In Exchange of Tweets Last Night, Talking Points Memo editor casts New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn in dark light.
Josh Marshall, the editor and publisher of Talking Points Memo, called Christine Quinn "standard political flimflam," describing his experience with her as "very negative."
The exchange of Tweets was in regards to 2013 mayoral candidate Tom Allon's full-page newspaper advertisement criticising Speaker Quinn over the closing of St. Vincent's Hospital.
Is Christine Quinn going to hold the NYPD accountable for raiding the Eagle on the very night when marriage equality became law ? What kind of an LGBT leader is she, if she does not fight for our LGBT civil rights ? Join our Facebook page : Gays Against Christine Quinn.
Christine Quinn aka ''Mini-Me'' Uses City Council Funds (aka Taxpayer Money) to Reward Political Bosses
After City Council Speaker Christine Quinn got fluffed by NYTimes reporter David W. Chen, now comes Michael Powell, a columnist for the Gray Lady, who pulls back the curtain on Speaker Quinn's slush fund-tinged campaign for mayor.
Mr. Powell reports that Ms. Quinn was appointed Speaker of the City Council after she "charmed" political bosses from Queens, the Bronx, and Brooklyn. At her coronation ceremony, she put Vito Lopez, the notorious Brooklyn political boss (who is the target of several ethical and corruption investigations) in the front row. Speaker Quinn has also scratched Mr. Vito's back in exchange for his political support. "The fates have smiled on Mr. Lopez’s social-service empire, the Ridgewood Bushwick Senior Citizens Council ; this year the Council sent more than $4 million its way," reported the NYTimes.
In a statement posted Facebook, a government integrity watchdog activist questioned why the latest NYTimes article stops short of probing the status of the federal investigation into Speaker Quinn's slush fund scandal.
"Instead of reporting on Quinn's criminal activity, the NY Times merely raises questions about her ethics and leadership: "But there are questions to be asked about her leadership, and not all cheery." Is it a fear of Bloomberg that prevents the Times from reporting on the well-documented budget and campaign corruption ?" Donny Moss posted on the social network.
This is how the NYTimes article ends :
Last year, a Council majority favored mandatory sick days for New Yorkers with less than a week of vacation. The mayor opposed it. Ms. Quinn killed it.
Some suggest that she has gotten lost in the game, that she can no longer recall the questions she once asked as an advocate. That sounds too definitive. Her arc is not done.
She affects nonchalance when described as a mayoral puppet: “You can call me Mini-Me. I don’t really care.”
The rub is that voters might care a lot.
Peninsula Hospital Center - Protesters Take Over Lobby - Hospital Closings in NYC
Approximately 200 union employees, residents of Far Rockaway, in Queens, and local officials, gathered in the rain outside Peninsula Hospital Center, across the bay from JFK Airport. Peninsula Hospital Center has filed a plan to shut its doors. The hospital’s owner is embroiled in a political and financial scandal, but employees and residents are worried about the threat to public health, should the hospital’s closure plan be approved.
Attendees of the rally braved the rain, then, once the rally had ended, stormed into one of the lobbies of the hospital, until hospital officials called the police, to clear the lobby of its own employees.
In the time that Christine Quinn had been speaker of the City Council, eight hospitals (not counting Peninsula) have closed. If Peninsula closes, it would mark the ninth hospital to close under Speaker Quinn's watch.
This week, President Obama agreed to severe budget cuts to social safety net programs, that underpin the social contract we make with our government and amongst ourselves. More budget cuts to Medicaid and Medicare will lead to a further collapse of our healthcare system. Is Christine Quinn in Bermuda with Mayor Michael Bloomberg each time a hospital closes in New York City ? Is President Obama surfing in Hawaii each time a hospital closes in America ?
If we obediently listen to people, who are in power (the same people who work for us, the very same people who are closing our hospitals), telling us to leave the lobby of a closing hospital, then it just makes it that much easier for the New York State Department of Health/Christine Quinn to keep closing hospitals.
Is the Rudin Family eyeing their next real estate harvesting operation on the dead carcass of the Peninsula Hospital Center in Queens ?
After he's done with St. Vincent's Hospital, it has been heard on the street that William Rudin is considering another real estate harvesting operation, this time at the Peninsula Hospital Center in Queens.
Bankruptcy Judge Cecelia Morris has let the management of St. Vincent's avoid Freedom of Information requests and has let the Rudin Family to gut St. Vincent's and is about to let the Family take a wrecking ball to it. Now, Judge Morris is going to let the Management and the Family destroy evidence.
Management of St. Vincent's Asks Bankruptcy Court to Approve Document Destruction, So That No Investigation Can Ever Determine Why the Hospital Closed Abruptly And Without Any Legally-Mandated Closure Plan.
No politician -- not CB2 Chair Brad Hoylman, not City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, Mayor Michael Bloomberg, or Senator Tom Duane -- is willing to do anything to prevent the luxury condo conversion of St. Vincent's. With the shredding trucks about to pull into the ambulance bays of St. Vincent's, the obstruction of justice will be complete : there may be no more hope to ever investigate the shady decisions that lead the hospital to close on April 30, 2010. It's exactly as Sarah Jessica Parker said : ''The community needs a hospital — and I think there’s been some clever obfuscation.''
1782-Motion Re Info Mgmt Services and Trust Ageement and Document Retention Plan
City Council Speaker Christine Quinn had a sudden outburst of anger on Wednesday by bursting into a verbal attack at Erin Einhorn, a reporter for The Daily News, who did not refer to Ms. Quinn by the courtesy title, ''Speaker.'' Instead, Ms. Einhorn had referred to Speaker Quinn as, ''Ma’am.''
“You can call me Speaker,” Ms. Quinn said in a testy tone, reported The New York Times. “It’s my press conference. I actually decide what words are necessary.”
Updated with video link ! ➔ NY1 has exclusive video of Speaker Quinn's hissy fit.
After her little temper tantrum, Speaker Quinn knew she had crossed the line, and Speaker Quinn said she was sorry. “I was nasty to you,” Ms. Quinn said to Ms. Einborn. “I apologize.”
A few weeks ago, Ms. Einhorn had reported that Speaker Quinn had had trouble paying her rent on time.
Meanwhile, Ms. Einhorn could just as easily have said, ''Deputy Mayor'' instead of, ''Ma’am.'' For all the times that Christine Quinn has gone along with all of Mayor Bloomberg's horrible plans for New York : all of the school closings and Cathie Black's controversial schools chancellor waiver ; the unequivocal insistence that more and more luxury condos and university dorms get built out of hospitals, churches, and landmark buildings ; denying us paid sick leave ; the shady way that the City Council changed term limits ; the way that Quinn will most likely deny us a living wage -- she goes along with Mayor Bloomberg rather than stand up to him.
It's almost like Christine Quinn is Mayor Bloomberg's puppet.
Third Anniversary Protest of Term Limits Scam : Christine Quinn's Puppet Show and Political Farce
Join us on Sunday, October 23, 2011, at 2 pm, outside City Hall, for a protest to mark the third anniversary of the City Council vote that overturned term limits.
Back on this day in 2008, the New York City Council voted to change the term limits law, thereby allowing Mayor Michael Bloomberg to seek re-election. The action by the City Council, lead by Speaker Christine Quinn, undid the term limits approved by New York City voters, who had previously passed two referendums that had restricted the service of elected politicians to a limit of two four-year terms.
Vote Quinn out of office !
Rudin Interview on New York Real Estate Harvesting From Bankrupt Hospitals.
William Rudin, chief executive officer at Rudin Management Co., talks about New York City's real estate and the outlook for commercial property, including the millions the family stands to make from the carcass picking of the real estate property of St. Vincent's Hospital. Watch at 5:40.
To add insult to injury, naturally this interview was broadcast on Bloomberg Opinion, in keeping with Mayor Michael Bloomberg's worldview of starving the beast until it dies in the back of an ambulance, stuck in crosstown traffic.
Christine Quinn Is Playing With A Stacked Deck.
When you ask New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn a question, she likes to give you a non-answer.
She likes to be evasive, but she is definitive about giving you the run-around. She doesn’t have to give you either a proverbial bait-and-switch or back-pedal, provided she never has to first give you any policy position with which to lure you.
When City Hall bureau reporter Erin Einhorm from The New York Daily News asked Speaker Quinn what she thought about a bill that « would require mayors to disclose when they leave town and to designate a proxy, » Speaker Quinn said, « I haven’t seen the bill, yet. »
Councilman Peter Vallone, Jr., planned to introduce the whereabouts bill, The Daily News reported. Here is how Speaker Quinn expaneded on her non-answer :
« The councilmember has put in a request for the legislation to be drafted. I know that the staff is working on it. I’ve spoken with the staff. I've asked them to send me an initial read they can get me on whether it’s within the powers that we have as a council. I've not gotten that back and of course haven't seen the draft and as soon as I get that information and [have] seen the draft, I’ll be able to take a position. »
Mind you, under Speaker Quinn, the City Council found it within its powers to over-turn in 2008 two voter referenda approving term limits, thus allowing Mayor Michael Bloomberg to run for a previously forbidden third term, but as to whether the City Council could require the mayor to leave a forwarding address, she would have to, proverbially, get back to us on that.
What is more, before Speaker Quinn was for extending term limits, she didn’t want you to ask her about it. « The mayor knows my phone number, » Speaker Quinn said in early September 2008, after she was pressed about Mayor Bloomberg’s plans to extend term limits. « He knows where my office is, » Speaker Quinn added. « He knows where I live. If he has a piece of legislation he's interested in, he'll call me and we'll talk about it. Up until then, there's really nothing for me to say about term limits. »
If democracies are supposed to work efficiently only if voters know well each of tge issues and the politicians who run for and hold office, then our experience with this pattern of deliberately evasive non-answers isn’t going to lead us to the path where voters know where we stand vis-à-vis Speaker Quinn. But that’s her real intention. She doesn’t want us to know where we stand. If we are like a « deaf speactator in the back row, » as Walter Lippmann has described disenfranchised voters, then that makes it easier for politicians like Speaker Quinn to avoid the messy work of having to live up to an ethic.
But to Speaker Quinn, who is climbing up the political ladder with her wagon hitched to Mayor Bloomberg’s coattails, taking on the powers that be is not likely going to happen. Taking a public policy position means you have to have something to fight for, and you have to be somebody, who fights for that in which you believe.
Using the spree of hospital closings in New York City, including that of St. Vincent’s Hospital, as a litmus test for Christine Quinn’s ethics.
At an emergency community meeting in the West Village on January 28, 2010, just weeks before St. Vincent’s Hospital was to close, Speaker Quinn gave what should have been, by all accounts, a touching and inspiring speech. She endorsed the idea that fighting for the hospital’s survival was critical to New York City.« I fail to accept that in all of New York, » she began, « there is no other healthcare institution that wants to merge with the great St. Vincent’s. I simply do not believe it. The State Department of Health wants us to believe it, because they have created an equation where that is the only answer that we would get. We are not going to fall for that bait-and-switch. We’re not going to fall for this trick that Continuum is the only entity out there. We’re going to say tonight, and we’re going to say it over and over again : the only plan that should be considered or ever approved by the state is one that keeps our hospital and our emergency room. »
There are times, like in the preceeding Save St. Vincent’s video, when Speaker Quinn can tap into the truth that the common New Yorker senses : that our economy and our social safety nets are a giant rug that is being pulled out from under us, and that, inspite of the horror, she sells herself as courageous enough and willing enough to fight for a progressive agenda. But in the year since Speaker Quinn spoke with such leadership at the emergency community meeting at Our Lady of Pompeii Church in Greenwich Village, we need to make an assessment of where we now find her in the fight to restore a hospital to the Lower West Side of Manhattan.
How we got from « We are not going to fall for that bait-and-switch, » to « As the sale of St. Vincent’s properties makes its way through bankruptcy court » and « We are currenlty engaged in a healthcare needs assessment, » is that time-honoured tradition : the people’s advocate has sold out, where even a
cornerstone institution such as a hospital can be deemed acceptable collateral damage if it means that a politician can collect large campaign donations to finance an expensive run for mayor of the most important city in the nation. (Flackback : Rewind : Mayor Bloomberg spent over $108 million dollars in reported/disclosed spending the last mayoral campaign only to win by a puny margin of about 5 per cent.)
Should St. Vincent’s properties be sold and a new hospital never to be opened at its former site, lots of real estate companies stand to make a lot of money. A quick glance through the Councilpedia records published by the Citizens Union Foundation shows that many real estate companies have made substantial campaign donations to Speaker Quinn’s presumed 2013 mayoral campaign. Here is a quick sample :
Indeed, as at February 26, 2011, according to Councilpedia statistics, Speaker Quinn had received over $569,000 in 2013 election cycle donations from the real estate industry. You don’t need me to tell you that that is a lot of money.
What Speaker Quinn is gambling, the deal that she is making with the Devil, is that nobody is going to call her on her inability to make good on simple policy decisions, like « We are not going to fall for that bait-and-switch. » She is also counting on nobody getting outraged enough to say that the influence of real estate developers, as indicated by their large campaign contributions to Speaker Quinn's campaign treasury, is over-riding the needs the voting public. But with social media tools, such as Councilpedia, the old political boss ways of days gone by are numbered. What is more, in the political vacuum of Speaker Quinn’s definitive non-answers, she is creating opportunities for other politicians, to swoop in and offer voters a new sense of hope.
When he was a councilmember, John Liu found the courage to give press conferences about the performance of, dissatisfaction with, and budget crisis overseen by Speaker Quinn.
Now that he is City Controller, Mr. Liu has found the courage to challenge Mayor Bloomberg to immediately review suspicious technology contract scandals, such as with the Emergency Communications Transformation Program (ECTP). In a letter written to Mayor Bloomberg by Comptroller Liu, the Comptroller's office rejected a $286 million contract request that would have nearly doubled the initial ECTP contract cost of $380 million. The new contract request would have raised the ECTP budget to $666 million. (Click on the link to read the news release issued today by the Comptroller's office about the latest New York City technology contract scandal.)
In the face of Speaker Quinn’s passivity, other leaders are stepping forward to demonstrate dynamism, charisma, and decisive leadership.
The Definitive Answer to End the Cycle of Cynicism is Alive and Well In a Surprising Group of Activists and Leaders, among them Mr. Liu, Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer, and the civil rights lawyer, Yetta Kurland.
If Mr. Liu continues to investigate questionable technology contracts, he is sure to win the praise of voters, who are tired of seeing tax money disappearing into blackholes of politically-awarded governemnt contracts, while, at the same time, the mayor runs his scorched earth campaign of school and firehouse closings with the tortured logic of the need to make budget cuts.
Shockingly, in the time that Speaker Quinn has presided over the New York City Council, at least eight city hospitals have closed. In 2010, North General Hospital in Harlem declared bankruptcy and St. Vincent's Hospital in the West Village shut down after shady backroom meetings. In 2009, two hospitals in Queens – St. John's Queens Hospital in Elmhurst and Mary Immaculate Hospital in Jamaica – went bankrupt. In 2008, Cabrini Medical Center in Manhattan, Parkway Hospital in Queens, and Victory Memorial Hospital in Bay Ridge closed. And in 2007, St. Vincent's Midtown in Manhattan was closed. Separately, one other hospital in Brooklyn, Long Island College Hospital, was recently saved : it had been on the brink of closing, and the only way the hospital was saved was by merging it with SUNY Downstate.
To some degree or another, each of the communities impacted by these hospital closings have objected, protested, or tried to litigate the decisions that lead to a hospital being closed in their community. But in no instance has a grass-roots community organisation powerfully come together as has happened following the closing of St. Vincent’s Hospital in Greenwich Village. There, a group called the Coälition For A New Village Hospital has been agitating, protesting, holding emergency community meetings, packing into Manhattan Community Board meetings, and litigating their cause to, first save St. Vincent’s Hospital, then, after the hospital closed, to restore a new hospital to the former site of St. Vincent’s. The group has shocked the normal course of cynical city politics, because, as we approach the one year anniversary of the closing of St. Vincent’s, this community group refuses to go away quietly. When the community heard « We are not going to fall for that bait-and-switch, » they believed it. Now, they’ve organised to make good on restoring a hospital to the Lower West Side of Manhattan. Recently, four community activists were even arrested after orchestrating a restro sit-in at the former main building of St. Vincent’s in a courageous act of civil disobedience ; the four activists spent one night in jail before they got processed out of the court system. The closing of St. Vincent's has even inspired the creation of a non-violent civil disobedience movement. The sense in the community is one of dire seriousness.
St. Vincent’s was more than a hospital, it was also a Level 1 trauma center, which, for Lower Manhattan, had served as a critical underpinning for New York City’s emergency preparedness in this post-9/11 world. Some see a parallel between the need to be ready for another terrorist attack in Lower Manhattan and the fight to keep essential municipal services and basic infrastructure. And given that Speaker Quinn takes so many campaign contributions from the real estate industry, some community activists are sensing that the fight for a new hospital transcends a mere fight to preserve basic infrastructure, but it also taps into the historical tradition in Greenwich Village to fight urban renewal imposed by political figures, who force through neighborhood-destroying mega-development projects.
In the face of over-development, there is a chance that New York City communities will link up in a city-wide grass-root effort to block urban renewal projects that would destroy the character of our neighborhoods.
In August 2010, Speaker Quinn advocated and won approval from the City Council for a 67-floor skyscraper just two blocks away from the Empire State Building. The new building is to be built in Speaker Quinn’s district. When The Gotham Gazette reported about the skyscraper’s approval, the newspaper quoted the City Council Speaker thusly : « We want new Rockefeller Centers. … New York City is about growth -- about growing bigger and higher all the time. » Whereas, all New Yorkers take pride in living in a vibrant city, we think that all the zone-busting development projects are just a revival of Robert Moses’ twisted idea that New York City should be one giant crosstown expressway, only this time the city planning idea being pushed is more skyscrapers and more and more glass and steel luxury condominiums.
And as in that time then, when Mr. Moses’s overdevelopment plans shocked the conscious of New Yorkers, unintentionally launching the careers of a whole wave of civic activists lead by Jane Jacobs, now in this time here, we have the creation of similar conditions under which Speaker Quinn’s development plans are triggering a new wave of civic activists, who are pushing back, who are saying, « Enough is enough ! » Whereas the popular perception then was that Mr. Moses was motivated by a power trip that made him feel like he needed to be in control over all major development projects in such a mania that bordered on demolishing as much of old New York as he could, we don’t know if Speaker Quinn is motivated by the same ambition. But we do know that she is in a race to raise substantial amounts of money to mount an expensive political campaign to become mayor of New York City in the elections of 2013.
The Coälition For A New Village Hospital is based squarely within Speaker Quinn’s City Council district. The Coälition has been networking with various city and state politicians, to find a champion on the inside, who could launch an investigation into the finances and the mysterious closed-door meetings that lead to the closing of St. Vincent’s. The Coälition has also been working to feverishly prevent any change in zoning for the main buildings that served as home to St. Vincent’s, to preserve the existing infrastructure for any new hospital that would be interested in replacing St. Vincent’s. Remember that in about the course of one year, we heard Speaker Quinn change her tune from : « We are not going to fall for that bait-and-switch, » to : « As the sale of St. Vincent’s properties makes its way through bankruptcy court. » The community sees the writing on the wall. And right now, there is no full-service hospital in the entire West Side of Manhattan from Columbus Circle all the way down to Battery Park. And with the loss of St. Vincent’s Level 1 trauma center, all of Lower Manhattan is at risk should another terrorist attack again happen below 14th Street. Even if Speaker Quinn really, deep-down, believed that the Lower West Side needed a hospital, nobody but her and her political campaign know for sure if she is really fighting for one, or if she is just going through the motions, a political bluff known as astroturfing.
In numerous conversations with the residents of the Lower West Side of Manhattan, many people are beginning to hedge their bets. Others are saying that we need all hands on deck. They are looking to City Controller John Liu to launch an investigation into St. Vincent’s finances, in any jurisdictional capacity at his disposal. Residents are also looking to several Manhattan Community Boards, to help preserve the zoning on the former campus of St. Vincent’s. And in the last few weeks, one new ally has showed up on their radar, Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer. In his authority, President Stringer has broad zoning powers. According to the city’s website :
« The Borough President reviews all public and private land-use projects in Manhattan and can recommend approval or rejection of those projects. With an appointment to the City Planning Commission, the Borough President can also play a proactive role in shaping the future of development in Manhattan. Also, the Borough President appoints most members of Manhattan's Community Boards and then provides support and oversight to those boards as they make crucial decisions affecting zoning and permits. »
Do the liberal and progressive politics of Manhattan Borough President Stringer include a real sensibility for the spirit of Jane Jacobs' ethics about responsible urban planning to prevent community decay ?
At a February 16, 2011, meeting sponsored by the Coälition, Presdient Stringer spoke about the need for a full-service hospital in the area. By publicly throwing his hat into the ring of the fight for a new hospital, Mr. Stringer may have found a way to transform his political career. None of the often-touted, presumed 2013 mayoral candidates have yet to inspire a groundswell of grass-roots organisers to identify a clear early leader among the crowded field of Democratic candidates. As President Stringer prepares to launch his own mayoral bid, he could count on the support of a few hundred thousand New Yorkers, who live in the former St. Vincent's catchment area. He could also reasonably expect to count on the support of the teams of community organisers that are being developed by their participation in the Coälition. If President Stringer did find a way to enforceably preserve the zoning of the former St. Vincent’ campus, he would zone-block the biggest fear running through the community and the Coälition : the sale of St. Vincent’s properties currently making its way through bankruptcy court. The area that would most benefit from an enforceable zone-block would be a critical area of voters in Manhattan, which also happens to coïncide with what would be considered Speaker Quinn's strongest base of support, as she organises herself to run for mayor of New York in 2013. Not only would President Stringer win over a valuable new grass-roots organisation in Manhattan, but he would be undercutting Speaker Quinn’s base of support right in her very own City Council District. (One way for President Stringer to measure the likelihood that hospital closings will become a major mayoral campaign issue is if new threats arise that would affect hospital finances, or if neighborhoods outside of Manhattan begin to organise around this issue.)
President Stringer is an accomplished politician. His entry into politics was initially shaped by having served as a legislative assistant to Congressman Jerrold Nadler, back when the Congressman was an Assemblyman. Before he was elected to preside over the Borough of Manhattan, President Stringer served as an Assemblyman himself, representing the very seat once occupied by Congressman Nadler. A true Democrat, President Stringer has the support of progressive Democratic political clubs in New York City, among them the Jim Owles Liberal Democratic Club, named for the legendary gay activist Jim Owles. Like any elected politician, President Stinger has not been able to please all of his critics. But residents of the Lower West Side -- and beyond -- are turning to him for the opportunity that both see in each other : a way to legally preserve the zoning of the former St. Vincent’s buildings, as well as a way to elect a mayor, who could hear the calls from the community to reverse the spree of hospital closings and to put a stop to the irresponsible and systematic demolition of old New York. Already, the movement for a new Lower West Side hospital has attracted members or former members of major LGBT organizations such as ACT-UP and Queer Rising, among others, plus the conribution of activists outside of Manhattan. And the movement has also guaranteed the ascendancy of civil rights attorney Yetta Kurland as a respected community leader. Therefore, President Stringer is looking at the formation of an almost instant coälition of support for his mayoral candidacy, provided he delivered quickly on an enforceable zone-block to preserve the integrity of the St. Vincent’s properties, before the buildings are sold in bankruptcy court.
If President Stringer played by the normal cynical rules of New York City politics, he would be all talk and no action. But if he was ready for a game-changer, one that would transform him into an instant populist hero, he would call Speaker Quinn on what everybody sees as one of her two Achilles’ Heels : her St. Vincent’s astroturfing bluff. (Speaker Quinn's other Achilles' Heels are term limits and the slush fund scandal.) She says that she supports a new hospital, while, at the same time, she is taking tens of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from the very real estate industry that stand to make tens of millions, and possibly hundreds of millions in profits, from the demolition of the St. Vincent’s properties and the development of more glass and steel high-rise luxury condominiums in the heart of community where Jane Jacobs used to call home. And Speaker Quinn’s gamble is that she can get away with giving definitive non-answers when everybody in her very City Council District is longing for decisive leadership to restore a hospital at the former site of St. Vincent's.
Stringer Snipes at Quinn Over Budget Cuts
In the wake of the announcements that Mayor Michael Bloomberg plans to layoff 6,000 teachers, cut daycare and senior citizen centers, and cut the budgets of independently elected officials, like the offices of the public advocate and the borough presidents, politicians and community leaders are decrying the mayor's cuts as politically-motivated.
For example, The New York Post questions why Mayor Bloomberg is blaming Gov. Andrew Cuomo over the loss of $600 million in state funding. In an NY1 broadcast, the mayor even called Gov. Cuomo ignorant about the city's budget.
Meanwhile, in respect of the proposed budget cuts to the offices of the public advocate and borough presidents has outraged Scott Stringer, the Manhattan borough president.
“It is outrageous that we are part of this political budget dance that impacts our ability to do our job effectively,” Stringer said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal. “And both the mayor and the council leadership have been complicit in this attempt to silence independent elected officeholders by going after our budget.”
Mr. Stringer told The Journal that under the twin administrations of Mayor Bloomberg and City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, the annual process for setting the budgets for the borough presidents and the public advocate has become the “most politicized” in a generation.
Moreover, that the mayor seems obsessed with laying off public school teachers has worried others whether the mayor is, indeed, making biased budget cuts.
"His complete insistence on teacher layoffs seems bizarre to us at this point. We think it's more of a political game and scaring people," Michael Mulgrew, president of the United Federation of Teachers, told NY1 television, according to Yahoo! News.
Separately, proposed budget cuts to public libraries have triggered a backlash : is Mayor Bloomberg attacking freedom of expression, education, and access to information ?
In an apparent conflict of interest, Beth R. DeWoody, Madeleine R. Johnson, Eric C. Rudin, Jack Rudin, Katherine Rudin, and William C. Rudin each donated $4,950 to Christine Quinn's presumed 2013 mayoral campaign. During this time, the Rudin family has been trying to salvage a multi-million dollar real estate purchase of the buildings that belong to the bankruptcy estate of St. Vincent's Hospital. Since the Rudin family wants to build luxury high-rise condos on the site of St. Vincent's, do these large campaign donations explain why Speaker Quinn has done nothing to restore a hospital to the former St. Vincent's site ?
Last-minute deal saves Long Island College Hospital in Brooklyn. Can Staten Island continue to escape the spree of hospital closing ?
Gov. Andrew Cuomo has found enough state grant money to save Long Island College Hospital, NY1 reported. Because of the deal, 2,500 employees, who work at the Brooklyn hospital, will be able to keep their jobs.
In the time that Christine Quinn has been Speaker of the New York City Council, at least eight city hospitals have closed :
Last October, New York magazine published an exposé written by Mark Levine, which described the dangerous public health issues resulting from all the hospital closings.
"Last year, a pair of hospitals in Queens closed suddenly, just before the outbreak of H1N1, causing overflow conditions in the emergency rooms of nearby facilities, one of which set up a triage area on a loading dock."
In January, The New York Post has made a list of Bronx, Queens, and Brooklyn hospitals, which are in danger of closing, if New York State government makes major cuts in Medicaid funding :
Brooklyn:For more information, see : Governor's Medicaid cuts may kill 10 city hospitals.
Two Bronx hospitals are at risk of shutting down. Based on the spree other hospital closings, things don't look promising for public healthcare in the Bronx.
In the time that Christine Quinn has been Speaker of the New York City Council, at least eight city hospitals have closed :
Last October, New York magazine published an exposé written by Mark Levine, which described the dangerous public health issues resulting from all the hospital closings.
"Last year, a pair of hospitals in Queens closed suddenly, just before the outbreak of H1N1, causing overflow conditions in the emergency rooms of nearby facilities, one of which set up a triage area on a loading dock."
In January, The New York Post has made a list of Bronx hospitals, which are in danger of closing, if New York State government makes major cuts in Medicaid funding :
For more information, see : Governor's Medicaid cuts may kill 10 city hospitals.
UPDATED : Interfaith Medical Center plans to file for bankruptcy this week. (Revised : Sunday 02 Dec 2012 8:52 p.m.)
About ten months after Gov. Andrew Cuomo floated the idea of hospital closings to cut the New York State Medicaid budget, now comes an article in The New York Times that purports to portray Gov. Cuomo as a saviour of Brooklyn hospitals, but the reality is that he has been trying for years now to close safety net hospitals in Brooklyn in order to cut the state's healthcare budget : Seeking a Cure for Troubled Hospitals in Brooklyn
Long Island College Hospital in Brooklyn has been saved from closing ; it is expected to merge with SUNY Downstate Hospital.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo has found enough state grant money to save Long Island College Hospital, NY1 reported. Because of the deal, 2,500 employees, who work at the Brooklyn hospital, will be able to keep their jobs.
In the time that Christine Quinn has been Speaker of the New York City Council, at least eight city hospitals have closed :
Last October, New York magazine published an exposé written by Mark Levine, which described the dangerous public health issues resulting from all the hospital closings.
"Last year, a pair of hospitals in Queens closed suddenly, just before the outbreak of H1N1, causing overflow conditions in the emergency rooms of nearby facilities, one of which set up a triage area on a loading dock."
In January, The New York Post has made a list more Brooklyn hospitals, which are in danger of closing, if New York State government makes major cuts in Medicaid funding :
For more information, see : Governor's Medicaid cuts may kill 10 city hospitals.
Last-minute deal saves Long Island College Hospital in Brooklyn. But with more hospitals at risk of closing in Queens, public healthcare will only get worse.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo has found enough state grant money to save Long Island College Hospital, NY1 reported. Because of the deal, 2,500 employees, who work at the Brooklyn hospital, will be able to keep their jobs.
In the time that Christine Quinn has been Speaker of the New York City Council, at least eight city hospitals have closed :
"Last October, New York magazine published an exposé written by Mark Levine, which described the dangerous public health issues resulting from all the hospital closings.
Last year, a pair of hospitals in Queens closed suddenly, just before the outbreak of H1N1, causing overflow conditions in the emergency rooms of nearby facilities, one of which set up a triage area on a loading dock."
In January, The New York Post has made a list of more Queens hospitals, which are in danger of closing, if New York State government makes major cuts in Medicaid funding :
For more information, see : Governor's Medicaid cuts may kill 10 city hospitals.
The Ever-Decreasing Number of Full-Service Hospitals, Emergency Rooms, and Trauma Centers in All Five New York City Boroughs.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo has found enough state grant money to save Long Island College Hospital, NY1 reported. Because of the deal, 2,500 employees, who work at the Brooklyn hospital, will be able to keep their jobs.
In the time that Christine Quinn has been Speaker of the New York City Council, at least eight city hospitals have closed :
"Last October, New York magazine published an exposé written by Mark Levine, which described the dangerous public health issues resulting from all the hospital closings.
Last year, a pair of hospitals in Queens closed suddenly, just before the outbreak of H1N1, causing overflow conditions in the emergency rooms of nearby facilities, one of which set up a triage area on a loading dock."
In January, The New York Post has made a list of more hospitals, which are in danger of closing, if New York State government makes major cuts in Medicaid funding :
Brooklyn:For more information, see : Governor's Medicaid cuts may kill 10 city hospitals.
Why Are They Closing St. Vincent's Hospital ?
Four community activists were released from jail on Wednesday, following their arrest on Tuesday for having staged a sit-in at the former site of St. Vincent's Hospital, reported the Hedz-Up Report. Ms. Katz and the other activists were each charged with criminal trespass, but all they were trying to do was to bring a new hospital to the Lower West Side of Manhattan. Following is video of the a part of the press conference, where Evette Stark-Katz, one of the activists who was arrested, made a public statement.
Why Are They Closing St. Vincent's Hospital? (Pt. 18) - Arrest & Release (Clip 1) from g. sosa on Vimeo.
This morning, NYPD arrested four activists, who protested the closing of St. Vincent's Hospital. Politicians, on whose watch the hospital closed, remain at-large.
Watch a YouTube video of the protesters, as they were taken into police custody. While they were being put into the back of the police van, the activists shouted : "Land-lock St. Vincents ; Trauma 1 now !"
A group called Hands Off St. Vincent's held a sit-in Tuesday morning at the shuttered medical center. At approximately 10:30 a.m., four activists were arrested. It is not known how many other activists took part at the demonstration.
Among the protesters, who were arrested, were LGBT civil rights activists Iana Di Bona and Alan Bounville. Following is the statement from a press release, which was distributed to the media, by one of the group's members :
New York, NY – On February 8, at 10:30 am, four former patients and impassioned community members entered the building at the location of the closed down Saint Vincent's Hospital. These activists then sat on the ground, unfurling a banner that read, "Guilty : Neglect !" and began to chant - refusing to move. Saint Vincent's personnel closed off that section of the building - currently operating as a Credit Union - and refused entry to members of the credit union as well as persons employed within the building. Two hours after their arrival, the four activists were arrested and taken away by the police.
For 284 days, 1.3 million New Yorkers have been without a hospital in the West Village. Since St. Vincent’s illegal closure on April 30, 2010, the community has been laden with false promises, patronized with a bogus needs assessment and forced, with tragic consequences, to seek emergency or medical care at already overcrowded uptown or East-side hospitals.
“Everyday that passes is critical,” said Iana Di Bona, one of the arrested activists, “Our elected officials have the ability to turn things around, yet they do nothing. It is so important to speak out and to continue to pressure and hold them accountable to service the needs of our community.”
Commitment for a New Village Hospital by the people of the West Village and all of New York City has not wavered. Any politician not actively working to get a new hospital is a target. That is a promise the St. Vincent’s Hospital Community Activists intend to keep.
Before the sit-in took place, it appears that the activists held a "peoples trial" of politicians, on whose watch St. Vincent's closed. According to the description of the YouTube video, an unidentified Hands Off member made the following statement : "We hold the elected officials responsible for betraying their very own constituency."
On her blog, the artist and political commentator Suzannah B. Troy broke the news of the activists getting arrested at St. Vincent's. Ms. Troy made the observation that Mayor Michael Bloomberg and City Council Speaker Christine Quinn recently pushed through a new smoking ban in public parks as a sign of their concern for public health, but Ms. Troy questions their commitment if politicians have made no commitment to save city hospitals from closing.
Maybe after #OpEgypt and #OpItaly, we'll have #OpCityHall or #OpCityCouncil ?
After Mayor Michael Bloomberg insulted parents who heckled Chancellor Cathleen Black, Michael Mulgrew, president of the teachers union, compared Mayor with Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak, reported The New York Post.
Ms. Black's ''Awwwwwww'' moment came when she mocked parents, who were going to desperate measures to save several schools from closing, and her insensitive mocking and juvenile immaturity has inflamed the anger of parents and has shocked the conscious of even some school officials. In response to the despair of parents, Mayor Bloomberg has predictably unleashed a ridiculous backlash against Ms. Black's critics.
Mayor Bloomberg, who subverted a public referendum to run for a third term as mayor, went on to say that angry parents were acting unpatriotic. "This is not democracy -- letting people yell and scream. That's not freedom of expression," Mayor Bloomberg said. "That's just trying to take away somebody else's rights. And if we want to attract good people to come and work for the public, you don't do this."
Under his tight fist of ''mayoral control'' over the school system, Mayor Bloomberg wields totalitarian control over the Panel for Educational Policy, which votes to close schools ; the Panel operates under the appearance of independence, but in reality the Panel is ''entirely undemocratic'' and takes its ''marching orders only from Bloomberg,'' according to the Post Mr. Mulgrew noted that if the Panel doesn't vote the way that the Mayor wants, he retaliates against them. ''The last time they voted against him, he fired them,'' Mr. Mulgrew said.
Even The New York Times Agrees : the ''Fix'' Was In.
Meanwhile, at a meeting on Thursday night, where more schools were voted to be closed, City Councilmember Charles Barron said, “You will let us scream until we get hoarse, and then we know what will happen — you’ll shut all our schools down.”
''The closing of struggling schools has been a key piece of Mr. Bloomberg’s agenda, and his eight-person majority has stood behind him, phasing out more than 100 schools, often replacing them with small schools and charter schools,'' reported The Times.
Update on Christine Quinn
While Mayor Bloomberg spent the week closing schools, firing teachers, and getting rid of classrooms and school lunches, City Council Speaker Christine Quinn was using NYPD as enforcers against activists outside a fundraiser for her presumed candidacy for Mayor in 2013.
.gif)
