With the CityTime scandal slowly being sorted out, Comptroller John Liu wouldn't want you to think that Mayor Bloomberg's administration wasn't finding other ways to hand over your tax dollars to overzealous, under-supervised contractors. Not when the city's already messy Emergency Communications Transformation Program (ECTP), meant to update our 911 system, continues to bleed money. Seriously, the project is now projected to be seven years late and a billion over budget. more ›

The Independent Budget Office issued a report noting that the number of homeless families has stayed about the same, comparing this past March with 2004 when Mayor Bloomberg promised to reduce homelessness by two-thirds in 2009, even as investment in homeless services has increased by 20%. This suggests Bloomberg is "falling way behind his goals." City Councilman Bill DeBlasio, who commissioned the report, says it's a "wakeup call." The Coalition for the Homeless has questioned whether the Bloomberg administration has addressed homelessness adequately (there was that recent NY magazine article that said it's the Bloomberg administration's "single biggest failure"), but Bloomberg said his administration is trying every day. more ›

If you think 911 is a joke, things may improve by 2009 if everything goes as planned. The Bloomberg Administration has unveiled a $1.5 billion plan to improve the emergency call system with a backup center and consolidation of 911 operators and dispatchers in two call centers. The city has previously attempted to overhaul the 911 system but delays and budget problems scuttled the plans. The current system has had its problems, shutting down four times in 1999 (including one 67 minute span) and for two hours in parts of Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island in 2004. more ›

Last night's Department of Transportation presentation to Park Slope's Community Board 6 brought out hundreds of residents. Streetsblog has excellent coverage, noting that CB6 rejected the plan to turn Sixth and Seventh Avenues into one-way streets and residents want comprehensive planning, versus "secretive, top-down, traffic engineer-driven planning." Streetsblog also has a bootlegged copy of the presentation that lacks many details.

In this plan you will find nothing about traffic calming, pedestrian counts the numerous activities that take place on the streetscape beyond the movement and storage of motor vehicles. You will find no attempt to measure street performance and neighborhood impact beyond the counting of cars and trucks. You will find no discussion of the transformative development curently underway in and around Downtown Brooklyn and the goals of the Bloomberg Administration's Long-Term Planning and Sustainability initiative. And if you are looking for any response to long-standing community concerns or acknowledgement of the forward-thinking, pro-active planning that our community has undertaken over the last couple of years, you won't find that either. All you will find here is a traffic engineer's monomaniacal focus on moving motor vehicles through a dense urban environment.

This morning, the NY Times takes a look at the Mayor's $7.5 billion affordable housing plan four years since he announced it and one year since he expanded it to 165,000 units of low- to moderate-cost housing. About one third of the projected units, or 55,000, have been financed to date, and 41,366 have been completed. more ›

Elana Levin, Community Organizer & Williamsburg Warrior more ›