5:30 p.m. Real Estate Committee
7:30 p.m. Committee of the Whole
8:00 p.m. City Council Meeting
8:30 p.m. Budget Committee Meeting
Sunday, January 24, 2010
Saturday, January 16, 2010
Protecting Yonkers' Green Canopy
A growing number of citizens in Yonkers and across Westchester are speaking out about the wholesale cutting of trees by Con Ed and other entities such as the State Department of Transportation. Citizens are starting to organize to oppose this destruction and demand common sense management of our green canopy. Check out Peter Harrises' photos of tree cutting by the state DOT this past week http://deedsandleases.com/2010/01/12/the-daily-ramble-first-con-ed-now-the-city-of-yonkers-rips-down-trees-with-no-notice-to-residents/. Check out what others are doing to organize and get involved by visiting www.loraxwg.blogspot.com.
Thursday, January 14, 2010
GOVERNOR JOPLIN
“Freedoms just another word for nothing left to lose”. So sang the late Janis Joplin. So, apparently, believes the late David Patterson. With the luxury of a dying man…nothing left to lose…New York’s accidental governor recently proposed perhaps the boldest package of reforms the Empire state has ever seen from a major party incumbent.
From term limits to a comprehensive ethics reform proposal Patterson used last week’s State of the State address to take New York’s dysfunctional ruling class to task in a way that, were he currently competitive in his bid for a full term, he would likely have never dared. Regardless of his motivation, the Governor has given voice to the frustrations of taxpayers from Montauk to Buffalo and has proposed solutions that, boldly and properly implemented, can work.
Ironically, if the governor needs a template, he can find it in Yonkers, New York’s fourth largest city. I know, I know, “Yonkers, the city of hills where nothings on the level”. Topography aside, Yonkers is a city where comprehensive ethics reform and term limits are working and a city that perhaps, can be the laboratory for state-wide reform.
In 2005 Yonkers’ voters approved a comprehensive new ethics code, a code which I proposed during my first run for City Council two years earlier. At the time, the New York Times referred to the then City Ethics Board as “functionally dead” and praised our effort to replace it with “a new body with sharp teeth and a broad mission to investigate complaints, conduct its own inquiries and punish those who break the rules”.
Is it working? Yesterday, the same day the Governor gave his speech, a Councilwoman who only left office on December 31st was indicted by the Feds on thirteen separate counts that according to the U.S. Attorney’s press release boiled down to selling votes for cash and jewels. Though wide ranging, in part the indictment relied on her alleged failure to file proper and detailed disclosures mandated by the 2005 City Ethics Code. Unlike years past when the old Ethics Board did not even have enough members to constitute a quorum, the current Board meets and acts and, in concert with the City’s Inspector General, actually expects compliance with the Ethics Code. When the Council passes legislation requiring lobbyists to register with the City Clerk and disclose their client’s and their client’s business before the City, legislation I am presently co-sponsoring with Councilwoman Joan Gronowski, the Ethics Board will have yet another weapon at its disposal.
Similarly, the indicted Councilwoman left office not by choice, but because Yonkers, after the Bloomberg coup, remains the only city in New York State which term limits all of its elected officials. After eight years you’re up or out. So far term limits have retired one Mayor and about a half dozen long time legislators. This in a City where a father and two brothers from a single family have held, variously its County Legislative, State Senate and Assembly seat since the early seventies and still hold the Assembly seat today, nearly forty years later. Were other levels of government operating with the same limits Yonkers imposes, such secure cinctures would be a thing of the past.
Most recently, in November 2009, three Councilmembers were forced to step aside by term limits. Fully eight different citizens put themselves forward to fill the open seats. Of those who were eventually nominated, the voters elected a retired I.B.M executive, a retired telecommunications executive who recently completed a Masters in Education and an immigrant from the Dominican Republic who arrived in Yonkers some thirty years ago, put himself through college, and went on to build a local real estate and restaurant business.
A system as broken as New York’s will not surrender to a quick fix and it remains to be seen if the Governor means business. Nevertheless, the Governor’s broad proposals are the right ones, he is giving voice to the legitimate anger of every hardworking taxpayer and, with the right support, can change Albany and, perhaps, even the outcome of the next election.
From term limits to a comprehensive ethics reform proposal Patterson used last week’s State of the State address to take New York’s dysfunctional ruling class to task in a way that, were he currently competitive in his bid for a full term, he would likely have never dared. Regardless of his motivation, the Governor has given voice to the frustrations of taxpayers from Montauk to Buffalo and has proposed solutions that, boldly and properly implemented, can work.
Ironically, if the governor needs a template, he can find it in Yonkers, New York’s fourth largest city. I know, I know, “Yonkers, the city of hills where nothings on the level”. Topography aside, Yonkers is a city where comprehensive ethics reform and term limits are working and a city that perhaps, can be the laboratory for state-wide reform.
In 2005 Yonkers’ voters approved a comprehensive new ethics code, a code which I proposed during my first run for City Council two years earlier. At the time, the New York Times referred to the then City Ethics Board as “functionally dead” and praised our effort to replace it with “a new body with sharp teeth and a broad mission to investigate complaints, conduct its own inquiries and punish those who break the rules”.
Is it working? Yesterday, the same day the Governor gave his speech, a Councilwoman who only left office on December 31st was indicted by the Feds on thirteen separate counts that according to the U.S. Attorney’s press release boiled down to selling votes for cash and jewels. Though wide ranging, in part the indictment relied on her alleged failure to file proper and detailed disclosures mandated by the 2005 City Ethics Code. Unlike years past when the old Ethics Board did not even have enough members to constitute a quorum, the current Board meets and acts and, in concert with the City’s Inspector General, actually expects compliance with the Ethics Code. When the Council passes legislation requiring lobbyists to register with the City Clerk and disclose their client’s and their client’s business before the City, legislation I am presently co-sponsoring with Councilwoman Joan Gronowski, the Ethics Board will have yet another weapon at its disposal.
Similarly, the indicted Councilwoman left office not by choice, but because Yonkers, after the Bloomberg coup, remains the only city in New York State which term limits all of its elected officials. After eight years you’re up or out. So far term limits have retired one Mayor and about a half dozen long time legislators. This in a City where a father and two brothers from a single family have held, variously its County Legislative, State Senate and Assembly seat since the early seventies and still hold the Assembly seat today, nearly forty years later. Were other levels of government operating with the same limits Yonkers imposes, such secure cinctures would be a thing of the past.
Most recently, in November 2009, three Councilmembers were forced to step aside by term limits. Fully eight different citizens put themselves forward to fill the open seats. Of those who were eventually nominated, the voters elected a retired I.B.M executive, a retired telecommunications executive who recently completed a Masters in Education and an immigrant from the Dominican Republic who arrived in Yonkers some thirty years ago, put himself through college, and went on to build a local real estate and restaurant business.
A system as broken as New York’s will not surrender to a quick fix and it remains to be seen if the Governor means business. Nevertheless, the Governor’s broad proposals are the right ones, he is giving voice to the legitimate anger of every hardworking taxpayer and, with the right support, can change Albany and, perhaps, even the outcome of the next election.
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