Neil deMause: The Website

Stephen Goldsmith, the former Indianapolis mayor who started work June 1 as Mayor Bloomberg’s new deputy mayor for operations, has been hailed as a visionary. Just not by the people who actually experienced his Indianapolis reforms.

When Mayor Bloomberg tapped former Indianapolis mayor Stephen Goldsmith in April to replace longtime aide Ed Skyler as the city’s new deputy mayor for operations, all the talk was about the new hire’s credentials as an innovator at remaking government through privatization. The Times called Goldsmith, a former two-term mayor of Indianapolis who officially started work at City Hall on June 1, “a national leader in the movement to introduce corporate-style accountability and cost-cutting into government bureaucracy.” Bloomberg enthused about his new hire, “Lots of people talk about reinventing government; I think it’s fair to say Steve has actually done that.”

According to some of those who saw Goldsmith’s work firsthand in Indianapolis, however, his record is mixed. The Indianapolis miracle, say many community and labor leaders, was less an indicator of the magic of privatization than of its limits. … [read more]

New York’s new public advocate, former city councilmember (and Hillary Clinton campaign director) Bill de Blasio, has been mostly talk since his election last fall — but for city’s “ombudsman,” speaking loudly might be the most effective tool of all. (And no, I’m not exactly sure what the headline means, though I hope it involves Mike Bloomberg as Simon Bar Sinister.)

When the New York Times delivered its all-important endorsement to then-City Councilman Bill de Blasio in last year’s race for public advocate, the paper noted that the winner’s chief task would be “demonstrating whether this position truly serves New Yorkers.”

If the subtext wasn’t clear then, it was brought into sharp focus when the mayor’s charter revision commission announced that its agenda for this year would include the possible elimination of the public advocate position… [read more]

When Mayor Bloomberg threatened to cut all kinds of services back in January, turns out he wasn’t kidding:

The big headline from Mayor Bloomberg’s announcement yesterday of his final city budget plan was that 6,414 city school jobs would be eliminated in response to an anticipated $493 million in reduced state education funding to New York City. But buried in the 4,024-page budget itself are dozens more cuts that would affect scores of city services, from libraries to summer youth jobs… [read more]

Mayoral press release subject line opening of the day:

MAYOR BLOOMBERG, SIGOURNEY WEAVER AND OTHER OFFICIALS…

Now that New York City’s comptroller has charged that the city’s development arm illegally withheld $125 million in revenues from the city treasury, does he actually have a shot at getting it back?

Comptroller John Liu’s finding that the Economic Development Corporation (EDC) had shortchanged the city treasury by $125 million raises the question of whether the comptroller can force the EDC to return the monies.

Asked at a telephone press briefing on Wednesday if he’d use his power to refuse to sign off on city contracts to compel EDC to pass the money along (EDC, though effectively a branch of the mayor’s office, is technically a non-profit corporation that contracts with the city to do economic development), Liu replied: “I hope it doesn’t need to get any further beyond this point,” adding: “We will use every authority we have in this office, and I imagine the mayor will do the same thing, to get that $125 million.”

It seems unlikely, however, that the mayor will have Liu’s back, since two mayoral agencies have already signed off on the EDC’s practice… [read more]

Can Mikhail Prokhorov’s business dealings with Zimbabwe derail his plan to buy the New Jersey Nets and move them to Brooklyn? Well, maybe:

It’s Day Three of the Great Zimbabwe Flap, and the rhetoric over a New Jersey Congressman’s challenge to Russian bazillionaire Mikhail Prokhorov’s purchase of the Nets is heating up. Prokhorov fired back at Rep. Bill Pascrell Jr. (D-My-Constituents-Don’t-Want-to-Drive-Through-Two-Tunnels-to-Watch-the-Nets-Lose) yesterday, calling the charges that he’d violated economic sanctions against Zimbabwean dictator Robert Mugabe “erroneous,” and saying that “we have no dealings whatsoever with companies or individuals on the sanctions list.”[read more]

My adventures with the forces of demographic tabulation:

Unlike my colleague Jen Doll, I have not filled out my census form yet, for the simple reason that I haven’t received it. It’s possible that my upstairs neighbors have it, or that the local stray cats are using it as a litter box — since the Census Bureau helpfully addresses all mail to “Resident,” it’s not like anyone in a multiple-household dwelling can really lay claim to their own form.

If you, like me, awoke this morning with visions of landing in the Census hoosegow, rest assured: Just because today is the deadline for handing in census forms does not mean that today is actually the deadline for handing in census forms… [read more]

My first article for the relaunched City Limits, about the doomsday budgets proposed for New York city and state, is up. (It’s actually the second article I wrote for them, but is running first — I blame the suits at Fox.)

Economists say the nation’s recession is technically over, but whether or not the economy is actually on the mend, the recession’s impact on New York City and state budgets is only just beginning. Over the last three months, Gov. Paterson and Mayor Bloomberg have mapped out a set of austerity budgets that would slash billions in spending – with many of the reductions coming from education and social services.

This year marks a watershed for both City Hall and Albany, but for different reasons, says James Parrott, chief economist at the left-leaning Fiscal Policy Institute, which earlier this month issued extensive briefings on both the state and city budgets… [read more]

Why public schools need their own bailout. And pay no attention to that other guy who ripped off my topic today.

At my son’s elementary school, the news that Gov. Paterson is proposing $223 million in midyear cuts to city schools sparked about the same reaction you’d expect from telling a laid-off autoworker how the ice cap is melting: I’ve already got one crisis to worry about.

Last year’s cuts already cost our school its drama classes, a music teacher, and numerous aides. Library hours have evaporated. And the list of supplies that parents are asked to send in keeps getting longer… [read more]

Also pay no attention to the word “meltinger,” which was an editing error. If you want to read the original, slightly longer version, you can find it here.

I just received my hot-off-the-presses copy of the new issue of City Limits Investigates, with a report by CLI editor Jarrett Murphy and myself on how one New York City zip code — 11237, which covers most of the neighborhood of Bushwick, and also happens to be the geographic center of the city — has fared the last eight years under Mayor Michael Bloomberg. You can read Jarrett’s short summary online, but to see my section (which is focused on housing) you’ll have to order a physical copy. A sample of my housing chapter:

At a meeting of tenant volunteers for the Bushwich Housing Independence Project, the stories pour out, in both English and Spanish. All the volunteers are themselves tenants in Bushwick’s many rent-regulated apartments, mostly in the century-old six- or eight-family row houses that remain the neighborhood’s signature housing stock. All described similar tales of landlord harassment with the goal of getting them out in order to slip the units to market-rent status.

“I have no cooking gas and no hot water,” says Luz Varela, a board member and volunteer tenant advocate. “He’s doing everything in his power to get me to up and move. But I’m not gonna budge.” Finally, after she took her landlord to court, his lawyer claimed that the shutoff of services was a mistake stemming from a renumbering of apartments in her building.

Another BHIP volunteer, Hector Vazquez, says his landlord renovated his bathroom but made it too small to be usable. “You can’t go inside. You have to go outside and back in, like you’re walking backward,” he says. “You can’t even put your clothes on in there.”

There’s another 9,500 words or so on this and how 11237 is faring in terms of crime, jobs, schools, and other measures. So really, pick up a copy.