Results tagged “mayormichael”

Yesterday Forbes magazine, in their annual ranking of the rich, declared New York City is no longer the billionaire capital of the world. Where have all the dollar signs gone? To Moscow, of course, who beat us out by 3 billionaires (they have 74 to our 71).

Ending months of speculation, Mayor Michael Bloomberg confirmed he will not run for president in the 2008 election. And he did it with an op-ed in the NY Times, titled, "I'm Not Running for President, but..."

It's Mike and Arnie, together again! The Time magazine co-cover pols, Mayor Michael Bloomberg and California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, made a Los Angeles appearance with Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell to announce the creation of a "nonpartisan organization that will advocate for more, and smarter, federal spending on infrastructure." The Mayor and maybe presidential candidate slammed the government, referenced the New Deal and more. Some of his statements:

In politics, winning elections and protecting a party majority is more important than solving problems and so short-term pork invariably wins over long-term investing and special interests win over the rest of us...

Continue reading "Infrastructure is Sexy to Mayor Bloomberg"

Mayor Michael Bloomberg spent yesterday in Oklahoma, discussing the state of politics today at a bipartisan political forum at the University of Oklahoma. Bloomberg lamented the way things are going these days:

Government is dysfunctional. There is no collaboration and congeniality. There is no working together. No 'let's do what's right for this country.' I think there is no accountability today. Nobody is holding themselves accountable and to the standards of what they promised when they ran for office. And I think lastly, there is no willingness to focus on big ideas."

The most famous undeclared presidential candidate, our very own Mayor Michael Bloomberg, has weighed in about the Iowa caucus results. Okay, so Mayor Bloomberg claims he's not running for president, but when you swipe at the actual candidates, have a staff that's investigating the possibility of running a campaign, and have a billion dollars to spare...

Last year we "oohed" and "ahhed" at Prospect Park in Lights, and as of last night -- the seasonal luminescence is back. And this year, even the pink lights are "green":Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg tonight flipped the switch on a holiday lighting installation at Grand Army Plaza in Prospect Park. LEDs, energy-efficient and long-lasting lights that are environmentally friendly, are being used to illuminate the Bailey Fountain and a tree underneath the Sailors and...

City Schools Chancellor Joel Klein characterized last year's assessment test scores as "good," but critics say that they represent a lack of progress and a failure of Mayor Bloomberg's efforts to reform city schools. City kids' scores stayed flat on national assessment exams in math and reading, with a slight improvement in 4th graders' math scores and a drop in 8th graders' reading scores. "New York City’s eighth graders have made no significant progress in...

Mayor Michael Bloomberg hasn't totally eschewed the Republican party. According to the NY Sun, the Democrat-turned- Republican-turned- independent will be "entertaining" Nancy Reagan "as well as hosting a fund-raiser for the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library." Like the former First Lady, Bloomberg has progressive views on health and science issues (like stem cells). And Bloomberg has been known to host many fund-raisers for various people and causes. But some suspect that Bloomberg might be looking for...

It's finally come to this. The lights of the Great White Way have gone dark in a dispute between the theater stagehands of Local One and producers and theater owners. The labor dispute which has been simmering for months and left the stagehands without a contract for an equal time, resulted in a shutdown of Broadway shows on the verge of the theater district's most profitable season. The stalemate came to to a head after...

Mayor Michael Bloomberg was in Seattle yesterday to give a keynote at the United States Conference of Mayors. The Mayor, aka Mr. "I'm not running for president in 2008" Bloomberg, discussed NYC's efforts to be more sustainable and how governments need to invest and innovate to encourage energy efficiency. And one of the innovations would be to introduce pollution pricing. He said:

we have to stop ignoring the laws of economics. As long as greenhouse gas pollution is free, it will be abundant. If we want to reduce it, there has to be a cost for producing it. The voluntary targets suggested by President Bush would be like voluntary speed limits - doomed to fail. If we're serious about climate change, the question is not whether we should put a value on greenhouse gas pollution, but how we should do it.

Fridays are bustling on 34th Street, but yesterday was a little different. Billionaire Mayor Michael Bloomberg was spotted with billionaire developer Donald J. Trump and his three adult children, Donald Jr., Ivanka, and Eric. What were they doing? Walking, talking, and eating hot dogs. Or at least Mayor Bloomberg was eating a hot dog - he loves hot dogs and they love him!

Mayor Michael Bloomberg's civilian life got a jolt: His company, Bloomberg L.P., was sued by the Equal Opportunity Employment Commission for "a pattern or practice of demoting and reducing the pay of female employees after they announced their pregnancies and after they took maternity leave."

This Sunday Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, the Metropolitan Opera, and New York City Opera will hold A Tribute to Beverly Sills. The event is open to the public, free, and will be dedicated to the sopranos life -- which ended in July.

Just in time for the sixth anniversary of the September 11 attacks, Mayor Bloomberg announced the launch of a new World Trade Center health website, to provide "one-stop shopping for 9/11 health-related issues," making it the single source everyone can go to. What might you be shopping for? Well, there's information about research and services as well as "easily accessible research findings." And there's also information about treatment options for different groups of people, such as rescue and recovery workers, residents, children, city employees and others. You can see the site here.

Dan Rather may have retired from the CBS Evening News, but he's still breaking stories while at HDNet. On his upcoming Thursday night Dan Rather Reports, he will air an "rare sit-down interview" with Mayor Michael Bloomberg, where Bloomberg makes it "categorically clear that he will not run for President of the United States, nor will he seek a Vice Presidential bid nor any cabinet position for that matter, something he's never done before." Wow, we think we just heard candidates from both the Democratic and Republican parties sigh with relief!

Possibly on a Brooklyn-bound F train: Mayor Michael Bloomberg. The Mayor's "bullpen-style" offices need some new paint, a new carpet and a few other fixes, so Bloomberg and his staffers are temporarily relocating to work out of the Office of Emergency Management headquarters in Brooklyn on Cadman Plaza East. The Mayor explained, “Somebody’s going to kill themselves with all of the rips in the carpet." Nice to know that he's concerned with personal injury lawsuits against the city from its employees!

Well, there's nothing like having a barely-one-hour blackout on a sultry weekday to make you consider stocking up on flashlights, batteries, water, and maybe a Go Bag. Con Ed is still investigating the cause of yesterday's brief power failure to parts of the Bronx and Manhattan; Newsday reported "the blackout was caused when breakers opened at an Astoria substation and cut off power to stations servicing Yorkville and parts of the Bronx." It's unclear why the breakers were opened in the first place.

We've had half a day to absorb the news, but it's still kind of crazy that Mayor Michael Bloomberg decided to drop his 6-years-old Republican coat for an unaffiliated one. Here's his official statement:

“I have filed papers with the New York City Board of Elections to change my status as a voter and register as unaffiliated with any political party. Although my plans for the future haven’t changed, I believe this brings my affiliation into alignment with how I have led and will continue to lead our City.

Continue reading "Michael Bloomberg, the Ulitmate Party Hopper"

Our lovable, pragmatic mayor is now officially an independent-- many feel that this is a first step to a third-party run for president. CBS reports:

If the report released yesterday by the city's Independent Budget Office is true, it could get a lot more expensive to ride the MTA subways and buses in the future. The IBO believes that the MTA has to increase its revenues by 20% by 2010. That means subway and bus fares could go up at least 20% by 2010, making a single ride $2.40. The worst case scenario - where rates for other revenue sources are not increased - has subway and bus fares jumping to almost $3. The price of a monthly metrocard would would jump from $76 to $112. A weekly card would go from $24 to $36. The last increase in fares was in 2004.

Yesterday, Mayor Bloomberg traveled back to his Massachusetts roots and gave the commencement speech at Tufts University. Bloomberg, who grew up in Medford, name checked various haunts in the hood, tried to seem with it by mentioning Busta Rhymes, Ali G, and Salma Hayek, and reminded kids to call their mother. He also discussed free speech, in what the Sun called a nod to the Minutemen incident at Columbia:

The fourth lesson is, in the words of Ali G, 'Respect.' Don't worry, I'm not going to start quoting Borat. Respect is so important - especially in times of conflict. You all know what I'm talking about. In December, The Primary Source printed some things that much of this community ardently disagreed with - that many considered quite offensive. But instead of suppressing the publication - and despite the emotion of the moment - you respected their right to express themselves.

Continue reading "Bloomberg on Mom, Sports, and Respeck"

Time announced its second Time 100 list of influential people. (For whatever reason, Time doesn't provide a full list with separate links to all the influentials, so here's a list from FishbowlNY.) Based on our reading, the New Yorkers (and we're including some people who live in Westchester, but work in the city) who made the list include 30 Rock's Tina Fey, subway superhero Wesley Autrey, Senator Hillary Clinton, banker Stephen Schwartzman, director Martin Scorsese, Yankees pitcher Chien-Ming Wang, actress-comedian-talk show host Rosie O'Donnell, the American Museum of Natural History's Neil DeGrasse Tyson, actor and stem cell research advocate Michael J. Fox, and Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who appears in the upper right corner of the cover.

When NJ Governor Jon Corzine was critically injured in a car accident two weeks ago, a commenter wrote, "Obviously, God wants Codey to be governor," referring to Richard Codey, the NJ Senate majority leader (pictured) who has served as acting governor under the three past NJ governors. And, apparently, so does Corzine himself: The NY Times has an article about how Corzine was often not in NJ before being injured.:

In the 450 days between his inauguration and his accident, Mr. Corzine notified Mr. Codey that he would be away for all or part of 111 days, and would sleep out of state on 77 nights...

Continue reading "Corzine Just Not In NJ So Much"

What'll it take to make Mayor Michael Bloomberg run for President next year? According to a former adviser, candidates who are either very conservative (like Mitt Romey) or very liberal (like John Edwards) will make the infamous Democrat-turned-Republican consider putting his billions behind a presidential campaign. Esther Fuchs, who served during Bloomberg's first term, said Mayor Mike is "80% probable" to run. So, that's like all of him, except his head?

Federal Judge Charles S. Haight Jr. banned the police's ability to routinely videotape demonstrations yesterday. Haight found the NYPD violated Handschu v. Special Services Division, a 1971 decision that established "consent decree"; Haight wrote in his decision, "Solely politically based investigations are flatly prohibited by the guidelines. In other words, there must always be a legitimate law enforcement purpose - having a purpose of investigating political activity exclusively for its own sake is never allowed." In other words, just because it's a demonstration doesn't mean it has to be videotaped.

Today, there's a fascinating Op-Ed by Robert Sullivan about the state of NYC streets. Titled, "The City That Never Walks," Sullivan describes how NYC has "lost [its] golden pedestrian touch."

...yet, here in New York, we even have the debate over bicycle traffic backwards. We focus on drivers’ complaints about the bicycle commuter who races through red lights, rather than on the concerns of the mother biking her child around organic-food delivery trucks that idle in bike-only lanes. In December, the police say, a bicyclist was killed on the Hudson River Greenway by a drunken driver speeding along a bike lane that was completely separated from the road. Asked what was being done to improve safety in light of the biker’s death, Mayor Michael Bloomberg suggested that bikers “pay attention.”

Continue reading "NYC Streets Aren't Made For Walking"

Oh, to be a child again! The NY Times has a story about the city's efforts to develop a new playground concept for lower Manhattan. The city has been working with designer David Rockwell on a playground that would include things like foam blocks, water, cardboard tubes, burlap bags, ramps, climbing nets and even "play workers" to help kids, uh, play.

Developers of the Lower Manhattan project envision groups of children collaborating, for instance, loading containers with sand, hoisting them up with pulleys and then lowering them down to wagons waiting to be wheeled off to another part of the park.

Continue reading "Innovative Playground Ideas for NYC "

Here is part two of our semi-chronological look back at the top stories this past year (here is part one):

The 25 year old program was started by New York magazine restaurant critic Gael Greene, who also got James Beard involved, and Citymeals on Wheels supports agencies that provide "weekend, holiday, emergency and weekday meals to homebound elderly New Yorkers who can no longer shop or cook for themselves." Greene told NY1, "How can I as a restaurant critic, eating the way I eat, living the life I live, accept that there are people on my block who don't have enough to eat?"



You can donate to Citymeals on Wheels. (Earlier this week, the NY Times had a feature about Citymeals on Wheels.) NY1 also noted that 400 volunteers from God's Love We Deliver were working to bring holiday meals to men, women and children with HIV, AIDS, cancer and other illnesses - here's more information about GLWD.



And if you haven't gotten around to donating in some way, big or small, this season, don't worry, there are always opportunities. For instance, you can still donate a coat through NY Cares Coat Drive until December 31. City Harvest's canned food drive ends in mid-January. And here are some more ways to volunteer, via the city's volunteer website, Volunteer NYC.