Kick Them When They’re Down

A bad week for the MTA means a good time to pull this one out of your back pocket:

A city lawmaker yesterday blasted the MTA for rerouting two bus lines to serve a Queens shopping mall developed by the agency chairman’s son.

Councilman John Liu said the MTA should formulate a new procedure for public input to determine bus routes, citing the controversial effort to extend lines to The Shops at Atlas Park.

“In the case of expanding bus service to Atlas Park, people have every reason to suspect favoritism and nepotism,” Liu said after a City Council hearing.

The Shops at Atlas Park is owned by Damon Hemmerdinger, son of MTA Chairman Dale Hemmerdinger.

But the younger Hemmerdinger and MTA officials countered that they began working on one of the proposed routes years before the father was appointed board chairman in 2007.

“Discussions about rerouting the bus began about five years ago,” Damon Hemmerdinger said.

Atlas Park was served by the Q29, but officials moved the Q54 from a lightly used terminus to the mall.

Somebody’s Running For Mayor!

And he has a wicked sense of humor to boot:

The MTA should sell its plush Madison Avenue office building and use the proceeds to offset another fare hike, a city official said yesterday.

City Councilman Eric Gioia (D-Queens) said the building, located on Madison Avenue between 44th and 45th Streets, is worth at least $200 million. That money, he said, could fill in a significant portion of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s budget shortfall.

“It’s a little too easy to pass on costs to taxpayers and riders rather than looking at their own operations and cutting the fat,” Gioia said of the MTA.

The agency is expecting a 2009 deficit of $216 million and faces a $15 million to $20 million hole in its five-year capital-improvement plan.

Finally, A Seasoned Politician Emerges

Mayor Bloomberg figures out the art of promising big, untenable proposals and quietly dumping them when it’s obvious that they are unaffordable:

Mayor Bloomberg dropped a financial bombshell yesterday by saying he’s “not sure” the city can still afford the 7 percent property-tax cut that he had included just six weeks ago in his 2009 executive budget.

The mayor’s startling assessment came as he and the City Council were within days of wrapping up negotiations on the new $60 billion budget for fiscal 2009, which starts July 1.

Officials said a repeal of the tax cut — which would sap $1.2 billion from property owners — had never come up in those talks.

“This is the first I’m hearing of that,” said surprised Councilman David Weprin (D-Queens), chairman of the Finance Committee.

Sounding gloomier than ever, Bloomberg warned that Wall Street profits are falling off the cliff with $20 billion in losses recorded in the first three months of this year.

And he must be enjoying watching the City Council twist in the wind about it:

Judging from the initial reaction of legislators, the mayor faces an uphill fight.

“It’s a nonstarter,” said Councilman Eric Gioia (D-Queens).

“The Wall Street numbers are definitely problematic,” said Weprin. “At this point, I don’t think there’s any need to panic. We can always do a mod [budget modification] later.”

Council Speaker Christine Quinn (D-Manhattan) said retaining the property-tax cut remains a “priority” for the council, as does restoration of budget cuts that impact classrooms.

Gioia, Weprin and Quinn: all term limited.

Annotation: For Queens in ’09, Candidates in Spades (City Hall News, June 11, 2007)

Maybe The City Comptroller Can Take Over The Property From EDC . . .

That would be a switch! Funny how that sometimes works out:

One of the biggest water bill deadbeats in New York City is the Economic Development Corporation, according to an audit released by the city comptroller’s office on Monday.

William C. Thompson Jr., the comptroller, said that the corporation had not paid any water or sewer bills for 22 years at the Brooklyn Army Terminal in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, a building of commercial and light industrial space controlled by the corporation.

The unpaid bills totaled $4.5 million.

In a press conference, Mr. Thompson said he was outraged that the agency was so delinquent, not only in failing to pay its bills but also in not contacting the city’s Department of Environmental Protection, which runs the water system, since 1989.

Didn’t You Pay Any Attention To What Just Happened In Chicago?

Councilmember Tony Avella, the City Council’s true master of grandstanding (beating out both John Liu and Eric Gioia), has staked out many positions in his run up to a mayoral campaign, from the principled (refusing a pay raise, vowing to investigate the quid pro quo-like lobbying during the congestion pricing debate) to the useful (a do not call list for advertising circulars) to the loopy (section 809 of New York’s Education Law), but this just takes the cake:

The fight over foie gras is coming to City Hall, with a City Council member who is running for mayor, Tony Avella, set to urge his colleagues to support a proposed ban on the force-feeding of ducks and geese.

Mr. Avella, who also has introduced a bill to ban horse-drawn carriages in the city, said he thinks it is inhumane to force-feed birds to fatten their livers for foie gras.

Tomorrow Mr. Avella is scheduled to introduce a council resolution in support of a state bill proposed by Senator Frank Padavan that would ban the force-feeding of birds by hand or machine to enlarge their livers.

“If they can produce foie gras by feeding the animals in a normal process, well, that’s up to them,” Mr. Avella, who represents parts of Queens, said. The resolution will not call for a ban on the sale of foie gras.

And, dude, New York City is just not that kind of town.