This week's NY Post and Daily News revelations about the Ridgewood Bushwick Senior Council were eye-opening for many reasons.  I thought it would be interesting to look at how many have been involved in the Vito Protection Program and the ramifications of that involvement.

First off is Michael Bloomberg.  While Vito allowed Bill Thompson to appear on his petitions, it was always quite clear that Mike Bloomberg was his choice.  In fact, many people who attended Vito's Brooklyn Unidos meeting several months before Bloomberg and Quinn announced that they would overturn term limits reported Vito's announcement that the Mayor would be doing just that.  He joyously told his lackies that this was a great thing because now we would be able to support this Mayor in his quest for a third term and support Billy to return as Controller.  To Vito's surprise and perhaps the surprise of many Bill Thompson decided to take Bloomberg on toe to toe.  Vito remained silent about Bill and allowed him to lose by a very small margin.  This week we learn of the Mayor's Department of Investigation report that depicted Vito and Angela's Ridgewood Bushwick Senior Council as rife with corruption.  Now we can all understand that it was not just the Mayor's control of funds that held Vito back, but it was also his control of information.

You have to give Ed Koch a lot of credit.  At 85 years old he still knows how to make a lot of noise. 

His latest mission is the reform of New York State government.  Yes, good luck on that.  However, beyond the fact that most have given up hope on this cause is the irony of Ed Koch championing reform with his refrains "Throw the bums out.!"  "You're either on the side of the angels or you're a bum....And if the angels betray their pledges, I'm going to run around the state screaming, 'Liar,liar, pants on fire."  Just plain brilliant.

The beauty of Ed Koch reinventing himself into a good government guru is the history of the government he led during his twelve years as Mayor of New York City.

It was exactly one year ago that I noticed the first subway advertising sign posted by Bloomberg's campaign committee.  That sign asked New Yorkers to take a ride with him on the new F express train that he was envisioning in the very near future.  My only regret is that I never took a picture of the sign so that I could post it on this blog.

The advertisement asked us all to imagine the day in the not too distant future when Brooklynites would be able to ride an F express train with fewer people and stops in order to make their ride into Manhattan more convenient.

Never tying the improvement to any congestion pricing program, it was a pure campaign promise to the F train riders who suffer such slow service.

The New York Times is reporting that Daniel Goldstein, spokesperson for Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn, has accepted a $3 million settlement and is abandoning his efforts to stop the Atlantic Yards project.

Goldstein, you engaged communities in fundraisers and demonstrations. People signed on to your cause.  Now at the end, that cause was really about enriching yourself.

If there is a Best of Brooklyn Award this year for the slimiest political act perhaps since Donna Henes did the same thing at MetroTech, then you win.

Congratulations.  Do the borough a favor and move to Manhattan.

The following is a quote from David Seifman's New York Post column of this morning:

Mayor Bloomberg's campaign crew's excuses for his shockingly close 4.6 percentage-point win over Bill Thompson go something like this:

* No matter that we consistently told everyone publicly he was leading by double digits, we knew that it was going to be very close. We did this to hurt Thompson's fund-raising and to convince as many Democrats as we could to not go anywhere near him.

 So it really comes down to the fact that Bloomberg's extravagantly paid campaign staff knew how close the race was but spent money beyond all of our wildest imaginations and put out a lie.  

It is sad to witness the post mortem finger pointing just 24 hours after the Thompson upset loss of the Mayoralty.  Bloomberg's people were smart and sharp -- they hid what they knew about the polls from the people.  Howard Wolfson so dramatically ridiculed Thompson's pollster as creating a new standard in margins of error.  This suppression of accurate poll data allowed Democrats to line-up to endorse our monied Mayor even though so much of his money has gone to the Republican party and its candidates like George W. Bush and Dick Cheney.

The lesson that must be learned is that the people cannot allow Democratic leaders to be either bought or scared off and there is only one way to teach them this lesson.

What is all the fuss about Bill Thompson's giving Mike Bloomberg a D-- during the last Mayoral debate?  In my October 3rd post I reached about the same conclusion.

In that post I noted that Bloomberg's economic development policies had failed the City miserably.  Interestingly, The New York Times, a Bloomberg supporter, reached about the same conclusion this morning on page A1 above the fold.  In that article, the journalists note, "No question, the upheaval in the real estate world was primarily caused by a recession that Mr. Bloomberg had no role in starting and no power to stop.  But Mr. Bloomberg has campaigned as a business visionary, better suited than most to lead in tough times, and any review of his term needs to confront his embrace of development as a stimulus tool."  Is this not the stuff that D--'s are made of?

As Christine Quinn continues to play coy about endorsing the Democratic candidate for Mayor, one thing has become crystal clear, the Council must not elect her to another term as Speaker.

One must remember that the election of the Speaker of the Council is purely political.  She is elected by the party that holds the majority of members in the legislature.  Given that we have had a Republican Mayor for the past sixteen years, the Speaker is the City's titular head of the party she represents.  It is, therefore, even more appalling that she has failed to endorse the candidate of the party of which she is supposed to be leading.

As we hit the two week mark for the New York City Mayoral election, all people who believe in democracy should be very depressed.  We are witnessing one man buying himself a third term, a term which the people of this City had twice voted against.

It is beyond discouraging to watch this out of touch billionaire buying the media, the pollsters, and the good people of this City just so he can continue strengthening the Bloomberg name which is eponymous with his LLC.

Just to rehash the obvious:

First, we saw Mike go to his colleagues, the owners of the Times, Post and News and get their approval for a third term.  After receiving the media moguls' nods, he went to Ron Lauder, the Father of Term Limits.  After promising Ron a seat on the next Charter Revision Commission, Ron too gave his okay. The best we can say about Lauder is at least it wasn't for the money.

There was a little noticed "puff piece" this past week in The New York Times.  The article highlighted the campaign inner circles of both Bloomberg and Thompson.  In reading the piece there was nothing too surprising.  The senior staffs had the backgrounds one would expect.  What should have stood out to the journalist and the reader were the individual staff pictures.

Thompson's staff represented the diversity of the City at large.  Bloomberg's staff reflected the diversity of his City administration -- all white.  Now I do not know if this is coincidence or design, but it does say something about the man who is running our City and who decided that term limits were not in our best interests.

Now that Mike Bloomberg is in what would have been his final semester, I thought it would be a good time to grade him on his governance during these past two terms.

Housing and Buildings:  Although Shaun Donovan was a smart HPD commissioner for most of the Bloomberg years, Mike's record in housing has been lackluster.  As Mitchell-Lama units went private and his appointees on the Rent Stablization Board continued to raise rents, it has become more and more difficult for middle income people to stay in the City.  Particularly hard hit are the young adults, just getting out of school and finding no rental units that meet their incomes.  Additionally, the Buildings Department has been a mess.  It took the deaths of people for Bloomberg to finally act and change Building Commissioners.  Had someone at Bloomberg LLP performed so poorly, she surely would have never lasted as long.  That being said, a strong economy for seven years was on the Mayor's side.  Units were built in areas of the City that hadn't seen construction in decades.  For this reason, in this area Bloomberg receives a:

Over the past few weeks so many have seen the light that it is enough to leave the average political observer breathless.  Call it coincidence or the upcoming mayoral election, there has been an amazing turnaround in our Mayor and some of the City's institutions.

Take for example the recent vote of the MTA Board to increase the fares on buses and subways and tolls on bridges and tunnels.  It was just seven short years ago that Mike Bloomberg called us a City of whiners because we were disturbed about the fare/toll increase.  But now he has seen the light.  He expresses outrage about the MTA's mismanagement of its funds and concern for New Yorkers who have to absorb this increase.  Only a cynic would attribute this turnaround in attitude to Bloomberg's future election.  I believe he has merely seen the light.

Lost in all of the news of AIG bonuses and MTA fare increases were two stories which must make one wonder about the competence of the New York City Finance Commissioner.

The Finance Commissioner of New York City  recommends and implements tax policy, is custodian of bank accounts, heads the bureau formerly known as Parking Violations, sits ex officio on the City's numerous pension boards, and the list of responsibilities goes on.  The position brings with it the highest level of fiduciary responsibility, and must be viewed through a lens that is unblemished.

For this reason it was appalling to learn of the New York City Finance Commissioner's extra curricular activities.  Not only was she sitting on the board of a large for-profit real estate corporation, but she was also acting in the capacity of paid consultant.  There are only two things that one could surmise from this information: Commissioner Stark is either in need of extra money or she is bored with her current job.

The political news of the week was that Mike Bloomberg met with the Republican county leaders seeking their support to get his name on the Republican line on the ballot.

It must be terribly humbling for a politician who publicly changed his party affiliation as a symbol of his disdain for partisan politics to have to suddenly come crawling back for support.  As odd as a situation as that is, one can readily understand his need to appear on the ballot geographically higher than Row Z.  Bloomberg can be practical when required.

What is really disconcerting is that the five county leaders are considering Bloomberg's request.  He stands for nothing they stand for.  He failed to endorse their standard bearer and his friend John McCain in the Presidential election.  Although he did not endorse Obama, his silence led the public to assume that he saw no problem with Obama's becoming President.

Has the impossible finally happened? Has the conservative New York Post teamed up with our Democrat Governor?

I'm finding it a bit too coincidental that the day after the New York Post editorialized that the Governor should bring back O'Byrne, the Governor is now publicly considering such an option.  Are we to believe that there was no discussion between the Governor or his office and the New York Post before the editorial appeared?

If, in fact, this was a mere coincidence and not a conspiracy, then it is equally troubling that the Governor is being led by the nose by the editorial writers of the Post.  After all, it is the Post that is taking credit for uncovering O'Byrne's tax delinquency.  After their story appeared and O'Byrne's defense became a psychological one, failure to file syndrome, Patterson cut him loose.  Now that the Post is saying it is okay to bring him back, Patterson is considering such a move.  I'm just wondering who the Post will pick to run as Patterson's Lieutenant Governor in the next election.