Someone will say that Maurice is harsh. That we cannot expect elected officials to solve the problems of our community. Both Larry Littlefield and Maurice Gumbs have made this same point before.  If there is nothing  these bums can do, they should get out and stop collecting welfare checks.  Let someone else try.

Larry Littlefield.  Where are you?  Let's cut to the quick.  Does Borough President Marty Markowitz or the Brooklyn City Council Delegation or the Brooklyn Assembly Delegation or anybody in government have a plan or proposal for housing for people who earn under $30,000 a year?  And will you tell us whose responsibility it is?  Or if it is anybody's responsibility? Do these people really know or care that there is an emergency here?  Rock Hackshaw mentions that he had come up with a suggestion.  Are there any other suggestions out there?  

And for the housing boom, it is an oncoming train.

First some background.  New York housing has been more mis-analyzed and politicized than any other issue. 

Conservatives say NY housing is expensive due to regulations that limit housing supply -- conveniently ignoring the fact that NYC has the most liberal regulations perhaps anywhere, not even including special situations like Atlantic Yards. They ignore the obvious because they represent developers who want even more liberal regulations.

Liberal say housing is expensive because there isn't enough intervention in the housing market -- ignoring the fact that there is more intervention in the housing market here than anywhere else, through rent regulation, public housing, "affordable" housing developments, etc.  Most of those interventions tend to favor those who got deals long ago, not those with the greatest need today.  That's why they are so popular.  Look at my discussion of Stuytown, for example.

The fact is housing is expensive in NY because there are three kinds of place in the U.S.:

1) densely developed places people don't want, like most older cities;

2) developing places where there is plenty of land close to the center for new supply, like Austin; and

3) densely developed places where people want to live and there is little room for new housing, like NYC.

In the first two kinds of places, housing is cheap.  IN NY, Boston, SF, etc. it is expensive.  Now you can set up some deals for some people to pay less than others, but expensive housing will be.

In addition, two things are going on.  Some places in metro NY are becoming more desirbable relative to others, including close in parts of Brooklyn.  And we have a housing bubble, in which the price of housing is being bid up to a level no one can afford, as at the end of the 1980s.  You remember what happened next, don't you?  Well, it is going to happen again.

It has already started elshwere (see article), in San Diego and Boston for example.  So the price of housing is going to get cheaper in the short run, once the crash reaches NYC.    And just as some places got more expensive than others during the boom (ie. Brooklyn), others will get cheaper during the bust.  It isn't a conspiracy, it is the decisions of individual families in the hundreds of thousands as to where they want to live.

http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20060924/news_1n24convert.html

Ultimately, housing has to be sold for what people can afford, and there aren't enough private equity guys to occupy every housing unit in the entire metropolitan area.

"Hakeem is not going to be one of those shuffling, obedient, non-talented semi-slaves of  Speaker Sheldon Silver whom Brooklyn has been sending up to Albany to collect pay-checks and cheat on travel vouchers."

He might not be shuffling and non-talented, and hopefully he'll learn from Roger Green and not cheat on his travel vouchers, but I'll guarantee  you that he'll be just another of the obedient semi-slaves of Silver. 

The first conversation Shelly has with freshman Assemblymembers is the following: "Congratulations on your election.  Remember the people that elected you and that your job here is to provide as much as you can for your district and constituents.  They're the ones that brought you here and they're the ones that can take you out."

The obvious hidden message is that if you want to come back home with the pork for the firehouses, schools, and senior centers, you better play along and make nice with the leadership.  If Hakeem does anything in the least to show some independence, he can kiss his legislative future goodbye. 

Also, don't forget who controls the housing decisions in both the Assembly and the City Council.  That's right, it's your own Democratic Leader, Mr. Vito Lopesiano (or Lopinski, or whatever the hell his real name is).

It's almost sickeningly naive to put your hopes and dreams of changing Albany on the shoulders of a freshman Assemblyman.  Trust me here, Vito Lopez's most junior staffer is going to have more political influence than Mr. Jeffries for the next couple of years.  Why not put pressure on those who already have the power to actually create change (like Vito), but choose not to do so for their own personal benefit.  If you want change, lobby those who can actually make the changes.  Right now you're encouraging the mailroom clerk to make changes that can only be made by the CEO (Shelly) and the VPs (Lopez, Lentol, et al.).  

(It's almost sickeningly naive to put your hopes and dreams of changing Albany on the shoulders of a freshman Assemblyman.)

Hey, at least folks north and east of Flatbush have some new faces to put naive hopes in.  Perhaps Mr. Adams will do something, since he represents us as well.

All I ask is what I asked my representative a while back -- the the state budget includes a lower share of state school aid (including back-door aid like STAR and Son or STAR) than the city's share of state income tax payments (should be around 40%), vote no.  And if you get the budget and are told to vote on it without knowing what is in it, vote no too.

In the short run, a few people back home might miss the few nickels they give you to throw around.  In the long run, however, they are killing us.

We didn't vote for Eric Adams and Hakeem Jeffries so they could go up to Albany and kiss the Speaker's butt. What kind of foolishness is this JP 627?   Both of these candidates won by large margins. They have a mandate to makes some noise in Albany. The last thing we need is more Nick Perrys, Kendall Stewarts, Annette Robertsons,  Rhoda Jacobs, and John Sampsons.  More elected officials collecting welfare checks. We need to move out these "do-nothings."

"In the short run, a few people back home might miss the few nickels they give you to throw around.  In the long run, however, they are killing us."

I absolutely agree.  But the reality is that Albany is made up of 215 legislators that completely miss the forest for the trees.  It's the culture that's fostered by Silver and Bruno.  It gives enough to the individual members to keep them satiated while keeping all the control in the Speaker's and Majority Leader's hands.  I'm not saying it's good or fair, but you have to realize what you're fighting against so that you're not just tilting at windmills.

9:10 - I'm not saying I agree with the system.  In fact, one of the main reasons I got out of working in Albany was how disgusted it was seeing ALL of New York's elected officials basically sell themselves out to the leadership for a couple of bucks and photo-ops. 

11:34 - "Both of these candidates won by large margins. They have a mandate to makes some noise in Albany."

BWAHAHAHAHA!!  I'm sorry but I actually did laugh out loud when I read this, as it honestly shows zero knowledge of the state legislature.  There's no such thing as a mandate for legislators, only for statewide Executive candidates (Governor, AG, and arguably Comptroller).  Shelly, Bruno and the rest of the leadership don't care whether they won by one vote or ten-thousand votes.  Once they're up in Albany, they're just one of 150 Assemblymembers or 1 of 62 Senators.  Influence in Albany works in two ways: first is majority/minority party affiliation and second is seniority.  As charismatic and intelligent as Eric Adams may be, as a freshman member of the minority party his influence will be ZERO.  When the Dems take control of the Senate, he'll hopefully have some years of experience and may be able to effect some change.

Again, just because I'm describing the process of politics in Albany doesn't mean I'm supporting it.  In fact I absolutely detest it and strongly believe that the solution would be 8-year term limits for ALL elected officials (Executive and Legislative).  This is practically the only way to create the quick change that is needed to begin to reform the ineffective government.  However, if we're looking to create change as soon as possible, we need to know what we're working against and how to use the current system to our benefit.  Holding on to idealistic notions of how government is supposed to work as opposed to how it actually works will only lead to lots of lost time and frustration. 

When Charlie Rangel lambasted Hugo Chavez for his comments during his speech to the UN he expressed his sentiments in a manner far beyond how most democratic congress members would have, especially one who has himself criticized the bush agenda in Iraq. His comments were clipped and broadcast on the news as rhetoric supposedly purporting the popular view on Chavez. Really, he was covering his own ass. What sound bites didn’t disclose was how the Rangel’s rife with anxiety about being chair of the Ways and Means Committee. Chairmanship. It’s a post all congress members aim to rest their hats on. For he, and John Conyers, you can say it’s the culmination to their planting years as members of the Congressional black caucus they helped founded in 1971. What power for a black politician to have. Especially one of the nation’s longest serving. He said if Democrats didn’t take back the house he’d retire. He means to win now or go home. No way could anyone with eyes see Rangel letting international follies mess this up, allowing republicans to even remotely use a Chavez speech as a spin to stain his chances of chairmanship. After all he’s the only democrat and black congress member vying for the W&M helm. And in a house always outnumbered always outgunned you too would want to smite as many enemy munition depots as you could. But did he go too far? Or was his fervent remarks a signal of a new kind of Charlie to come?

(It's the culture that's fostered by Silver and Bruno. It gives enough to the individual members to keep them satiated while keeping all the control in the Speaker's and Majority Leader's hands.)

Here is what kills me about the nickels and dimes.

Based on the BIG decisions -- the ones made by Pataki, Bruno and Silver -- we have high taxes, bad schools, little money for parks, no major infrastructure investments, and libraries open a few days a week.  Nor can we afford the kind of effort to help the poor we had in decades past.  And based on the big decisions at the state and federal level, we spend hugh bucks on health care, but more and more are uninsured and get nothing.  The winners take the money off the table, the losers fight over the scaps

In exchange for voting "yes" on the big decision, your local legislator gets a new nickels to hand out to the losers, and "studies" of major improvements.  Not enough to make any real difference.  Just enough to make it seem like they are the good guys, and some mysterious force elsewhere is responsible for the overall raw deal.

It ticks me off to see the "gifts" from the pols to the schools, the libraries, the parks, etc. etc.  The $10 million grant for more study of the Second Avenue subway, a $10 billion project.  I'm not going get down on my knees in gratitude when my check for a few cents arrives from Albany.  It's all PR.

"Just enough to make it seem like they are the good guys, and some mysterious force elsewhere is responsible for the overall raw deal."

This is exactly what I was alluding to when I paraphrased Shelly's speech  at 6:27.  The message is to make sure that your district loves their legislator even while hating the legislature.  The only people that benefit through this are the legislators who are basically selling out the future of New York in order to stay in power.

Don't give up on him, Larry.  Our brother,  JP is disillusioned, and burnt out, but he seems to mean well, and he's almost there with you.  I believe like others, he may be ready to say.  I BELIEVE WE CAN DO BETTER, MUST DO BETTER, AND WILL DO BETTER.  Without belief, there is no next step.  You have given me my next post.

I am no fan of Howie the Hump golden. He was a mean old bastard who forgot the few friends he had and did not seem to understand why he was in office to begin with.

However, I have to be the Maurice Gumbs truth in facts squad.

Maurice, can you please cite some actual facts to show that Howie Golden enrichjched himself thru the development of downtown Brooklyn?

I believe he still lives in the same aprtment on Avenue C that he lived in when he was elected originally. Not that THAT is proof of anything other than hhe is a cheap sonuvabitch....but Maurice, you make accusations that bloggers believe. Some facts here please?