MESSAGE
| DATE | 2008-04-14 |
| FROM | Ruben Safir
|
| SUBJECT | Subject: [NYLXS - HANGOUT] Regionalism and Your Representitives
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“There is a Region and things should be planned according to it's
needsâ€
There is it. That's the dirty mantra tossed out by every crooked
politician and suburban legislator or Manhattan business interest for
the last 50 years when they want to strip some essential element of
city interests for their own political goals. Over time it's left the
city with vast tracks of undeserved population to wallow in the back
waters of the city's political economy. Whether it was a decision to
rip Red Hook in half, trample over Williamsburg, strip mine through the
Bronx in order to build out mega highways to the suburbs, or to defund
public schools, leave CUNY in shambles, allow the Subway to become a rat
infested homeless shelter or to bankrupt the city government, it's always
done on the back of “regionalismâ€, driven by segregated white flight
at great expense to the surrounding natural environment from the foot
hills of the Catskills Mountains down to Asbury Park, which New York
depends on for basic water and air. And now that all that tearing,
and digging has resulted in clogged streets, and an traffic, Manhattan
doesn't like it's sister counties in this Greater City of New York.
After forcefully repressing the development of downtown Brooklyn and
the Brooklyn Waterfront for decades, Manhattan residents have decided
that they have too much of a good thing, and they want the cars out.
Furthermore, they don't want any darn cars from Harlem, the Bronx,
Corona and Bed-Sty cruising their streets, especially on the upper
east side. And it's been a thorn in the side of this Manhattan mayor
that the bridges that bind this city together a a unit is actually free.
So he travels the world to find cities like London, which is completely
different than New York geographically, politically and financially, and
brings a bunch of top notch “regional planners†with him to discover
the wonders of “Congestion Pricingâ€. Gee, this is great, it solves
two problems at once. First, it discourages all those Brooklyn people
from entering any part of New York south of the Bronx, and secondly it
solves the tax problem he faces in having to maintain the most essential
infrastructure of the city.
And it's an easy sell, right? First of all, the 'burbs, except
Westchester are largely paying tolls already. Ooops. Maybe Westchester
won't complain to much. Secondly, he has a city council full of wantabe
state elected officials facing term limits. So they are easy targets to
roll them over with minor personal investments to their future campaign
contributions for higher offices, while seeding Pork as needed all around
the boroughs.
The Bronx is a particularly easy political target. Probably the poorest
of the city's disenfranchised Boroughs with a sleepy electorate, with the
smallest working class, and facing no tolled bridges for the majority of
city access, and what working class it has segregated purposefully from
subway access, needing only inexpensive bus routes, not to mention daycare
centers, shelters and the like, Bronx council members are easy pickings.
They are brought off one by one. Manhattan obviously falls in line.
That leaves a minimal amount of Brooklyn and Queens which both become
geographically isolated be the plan from the rest of the city.
Now, mind you, the Mayor could have taken the whole case to Albany
to bare a financial burden on the suburbs through tolls on the Queens
Nassau board and a push to raise rush hour tolls on the Hudson crossings.
But this Mayor is nothing if not stupid and knows full well he'd be
laughed out of both Trenton and Albany. So at this juncture, using the
ole rape the city by attacking the outer boroughs is looking pretty sweet.
In a city council that almost always acts as a rubber stamp for the
Mayor, the battle in the city council drops to historical low approval
this plan. Even with the pork flying in every direction. He buys off
Kendall Stewart, of Cafe Omar fame, easly enough. Two weeks before
meeting the Mayor for a dinner on the subject he was to say he would
vote against it because “people from New Jersey must pay, too.†And
he called residential parking permits “another tax as far as I’mâ€.
After meeting with the Mayor and facing term limits this year, he turns
around and votes yes. Perhaps the shooting in his bar and the increased
city investigations into his private life miight have had something to
do with it. Simcha Felder was promised more housing for the Yeshiva
community in Boro Park, and gained concessions with regard to his
cherished charities which run between the lower east side and Brooklyn
all the time. Nearly every major political power in Boro Park involves a
legal and religious charity, virtually exempting the community from that
tax. Yasskey survived redistricting in a tight election almost solely
based on Bloomberg support. Even when the FDR was pulled out from under
the exemptions for the plan, he supported if lifeline to public office.
And so on went the council and yet still the tax lost in Queen and
Brooklyn which bore the brunt of this plan. And it wasn't untrue when
councilman Lew Fidler said “City Hall offered more in goodies this
week to get this tax passed than the federal government is giving us to
do it,†And yet Brooklyn couldn't keep access to the FDR because as
Yasskey describes it, it would cost too much to put cameras on those half
dozen entrances around downtown and midtown. But every Avenue around
Central Park could be monitored without a problem. Sara Gonzalez, got
a promise of a new ferry line for Sunset Park, while the current one
was hardly used. Coney Island was also offered a new ferry.
Once it gets to Albany, all the pork ends. While Bloomberg campain
contributions reach the Senate republicans, they still can't get enough
votes to back the plan, even from within the city, and certainly not from
the suburbs. In the assembly the most vocal opponents prove to come from,
surprise, Weschester, the only 'burb like Brooklyn and Queens which would
have to face the new tax. It's embarrassing that the obvious needs to be
stated from Westchester Assemblyman Richard Brodsky who told the Mayor,
“it unfairly discriminates against New Yorkers who can't afford the
$8 tax adding to the gentrification of the city. Access to things that
are traditional New York City are being handed out on a class basis,"
Gee, yah think? Maybe we should incorporate Yonkers and Westchester.
Then there is the threat to be sued by Corzine. Clearly the Emperor
had no clothes and it took politicians beyond the ability to be bribed
to end the “regional†rape of the city.
The fact is, there is no “regionâ€. Bloomberg's ego might tell
him he's Mayor of 12 counties and 3 states, but that's not what he is
in charge of. He was elected Mayor of the five Boroughs of the City
of New York. He's not the damn Mayor of Rockland County, or Merrick
or Chatham. He represents the interests of the City and he's doing a
damn poor job of it. He's been living this fantasy now for way too long,
sleeping with the MTA most evidently when goated the Transit Workers to
go on strike, burying the Boroughs while riding his ego with taunts from
the sidelines. you didn't see Rudy do that when faced with nearly the
same exact threat. He has never proposed proper supervision of the MTA.
He went along with the Port Authority to rip up all the trains in lower
Manhattan to give us an over budget empty whole all along Fulton street.
He called the WTC a giant vacuum on Manhattan's real estate market for
decades while playing with the Port Authority in delaying rebuilding.
Perhaps the fact that he built an 80 story skyscraper in Midtown on 59th
street affected his judgment.
Never once had he proposed a congestion scheme that would put the burden
on suburban drivers, the source of all those new cars driving through
his beloved upper east side. He never suggested that the Mass Transit
Plan which he's laying out might be worth city and state budgeting even
without the East River Crossing tax which would burden almost exclusively
Brooklyn and Queens. He never points out the hypocrisy of NYPIRG
Representative Gene Russianoff, who claims that residential parking
is needed in Park Slope because of all the congestion that driving in
circles causes there, but then talks about making it harder to find
parking in Manhattan, because in his twisted mind, driving in circles
in Manhattan doesn't contribute to congestion, it discourages it.
In fact, this Mayor and his cronies have sold the city out for
“regionalismâ€. Like crime and litter in former years, nothing
can be done. Docks can't work. Trains can't be ridden of homeless,
the World Trade Center can't be built, the economy can't be diversified
... it's all a regional thing....
Not a single politician that ran for office was elected to run this
region. If Jersey City can build out 80 story office towers with
efficient Mass Transit, so can Brooklyn. Wake up. It's not the role
of this city to tax it's citizen and to play class warfare so that
Jersey Drivers can have less congestion in this region. It's been
known since the last debt for the MTA was approved over the city's
rejection of it in referendum that barring a clean up of the MTA, more
physical responsibility by the agency, and only THEN more funding by
the state that, forget ferries, the current system even without the
2nd avenue subway (a train to nowhere I might add) would need to raise
fares about $2.50 and by some estimates up to $4.00 a ride. Let him go
and represent us and let him respect us by getting this done in Albany
instead of wasting valuable political capital on a travel tax that would
screw this city over, and every last one of us in Brooklyn and Queens.
For once, regionalism should mean that the suburbs can leave their cars
at home and help fund us, instead of the other way around.
--
http://www.mrbrklyn.com - Interesting Stuff
http://www.nylxs.com - Leadership Development in Free Software
So many immigrant groups have swept through our town that Brooklyn, like Atlantis, reaches mythological proportions in the mind of the world - RI Safir 1998
http://fairuse.nylxs.com DRM is THEFT - We are the STAKEHOLDERS - RI Safir 2002
"Yeah - I write Free Software...so SUE ME"
"The tremendous problem we face is that we are becoming sharecroppers to our own cultural heritage -- we need the ability to participate in our own society."
"> I'm an engineer. I choose the best tool for the job, politics be damned.<
You must be a stupid engineer then, because politcs and technology have been attached at the hip since the 1st dynasty in Ancient Egypt. I guess you missed that one."
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