Following some video hijinks involving Ed Koch and turtle-esque jiggling, Mayor Bloomberg got down to business delivering his 11th annual "State Of The City" speech in the Bronx today. Besides serving as a kind of summary of his achievements in office as well as a glimpse at what he'd like his legacy to be, Bloomberg's speech most notably touched on a plan to shake up the school system by offering monetary incentives to high-performing teachers while booting the worst ones: "We need to be able to identify those ineffective teachers and give them the support they need to grow," he said. "And if that doesn’t work, we need to be able to move them out."
In "State Of The City," Bloomberg Vows To Boot Bad Teachers
1,600 Wall Street Jobs Head To Jersey City
Many of the Depository Trust and Clearing Corp.'s employees will have to leave their 55 Water Street offices, because the company has agreed to move 1,600 jobs to Jersey City. Of course, those employees won't need to pack up that soon—the move is planned for 2013.
"Health" Department Gives Out Free Fast Food Coupons
Since 1993, the city's Health Department has been giving out fast food restaurant coupons to TB patients, as an incentive to get them to return to clinics for six-month treatment programs. It's a bit awkward, because this is the same Health Department that's launched an aggressive, multi-pronged public health campaign to educate consumers about junk food. Start the countdown for the first lawsuit from a TB patient who contracts diabetes!
New Incentives for Hybrid Cab Fleets
In a continuing effort to get the Taxi and Limousine Commission to turn green a little faster, the Bloomberg administration announced a new set of incentives for fleet owners with hybrid or other low-emission vehicles, the NY Times reports. Starting May 1st, taxi fleet owners can charge drivers $3 more per 12-hour shift for hybrid or clean diesel cabs. They will also be able to "penalize fleet owners by lowering the amount they can charge to lease cabs that use more fuel and pollute more, like the Ford Crown Victoria, the most common type of taxi." The new rule will decrease that charge by $4 per shift. While it would ultimately clean and green the streets of NYC, there are some opponents. A spokesman for the Metropolitan Taxicab Board of Trade called the plan "unconscionable," saying fleet owners bought their vehicles under the former lease cap. Currently of the 13,237 cabs in New York City, there are 2,019 hybrids and 12 clean diesel vehicles.

