the senator is bearing up well under the scrutiny. They describe him as a tough and savvy man, a former union official who has survived adversity in the past and is facing the investigation, like his illness, with perseverance.

''That cloud has been there,'' said Lynette Perez-González, the senator's daughter. ''But he just goes about his business, his daily life, doing what he's always done.''

Mr. González, who declined to be interviewed for this article, is one of the city's longest-serving state legislators, having been first elected to the Senate in 1989. Though he is chairman of the Senate's Democratic conference, he has also exhibited a distinct tendency to reach out across the aisle. In the past, his diplomacy has extended beyond bipartisan détente and he is known for having endorsed Republicans like Alfonse M. D'Amato and Rudolph W. Giuliani.

A native of Puerto Rico, Mr. González entered politics after serving as a union representative for the Transport Workers Union and the Teamsters. Friends describe him as a jovial man with the core skills of a natural politician, a good memory, a way with people and a generous sense of humor.

At times, the senator will hand out cigars as he works a room. He has his own cigar company in the Dominican Republic, where his wife lives and where he is a housing adviser to the government.

It is in the Bronx, though, that the senator has fashioned himself into a powerful presence through his close ties to the borough's Democratic leaders and through his efforts to lure corporate support for economic development and increased opportunities for Hispanics. He is the president of the National Hispanic Policy Institute, which he has described as an organization to advance the interests of Hispanic-Americans. It is located, like the West Bronx Neighborhood Association, just down the hall from the senator's office at 1780 Grand Concourse.

The West Bronx organization, a nonprofit group founded in 1993, has been run for several years by people associated with the senator. The vice president of its board, Jose M. Nicot, is Mr. González's former chief of staff. Lucia Sanchez, who was listed as its secretary in 2003, is a close friend of the senator's. She now works in his office as a legislative aide, and her salary is paid through the Senate leadership.

The West Bronx organization's small office is identified by two sheets of white paper with its name that have been taped to the front door. No one answered a knock last week, but Mr. Nicot later answered questions by phone and described Senator González as the organization's ''rainmaker.''

''Efrain is the guy who has all of the relationships that make it rain,'' he said. ''He's the guy that brings the money in.''

Mr. Nicot said that, structurally, the West Bronx group was set up like a trade association or a political action committee, not a charity. It does not receive public money, he said, but relies on corporate contributions.

''When business has called and said, 'We have issues,' he has been there and he has solved those problems,'' said Mr. Nicot.

In recent years, the West Bronx group has raised about $200,000 annually, according to its tax returns on file at the attorney general's office. Of the $222,336 it raised in 2002, the last year for which it had filed the forms, costs included: $23,593 for telephone; $20,544 for travel; $92,796 for conferences, conventions and meetings; and $20,500 for ''annual gala expenses.''

Several people who said they knew Mr. González well, however, said they were not familiar with the organization.

''It doesn't ring a bell,'' said Gwynn Smalls, the interim executive director of the Bronx Heights Neighborhood Community Corporation, a housing management and tenant advocacy group, who has known the senator for many years.

Mr. Nicot said publicity was not a measure of effectiveness, and he ticked off a list of efforts in which the association has been involved, including helping young women compete in beauty pageants, paying tuition for students at parochial schools and underwriting summer trips for neighborhood children.

He said money had also gone to support Ramitas de Borinquen, whose members twirl batons in the annual Puerto Rican Day Parade, and to help ship donated city fire trucks, ambulances and buses to the Dominican Republic after Hurricane Georges in 1998.

Honduras: Lessons From the Coup: Or, Why Are We in Honduras Anyhow?

by: John Lamperti

t r u t h o u t | Perspective

Supporters of Honduras' ousted President Manuel Zelaya in Tegucigalpa, Honduras.
Supporters of Honduras' ousted President Manuel Zelaya gather at a concert in Tegucigalpa, Honduras. (Photo: AP)

The June 28 military coup that overthrew the legitimate government of Honduras was a shock. When the Central American wars of the 1980s finally ended, the region seemed on a path toward electoral democracy at last. The military's ouster of President Zelaya, followed by the suspension of civil liberties and repression of non-violent protests, looks like a return to the bad old days when coups were the rule and real elections the rare exception.

Together with all Latin American nations and the UN General Assembly, the United States condemned the coup. President Obama said, "The coup was not legal," and added "President Zelaya remains the president of Honduras." The US has also taken modest steps to pressure the post-coup acting government to accept mediation and restore some form of democracy. That US response was a positive change from the past, when this country would have welcomed such a coup or even instigated it. (Guatemala 1954, Chile 1973, Venezuela 2002, to mention only a few.)

So far, so good - but subsequent statements by US officials, and the limited actions that have been taken (or not taken), are troubling. For example, all countries in the region except the United States have withdrawn their ambassadors from Honduras. Worse, a recent letter by Assistant Secretary of State Richard Verma addressed to Senator Richard Lugar blames the victim, implying that President Zelaya brought on the coup through "provocative actions." Verma's letter seems to indicate that the US is not, after all, committed to the return of President Zelaya to office.

A State Department web page, dated February 2009, asserts "US policy toward Honduras is aimed at consolidating democracy, protecting human rights, and promoting the rule of law." The United States must hold to those declared principles and join the rest of the hemisphere in restoring the elected president of Honduras.

Beyond that immediate need, there are two important lessons for US policy.

First, at least six of the military officers who implemented the coup and the subsequent Iran-like repression of pro-democracy protests are graduates of the (in)famous "School of the Americas." The SOA, providing US training to Latin American military personnel, has long been known throughout Latin America as the "School of Coups," or sometimes the "School of Assassins," because so many coup plotters and abusers of human rights have trained there. The coup leaders in Honduras, Generals Romeo Vasquez and Luis Suazo, are both SOA alumni, twice so in the case of Vasquez, and other coup plotters are also SOA grads. Although the SOA has officially changed its name to "Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation," the old epithet "school of coups" evidently still fits. And despite the coup, Honduran soldiers are still training at the SOA as if nothing had changed.

A long-running movement to close the SOA as part of a new "good neighbor policy" toward Latin America has gained considerable support in Congress. Currently, a bill numbered HR 2567, the "Latin America Military Training Review Act," would suspend operation of the SOA and mandate review of all US training for Latin American militaries. The involvement of SOA grads in the Honduras coup, and the army's brutal attacks on pro-democracy protestors afterwards, show once again that such legislation is badly needed. It should pass promptly.

Second, it may seem surprising that one US response to the coup was suspending some military cooperation with Honduras. What military cooperation?? In fact, the United States has maintained a military presence in the country since the 1980s, when Honduras served as the main staging area for the Reagan administration's "contra" war against Nicaragua and interventions in El Salvador. During that period contras and Honduran soldiers committed numerous crimes against Honduran civilians, including hundreds of murders and "disappearances," with no protest from US authorities. Joint US/Honduran maneuvers such as Operation Solid Shield in 1987, intended to intimidate the Nicaraguan government, involved nearly ten thousand US troops. But when the wars ended, the military operations and cooperation did not.

US military aid to Honduras has recently run around $10 million per year, a sum that sounds small but one that represents perhaps 1/7 or 1/8 of the nation's military budget. (The US reportedly "suspended" $16.5 million in military aid after the coup.) The main US military presence on the ground is Joint Task Force Bravo, based at the Honduran Soto Cano Air Base (Palmerola). The US State Department says that Bravo "plays a vital role in supporting combined exercises in Honduras and in neighboring Central American countries." According to a 12th Air Force Fact Sheet, Bravo's mission also includes "supporting Latin American armed forces as they ... demonstrate support for human rights and subordination to civilian authority," areas in which the Honduran military has spectacularly failed. Some 500 to 600 US troops are stationed at Soto Cano on an essentially permanent basis, joined by a roughly equal number of US and Honduran civilian employees. Recent visits by outside observers found that despite the coup, it is essentially "business as usual" for US/Honduran cooperation at both Palmerola and at the SOA.

Clearly, all this strongly supports the Honduran military establishment, providing it with political legitimacy in addition to the direct assistance. Even leaving aside the issues raised by the coup, is this a good policy? Arguably, it is not.

Undoubtedly the most successful nation in Central America since the 1950s has been Costa Rica. It has by far the best social indicators (literacy, life expectancy, etc) in the region, and has been largely peaceful while its neighbors suffered from civil wars and foreign interventions. One major reason for these advantages is clear: Costa Rica abolished its military establishment in 1948. As a result it has invested in social welfare instead of weapons, avoided military coups or rebellions, and maintained the most democratic government and the most legitimate elections in the region.

Costa Rica's president, Oscar Arias, has attempted to mediate the Honduran crisis; so far his proposals have been accepted by President Zelaya but not by the coup leaders. In a recent article (The Washington Post, 7/9/09) Arias emphasized that militarism is a widespread and chronic problem in Latin America. Events such as the Honduran coup, he wrote, "are the price we pay for one of our region's greatest follies: its reckless military spending. This coup d'etat demonstrates, once more, that the combination of powerful militaries and fragile democracies creates a terrible risk." The "nearly $50 billion" that Latin American governments will spend this year on their armies, Arias continued, "is nearly double the amount spent five years ago, and it is a ridiculous sum in a region where 200 million people live on fewer than $2 a day." He concludes that more weapons and soldiers will contribute nothing to meeting human needs, and will only "destabilize a region that continues to view armed forces as the final arbiter of social conflicts."

Honduras, like Costa Rica, does not need an army or an air force. No foreign nation threatens to invade, and those tens of millions of military dollars could be far better spent on human welfare. Internal security is a police, not a military problem, and neither poverty nor domestic crime can be fought with advanced jet aircraft. The Honduran military has not provided security to the Honduran people; on the contrary, without that military the coup and subsequent ugly repression could not have taken place.

The United States, of course, cannot dictate to Honduras or any other nation that it must follow Costa Rica's lead, and the example of our own enormous military spending is hardly one to emulate. Still, we could and should use our influence and our aid to strengthen the civil societies of our neighbors and seek to reduce the size, importance and influence of their military institutions. In particular, there is no good reason to continue to strengthen and legitimize the Honduran military. All US aid to Honduras should be civilian, helping to build a more prosperous and just society. Supporting the military does not help the Honduran people.

For the United States to heed these two "lessons" would mean a major shift in how we relate to our neighbors. Defunding the SOA would be a small but important step in the right direction, away from endorsing the militarism that has plagued Latin America. We might then truly help in "consolidating democracy, protecting human rights, and promoting the rule of law."

»


John Lamperti is a Professor Emeritus of Mathematics at Dartmouth College. He is the author of several books on the theory of probability and on random processes. Since 1985 one of his main interests has been Central America and what the United States has been doing there. He is the author of "Enrique Alvarez Cordova: Life of a Salvadoran Revolutionary and Gentleman" (MacFarland, 2006).

NEW YORK POST EDITORIAL: BOSS PEDRO

Posted: 1:12 am
August 30, 2009

See full size image
See full size image

Watch out, Boss Tweed -- here comes Pedro Espada. And from the looks of it, the Bronx up-and-comer just can't wait to claim title to the top spot as New York's most corrupt politician ever.

Which in this state would truly be impressive.

Espada, the newly installed state Senate majority leader, has never been convicted of a crime -- though he beat a 1998 rap seemingly only by the skin of his teeth, and four of his associates have pleaded guilty to various charges.

Of course, a conviction might put a damper on Espada's, um, aspirations.

Recall that Tammany's Grand Sachem, also once a member of New York's illustrious state Senate, was found guilty of stealing more than $30 million -- in 19th century dollars.

So, correcting for inflation, Espada's got a ways to go yet.

Which may explain why scarcely a week goes by without a revelation of some new shady ruse by the Bronx boss.

The latest? Espada failed to disclose tax debts of some $1.3 million when he applied for a grant for a new facility for his Soundview HealthCare Network. Attorney General Andrew Cuomo is probing that lapse, as well as other Espada funny-business.

But such an "oversight" -- criminal or otherwise -- would be a mere blip on Espada's long and, uh, colorful record.

One of the most noteworthy for sure would be the story in The Sunday Post last week -- about how he managed to steer some $1.77 million in taxpayer funds to a group, the New Bronx Chamber of Commerce, that had only requested $50,000.

Espada was apparently angered by then-Democratic Majority Leader Malcolm Smith's refusal early this year to fund either two sham charities (which Espada had set up just days before) or the Chamber. So he joined with Republicans, which helped them claim a majority and sparked the coup.

When Espada returned to the Dems, they made him majority leader -- and the Chamber was quickly alloted the cash.

Meanwhile, Espada's health-care outfit has regularly soaked up nearly $15 million a year in taxpayer funds, from which he draws a $460,000 salary. (The network also employs his three sons and many friends and political backers. And it contracts with Espada-owned firms that pay him even more money.)

Recently, The Post exposed yet another Espada sham -- a no-show Senate job he'd created for one of his sons, apparently as part of the deal for his return to the Democratic fold.

And there's more -- much more.

For 10 years, for instance, Espada never filed campaign-finance reports, which prompted fines of $61,000 and raised further questions about his use of the health-care network as his own ATM.

But with the power of majority leader, Espada will now be able to suck even more -- perhaps far more -- from New Yorkers.

William Magear Tweed's name has been synonymous with political corruption for more than a century.

Will the same someday be true of Pedro Espada Jr.'s?

Wouldn't surprise us even a little bit.

Some doubt Mayoral hopeful Bill Thompson can escape pension fund scandal mess

Adam Lisberg

Sunday, August 30th 2009, 4:00 AM

Candidate for Mayor Controller William (Bill) Thompson on Southern Blvd. in the Bronx.
Giancarli for News
Candidate for Mayor Controller William (Bill) Thompson on Southern Blvd. in the Bronx.

Queens Councilman Tony Avella's hardest attack on Controller William Thompson last week contains a worrisome nugget of truth for city Democrats.

In their mayoral primary debate, Avella mentioned the state pension fund scandal and Thompson's donations from money managers - then asked Thompson if he has been questioned by the FBI, the Securities and Exchange Commission or the attorney general.

"Absolutely not," Thompson sputtered. "New York City has not been touched by those scandals."

It's true that Attorney General Andrew Cuomo's probe of dirty pension fund dealings has not made any headlines about the five funds Thompson manages.

"As the controller has consistently noted, he reached out from the start to the AG's office to assist in any way," said Thompson spokesman Jeff Simmons. "We have not been and are not the subject of the state's investigation."

Avella's question was designed to raise seeds of doubt, though - and he followed up by telling reporters afterward he had his ethical doubts about Thompson.

"There's some real serious issues here, and I don't think we've heard the last of it," Avella said. "Before I say I'm going to endorse him if he wins the primary, I want to make sure that there isn't an indictment coming down the road."

Thompson has been unscathed so far by the scandal that exploded in March, when Cuomo charged Democratic power broker Hank Morris with taking kickbacks from companies that won pension investments.

A Cuomo spokesman did not return a call for comment, but Democrats know the issue is out there - because some of the companies named in Cuomo's probe are involved in city pension business as well.

The founder of pension adviser Aldus Equity was charged in April with paying Morris a kickback in exchange for getting state pension investments, for example - and Aldus got a $500,000 consulting fee from the NYPD pension fund last year.

Not that it's easy to tell whether anything unseemly is at work.

Go to the Web site of the state controller, Tom DiNapoli. In two clicks, you can see monthly reports of new pension investments and whether any middlemen got fees.

DiNapoli also posts quarterly updates of the fund's performance, and files a quarterly list of fund investments with the SEC in Washington.

Thompson? Poke around deep enough into his Web site and eventually you'll find links to four of the pension funds (the FDNY fund isn't even online). You can find annual performance results for them, and an annual list of who gets the money - months after the fact.

It's a lackluster technological showing, especially when Thompson is running against the guy who set up 311.

To be clear, nobody has accused Thompson of wrongdoing. And as Thompson points out, Mayor Bloomberg's appointees chair or co-chair all five of the pension funds.

But Thompson is the one who runs the office in charge of investing in those funds. And as long as Cuomo is looking at pensions, the questions Avella asked last week will keep echoing.

alisberg@nydailynews.com

Friday, August 28, 2009

LETTER TO RANDY LEVINE FOR NON-COMPLIANCE OF YANKEES COMMUNITY BENEFITS AGREEMENT

August 20, 2009


Editor's Note: YFP placed a call to Mr. Levine for his reaction to the request by the 4DSBxCoalition. Mr. Levine's secretary relayed the following message to this editor: "Randy Levine does not want to speak to you."

http://www.nomaas.org/images/buffoon.jpg



The following letter was mailed to Randy Levine from the

4DSBxCoalition

145 E, 149th Street, 2nd Floor

Bronx,N.Y. 10451

718-993-0909


The New York Yankees

Partnership

Randy Levine, Esq.

President

East 161st Street and River Avenue

Bronx, New York 10451

Dear Mr. Levine:


We, For The South Bronx Coalition, an organization comprised of community organizations, activists, business representatives, fans and residents, are deeply disappointed and concerned with the treatment of the South and West Bronx communities by Yankees management.

Among our concerns are:

1) The apparent non-compliance of Yankees management with the Community Benefits Agreement, dated April 2006 - from full disclosure of environmental, health, employment and Community Benefits Fund reports to the delays in allocation of monies to that same fund.

2) The continued administration of the Community Benefits Fund by an individual (Serafin Mariel) who has a questionable history in our community and is in court for alleged violations of his fiduciary duty to the Fund (established pursuant to Section VIII of the Community Benefits Agreement and responsible for the annual distribution of philanthropic benefits to the Bronx Community).

3) The utter failure of Yankees management to assist in alleviating the increased traffic and environmental impacts caused by the new Stadium to the immediate community surrounding the Stadium.

4) The failure to employ South Bronx residents in construction and post-construction equal to at least twenty five percent of the total new job force

5) The delay in construction of the replacement parks - Yankees management and the City have yet to replace the 22 acres of community parkland taken for the construction of the Stadium, hence depriving our children of parkland. Furthermore, the only partial park to be built is constructed of artificial turf and on top of a parking structure.

We are hereby requesting a series of meetings to earnestly discuss the above items and other community concerns regarding the partnership between the community and Yankees management. As community leaders in one of the poorest congressional districts in the country, we indeed want and need the relationship between the community and Yankees management to be that of partners. We want and need Yankees management to re-energize its commitment to the South and West Bronx and the Community Benefits Agreement.

We believe a good starting point would be to commence this dialogue as soon as possible and expect to hear from you within ten days of receipt of this letter.

Very truly yours,

Robert Carrillo

President

4DSBxCoalition 4DSBxCoalition


Ramon Jimenez

Chair, Legal Counsel

4DSBxCoalition 4DSBxCoalition

cc: Major League Baseball

Hal Steinbrenner

Hon. Ruben Diaz, Jr.

MEANWHILE, ACROSS THE HUDSON

Bonamo: Democracy, New Jersey style
Tuesday August 11, 2009, 2:18 PM

FROM THE downtown Jersey City waterfront, you can see the Statue of Liberty standing stoically in the harbor. One of the world’s most powerful symbols of democracy stands with its back to Hudson County and the rest of New Jersey beyond it.

FROM THE downtown Jersey City waterfront, you can see the Statue of Liberty standing stoically in the harbor. One of the world’s most powerful symbols of democracy stands with its back to Hudson County and the rest of New Jersey beyond it.

Based on the events of the past few days, that stance is perfectly understandable.

After the stunning arrest of 44 people, including 29 New Jersey public officials, on corruption charges, many have wondered why such a poor excuse for democracy seems to persist, if not flourish, in the Garden State.

Some say the rapacious weed of state corruption grew along the Hudson County waterfront, where new development flooded money into cities such as Jersey City and Hoboken that have well-known histories of less-than-ethical politicians who were less than able to fight off financial temptation.

This cash fueled the campaign coffers of local politicians, stoking the kind of arrogance and feeling of invincibility that reportedly led former Hoboken Mayor Peter Cammarano to say, “I could be, uh, indicted, and I’m still gonna win 85 to 95 percent of [certain ethnic and senior voters]” during a meeting in a diner where he was allegedly negotiating a bribe with the federal government’s confidential witness.

But in the same way people left the cramped confines of urban Hudson County for the suburbs, corruption radiated outward as well. The arrests of the mayors of leafy-green Secaucus and Ridgefield attest to the fact that civic sleaze, unlike a lack of parking spaces, is not easily fled.

The fact that the former mayors of Paterson, Newark and Camden have or are serving time in jail is not an urban legend. Add the recent alleged involvement of rabbis and a human organ trafficker and you have a surreal result that could be reported just as easily in the entertainment section of the newspaper as on the front page.

Except it just isn’t funny.

No easy solutions

The question of how to get people to stop laughing is not an easy one to answer. With 566 separate municipalities and more than 600 school districts checkering the state’s 21 counties, New Jersey’s many layers of government leave so many crevices for corrupt officials, vendors and builders to put down roots that it’s next to impossible to shine a light on all of them.

The watchful eye of the state’s media has had its focus narrowed by financial cutbacks. The New York and Philadelphia television stations usually give scant coverage to their backdoor state with no network affiliate of its own. And New Jersey’s newspapers have fewer resources to devote to the serious investigative work that could lead to serious change.

That change is supposed to be effected by our elected officials through meaningful ethics reform. But New Jersey’s entrenched party machines are conduits of power that can generate formidable get-out-the-vote efforts for candidates, or can short-circuit their hopes.

Once on the inside, many of the newly elected ask themselves a question: Why be Mr. Clean if it means cutting myself off from the cash that greases my ambition?

This sorry state of affairs has yielded an opportunity for voters to cut out the cancer in New Jersey’s body politic. Despite the defiance of the mayor of Ridgefield and other recently arrested officials regarding resignation, more elections (perhaps recalls) will inevitability come, some sooner rather than later. In the long term, voters may consider initiatives that reduce the number of New Jersey’s municipalities or weaken the links between money and politics. But voters can make a more immediate impact upon a system that led to 44 people being paraded in handcuffs.

Electoral payback

Payback at the polls is the only way to punish politicians who ignore you most of the time, waste your tax money and then take an envelope full of cash with their Taylor ham and eggs. Payback at the polls is also the only reward for those who get involved in politics to do the public good — of whom there are many.

By definition, home rule, the sacrosanct concept that led in part to New Jersey’s multiple municipal scandals and Bergen County’s 70 separate municipalities, implies voter participation. Judging from recent reactions at meetings and protests in Hoboken, Ridgefield, Jersey City and Secaucus, it can also provide a venue for voter outrage.

Remember that anger. Home rule is rule by the people or rule by criminals in waiting.

Or rule by criminals still in office.

Mark J. Bonamo is managing editor of the Hackensack Chronicle, part of the North Jersey Media Group. Send comments to grad@northjersey.com.

Based on the events of the past few days, that stance is perfectly understandable.

After the stunning arrest of 44 people, including 29 New Jersey public officials, on corruption charges, many have wondered why such a poor excuse for democracy seems to persist, if not flourish, in the Garden State.

Some say the rapacious weed of state corruption grew along the Hudson County waterfront, where new development flooded money into cities such as Jersey City and Hoboken that have well-known histories of less-than-ethical politicians who were less than able to fight off financial temptation.

This cash fueled the campaign coffers of local politicians, stoking the kind of arrogance and feeling of invincibility that reportedly led former Hoboken Mayor Peter Cammarano to say, “I could be, uh, indicted, and I’m still gonna win 85 to 95 percent of [certain ethnic and senior voters]” during a meeting in a diner where he was allegedly negotiating a bribe with the federal government’s confidential witness.

But in the same way people left the cramped confines of urban Hudson County for the suburbs, corruption radiated outward as well. The arrests of the mayors of leafy-green Secaucus and Ridgefield attest to the fact that civic sleaze, unlike a lack of parking spaces, is not easily fled.

The fact that the former mayors of Paterson, Newark and Camden have or are serving time in jail is not an urban legend. Add the recent alleged involvement of rabbis and a human organ trafficker and you have a surreal result that could be reported just as easily in the entertainment section of the newspaper as on the front page.

Except it just isn’t funny.

No easy solutions

The question of how to get people to stop laughing is not an easy one to answer. With 566 separate municipalities and more than 600 school districts checkering the state’s 21 counties, New Jersey’s many layers of government leave so many crevices for corrupt officials, vendors and builders to put down roots that it’s next to impossible to shine a light on all of them.

The watchful eye of the state’s media has had its focus narrowed by financial cutbacks. The New York and Philadelphia television stations usually give scant coverage to their backdoor state with no network affiliate of its own. And New Jersey’s newspapers have fewer resources to devote to the serious investigative work that could lead to serious change.

That change is supposed to be effected by our elected officials through meaningful ethics reform. But New Jersey’s entrenched party machines are conduits of power that can generate formidable get-out-the-vote efforts for candidates, or can short-circuit their hopes.

Once on the inside, many of the newly elected ask themselves a question: Why be Mr. Clean if it means cutting myself off from the cash that greases my ambition?

This sorry state of affairs has yielded an opportunity for voters to cut out the cancer in New Jersey’s body politic. Despite the defiance of the mayor of Ridgefield and other recently arrested officials regarding resignation, more elections (perhaps recalls) will inevitability come, some sooner rather than later. In the long term, voters may consider initiatives that reduce the number of New Jersey’s municipalities or weaken the links between money and politics. But voters can make a more immediate impact upon a system that led to 44 people being paraded in handcuffs.

Electoral payback

Payback at the polls is the only way to punish politicians who ignore you most of the time, waste your tax money and then take an envelope full of cash with their Taylor ham and eggs. Payback at the polls is also the only reward for those who get involved in politics to do the public good — of whom there are many.

By definition, home rule, the sacrosanct concept that led in part to New Jersey’s multiple municipal scandals and Bergen County’s 70 separate municipalities, implies voter participation. Judging from recent reactions at meetings and protests in Hoboken, Ridgefield, Jersey City and Secaucus, it can also provide a venue for voter outrage.

Remember that anger. Home rule is rule by the people or rule by criminals in waiting.

Or rule by criminals still in office.

Mark J. Bonamo is managing editor of the Hackensack Chronicle, part of the North Jersey Media Group. Send comments to grad@northjersey.com.

Thursday, August 27, 2009

Senator Pedro Espada under Cuomo's eyes

AG Andrew Cuomo is investigating if Senate Majority Leader Pedro Espada Jr. submitted false statements in a grant application seeking $3 million for Soundview.

Wednesday, August 26, 2009

John Liu Candidate Extraordinaire


Last week, candidate John Liu was dissected in the main stream press about a TV ad. The ad portrayed Liu speaking about his experience working in a sweatshop as a child. The press challenged the authenticity of that ad and his mother's hesitant portrayal of the content.

Liu's mother came forward at a press conference this week. She tearfully detailed the experience of their ordeal. Both she and John wept openly.

The press has failed to understand the subtle nuances of Asian culture. And for that matter, the culture of other minorities in a similar plight. It has been a long standing tradition for poor minority mother to bring their children to their workplace. There is the lack of an extended family system to care for these children and there is a lack of funds for daycare or babysitters. Once these children are at the work site, they are frequently given small tasks to perform.

John Liu's mother had a dream for her son. When he accomplished those goals, she chose to downplay those days in the sweat shop. Selective memory takes many forms for immigrants.
From the anglicizing of names, to the assimilation into American culture. Thus, the criticism and demand for withdrawal of his ads is not only insulting but ignorant as well. It speaks to the homogeneous pool of reporters and their knowledge of groups outside of their "daddy subsidizes my rent" yuppie status. Perhaps they should spend more time, in "da hood" instead of Starbucks.

There is a wonderful Native American saying: "Don't judge a man until you have walked a mile in his moccasins." The message to the main stream media is that there are Asian, Latino, and Black children out there who do sweat in sweat shops. John Liu was one of them.

The Senate's Fighting Liberal

WEDNESDAY 26 AUGUST 2009

by: Jack Newfield

Visit article original @ The Nation

photo
Sen. Ted Kennedy is shown in this 1979 photo speaking to reporters at the Washington National Airport. Kennedy's family announced his death early this morning. (Photo: AP)

Sen. Ted Kennedy passed away after a long battle with brain cancer on August 25, 2009. This 2002 profile by the late Jack Newfield captures the essence of what this legend meant to the progressive movement. This article appeared in the March 25, 2002, edition of The Nation.

When Ted Kennedy arrived in Washington at the close of 1962 as the freshman senator from Massachusetts, he was welcomed with derision and low expectations. Just 30 years old, the President's kid brother, he had accomplished nothing in his life to earn the prize of a seat in the US Senate. Most pundits saw him as a dummy who had cheated on an exam at Harvard to stay eligible for football and who was dependent on an excellent staff to compensate for his inexperience.

Now, forty years later, Ted Kennedy looks like the best and most effective senator of the past hundred years. He has followed the counsel of his first Senate tutor, Phil Hart of Michigan, who told him you can accomplish anything in Washington if you give others the credit. Kennedy has drafted and shaped more landmark legislation than liberal giants like Robert Wagner, Hubert Humphrey, Estes Kefauver and Herbert Lehmann. He has survived tragedy and scandal, endured presidential defeat, right-wing demonization, ridicule by TV comics. Now, at 70, he has evolved into a joyous Job. His career has become an atonement for one night of indefensible behavior, when he failed to report the fatal 1969 accident in which he drove off the bridge at Chappaquiddick, leaving a young woman to drown in the car. He has converted persistence into redemption. In 1985 Kennedy forever renounced seeking the presidency, declaring, "The pursuit of the presidency is not my life. Public service is." By abandoning higher ambition, he found a form of liberation. He had nothing left to lose. The weight of the country's--and his family's--expectations was lifted from his shoulders. His motives were perceived as less calculating and self-aggrandizing. He could settle into the Senate for the long march. He could become a patient and disciplined legislator without feeling like a failure. When the GOP won control of the Senate in 1994 and some Democrats, like George Mitchell, quit after losing their leadership posts and committee chairmanships, Kennedy stayed and fought in the trenches.

Now, as the chairman of the Education and Labor Committee, and as the ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, he is at the center of the action. Soon his domestic economic priorities, which were on the front burner prior to September 11--raising the minimum wage, enacting a patients' bill of rights, creating jobs and "passing national health insurance, bit by bit"--will come around again.

Kennedy's zeal to "get something done," and his aisle-crossing friendships with Republicans, have led him into a puzzling, limited partnership with President Bush. They negotiated the details of the education bill together and are now talking about a compromise on the patients' bill of rights.

"I like Bush, personally," Kennedy told me in December. "He has an excellent sense of humor, and I can communicate with him. He's a skilled politician. I would say we are professional friends." The two dynasts also privately share a feeling of having had their intelligence underestimated.

Bush has gone out of his way to court Kennedy, recognizing his power in the divided Senate. Bush named the Justice Department building for Robert Kennedy last November, despite opposition by conservative Republicans in the House. And on the day the education bill was signed, Bush told the crowd at a rally in Boston that Kennedy had been with Laura Bush when the first word of the September 11 terrorist attacks arrived; he thanked Kennedy for "providing such comfort to Laura during an incredibly tough time.... So, Mr. Senator, not only are you a good senator, you're a good man."

Kennedy thought he got more than half of what he wanted in the education bill when it was announced and celebrated. But five weeks later, when the devilish details of Bush's budget request to Congress were disclosed, Kennedy felt betrayed. Money promised to repair dilapidated schools and reduce class size in poor districts was not actually in the budget.

Fortunately for Kennedy's progressive pedigree, he had not pulled his punches in criticizing Bush on domestic issues during the prolonged education negotiations. Kennedy vigorously opposed John Ashcroft's nomination, attacked secret military tribunals for resident aliens and helped defeat Bush's economic stimulus package, which was biased in favor of the rich. He has forged a Democratic consensus behind a bill protecting pensions, a rival to Bush's.

Kennedy and his allies will try to increase spending on education above what Bush allocated. From 1996 through 2002, federal outlays for education expanded an average of 13.4 percent a year; Bush has now proposed a minuscule increase of 2.8 percent for 2003. "The President's budget fails to provide resources that were agreed to," Kennedy said. Today, Kennedy is more skeptical about Bush's intentions, calling his budget "a severe blow to the nation's schools." But he says he will attempt to "pry him away from the far right on some limited issues."

After forty years, Ted Kennedy's name, or imprint, is on an impressive array of legislative monuments, including: the Civil Rights Act of 1964, for which he delivered his maiden Senate speech; the Voting Rights Act of 1965; the expansion of the voting franchise to 18-year-olds; the $24 billion Kennedy-Hatch law of 1997, which provided health insurance to children with a new tax on tobacco; two increases in the minimum wage; the Kennedy-Kassebaum bill, which made health insurance portable for workers; the 1988 law that allocated $1.2 billion for AIDS testing, treatment and research; the 1990 Americans With Disabilities Act; the 1993 Family and Medical Leave Act; and last year's 1,200-page education reform act, which he negotiated directly with President Bush and his staff.

Kennedy has also helped abolish the poll tax, liberalize immigration laws, fund cancer research and create the Meals on Wheels program for shut-ins and the elderly.

In 1985 Kennedy and Republican Lowell Weicker co-sponsored the legislation that imposed economic sanctions on the apartheid government of South Africa. The bill became law despite opposition from Bob Dole, a filibuster by Jesse Helms and a veto by President Reagan. Only Kennedy could have mustered the votes to override by 78 to 21 a veto from Reagan at the height of his power.

Kennedy also ignited, and then led like a commando, the successful resistance to Robert Bork's Supreme Court nomination by Reagan in 1987. Kennedy's passionate opposition from day one helped keep abortion legal in America. If confirmed, Bork would have provided the fifth vote to repeal Roe v. Wade. Instead, Reagan was forced to nominate Anthony Kennedy in Bork's place, and Justice Kennedy has supported the retention of legal abortion as settled precedent.

The Senator has been influential under Republican Presidents, and when liberals were in the minority in the Senate. He has made himself into a skilled parliamentary strategist, wielding power as the third-most-senior member of the Senate, after Strom Thurmond and Robert Byrd.

The key to Kennedy's effectiveness has been his remarkable capacity to form warm, genuine friendships--more than mere working alliances--with GOP senators. He's done this with conservatives like Orrin Hatch and Alan Simpson, as well as with moderates like John McCain, Bill Frist, Lowell Weicker and Nancy Kassebaum, before she retired. He has also established enduring ties with centrist Democrats like Robert Byrd and North Carolina freshman John Edwards, whom he has privately recommended to friends as a potential presidential nominee in 2004. Kennedy's wife and Edwards's wife, both lawyers, are close friends.

Perhaps the only senator Kennedy does not have cordial relations with is the cranky caveman Jesse Helms. Kennedy even co-sponsored and passed a law against church burning with Helms's North Carolina protégé, Lauch Faircloth, in 1996.

Kennedy has found a way to be both bipartisan in his affections and alliances and partisan in his belief that government has an obligation to make America a more equal country. This apparent paradox is Kennedy's paradigm. He can shout, pound a table and turn red in the face while giving a stemwinder that stirs up the party's base. And the next day he can be jovial while making a legislative deal over cigars with the Republican barons of the Senate. Kennedy always wants to "get something done" at the frontier of the possible.

I asked Arizona Republican John McCain (co-sponsor with Kennedy of the patients' bill of rights) to illuminate Kennedy's ability to reach across the divide of party affiliation and form intricate human bonds.

"Ted always keeps his word," McCain responded. "This is essential in a small group of people like the Senate. There is no bullshit with Ted. You know exactly where he is coming from. He does what he says he will do. He is a great listener in a body of poor listeners. This makes it easy to deal with him. Look, I've had my fights with him. We disagree on a lot of things. But Ted doesn't have a mean bone in his body. He likes people. And he doesn't hold a grudge."

Even Trent Lott, the conservative Republican leader in the Senate, has warmed up to Kennedy after years of pressuring GOP senators not to partner with him on legislation. In 1998 Lott sent Kennedy a handwritten note that is now framed in Kennedy's office. Lott wrote:

Your thoughtfulness truly amazes me. First the print from Cape Cod. Then the special edition of Profiles in Courage. I brought it home and re-read it. What an inspiration! Thank you, my friend, for your many courtesies. If the world only knew. During the 1980s Kennedy spent too many nights drinking too much, chasing younger women, trying to postpone the times when he was alone with his ghosts. He put on weight and seemed almost an Elvis Presley figure in premature, irreversible decline.

Kennedy's silences during the Judiciary Committee's 1991 confirmation hearings for Clarence Thomas, who was accused of sexual harassment by Anita Hill, were a low ebb for him, drawing rebukes from liberals and feminists for the first time. Anna Quindlen wrote in the New York Times that Kennedy "let us down because he had to; he was muzzled by the facts of his life." The hometown Boston Globe, usually loyal to Kennedy, editorialized that his "reputation as a womanizer made him an inappropriate and non-credible" critic of Thomas.

Thomas was confirmed 52 to 48, and Kennedy was ashamed of his inadequacy. But his failure also revealed that none of the other Democrats on the Judiciary Committee had the stature to fill the void he left. The weak performances of Joe Biden, Patrick Leahy and Howell Heflin--none of whom had the internal inhibitions Kennedy had--proved Kennedy was irreplaceable as an energizing leader. Nobody else could derail Thomas the way Kennedy had stopped Bork.

In April 1991 Senator Hatch, the teetotaling Mormon from Utah, took Kennedy aside and pleaded with him to stop or limit his drinking, suggesting he was drinking himself to death and that Hatch didn't want to "lose Kennedy as a friend or as a colleague." Hatch's lecture did have an impact on Kennedy; two months later he met Vicki Reggie, and ended his partying. They were married in 1992.

Kennedy's family and friends date his political revival to his re-election victory over Mitt Romney in 1994. That campaign allowed him to reconnect with his reasons for believing in public service. In making the physical and emotional sacrifices necessary to win an exhausting campaign, Kennedy recovered his dedication to remain in the Senate, and he focused all his energies on the job.

In mid-September of that year the polls showed the race deadlocked. Romney was attacking Kennedy as a burned-out relic and promising voters, "I will not embarrass you." Then came the campaign's dramatic first debate at Faneuil Hall in Boston. Some of his own campaign staff didn't want Kennedy to debate. The Globe reported that debates "are widely seen as fraught with danger for the aging and sometimes tongue-tied Kennedy." The Boston Herald's venomous, right-wing columnist Howie Carr described Kennedy as "incoherent" and wrote that Kennedy's understanding of "'a sound economic policy' means only buying every fourth round" at the bar.

But anyone who still harbors the illusion that Ted Kennedy is not smart, or not fast-thinking, should study the tape of that confrontation. When a panelist asked Kennedy how he coped with his "personal failings," Kennedy answered:

"Every day of my life I try to be a better human being," he began, "a better father, a better son, a better husband. And since my life has changed with Vicki, I believe the people of this state understand that the kind of purpose and direction and new affection and confidence on personal matters has been enormously reinvigorating. And hopefully I am a better senator."

Romney then accused Kennedy of a nonexistent financial conflict of interest involving his "profiting" from a no-bid contract with Washington's Mayor Marion Barry, under which minority ownership rules were waived. Kennedy looked his rival in the eye and replied: "Mr. Romney, the Kennedys are not in public service to make money. We have paid too high a price in our commitment to public service." Romney's response was to complain about Kennedy bringing up his family too frequently.

Kennedy's debate performance transformed the election. He won with 57 percent of the vote.

Ted Kennedy is reluctant to be quoted directly about the future direction of the Democratic Party. Like a veteran ballplayer, he prefers to lead by example. He ducks questions about factions and agendas, but his savvy staff points questioners to the texts of two Kennedy speeches, delivered on January 11, 1995, and October 24, 2001.

Together, these texts provide a basis from which to discern Kennedy's road map. They sketch a combative alternative to the GOP's anti-union, anti-poor, anti-urban biases. They are also a warning against the compromising corporate alliances of Democrats like Terry McAuliffe, who made an $18 million profit on Global Crossing stock, and Senator Jeff Bingaman, whose wife made $2.5 million in six months as a lobbyist for Global Crossing before it went bankrupt.

The 1995 speech came in the context of Newt Gingrich being sworn in as Speaker in the wake of the GOP's gain of fifty-three House seats in November 1994--the same day that Mario Cuomo was defeated in the New York gubernatorial race and Tom Foley was trounced in the Washington State House race.

In this sail-against-the-wind speech, given at the National Press Club, Kennedy rejected the conventional wisdom that the 1994 elections proved the country was veering sharply to the right. He argued that the reason the Democrats lost so many elections was that they had compromised too much and shed their distinct identity. Kennedy famously declared: "If the Democrats run for cover, if we become pale carbon copies of the opposition, we will lose--and deserve to lose. The last thing this country needs is two Republican parties."

Before Kennedy made this argument in public, he delivered it in private to President Clinton, who was in a deep funk over the 1994 election and being urged by pollster Dick Morris to compromise even more and embrace portions of the Gingrich-Dole agenda.

Kennedy told Clinton to fight for incremental national healthcare, jobs and an increase in the minimum wage, and to resist making any cuts in education. He gave Clinton a memo that summed up his thinking on what a Democratic Party in power should stand for. The memo said: "Democrats are for higher wages and new job opportunities. Republicans are for cuts to pay for tax breaks for the rich."

Kennedy's October 2001 speech on the Senate floor, opposing Bush's stingy, elitist economic stimulus package, is another road map for lost Democrats. In it, Kennedy asserted that any effective economic stimulus should "target the dollars to low- and moderate-income families, who are most certain to spend it rather than save it."

The key to Kennedy's politics is his belief that Democrats must simultaneously advocate for the poor and the middle class at the expense of the wealthy and corporate America. As someone whose policies and politics are so well integrated, Kennedy knows that liberals win elections when the poor and the middle class vote together. And liberals lose when the suburban, indpendent middle-class votes with the upper classes.

Kennedy made his populist thinking explicit on January 16, when he became the first senator to urge postponement of $300 billion in tax cuts for the affluent. He said the savings should be applied to prescription drugs for the elderly, extending unemployment benefits and protecting Social Security. Since January, only one other senator has joined Kennedy--Paul Wellstone, the Senate's most progressive member.

What is not at all clear is how Kennedy's mentoring of John Edwards fits into his broader thinking about what his party should stand for, and who should be its nominee in 2004. When I asked a Kennedy friend about Massachusetts junior Senator John Kerry, who is testing his own candidacy for 2004, I was directed to page 565 in Adam Clymer's "definitive" biography of Kennedy.

That page contains an anecdote about a January 31, 1995, meeting of Democratic Party leaders from both houses. It was convened to consider whether to back Kennedy's bill raising the minimum wage, from a miserly $4.25 an hour. Kennedy arrived late for the meeting, and as he walked in, he heard Senator Kerry voicing his doubts about the bill. "If you're not for raising the minimum wage, you don't deserve to call yourself a Democrat," was Kennedy's angry response.

For whatever reason, Kennedy doesn't want to appear dogmatic or overbearing about where Democrats should go from here. But this remark makes vivid his thinking that higher wages, more jobs and more healthcare are the foundations of the future.

Personal tragedy often provides the most powerful training in empathy and compassion. Ted Kennedy has buried two assassinated brothers he loved, a brother-in-law (Steve Smith) who became like a brother to him, and three young nephews, including John Kennedy Jr., whom he eulogized as another Kennedy who did not live long enough "to comb gray hair." While Kennedy was still a teenager, his older siblings, Joe and Kathleen, died. And his son survived cancer.

Kennedy has acquired both a tragic sense of life and what the late Murray Kempton called "losing-side consciousness." He identifies with hurt and loss. And he is able to translate his empathy into public remedies and reforms. I realized this when I asked him to tell me the story behind his eight-year campaign to pass the Family and Medical Leave Act, a law he co-sponsored and managed on the Senate floor.

"In 1974," Kennedy began, "I spent every Friday in the waiting room at Boston's Children's Hospital with my son, Teddy Jr. He was getting experimental chemotherapy treatments. And other parents started coming up to me and telling me how they had lost their jobs because they were taking care of a child diagnosed with cancer, and missing work.

"That was the origin of it. Nobody should lose a job because of a family medical emergency. I didn't lose my job because my priorities were with my son. I just told Mike Mansfield [the Democratic leader in the Senate] that I couldn't be there on Fridays. But less fortunate fathers lost their jobs because they couldn't get a leave from their employer."

Kennedy drafted a bill with Senator Chris Dodd that granted up to twelve weeks of unpaid leave to deal with a family medical crisis, protecting the job security of all workers with more than one year on the job. The Kennedy-Dodd bill was originally introduced in 1985 and passed the Congress in 1991, but it was vetoed by Bush the Elder. It was passed again in 1993 and signed by President Clinton. But it was conceived in those painful conversations with other desperate parents in the waiting room of the Children's Hospital in 1974.

Because of his personal experience of tragedy, Ted Kennedy has become America's national grief counselor. When the two planes were hijacked out of Boston's Logan Airport last September 11 and ninety-three residents of Massachusetts were killed, Kennedy personally called about 125 family members to offer assistance and solace.

He was so moved by one conversation with a grieving father that he sent the man a copy of a private letter his own father, Ambassador Joseph Kennedy, had written to a close friend in 1958, upon hearing about the death of the friend's son.

Ted Kennedy's ability to get up every morning and just keep going, no matter what, is his defining quality. And this quotation of consolation from his father sheds some light on Kennedy's credo of perseverance. The letter says:

When one of your loved ones goes out of your life, you think of what he might have done for a few more years, and you wonder what you are going to do with the rest of yours.

Then one day, because there is a world to be lived in, you find yourself a part of it, trying to accomplish something--something he did not have time to do. And, perhaps, that is the reason for it all. I hope so.

---------

Jack Newfield is a veteran New York political reporter and a senior fellow at the Nation Institute. He is the author of, among others, The Full Rudy: The Man, the Myth, the Mania (Nation Books) and, most recently, American Rebels.

Tuesday, August 25, 2009

ESPADA LAYOFFS AND PAYOFFS


NY Senate Dems Approve $350.000 for Espada's Staff

WNYC Newsroom

NEW YORK, NY August 20, 2009 —New York's Senate Democrats not only gave Senator Pedro Espada a lucrative leadership post after he allowed them to regain majority control of the chamber. They also approved $350,000 to hire his friends and give raises to staffers.

State records show the Democratic conference approved the hiring of a former employee at Espada's Bronx health clinic, whose mother had pleaded guilty in 2004 to steering state AIDS funds to Espada's campaign. The Senate also gave a legislative aide a $36,000 raise, bringing his salary over to $120,000.

Earlier this month, Espada's son resigned from a newly-created Senate position.

The Democrat's spokesman defended the spending, saying it will help Espada meet his new responsibilities, and was not an enticement or payback.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

YFP Editorial: by Sebastian Soto

While Pedro Espada continues to suck up power faster than a Hoover vacuum cleaner on steroids, other political amigos have not fared as well. State Senator Martin Dilan was forced to cut staff this week due to budget concerns.

Is there a correlation between the number of people Espada hires and the number of people laid off by fellow senators? Or is it a case of Espada calling the shots in regards to who stays and who goes?


Monday, August 24, 2009

Return of the Public Advocate

August 23, 2009 5:59 AM

If Bloomberg wins, he'll be facing something new: a fierce watchdog
[+] Photo by Darren Thompson
Filed Under :

Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Top Stories

Mayor Michael Bloomberg's third term, if he wins one, will be different from his first two in one respect: He'll have a public advocate looking over his shoulder—if not poking him in the chest.

After eight years in which benign Betsy Gotbaum quietly occupied the position, it will be filled by someone far more bellicose. The four major contenders in September's Democratic primary, which will essentially determine who claims the seat in January, all promise to thrust the job back into the spotlight: Councilman Eric Gioia, who convenes press conferences almost every week; civil rights attorney Norman Siegel, who has made a career of challenging authority; Councilman Bill de Blasio, who led the fight against the mayor's extension of term limits last year; and Mark Green, Ms. Gotbaum's predecessor, whose running feud with Mayor Rudy Giuliani in the 1990s nearly propelled him into City Hall in 2001.

“Each one of the guys running is not afraid to fight the next mayor, particularly if it's Mike Bloomberg,” says state Sen. Eric Adams, a Brooklyn Democrat supporting Mr. Siegel. “You're going to have a totally different public advocate. On every issue that people think is wrong, these guys are going to be on top of you.”

Mr. Adams believes the absence of an active advocate helps to explain Mr. Bloomberg's popularity. “The reason the approval ratings are so great is because he's been free from really getting hammered,” the senator says.

Mr. Bloomberg has no shortage of vulnerabilities that a bomb-throwing public advocate could exploit. The city budget has grown twice as fast as inflation. Developers and residents alike despise his Department of Buildings. Drivers mow down pedestrians and cyclists and don't get tickets. Minorities are disproportionately stopped and frisked.

The next advocate can tap into any number of aggrieved constituencies. Of the four Democrats running, only Mr. Siegel does not aspire to run for mayor, but he has fought the administration on civil rights issues, including the arrest of Republican Convention protesters in 2004. Mr. Green introduced Sunday-morning press conferences and soaked up airtime even when he held the obscure post of consumer affairs commissioner in the Dinkins administration.

Mr. Gioia is known for excoriating Con Edison every time it suffers an outage, seeks a rate increase or accidentally electrocutes someone's pet. Mr. de Blasio picks his battles, but can manipulate the media as well as anyone when the opportunity presents itself, as it did with term limits. (Democrat Imtiaz Syed and Republican Alex Zablocki are also running.)

No friends here

“Most of the people in the race are not close friends of the mayor,” says George Arzt, the communications maven who is advising Mr. de Blasio. “This will be a watchdog office, with a very large bully pulpit. The mayor will have a very difficult time trying to evade the public advocate no matter who is elected.”

The contrast to Ms. Gotbaum will be stark. Ms. Gotbaum, who is not seeking re-election, has defended her low profile by saying, “I'm not a screamer and a yeller.” A WNYC reporter randomly asked 15 New Yorkers to name the incumbent; the closest anyone got was a man who said, “Something in her name is an R.” But when The New York Times trailed Mr. Green at a campaign stop, a woman smiled and blurted out, “It's the real Mark Green! We need you!”

While Mr. Green is leading by double digits in the polls and boasts the best name recognition in the race, he has raised only $500,000 and attracted little political or institutional support. That opens the door for Mr. de Blasio, who is second in the polls, has raised $1.4 million and is getting campaign support from organized labor and the Working Families Party.

Bases of support

Mr. Gioia has been campaigning the longest and has raised the most money, $2 million. At 36, he's the youngest of the contenders and is last in the polls, but has just launched television ads that could win him a chunk of the large undecided vote. Mr. Siegel has raised less than $300,000 but has a dedicated following of liberals who are more likely than the other candidates' supporters to get to the polls on Sept. 15—and again for an expected runoff election Sept. 29, if he finishes first or second.

Turnout is expected to be low, but the stakes are high. Mr. Gioia and Mr. de Blasio forsook re-election bids and will be out of a job if they lose. For Mr. Green, who followed his 2001 loss to Mr. Bloomberg with a failed bid for state attorney general in 2006, defeat would be a humbling end to a once-ascendant political career.

Moreover, the office itself, created in 1989 to replace the position of City Council president, is in jeopardy. The public advocate still becomes mayor in case of a vacancy but only for 60 days, thanks to a reduction orchestrated by Mr. Giuliani. The council and mayor slashed the office's budget in June by 40%, to a mere $1.8 million, and Ms. Gotbaum's disappearing act has reignited calls to eliminate it. Councilman Simcha Felder has written a bill to do so and thinks it could pass.

“Ms. Gotbaum has demonstrated that the position isn't needed,” says Bruce Berg, a political science professor at Fordham University. “There are limited resources and no formal legislative or executive role. The public advocate has very limited authority to do anything.”

But many elected Democrats want the advocate to provide a check on the mayor. “If Michael Bloomberg succeeds in capturing a third term at City Hall,” says Brooklyn Assemblyman Hakeem Jeffries, “it will be extremely important that the next public advocate vigorously stand up for democratic principles of governance and combat the mayor's proclivity for dictatorial public policy.”