Results tagged “mayorbloomberg”

Mayor Bloomberg has abandoned the most ambitious part of his plan to reduce greenhouse gases, which would have required the owners of the city's largest buildings to undergo mandatory energy audits to determine green renovations — and forced the landlords to pay for the improvements.

As Mayor Bloomberg and Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau continue to beef about the $83 million in settlements, fines and forfeitures that the DA's office has stored in 62 bank accounts, inside sources tell the tabloids that personal disagreements are the cause of the squabble.

Mayor Bloomberg is fighting with Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau, and Morgenthau is hitting back with "barnyard" vulgarity, as the Times decorously puts it. Speaking to reporters yesterday, Morgenthau said, "If you all weren't newspapers of record, I'd say these were chickenshit comments." He was referring to the Bloomberg camp's supposed discovery of $80 million in settlement money that's being held by the DA's office in what one official described as the equivalent of "offshore accounts." The heated feud underscores long-standing tensions between the mayor and DA.

According to City Comptroller Bill Thompson's latest campaign fiance filings, the Observer reports that he spent "$9,003,711...on his campaign, which came within a few percentage points of beating Michael Bloomberg's $102 million re-election campaign...In his latest filing period, Thompson spent $1,040,000 on television ads, along with $309,887 on consultants. Among Thompson's notable expenditures is $400 for a makeup artist Sue Crystal. A campaign spokesman said it was for the debate in El Barrio, whose television sponsor, New York 1, did not offer the candidates makeup before appearing on air." Factoid: "Anthony Weiner's campaign also donated on $4,950 on October 29, the day Thompson's pollster released numbers saying the race was tightening."

The 13-month, multinational search to find a new commissioner of the Department of Environmental Protection came to a surprising close this week when Mayor Bloomberg selected a 36-year-old aide with limited environmental experience who works a few desks away from the Mayor in City Hall.

In the aftermath of three November shootings in which innocent Bronx teens were gunned down, friends of one of the victims are urging witnesses to come forward. Following the death of 17-year-old Issi Ariel Dominguez — who cops believe was not the intended target when a gunman fired into a crowd after a party this weekend — friend Ruthie Gomez told NY1: "You better snitch, we are going to find him. We are going to find whoever did it, I don't care."

Today is World AIDS Day, and while there are many events planned around the city, there is currently a 24-hour vigil at City Hall, with volunteers reading of the names of people who had been lost to HIV or AIDS at City Hall. And just now, during Mayor Bloomberg annual breakfast at Gracie Mansion in honor World AIDS Day, 10 Housing Works activists were arrested for protesting outside.

In his race for a third term, the richest man in New York City spent an astounding $102 million of his $17 billion fortune. New filings reveal that Mayor Bloomberg shelled out about $174.53 per vote in his narrower-than-expected victory over Democratic challenger Bill Thompson, far exceeding his expenditures of $85 million in 2005 and $74 million in 2001, according to the Times.

While in Washington D.C. yesterday, Mayor Bloomberg said the city will start to use students' test scores when evaluating teacher tenure. The NY Times called the proposal one "that has been bitterly opposed by the teachers’ union and criticized as putting too much weight on standardized exams."

During his campaign for a third term, Mayor Bloomberg stifled a Freedom of Information Law request by withholding the release of photographs of himself with Sarah Palin until two weeks after the election, the Daily News reports.

Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter was in the Bronx on Friday, to settle his World Series bet with Mayor Bloomberg. The two mayors decided not to do a cheesesteak-cheesecake bet (Senators Schumer and Gillibrand did that with Senators Casey and Specter) and instead agreed "that the losing mayor would travel to the winning city to join the winning mayor in a volunteer service project, while wearing the winning team’s jersey." So Nutter wore a jersey with the number 55—for Hideki Matsui—while Bloomberg wore a #27 jersey (for the Yankees' 27th World Series win) while they painted the halls of J.H.S. 131, the Albert Einstein School.

Reclining her hospital bed yesterday, the 66-year-old Harlem woman who took a stray bullet in the leg in Harlem Wednesday sent a strong message to Mayor Bloomberg about what Harlem needs: "Bloomberg's getting in there and making the place look fancy and all of that, but it's not safe and people won't want to come here," Virginia Valree told the Daily News.

Last month the City Planning Commission approved a controversial plan to turn the Kingsbridge Armory, a massive red-brick castle in the Bronx, into a mall that will include a large department store, shops and a movie theater. But critics of the $310 million project insist the developer should not get the green light unless future mall employees are guaranteed a living wage. Opposition was intense yesterday at the City Council subcommittee's public hearing to decide whether to approve rezoning.

A Republican Arizona Congressman who opposes the plan to hold the trials for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other suspected terrorists in Manhattan asked Mayor Bloomberg how he would feel if his daughter was "kidnapped at school by a terrorist." Though Bloomberg's daughters — Emma, 30, and Georgina, 26 — are well past school age, Rep. John Shadegg raised the question on the House floor on Monday while trashing a decision he described as "political correctness run amok."

With Mayor Bloomberg asking for $1.750 billion in budget cuts from agencies for this year and next, Deputy Mayor Ed Skyler tells the Post, "It is serious, and it's serious for every agency," and didn't rule layoffs out, "So whether it's attrition or layoffs, some sort of personnel savings is going to be necessary in order to close the $5 billion deficit. It is hard to balance a budget of that size without dealing with the size of the city." The Citizens Budget Commission's Charles Brecher said, "In some ways, it's reassuring that they're at least, at the city level, facing up to the magnitude of the problem we have. We didn't have this discussion during the [mayoral] campaign."

The Observer reports that Mayor Bloomberg wants to cut $1.2 billion from next year's budget and $550 million from this year's, according to a letter from budget director Mark Page: "For the current year, Bloomberg is seeking to cut 1.5 percent from the Department of Education, 2 percent from 'uniformed forces' and 4 percent from all other agencies. For next year, Bloomberg wants 4 percent cuts from the Department of Education and uniformed forces, and 8 percent cuts from all other agencies. The cuts should lower the city's budget by $1.2 billion." The letter also says, "The target can be met by reductions in personal service costs or other than personal service costs and/or assured, recurring revenue actions."

Today the City Council is expected to pass two laws that would give motorists more wiggle room when fighting parking tickets. The first bill would create a five-minute grace period for drivers for certain no parking zones, such as alternate side parking regulations and expired Muni-Meters. (The bill does not include regular coin-operated, single-space meters, seen failing here.) A second piece of legislation would require the DOT to post notices of new and changed parking restrictions in affected neighborhoods and online up to one week in advance. (Last October, Orthodox Jews in Williamsburg were outraged when the DOT wrote tickets for over 90 vehicles that were violating new parking regulations—on a Saturday.)

Yesterday, Mayor Bloomberg met with a number of Islamic leaders from around the city to discuss the Fort Hood shooting and the Muslim community. It turns out that one of the invitees was Brooklyn imam Siraj Wahhaj—who, the Daily News reports, "was named an unindicted co-conspirator in the [1993] World Trade Center bombing - meaning he was never charged but the feds believe he had some connection." An aide seemed to admit it was a mistake, saying, "If we were aware of his full background, it would have been done differently."

They say he runs the city like a business, so it's only fitting that after a poorer-than-expected performance in last week's election, Mayor Bloomberg's campaign workers are afraid they won't get big bonuses this year. In past elections, the billionaire former bond trader and media mogul has paid out-of-pocket bonuses of as much as $400,000 — "a highly unusual perk in municipal politics, a world not typically associated with lavish pay," the Times reports. But after defeating Democratic rival Bill Thompson by just 4.6 percentage points, campaign workers are starting to worry about paltry bonuses.

City Comptroller Bill Thompson has no regrets about his mayoral campaign or his narrow loss, telling the Daily News, "I just stopped [the what if thoughts]. That's not helpful. When I woke up Wednesday, I would have liked to have woken up having won. But I was proud of the campaign." (Still, others are what-if-ing.) He is meeting with Mayor Bloomberg next week and said of the election,"It wasn't just the term limit issue. You talk about the affordability issue in the city of New York and people not being able to afford to stay and live here. He should listen to what the voters said on Tuesday night."

Bad news for the cabbie who kicked the embracing gay couple to the curb on Monday night — Mayor Bloomberg has gotten involved! The NY Post reports that he declared everyone has the right to ride in a cab (duh), and added, "I thought the taxi driver's behavior -- if it is as reported -- was a disgrace. Somebody's orientation has absolutely nothing to do with whether they can ride a taxi. That kind of attitude doesn't fit with what this city's become."

Now that he's going to be mayor for another four years, Mayor Bloomberg has been reaching out to the Democrats. Yesterday, he had coffee with Public Advocate-elect Bill de Blasio (their klatsch is pictured at left) but City Comptroller-elect John Liu declined to meet with Bloomberg, saying he was too busy. But the NY Times points out Liu later said, "A long time ago, the people of New York decided there would be no king nor a monarch in New York City."

The oh-so-close mayoral race continues to be thorn in many Democrats' side—and many are bitter. State Senator Eric Schneiderman (D-Manhattan) tells the NY Times, “Bill Thompson was always closer than people thought, and on our side, if people had been behind him more, there would have been more checks, more endorsements, more attention, and that might have made the difference. It really is disgraceful that a lot of people in the Democratic Party stayed home or kept their checkbooks closed."

Mayor Bloomberg's narrower-than-expected election win over Comptroller Bill Thompson has left people wondering not only what could have been if Thompson got more support but what might have happened if Rep. Anthony Weiner had run against Bloomberg instead. Politico reports that when Weiner said last night that maybe President Obama should have stumped for Thompson, “Maybe one of those Corzine trips could have been better spent in New York. Who knows?" a White House official fired back, "Maybe Anthony Weiner should have manned-up and run against Michael Bloomberg."

Apparently, today's a bad day to be the richest and most powerful person in New York City. In the wake of last night's not-as-big-as-predicted victory over Democrat Bill Thompson, the press has decided that Mayor Bloomberg's easy days are behind him. The Times thinks that for the first time in years, the mayor "finds himself governing New York City from a most unaccustomed vantage point: Vulnerability" — a fact that "could have profound implications for the tenor of a third Bloomberg term, not least that it is likely to hinder the mayor’s well-honed ability to cow Democrats and liberal interest groups."

Mayor Michael Bloomberg won his controversial third term by beating Comptroller William Thompson by a much smaller than predicted margin. See the updates below for how the election night unfolded.

Tomorrow is Election Day—make sure you know where to vote and if you still need help with your choices, Gotham Gazette's Guide For The Last Minute Voter is a good resource—and the big election is the mayoral race between Mayor Michael Bloomberg and City Comptroller William Thompson. Both candidates crammed their weekend full of campaign stops, phone calls, ads, etc., because turnout is the wild card.

Yesterday, mayoral candidates Mayor Michael Bloomberg and City Comptroller Bill Thompson campaigned with just days away until the election. And they made sure to encourage voters to get out the vote: NY1 reports that Bloomberg went to a "get out of the vote" rally in Queens while Thompson said, "This is all about turnout and really a question of who comes out and votes. So I think he's concerned, not just because his votes may stay home, I think he's concerned about the change that people in New York City are indicating all across the city. They'd like to see a new mayor, they'd like to see change in City Hall."

A new Marist poll showed that incumbent Mayor Michael Bloomberg leads challenger City Comptroller William Thompson by 15 points among likely voters, 53% to 38%. What's more, the poll notes, "Mayor Bloomberg’s action to extend term limits from two to three terms is not a deciding factor for 45% of voters. Although a large proportion of voters — 43% — says it makes them less likely to vote for the mayor, this number has not grown through the course of the campaign."

Last night, after an 11 minute takedown of Fox News, The Daily Show set its sights on our own mayoral race. Term limits turnaround? Check. President Obama's, uh, endorsement of Thompson? Check. And, yes, they did totally put Mayor Bloomberg next to a graphic of Richie Rich—and Jon Stewart did say they were the same height.