Wouldn't it be great to be confident that the whole NYC school control thing is being deliberated on it's merits?

Right.

FU Dicker of the NY Post says it all boils down to a racial thing for the Senate Democrats:

"They see Bloomberg as a white Manhattan billionaire who thinks he can boss everyone around and they don't like it," said a top Senate Democrat.

As everybody here knows, we don't happen to like Mayor Mike either. But it just never occurred to us to not like him because he's white. Or has a Jewish surname. For the record, we think he's a controlling and petulant hypocrite. And a really, really lousy sore loser.  But that's got absolutely nothing to do with who should be running the city schools.

New Board of Education voted to do nothing till Sept.  The board of education states there is not much to attend to during summer session so won't meet till Sept. Didn't king Bloomberg state there would be chaos yesterday if mayoral control isn't pass and now he states not much needs to be done during summer session.   What a fiasco, this is the best time for them to act and plan for the coming year.  Shame on them for selling out to King Bloomberg. Bloomberg must be terrified. He needs to keep Klein in place to cover his dirty deals - such as lack of NYC licensing of inner circle friends in the DOE, illegal contracts and inflated test scores.. A change in chancellor just might expose Bloomberg and Klein's corrupt practices. How can they be held accountable, when they call the shots. There is no independent monitoring of the budget or of student data. We need a strong system of checks and balances and then we can hold these crooks accountable.

Today, July 1 a $500 million NYC sales tax hike was scheduled to go into effect. However due to the gridlock in the NY State Senate they couldn't pass the tax hike. So if you buy anything in New York City today it will be a half a percent cheaper than it would have been if not for the Senate coup!

So at least while those idiots in Albany argue us shoppers in New York City can save a few bucks. Every month they argue saves New York City consumers $60 million in taxes.

The NY Post has an Editorial supporting  Curtis Sliwa who has been talking about running for Public Advocate as an Independent on a platform of  eliminating the do nothing office which will cost $1.8 million this year (which is down from the $2.9 million the office has cost last year).

I like this quote from Sliwa "If elected I would close and padlock the office, fire all the employees and, most importantly, fire myself."

It's about time someone made the case for getting rid of this useless post that's costing NYC taxpayers millions of dollars every year!

I hate to say it but this might be the one job that Sliwa is actually qualified for! As long as he really intends to follow through on his promise to eliminate the office he's got my vote!

The public sector institutional collapse approaches. With the help of lies by actuaries, Generation Greed is absconding with all the resource we have, and will have. In the future, the vast majority of taxes, extracted from younger generations and exempting those older, will go to past debts, early retirement pensions, other retiree benefits such as health care, and other services for senior citizens. (Until younger generations face old age in the absence of such services for senior citizens).  Other public services and the social safety net will ebb away. Taxes will be paid for nothing, seized with nothing in exchange. And now we have a Democratic State Senator refusing to increase taxes to pay for a government largely operated by taxes, so as not to be associated with the ripoff that it is. After all, his job, pension, his relative’s jobs, and the sinecures of associated people with connections will be the last to go, and his generation’s needs will be taken care of.

The private sector is no different. All our institutions are being drained of all they have, with only IOUs left behind. I suggest reading this article to the end. It is but one example. And there seems to be no stopping it. And no one pays attention until its too late, and at that point they are manipulated to blame other victims.

Back when the Brennan Center was releasing reports showing how undemocratic and phony the New York State legislature is, I recall reading comments from Sheldon Silver and Joe Bruno, its leaders, in the newspaper. They didn't come right out and say it, but reading between the lines they pretty much implied that if New Yorkers knew what those who grab and perpetually hold sinecures through our non-elections were like, they would be glad there were only three men in the room when anything important was at stake.

I bring this up without comment, other than to point out that decisions to sell out New York's future (now the present) to free up money to hand out to interest groups in the present (now the past) were generally bi-partisan and had the support of both leaders, and many member of their generations. Is that really worse than what has been going on recently? In any event, credit to Gatemouth, whose history of the last time the Democrats were sort of in charge in the 1960s meant that no one who read it is surprised. I'm never surprised by something bad for ordinary people, particularly those in younger generations, coming out of Albany.

Bloomberg stated at the Capital Press conference today that he would be hard press to explain this kind of democracy to children in the school system.  Hey Bloomberg how about explaining to us  first on extending term limits without a public referendum. Explain to us how the city council  voted to extend their own jobs and guaranteed themselves a life time pension that taxpayers will foot the bill? Explain to us how extending term limits now has many more races unopposed since people can't run against the incumbent's pork? Explain to us Bloomberg since you refuse to address this issue and even call a reporter a disgrace for raising such a question.

Thank you State Senator John Sampson and I wish more people would grow a pair to stand against Bloomberg.  Unfortunately, Governor Patterson bend over for the mayor who he supposedly referred as a nasty, tantrum-prone liar”. Dicker further states that Paterson says of Bloomberg, that “you can’t trust him”.

Why Mayoral Control Must Lapse and not be Renewed

No Bid Contracts -Millions and millions of our dollars for assessments not align to the student's curriculum, such as Princeton Review, CTB/McGraw etc.  Questionable no bid contracts to groups with close ties to administration such as City Year relationship with ex Deputy Mayor Doctoroff.  Millions and Millions of dollars on no-bid consulting contracts.

According to the Albany Times-Union on Friday, a quadraphonic Senate 'leadership' structure was emerging.  It worked out to be Dean Skelos, Pedro Espada, Steve Pigeon and Tom Golisano vs. Malcolm Smith and John Sampson.

If it came to pass, this one wouldn't even be close.

How do we know this? It's because Smith and Sampson keep adhering to serially irresponsible--but entirely predictable--concepts and retro-babble like:

Following public policy in New York is like watching the same horror movie over and over again, while knowing that what appears on the screen will eventually happen to you, your children, and/or people you care about. Case in point, the long series of “screw the newbie, flee to Florida” public employee union contracts that both inflate the cost of public services and degrade their quality, while cheating younger generations.

Just 18 months ago, Bloomberg and the United Federation of Teachers (UFT) cut a deal, the state legislature passed it (virtually zero no votes), and then-Governor Eliot Spitzer signed it, to allow existing teachers age 55 and up to walk out the door into retirement up to seven years early, receiving unlimited untaxed health insurance from the city without assistance from federal Medicare for ten years rather than three, without contributing an extra dime. Those just under age 55 would have to pay more for just a few years before retiring seven years early, and receiving pension income free of New York City state and local taxes. Because that deal also cut the take home pay of future teachers by 5 percent for the first ten years of their careers, and because a historically (looking at long term data) impossible rate of return on pension assets was assumed, the undebated, unvetted, unannounced deal was described as costing nothing. Well guess what? This week, for the umpteeth time, we got the first phase of the inevitable second half of that deal – the screw the newbie and the children half.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r9lEJODCboM&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fchaptzem%2Eblogspot%2Ecom%2F2009%2F06%2Fbrad%2Dlander%2Dcollects%2Dpetition%2Ehtml&feature=player_embedded

From: THE CHAPTZEM BLOG 6/25/09