Results tagged “statesenatormalcolmsmith”

The failure of congestion pricing (at least for this legislative session) has cast a pall on NYC-Albany relations. Not least because Mayor Bloomberg spent some time yesterday slamming state lawmakers. He said:

New York City is today poorer because of Albany's inaction yesterday, and I think, sadly, it appears that we jeopardized, at best, and probably lost, a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to do something with someone else's money.

Continue reading "Congestion Pricing Game: Choose Who to Blame "

After higher-than-safe levels of the chemical terachloroethylene, also known as PERC and used by dry cleaners and auto body shops, were found in Queens drinking water last month, a Queens politician wants to phase PERC from use. State Senator Malcolm Smith proposed legislation to help businesses switch to environmentally friendly products by 2012. Sounds like a no-brainer, but probably having the Department of Buildings check up on whether buildings have backflow preventer valves would help as well.

• On the Gothamist Newsmap: A suspicious package shut down Penn Station this morning (it was ID'd and taken care of), a two-alarm fire in Park Slope, and a missing child at the Guggenheim Museum
• That psychedelic piece of the Brooklyn skyline, the Broken Angel, will have to come down because it's "dangerous", but it may be re-built
• Interesting NY Sun article about what might happen to State Senator Malcolm Smith (D, Queens), currently the minority leader, if power shifts to the Democrats
• A 12-year-old girl walking to school was hit by a driver in Queens; her leg may need to be amputated
• Fake cop alert: A 19-year-old was arrested after he used his car's lights and sirens, plus a fake badge, to pull over a retired detective who cut him off on the Upper East Side; bonus: the kid is the son of a NY Times reporter, according to the Post
• Racked braves the crowds for Kate Moss' Topshop clothing collection at Barneys Co-op
• The city installs a sign for "Foley Square" that says "Folley Square"
• The Brooklyn Navy Yard is buzzing with tenants
  Continue reading "Extra, Extra"

Update: The NYPD will have to be on alert on Monday now? Earlier, WNBC reported that the grand jury investigating the fatal police shooting of Sean Bell has reached a verdict but will wait until Monday to release it. But now a defense lawyer says the jury voted to indict three of the detectives involved: Michael Oliver who fired 31 shots, Gescard F. Isnora who fired the first of 11 shots, and Marc Cooper. Cooper's lawyer Paul Martin said, "I am disappointed with the grand jury’s decision but this is just the first stage of a long process and I am confident that once all the facts are considered by a jury of Detective Cooper’s peers, that he will be exonerated of all charges."

On what would have been his wedding day, Sean Bell's friends and family, as well as other activists, politicians, and members of the community, held a vigil/protest/rally for Bell, Joseph Guzman and Trent Benefield. Bell was killed during a confrontation with the police after his bachelor party at the Queens strip club Kalua Lounge on Saturday morning. Guzman and Benefield were injured and remain in the hospital. The police fired 50 shots in less than a half minute on the friends' car; the three men were unarmed. An undercurrent of the shooting is race: The three men were black and Hispanic, while there were two white, two black and one Hispanic police officers.

In a move that didn't surprise anyone, Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz has officially endorsed Mayor Bloomberg. In the news clips, Bloomberg acknowledged (kind of smirkily) that Markowitz made a tough decision in switching sides, but whatever, Marty knew which side his Brooklyn bread was buttered on: The side with the candidate that will mostly likely win. Anyway, suspect it's the Mayor's support of bringing more big business to Brooklyn, but Markowitz, along with other Democratic politicians (State Senator Malcolm Smith, Assemblywoman Barbara Clark and Councilman James Sanders), claim that his crime, education and affordable housing records are what makes him endorsement-worthy. Interestingly enough, NY magazine's political piece questions whether the Mayor's Republican-ness carries too much of a stink for "thinking" Democrats to vote for him. Well, that's not stopping anyone from telling the polls they'll vote for him.