The City Council voted unanimously yesterday to do away with those despised shame stickers that city Sanitation enforcers slap on cars violating alternate-side street cleaning rules. The stickers were first introduced in the '80s and were inspired by a disgruntled property owner who got fed up with a car blocking his driveway and covered it with stickers. According to the Times, the Sanitation Commissioner noticed it, and soon the department's "scarlet letter stickers" were born. Sanitation insists they help keep the streets clear for the cleaning machines, but the City Council outlawed them anyway. more ›

Restaurateurs, the City Council feels your pain. Though the Department of Health's restaurant letter grade program has proved popular among consumers, many restaurateurs are still not loving it. Some are even taking pains to skirt DOH inspections. But don't worry, 2013 election-ready Speaker Christine Quinn and her Council hears the cry of the common cook and is doing something about it! Why, they've even set up an online survey! more ›

Yesterday, Councilman James Oddo shared the Independent Budget Office's breakdown of who exactly is the 1% in NYC, as well as who the 10% is and how much they contribute to the city's tax revenue. He explained to us that he wanted to cut through the rhetoric and get at the truth and found the data illuminating: "I represent a lot of people who are 10%, who make $105,000/year." more ›

Over the years, City Council Speaker Christine Quinn has come to be viewed by many New Yorkers as a pliant tool of the Bloomberg administration. But with an end to the Bloomberg era on the horizon, Quinn—a likely mayoral candidate—is eager to show some daylight between her and the billionaire plutocrat. To that end, the City Council will slap the Bloomberg administration with a lawsuit over a controversial policy requiring single homeless adults to prove they have nowhere else to stay before the city gives them shelter. more ›

Flanked by nearly a dozen other council members and his attorneys, City Councilmember Ydanis Rodriguez addressed a crowd atop the steps of City Hall this afternoon to share the details of his "improper arrest" during Occupy Wall Street's eviction from Zuccotti Park. "I have no problem participating in civil disobedience," said the councilman, "But this didn't have to happen to me and the nine reporters who were arrested. This was not an act of civil disobedience. My wife didn't want me to go and told me not to get arrested—we had a meeting at our daughter's school in the morning. I was not there trying to get arrested. I came to represent my community and to observe. It was my right and my obligation as a city official." more ›

Parking tickets are about to get 33 percent more expensive for a lot of drivers. Starting January 31, 2012, the city will be scrapping a popular program that would let motorists pay a reduced fine if they agreed not to fight their summons in court. The city expects to make roughly $50 million a year by nixing the program. That's more than diplomats owe in unpaid tickets! more ›

Bronx City Councilman Larry Seabrook was in federal court yesterday, as his corruption trial began. The first witness, who had donated tens of thousands to the Democrat, insisted the money wasn't in exchange for getting the job to make boilers for the new Yankee Stadium, "He never said give me money for the Yankee Stadium. It was never a, what do you call it? Quid pro quo." more ›

Queens city councilman Dan Halloran has allegedly been caught on tape berating the manager of an auto repair shop for not taking care of noise complaints the dealership has received. "He had anger in his eyes. He was standing a foot in front of me, pointing at me," manager Elliott Rothman told the Daily News. A video that the newspaper is selfishly not posting on the internet apparently shows Halloran saying, "I'll park every f*cking city agency down here for the rest of f*cking two years." Rothman adorably told the paper, "I couldn't believe this was a politican acting like that." more ›

Earlier this week we reported that a city councilman was going to attempt to make ticket buying more fan friendly. Yesterday morning, councilman Dan Garodnick held the first hearing on what we'll call, for now, The Radiohead Law (since that band's concerts in New York last month are what inspired him). He Tweeted from the hearing yesterday, "One witness talks about the difficulty of getting Knicks tickets. Knicks games these days are trying enough!" more ›

"The NYPD has been spying on entire neighborhoods based solely on who lives there and what their religious beliefs are,” Udi Ofer of the NYCLU said yesterday, just as NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly was grilled by City Council members during an "often adversarial" hearing. "We know the NYPD is watching us: the question is, who is watching the NYPD?" That's a good question! The City Council does not have the power to subpoena the NYPD for its intelligence records, and the Federal government—which has invested more than $1.6 billion in the NYPD since 9/11—has no authority to monitor its intelligence operations, either. Don't worry, it's the honor system! more ›

For the seventh time in four years Mayor Bloomberg has announced from upon high that city agencies must trim the fat off their books. Just like he did earlier this year, Bloomberg has declared that almost all city agencies need to cut off two percent of their budgets for this fiscal year, which ends June 30, 2012. Crazier, he expects them to trim an additional six percent next year. That should save about $500 million this year and $1.5 billion next year. So maybe now is not the time to quit your job to follow your dream of being a low-level city employee? more ›

City Councilman Jumaane Williams isn't the only City Councilperson to have a run in with the NYPD at a parade this year. Though his arrest at the West Indian Parade was definitely worse, what with the whole arrested thing, UWS Councilwoman Gale Brewer apparently had her own tough time with the police at the Gay Pride Parade this year, and she's decided to talk about it. Capital's Azi Paybarah got his hands on a scathing letter from Brewer to commissioner Ray Kelly in which she recounts her experience. Spoiler alert: She is not a fan of the NYPD these days! more ›

Yesterday the City Council held hearings on three new bills that would require the DOT to "present bike projects to community boards, coordinate with other agencies before implementation, and report back on the results," as Streetsblog puts it. The thing is, the DOT already does this: despite what the anti-cyclist reactionaries would have you believe, existing law already requires CB hearings prior to the installation of most bike lanes (yes, even the Prospect Park bike lane, which opponents falsely claim was rammed down Park Slope's throat). But cycling advocates fear one of the bills could tangle the city's robust bike lane expansion in red tape. more ›

City Council unanimously passed a proposal creating a Chinatown Business Improvement District yesterday. Building owners in the district will be responsible for paying a fee to fund street-cleaning, increased lighting and signage, and economic development for local businesses. more ›

As if those recession-era shrinking cereal boxes weren't enough of a hindrance to eating an affordable breakfast, the price of milk just refuses to go down. And it has nothing to do with those silly PMS ads. The Daily News today digs into the cost of leche and finds things looking pricey, with no good news on the horizon. Taking inflation into account, the average price of a half-gallon of milk has gone up 11 percent in the city since 2000—while it dipped 2.1 percent in urban areas nationally. more ›

There is no way this could go wrong, right? The Times tells us today that "Four City Council members, intrigued by experiments begun in Brazil to let ordinary citizens determine how government uses tax dollars, say they plan to allow their constituents to decide how $4 million is spent next year." Why is that when we read that all we could think was "Monorail?" more ›

Capitulating to pressure from City Council, the mayor's office and the DOT have agreed to hold public hearings regarding the new bike-share program before it is implemented. "No one is against bike-share—it's something that every major city across the world is adopting and bracing," councilmember Leroy Comrie tells the Times, "But what I don't want to see happen is a pattern develop, where City Hall finds ways to exclude Council from its natural role." Exactly, you want Council to be properly informed before making a huge decision of policy. more ›

Asked yesterday about the recent arrest of a City Councilman and a top aide to NYC's Public Advocate, Mayor Bloomberg tore a page from President Obama's playbook and urged the two sides to work it out over a beer. "The police have a job to do and the city councilman has a job to do, and hopefully, every once in a while, if there’s a misunderstanding, they have a beer together and work it out," Bloomberg told reporters yesterday. Unfortunately, Councilman Jumaane Williams doesn't drink—not even if Bloomberg fixes him one of his fancy Beers-on-the-Rocks! more ›

For years, a civil-rights group called the Sikh Coalition has been pressing the NYPD to allow Sikh police officers to grow beards and wear turbans while in uniform. Turbans are mandatory for Sikh men and considered a sacred raiment, but the NYPD only permits them to wear turbans under specific conditions, which the Sikh Coalition finds unacceptable. But today the City Council passed a bill that puts more pressure on employers—not just the NYPD—to allow their employees the freedom to follow their religious beliefs. more ›

For the past year, community leaders and concerned citizens have demonstrated and spoken out against Mayor Bloomberg's aggressive marijuana arrest policies, which has led to NYC becoming the low-level marijuana arrest capital of the world. Now, a group of City Council and Assembly members assembled outside of City Hall this morning to introduce a new resolution to try to curtail what they call the "racially biased, costly marijuana arrest crusade in NYC." more ›

The attendance records for the City Council's fiscal year 2011 have just been posted, and at least six Councilmembers have been summoned to the principal's office! Kidding, they can pound beer and smoke bowls in the City Council parking lot without consequence, and still rake in over $100K per year. Of course, they do have to take a little guff from tabloids like the NY Post, which gleefully reports that six "council members—who earn base salaries of $112,500 plus bonuses—missed at least 16 percent of their required meetings at City Hall." Drum roll, PLEASE! The six most-absent City Councilmembers (and their excuses) are: more ›

The City Council may be have been able to get a budget through on time this year, but not all of the Council can balance their own budgets new financial disclosure documents reveal. Jumaane Williams (D-Brooklyn), for instance, owes between $35,000 to $308,000 on seven credit cards thanks to a business in Park Slope that went bust while Councilman Michael Nelson (D-Brooklyn) owes $102,000 on four credit card, a number he tosses up to lavishing gifts on his late wife as she died of cancer. more ›

The next election is way off, but pols hungry to replace our diminutive billionaire mayor from Boston are already lining up to raise funds. And, with Anthony Weiner out of the picture, one candidate is distinctly leading the pack. City Council Speaker Christine Quinn raised $1.32 million dollars in the past six months, bringing her campaign's total to $4 million. more ›

The firehouses will not be closing. As part of the same City Council budget agreement that saved 4,100 teacher jobs the 20 fire companies that were being threatened with closure, including the Ghostbusters firehouse, have been saved. Protesting works! more ›

On Monday the City Council will debate new regulations that would require pedicab operators who charge a flat rate to disclose, in writing, how much they intend to charge for their service. One of the bill's main sponsors, Councilman Dan Garodnick (D-Manhattan), says the legislation is motivated in part by horror stories of tourists getting Shanghaied by pedicab drivers who take them for a ride in more ways than one. more ›