Results tagged “comptrollerbillthompson”

The Bloomberg camp is hoping some offensive remarks made by a disgruntled restaurateur about Council Speaker Christine Quinn will do some damage to city Comptroller Bill Thompson, a mayoral hopeful. Thompson—not Quinn—was present during an intimate meeting with small business owners at a Village restaurant on Wednesday morning. According to audiotape provided by the Bloomberg campaign to Politicker, Sean Kavanagh-Dowsett, the co-owner of the restaurant Tea and Sympathy, called Quinn "a whore, and you can quote me on that!" Okay! And during the ensuing laughter, Kavanagh-Dowsett added, "I'll drop my trousers, and she can kiss my ass." The tape does not record Thompson saying anything to denounce the remarks, and one witness tells the Post that "Thompson laughed with discomfort and shook his head while looking at an aide, and covered his ears for a brief moment." Kavanagh-Dowsett insists he won't apologize because he thinks Quinn, who works closely with Bloomberg, is anti-small business (and pro-prostitution?). Thompson's campaign issued a statement saying, "Bill has great respect for Speaker Quinn and believes the comments made yesterday—at a forum open to the public—were inappropriate and offensive."

The Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DOHMH) fell far short of its mandate to inspect all NYC restaurants in Fiscal Year 2008, according to an audit by city Comptroller William Thompson, Jr. The report also finds that the agency has not been following up fast enough with restaurants that have failed inspections to ensure that health code violations are being remedied. In a statement, Thompson said that "in one instance, a restaurant was allowed to remain open even after four failed inspections, two of which detected mice. It is important to ensure that compliance inspections are performed timely. Otherwise, the danger that food-borne illness could occur as a result of unsanitary conditions being allowed to continue is increased." The audit calculates that of the 19,321 restaurants with permits in FY08, 4,267 (22%) were never inspected. A spokesman for the health department admitted to City Room that it was an off year, with inspectors getting around to only 80.1% of NYC restaurants. But the DOHMH insists it's on target to inspect 99% this year, and in 2010 restaurants will have to start posting those letter grades.

Consider this a warm-up to the election! Yesterday, City Comptroller Bill Thompson accused the Department of Education of inflating graduation stats. His audit noted, "The permanent records of one out of every 10 graduated students sampled did not indicate that graduation requirements had been met," (90,000 students between 2003 and 2007 were in the sample) and "Schools routinely awarded students multiple credits for passing the same course two or more times."