Propaganda At Its Finest...

I spotted the above "Believe It Or Not" ad on the train the other night. Between the options of believe it or not, I choose "not." A note to the MTA: The people of New York still aren't buying it.

The MTA has to be making money hand over fist from all of the corporate advertisers wallpapering the trains and subway stations with marketing materials; yet they want to bleed their riders with another fare hike. Plus, if you're so strapped for cash, shouldn't you stop spending money on making cutesy ads that nobody believes?

[SIDEBAR: $1.17, in what 1902 dollars?]

Mayor Bloomberg Continues To Try To Get Blood From A Stone

In an attempt to balance the New York City budget, Mayor Bloomberg continues to throw out outlandish ideas that will financially drain, already over-extended New Yorkers.

After announcing plans to rescind property tax refunds and implement huge budget cuts last week, the Mayor is now allegedly attempting to put tolls at certain bridges, and charge grocery shoppers for every plastic bag they use to transport their groceries home.

[SIDEBAR: Why can't a Mayor who reportedly tripled his billion dollar empire since his induction as Mayor, balance the budget??? At this point, he'll be one of the few residents in the city who will be able to afford to carry his groceries home.]

Mayor Bloomberg Announces Huge Budget Cuts

Just a few days shy of forcefully implementing a controversial new law that will grant city politicians the opportunity to serve for three terms, Mayor Bloomberg has announced some more unpopular decisions.

According to The New York Times, Bloomberg plans to slash 3,000 city jobs and suspend property tax rebates in an attempt to salvage the city's budget. The budget has been hemorrhaging dollars during his tenure as Mayor.

The Mayor's fiscal plan also calls for: Drastic cuts to education ($181 million this year and $385 million next year), a reduction in subsidies to libraries and cultural institutions, and an abbreviation of training for specialized city workers- like firefighters.

Detractors to the Mayor's financial plan are noting the lack of parity in it; stating that it unfairly targets the pockets and well-being of the average worker. In response to Bloomberg's new budget the Municipal Labor Committee has voiced their displeasure by saying, "The city and its workforce did not cause the problem and therefore should not be left on its own to resolve it."

[SIDEBAR: I wonder if Bloomberg was listening when Obama said, "Let us remember that if this financial crisis taught us anything, it's that we cannot have a thriving Wall Street while Main Street suffers. In this country, we rise or fall as one nation; as one people." Maybe he had his tv turned down for that part.

I hope the political parties have viable mayoral candidates lined up for NYC's next election!!!]

Are NYC Housing Project's Residents Being Harassed By The Police? Gentrification May Be The Reason Why

New York Lawyers for the Public Interest recently conducted a survey to determine how residents of New York City housing projects are treated by the police.

The surveyors asked 181 residents of a Brooklyn housing project, and an East Harlem housing project how many times they were stopped and questioned by the police. According to the New York Daily News, the results were as follows: Of the 106 people surveyed at the Thomas Jefferson housing project in Harlem, 30% said that they had been arrested for trespassing at their own place of residence, "70% said they had been repeatedly stopped by cops demanding identification...More than half queried at Walt Whitman [a Fort Greene Brooklyn housing project] said police had stopped them at least once in the last year."

While the surveyed residents feel violated by the intense scrutiny and unwarranted arrests, NYPD spokesman Paul Browne failed to address the residents concerns; instead he issued a statement saying, "Collecting anecdotes from anyone who opens the door does not constitute data." Mr. Browne also stated that the projects were being targeted because they had a spike in crime this year.

I think Mr. Browne should note that if "collecting anecdotes from anyone who opens the door does not constitute data," then unwarranted and unlawful harassment of residents definitely doesn't constitute good police work, or a crime deterrent.

[CLICK HERE: For yesterday's story about a 17-year old Brooklyn housing project resident who got her jaw broken by a NYPD housing officer, after he allegedly stooped her for riding her bike on the sidewalk.]

[A VERY IMPORTANT SIDEBAR: With New York City housing projects being "allegedly" targeted by the city and real estate developers to become New York's newest high-price condos, residents are likely being harassed in order to pressure them to move out. The projects are the hottest most coveted real estate in the city for wealthy developers.]

Then & Now: Downtown Brooklyn's Albee Square Mall

THEN...

NOW...
In lieu of the old mall, a structure that house condos, retail space, and office space is reportedly being built.

Now is the time to contact your elected officials to ensure that an adequate number of "affordable housing" units will be included.

A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words Pic Of The Week

Brooklyn, New York (Atlantic Yards)

Doesn't The MTA Make More Than Enough Money Selling Ad Space To Corporations?...

Riders can not step into a MTA train station, train, or bus without being inundated with ads. (Check out the swanky Target ad pictured above (courtesy of flickr), that allows train riders to plug their earphones into the billboard attachment and preview music). The passer-byers on the street are also not immune to this. Outdoor bus stations, and the outside of train stations, are currently being outfitted with new, flashy, high-tech advertisements. So my question is this: With so much advertising space being hawked to deep-pocket corporations, why is the MTA constantly raising the fare?

Why are the mostly working class and middle class commuters being saddled with the responsibility of filling in the MTA's supposed budget gap? Aren't the MTA's cups overflowing with marketing dollars from corporations? I smell a rat? Don't you?

[SIDEBAR: Aren't some of the MTA ads a little over the top with raciness? (I have some flicks, I'll post one day...Just remind me).]

NY Is The Original Trendsetter When It Comes To "Urban Renewal"

"In 1949, the federal government enacted a new approach to the housing problems in cities: urban renewal. The approach was now both in philosophy- for the first time in America, government was given the right to seize an individual's private property not for its own use but for reassignment to another individual for his use and profit- and in scope: a billion dollars was appropriated in 1949 and it was agreed that this was only seed money to prepare the ground for later, greater plantings of cash.

Most cities approached urban renewal with caution. But in New York City, urban renewal was directed by Robert Moses. By 1957, $133,000,000 of public monies had been expended on urban renewal in all the cities of the United States with the exception of New York: $267,000,000 had been spent in New York. So far ahead was New York that when scores of huge buildings constructed under its urban renewal program were already erected and occupied, administrators from other cities were still borrowing New York's contract forms to learn how to draw up the initial legal agreements with interested developers. When Moses resigned from his urban renewal directorship in 1960, urban renewal had produced more physical results in New York than in all other American cities combined." -From, "The Power Broker: Robert Moses and The Fall of New York" By: Robert A. Caro

NYC's Proposed Congestion Tax Is Dead!

According To NY1, Mayor Bloomberg's proposed congestion tax is dead in the water. This is reportedly due to him not gaining timely support for the tax in the State Assembly. NY1 is stating that NY's mayor needed to garner support by midnight tonight, in order to get millions in federal funding for his idea. Failing to do so, the plan for the tax has been currently nixed.

However, the shadow that this proposed tax casted, should be a lesson to us all. Look how quickly a maneuver can be made to implement a tax that would be a great economic strain on average citizens. We have to be better prepared for the next go around. To be forewarned is to be forearmed. [SIDEBAR: This might have just been a dry run for that oxygen tax (see the title for the post below)...but for tonight (and maybe just tonight), thanks NYC for letting me breathe in your polluted liters of oxygen for free...SMH].

What's Next, An Oxygen Tax For Breathing?

New York City is in the throes of implementing an European-like congestion tax. New York is looking to charge commuters who drive into the city during peak hours- $14. According to www.TheNewspaper.com, this is the same price as the congestion tax in London. Using London as a frame of reference, the Queens Chamber of Commerce, released a report stating that NYC's economy would be severely injured if they decided to implement the congestion tax.

According to The Queens Chamber of Commerce, a congestion tax would result in 28% of New York's drivers being deterred from coming into the city. The commerce group is predicting that this would result in an annual reduced spending of $1.89 billion. When the lost of jobs, and other economic spending is factored in, New York's economic loss could reach up to $2.7 Billion.

The question that I ask is: Why do New York City's officials seem so insistent on making NYC too expensive for working class citizens to have a residency there? After all, they are planning to implement a tax that has proven to be a money loser for other localities. Between the sharp increases in housing costs, costs for basic living, and taxes; many middle class and working class citizens are being economically pressured to move out of New York.

In my opinion, the congestion tax seems to be another case of New York's strategy to destroy and rebuild. This seems to be a tactic to make New York into the living quarters, and playground for the wealthy. What do you think?

New Yorkers (And Everybody Else) Be Prepared To Tighten Your Belts

Given New York City's status as an international financial center, the current credit crisis could have an especially deleterious impact on the New York State economy. Though the Division of the Budget is not forecasting a recession at this time, the risk of a recession is substantial.

THE NATIONAL ECONOMY

* The national economic slowdown is expected to continue through the first half of 2008. Real U.S. GDP is projected to grow 2.2 percent for 2008, following growth of about the same magnitude for 2007. This forecast is consistent with major professional forecast vendors.

* The subprime mortgage debacle is still unfolding and the housing market is still searching for a bottom. Corporate profits are soft; financial sector profits are falling. Growth in U.S. corporate profits is projected to slow further to 3.1 percent in 2008, following growth of 3.7 percent in 2007. These growth rates represent a significant decline from average growth of more than 15 percent over the five preceding years. Equity markets have responded accordingly: the S&P 500 has experienced a correction of more than ten percent since its most recent October peak.

* The national labor market has continued to lose momentum, underscored by the December increase in the unemployment rate to 5.0 percent. The Division of the Budget projects nonfarm job growth to slow to 1.0 percent for 2008, following growth of 1.3 percent for 2007. The unemployment rate is projected to rise from 4.6 percent in 2007 to 5.0 percent in 2008.

* Although there has been some improvement in credit market liquidity in recent weeks, markets remain tight, generating a significant drag on both household and business spending. Real household spending is projected to grow only 1.5 percent in the current quarter and 1.9 percent for all of 2008, well below its long-term trend of about 3.0 percent.

* The Division of the Budget projects inflation of 2.7 percent for 2008, roughly equal to its 2007 level of 2.8 percent; however, excessive energy price volatility could push overall price growth still higher, putting downward pressure on household spending and tying the Federal Reserve's hand as it tries to stimulate the economy with lower interest rates.

* Cushioning the current slowdown are solid growth in the global economy and an activist stance on the part of the Federal Reserve, which has already cut its policy target rate by 100 basis points with a further reduction likely, and is taking other action to inject liquidity into credit markets. The Federal government is also likely to take stimulative action.


THE NEW YORK STATE ECONOMY

* Consistent with the slowing of both the national and New York economies, the Division of the Budget projects a decline in State employment growth from 1.1 percent for 2007 to 0.6 percent for 2008.

* As a result of the mortgage-backed security debacle, the Division of the Budget projects a 5.5 percent decline in financial services and insurance sector bonuses for the first quarter of 2008, representing a loss of about $2.1 billion in wages relative to the same period in 2007.

* Wage growth is similarly projected to fall from 7.6 percent in 2007 to 3.3 percent in 2008. Slower growth in both the wage and nonwage components of income will result in total personal income growth of 4.3 percent for 2008, following 7.4 percent growth for 2007.

* The State's housing and commercial real estate markets are in better shape than the nation's but significant risks exist. The dollar volume of New York City commercial real estate transactions appears to have peaked in the first quarter of 2007.

[Source: The New York State Budget website (Click Here For New York State Budget's Website's Home Page). Italics added.

BOOK EXCERPT OF THE WEEK: From, "The Power Broker: Robert Moses and The Fall of New York" By: Robert A. Caro

"Robert Moses was America's greatest builder. He was the shaper of the greatest city in the New World.

But what did he build? What was the shape into which he pounded the city?

To build the highways, Moses threw out of their homes 250,000 persons- more people than lived in Albany or Chattanooga, or in Spokane, Tacoma, Duluth, Akron, Baton Rouge, Mobile, Nashville, or Sacramento. He tore out the hearts of a score of neighborhoods, communities the size of small cities themselves, communities that had been lively, friendly places to live, the vital parts of the city that made New York a home to its people.

By building his highways, Moses flooded the city with cars. By systematically starving the subways and the suburban commuter railroads, he swelled that flood to city-destroying dimensions. By making sure that the vast suburbs, rural and empty when he came to power, were filled on a sprawling, low-density development pattern relying primarily on roads instead of mass transportation, he insured that that flood would continue for generations if not centuries, that the New York metropolitan area would be- perhaps forever- an area in which transportation- getting from one place to another- would be an irritating, life-consuming concern for its 14,000,000 residents.

For highways, Moses dispossessed 250,000 persons. For his other projects- Lincoln Center, the United Nations, the Fordham, Pratt and Long Island University campuses, a dozen mammoth urban renewal projects- he dispossessed tens of thousands more; there are available no accurate figures on the total number of people evicted from their homes for all Robert Moses public works, but the figure is almost certainly close to half a million; the one detailed study by an outside agency shows that in a ten-year period, 1946 to 1956, the number was 320,000. More significant even than the number of the dispossessed were their characteristics: a disproportionate share of them were Black, Puerto Rican- and poor. He evicted tens of thousands of poor, nonwhite persons for urban renewal projects, and the housing he built to replace the housing he tore down was, to an overwhelming extent, not housing for the poor, but for the rich. The dispossessed, barred from many areas of the city by their color and their poverty, had no place to go but into the already overcrowded slums- or into 'soft' borderline areas that then became slums, so that his 'slum clearance programs' created new slums as fast as they were clearing the old.

When he built housing for poor people, he built housing bleak, sterile, cheap- expressive of patronizing condescension in every line. And he built it in locations that contributed to the ghettoization of the city, dividing up the city by color and income. And by skewing city expenditures toward revenue-producing services, he prevented the city from reaching out toward its poor and assimilating them, and teaching them how to live in such housing- and the very people for whom he built it reacted with rage and bitterness and ignorance, and defaced it.

He built parks and playgrounds with a lavish hand, but they were parks and playgrounds for the rich and the comfortable. Recreational facilities for the poor he doled out like a miser.

For decades, to advance his own purposes, he systematically defeated every attempt to create the master plan that might have enabled the city to develop on a rational, logical, unified pattern- defeated it until, when it was finally adopted, it was too late for it to do much good."


[SIDEBAR: The Legal Eagles Community Newsletter on Gentrification coming...as soon as possible.]

Is This What All Of The Smoke & Mirrors Is Camouflaging?...

Since David Paterson was inducted into office on Monday and publicly confessed to his private-life sins, his visage has covered the front page of almost every New York news periodical. His picture has been captioned with a variety of witticisms and puns alluding to his indiscretions.

However tucked away in the New York Post, in an article that took up less than an eighth of a page, is one if the most stirring official acts that David Paterson has committed during his brief tenure as governor thus far. The headline of this article states that "Paterson Rejects Tax On Wealthy."

In an effort to close the $5 Billion gap in the New York State budget, the democrats suggested a .85% income tax increase for residents who make more than $1 Million a year. David Paterson rejected this proposal made by his party members. Instead, he has opted to side with republican Mayor Bloomberg, and is declining a tax increase on his wealthier constituents.

According To The New York Post, in lieu of the less than 1% income tax increase for the affluent citizens of New York, David Paterson is requesting $800 Million in cuts. Where exactly these cuts will be applied has remained to be seen. Without the specific details, I am unsure of what the resulting damage of Governor Paterson's plan will be. However, $800 Million of cuts seems like a frightening proposition. I venture to guess that most of those cuts are likely to adversely affect those who are most in need. After all, isn't that how it usually works? We will soon find out since the state's constitution mandates that the state's budget must be finalized by April 1st. [Sidebar: April fool's day...how apropos.]

NYC MTA Fare Hiked Up- Once Again

NYC transit commuters started their week digging deeper into their pockets in order to make their commutes. The fare increases are as follows:

• The One Day Fun Pass increased from $7 to $7.50
• The 7 Day Unlimited Ride Metrocard has increased to $25
• The 30 Day Unlimited Ride Metrocard has increased to $81
  

The increases were enacted despite a large public outcry. They also come in the face of a Daily News article printed yesterday stating that the MTA's CEO is receiving unprecedented privileges on the taxpayers' dime.

The MTA's CEO reportedly has a driver/bodyguard who is paid an annual salary of approximately $160,000. I guess with that salary at least someone can afford to ride the MTA.

Gentrification Part 1

Tomorrow, Harlem's Record Shack will have a court date to try to fight off eviction (after being a tenant for over 35 years at its current location). The Record Shack family is requesting that members of the community come out and support them as they wage this battle.

The information is as follows:
Friday, February 29, 2008
111 Centre Street
Room 1166 11th Floor Part 52
Time: 9:30 AM

It's time for us to band together to do what is right, and to support each other. Remember Martin Niemoler's famous quote: "First they came for the Jews. I was silent. I was not a Jew. Then they came for the Communists. I was silent. I was not a Communist. Then they came for the trade unionists. I was silent. I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for me. There was no one left to speak for me."

Even if you are unable to come down tomorrow, PLEASE let's all do our small part to save our community. There's so much to be done, any little contribution of your time and brain power will help immensely. Let's be creative and diligent in our efforts- however we choose to assist those in need.

Lots of love to everybody, always!

Sincerely,
Elsie Law

SIDEBAR: The Legal Eagles Community Newsletter Gentrification issue is coming as soon as possible.