Results tagged “homelandsecuritysecretarymichaelchertoff”

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff announced New York City will receive $153 million - up from last year's $61 million - in transit security grants. Wow - all we can do is remember Chertoff's 2005 remark, when trying discussing how security funding would be allocated, "The truth of the matter is, a fully loaded airplane with jet fuel, a commercial airliner, has the capacity to kill 3,000 people. A bomb in a subway car may kill 30 people. When you start to think about your priorities, you're going to think about making sure you don't have a catastrophic thing first."

There was a suspicious package in Times Square this afternoon. The NYPD shut down Times Square briefly as they investigated the object at 42nd and 7th Avenue. And the package turned out to be a red backpack forgotten by its Brooklyn owner. D'oh!

Concerned about a reduction in federal anti-terrorism funds, governors Eliot Spitzer of New York and Jon Corzine of New Jersey held a press conference yesterday at the Hoboken Terminal to urge Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff to not reduce funds. Federal counter-terrorism aid to New York City decreased by almost half last year, while in New Jersey aid to six northern counties was increased but funding was slashed for the rest of the state.

Remember how this summer, the Department of Homeland Security reduced the amount of anti-terror funding NYC would get? Sure, NYC was still getting most of the funding, but funds were being increased in less risky areas with, well, influential politicians. And then the press had a field day with how Homeland Security didn't think there were any national monuments or major buildings at risk? And then Homeland Security claimed that NY State and NYC didn't file their request properly?

New York politicians on the Hill are doing their happy dance: The Department of Homeland Security will give $26 million in port funding for this year, which the NY Post reports is a 400% increase over last year's port funding. Remember how earlier this summer the DHS released it/s budget, and New York City's (and DC's funding) was cut by 40%? Granted, the overall DHS budget was lower, but when you drastically cut back on two big terror targets, people wonder what's going on.

- The DHS tried not to be political about things!Okay, many of these points are fair, but we do think that when the city pays about $10.9 billion more in federal taxes than we get back from federal spending, our agencies needs more resources. And Gothamist thinks it's totally fair for our politicians and newspapers to make a big deal about the cut in funding, as getting 40% less than last year (yes, yes, other cities are getting less) is news. If anything, Chertoff's duty as the Secretary of Homeland Security is to really convince the President of how important the funding is, and then have the President push his Republican-led Congress to help out Homeland Security initiatives more.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg said he spoke to Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff Thursday night and told him "for sure" that he disagreed with the urban area funding. On his radio show, the Mayor said, "I just think the ways they went about it was wrong. I think some factual things were wrong -- forget about the fact that they didn't have the right number of financial institutions or didn't know there were any significant targets in New York City -- just the quality of the report." (You can download an MP3 on the show here.) At any rate, Bloomberg and Chertoff plan to speak again on Monday, which makes Gothamist think some city staffers are working overtime this weekend.

The Department of Homeland Security cut the yearly antiterrorism budget for the "Urban Area Security Initiative" and New York and DC got the shaft, with their funds cut by 40%. New York City, which had received $207.6 million last year, will now get $124.5 million (DC went from $77.5 million to $46.5 million), while cities like Omaha, Louisville, Atlanta, and Jacksonville are getting more; ost notably, Jersey City/Newark got a 44% increase in funds, for a total of $34 million (probably for port security). Naturally, NY State politicians freaked out, with Representative Peter King calling this "a knife in the back to New York" and fuming, "They have cut $80 million in funding to NYC. Meanwhile, they gave a $21 million limousine contract to the company that was driving pimps and prostitutes around." Now, Gothamist understands that the overall budget was cut and the cities that had been getting lots of money before would take a hit. And, naturally, it's important to make sure cities like Chicago and LA gets the aid they need. But Omaha?

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff announced that a Homeland Security representative would be placed in New York in order for the police and feds to have "one voice." This move is seen as a way to address the should we freak out or not subway threat two weeks ago. Hmm, a couple months on the job and finally he realizes there needs a rep in one of the country's biggest possible terror targets - nice thinking! Chertoff will also place a representative in LA, but Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia, San Francisco - they just don't make the cut, probably because the DHS wants to control the media. Anyway, the Police Commissioner's statement makes us laugh:

"Certainly we welcome anybody here. We reserve the right to make a decision on deploying our resources to protect New York City. So I don't know about any sort of joint announcement. But we certainly welcome communication with Homeland Security - we need a strong relationship."

In other words, "Homeland Security rep, you're frozen out before you get here - we do it OUR way."

The MTA will be paying for the additional police presence in the subways, according to Mayor Bloomberg. Police overtime to put one police officer on every train is costing the city $1.9 million a week, and Bloomberg said, "Let me give some credit to the MTA. They're willing to do this. They have some money. The governor has pushed them," even though he hasn't been happy about the MTA's footdragging on spending security funds. During his weekly radio talk, Mayor Bloomberg also said he "couldn't disagree more" with Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff's decision to focus on securing airline travel. Many of our commenters have questioned our anger at Chertoff's remarks, and there were quite a few valid points, but Gothamist thinks that this quote from the NY Times' Sewell Chan's Week in Review piece (which is a helpful overview of mass transit security) sums it up:

The United States mass transit system also lacks the aviation system's built-in security: limited accessibility, a ticketing system that requires identification and a single governing agency, the Federal Aviation Administration. By contrast, the Federal Transit Administration has little say over security policies. That's left to the country's 6,000 mass transit agencies.

Of course, whether or not the cities want the feds meddling more is another issue, but federal funding would be critical. Newsday looks at transit security across the country in Chicago (security cameras on buses), San Francisco (no more garbage cans underground), DC (chemical sensors), and Atlanta (bombproof trash cans ever since the 1996 Olympics) - and how NYC compares. And the police are now patrolling Amtrak train cars as well. Isn't Amtrak federally funded? We hope there are some federal funds coming to pay for the security!