Two seemingly unrelated news items from the last month: The tunnel boring machine digging the extension of the number 7 subway line completed its task, leaving the new project on target for a late 2013 opening. And the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership, a quasi-public development corporation formed to oversee the reconstruction of a 22-block swath of downtown Brooklyn, was reported to be short of cash and threatened with being reduced to “a shell” of its former self.

The tie that binds these two stories: Dan Doctoroff, who as deputy mayor for economic development spearheaded both the 7 train extension and the downtown Brooklyn rezoning, along with numerous other development projects that marked Mayor Bloomberg’s first two terms in office… [read more]

Meetings of the Industrial Development Agency - the city agency in charge of approving discretionary tax subsidies to local businesses - are generally sleepy affairs. Unless sports teams are involved, the monthly board meetings typically attract a handful of business executives and policy wonks but little public attention.

This morning’s monthly IDA hearing, though, was widely anticipated for a different reason: One of the items on the agenda was $24 million in sales tax breaks on office and building materials to Thomson Reuters, the news-and-information-services giant created when the Canadian firm Thomson bought the wire service Reuters in 2008… [read more]

The New York state education department issued its annual test scores for 3rd- through 8th-graders this morning, and the takeaway is: They blow. The number of students judged proficient in English fell from 77% in 2009 to 53% this year; in math, the percent earning passing grades plunged from 86% to 61%.

The state, however, was quick to note that it had anticipated crappy scores, seeing as it had raised the scores required to pass — “cut scores,” in testing lingo — after widespread criticism that New York students had been doing better on state tests but not on national ones. The real upshot, then: New York schools aren’t any crappier than ever, it’s just that prior reports of improvement were an illusion.[read more]

Sometime in the last year, New York City reached a milestone: More than one-quarter of its adult residents are now receiving food stamps. Thanks in large part to the outreach efforts of the Bloomberg administration–with an added boost from the crappy economy–1.7 million New York City residents are now receiving food stamps (or Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits, as they’ve been officially known since 2008), up from 800,000 at its low point in the final month of the Giuliani Administration in December 2001.

Finding places to effectively spend those food stamps is another story… [read more]

Poor dead George Steinbrenner doesn’t even have a grave to spin in yet, and already he’s being raked over the coals for his past sins.

First came Jim Dwyer’s recounting of The Boss’s legacy of egotism and abuse in today’s Times, which recalls how Steinbrenner shook hands with Ed Koch on a lease extension at the old Yankee Stadium, only to back out when he decided he’d rather keep all his cable boodle for himself.

Then at noon today, a group of South Bronx residents held a press conference at the new Yankee Stadium that Steinbrenner and his kids got $1.2 billion in taxpayer money for, demanding that the Yankees cough up proof that they’ve lived up to the community benefits agreement that team execs announced with great fanfare just before the city council vote on the new stadium plan in 2006… [read more]

(Okay, I’m not actually going to drive the economy off a cliff by saving up all my dirty laundry in hopes that prices will fall even more. Still, it seems pretty remarkable, given that the last time I can remember this happening is, well, never.)

When, not long after that, Steinbrenner was suspended by Fay Vincent for hiring a gambler to dig up dirt on one of his own players (Dave Winfield, who was suing Steinbrenner for reneging on contractually promised payments to Winfield’s charitable foundation), it was announced on the Diamondvision at Yankee Stadium, and the crowd let out a huge cheer.

The days of a Steinbrenner-free Bronx were limited — he was reinstated in 1993 — but it’s worth noting that those were extremely productive years for Yankees management, as with the impatient Boss sidelined the team was able to nurture Bernie Williams, Andy Pettitte, Mariano Rivera, Jorge Posada, and others who formed the core of the team that won four World Series between 1996 and 2000. Steinbrenner will no doubt be remembered as the man who restored the Yankee dynasty, but to a large degree it was the rush of renewed consumer spending (and explosive growth of cable) in the 1980s and ’90s that made the revived dynasty possible. Steinbrenner did at least, unlike some other owners, pour these revenues into his own product, but it was GMs Gene Michael and Brian Cashman who, more in spite of The Boss than thanks to him, turned those riches into championships.

Nobody wants to speak ill of the dead, though, especially when the dead man’s relatives continue to control a powerful local business and political force. So we have Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr. issuing this statement today:

“Today I join 1.4 million Bronxites, and Yankee fans across the world, in mourning the passing of a great man, ‘The Boss,’ George Steinbrenner. … While other baseball fans were jealous of this success, Yankee fans, like myself, loved him for it. Both the Bronx and New York City have lost a giant today—in baseball and in charity.”

Given that Steinbrenner’s foundation had a long history of stiffing Bronx community groups, even before his role as the Thief of Parkland, that may sound a bit much. But it’s accurate in one way: Like most giants, his approach to charity was that nobody was going to get their dirty paws on his golden-egg-laying goose.

With a new mandate looming that will require business owners to file millions more tax forms, the Internal Revenue Service has begun the daunting process of figuring out how to turn the law’s sweeping demands into actual rules for taxpayers.

The new regulations, which kick in at the start of 2012, require any taxpayer with business income to issue 1099 forms to all vendors from whom they purchased more than $600 of goods and services that year. That promises to launch a fusillade of new paperwork: An estimated 40 million taxpayers will be subject to the requirement, including 26 million who run sole proprietorships, according to a report released this week by National Taxpayer Advocate Nina Olson… [read more]