Lawmakers, especially Brooklyn councilman Charles Barron, are upset about a private meeting yesterday between Attorney General Cuomo and Lt. Gov. Ravitch. Allegedly, the two top officials were discussing the possibility of a resignation by Gov. Paterson, as well as the state budget which Ravitch is helping to write. According to NY1, “Barron said such a meeting comes too close to crossing the line in terms of conflicts of interest, as Cuomo is likely to run for governor, and that the attorney general should remove himself from the investigation of Paterson.” He and other community leaders will hold a press conference today, calling for Cuomo to disinvolve himself from the probe into Paterson’s accused wrongdoing. more ›

Now that Governor Paterson is expected to drop his 2010 gubernatorial bid (though it's unclear when and if he will have a press conference) after news of abuse accusations against his aide were revealed—as well as his own and the State Police's involvement in with the accuser—the next question is whether he should remain installed as governor. The local papers are, at best, skeptical and, at worst, angry. more ›

After fending off a legal battle from dissenting congregants who sought to block his installation, Riverside Church pastor Dr. Brad Braxton has decided to step down after all. His critics had objected to what they perceived as an extravagant $600,000 compensation package and worried that Braxton was moving the church away from its traditionally progressive agenda to a more conservative religious attitude. Braxton, a Baptist minister and former Rhodes scholar, had sought to style himself as "progressive evangelical," but in the end seemed unable to unite the congregation. In his resignation letter, obtained by the Times, he wrote that "the congregation has struggled publicly for decades about the kind of church that it should be and the kind of pastor who should be its voice. In recent months, these struggles have created a level of antagonism within the congregation that undermines the community’s efforts to embody harmony in the name of Jesus Christ. The consistent discord has made it virtually impossible to establish a fruitful covenant between the congregation and me." more ›

At a meeting of the New School’s board of trustees last night, Bob Kerrey announced that he will step down as university president when his contract expires in July 2011. He did not explain the reasons for his decision, but insisted that it had nothing to do with faculty opposition and passionate student protests demanding his resignation. In breaking the news, City Room accurately describes Kerrey as "a decorated war hero," but omits the small matter of his slaughter of more than a dozen Vietnamese women and children in Thanh Phong village in 1969. The massacre is not irrelevant; New School students calling for Kerrey's dismissal say his involvement in the CIA's Operation Phoenix make him unfit to govern a progressive university that was founded by WWII refugees. In other New School news, trustees and faculty members have ordered an inquiry into the events surrounding last month's short-lived student occupation of a New School building, which resulted in 22 arrests. (On GOOD FRIDAY!) more ›