No Third Term : Th3 ill-fat3d, karmically-doom3d th3rd t3rm of Micha3l Bloomb3rg
Are Systems Test Analysts, like Amy Clayton at SAIC, responsible for the monitoring the rollout of complex information technology projects like CityTime, or should the fall guys be the people at the top, who kept submitting the inflated invoices -- and then approving their payment ?
Is there an update that the Department of Justice can give us ?
Queens' Peninsula Hospital Center set to close ; New York Downtown Hospital putting patients on stretchers in the hallway to accommodate unmanageable influx of emergency patients.
"Sources say the Far Rockaway, Queens, hospital will shutter after owing millions to vendors and falling behind on its union benefits funds payments; the closure would cost the area about 1,000 jobs," reported Crain's.
The Queens Crap blog published a post today, indicating that Peninsula Hospital Center had filed a 90-day closure plan, a requirement under the law that was violated when St. Vincent's Hospital closed on April 30, 2010.
Is our social safety net not too big to fail ?
Does nobody in City Council have any concern about the financial collapse of so many hospitals across all five New York City boroughs ?
Does Mayor Michael Bloomberg not care, either ?
Meanwhile, following the illegal closing of St. Vincent's Hospital last year, there reamins only one hospital south of 16th Street in Manhattan, New York Downtown Hospital, which The New York Post has reported as being ''overwhelmed,'' and is leading to an ''emergency-care crisis,'' the newspaper reports.
From The New York Post :
Gay-nup foes got Mike $$ : Politics over principle
Two Republican state senators who voted against gay marriage are collecting the same hefty campaign contributions from Mayor Bloomberg as the four who bolted their party to pass the historic law that takes effect today.
Campaign records show that Bloomberg, who castigated opponents of same-sex nuptials as "obstructionists," delivered $10,300 to Brooklyn state Sen. Marty Golden on July 11.
That represented nearly 20 percent of the $54,550 Golden's campaign took in over the last six months.
Not only did he steadfastly oppose the new law, but Golden even tried to overturn an executive order that permitted New York to recognize gay marriages performed in other states.
"I believe personally it shouldn't be done here in the state of New York," he declared in May.
A mayoral aide said Bloomberg would also be sending a $10,300 check to Staten Island state Sen. Andrew Lanza, another Republican in the anti-gay-marriage column.
Last week, The Post reported that the mayor gave $10,300 to each of the four Republicans who took the political risk of backing marriage equality.
That put him in the funny position of rewarding both backers and opponents of the law.
"No one agrees on everything," a mayoral aide commented.Golden and Lanza, as the only two Republicans representing the city in the Senate, are frequently called upon to push the administration's agenda in Albany, the aide said.
"While there was no quid pro quo, Marty Golden carried the taxi bill for us. I'm saying there are lots of issues."
The bitterly contested taxi legislation -- which Gov. Cuomo has yet to sign into law -- would establish a new system of metered cabs serving the outer boroughs.
Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer Blasts Mayor's Race Opponent Chris Quinn
Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer took an apparent swipe at his mayor's race opponent, calling for an end to pork spending by local lawmakers.
JULY 20, 2011 4:09 PM
Our Reuven Blau reports:
"We have a system where some districts get a lot more than others and politics is the only reason," Stringer told reporters yesterday.
Quinn is an early frontrunner in the mayoral election with the largest war chest of more than $4 million. Yet one of her major challenges in her expected run is the so-called slush fund scandal that erupted in 2007.
-- Excerpted from the Daily Politics blog by Celeste Katz on The New York Daily News.
2011 07 Xx Christine Quinn Slush Fund Member Items ReportThe Village Voice Exposé : Citizen Bloomberg : The Dirty, Rotten Business of Mayor Michael Bloomberg
''New Yorkers who have received city, campaign, or Bloomberg bucks in one form or another and who expect to do business again in the future agreed to speak anonymously with the Voice about the mayor's personality, the intersection of his political and private interests, and the goals he aims to achieve.''
Barbara Ricci has used my YouTube video to justify her attack of Mayor Michael Bloomberg, based on him being Jewish, and then Ms. Ricci went one step further with her offensive writing by trying to sexually-shaming the artist and blogger Suzannah B. Troy. As much as I support free speech, and as much as I have criticised Mayor Bloomberg for his corruption, I cannot support racisim or anti-Semitic comments. Plus, I do not understand why Ms. Ricci would personally attack Ms. Troy. None of Ms. Ricci's blog post makes any journalistic sense.
SAIC RICO Bloomberg Protest - Suzannah B. Troy Speech
Artist, blogger, and political commentator Suzannah B. Troy gave a speech today outside the New York City offices of SAIC to demand a RICO refund of triple damages against SAIC for their role in the organised crime that took place to rob taxpayers of over almost $1 billion in CityTime project costs.
Union representatives from Local 375 and DC 37, community activists, New York City taxpayers, and others gathered at 1250 Broadway in a demonstration against the technology company known as SAIC.
For years, newspaper and television reporters, bloggers, and whistle blowers have been reporting details of a massive taxpayer fraud perpetrated by New York City officials, by employees of SAIC and of another company known as Technodyne, and possibly by lobbyists in connection with the scandalous CityTime project.
The CityTime project began with an original budget of approximately $60 million, but has since ballooned to over $700 million.
The U.S. Attorney's Office has begun an investigation, but nobody yet knows how high this scandal, and other technology consultancy contract scandals, may go up the Bloomberg administration.
Stay tuned.
Gino Menchini, Technodyne Lobbyist, and former NYC Telecom Commissioner
Agostino Cangemi's lobbying partner on the Technodyne-CityTime deal is Gino Menchini ; both men now work for National Strategies, LLC, a lobbying firm that performed recent lobbying work for Technodyne, one of the subcontractors implicated in the CityTime fraud scandal.
According to Mr. Menchini's biography, he was : "appointed by Mayor Michael Bloomberg as Commissioner of the New York City Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications (DoITT) and New York City’s Chief Information Officer (CIO). As the City’s CIO and DoITT Commissioner, he reported directly to Mayor Bloomberg and was responsible for the oversight and direction of IT and telecommunications activities for all of the City’s agencies."
In 2004, Mr. Menchini oversaw the motherload of IT contracts for that time : a $1 billion telecommunications and internet contract for the entire city. The amount of money tied to that telecom contract was described as a ''BONANZA'' (in all capital letters, according to The New York Daily News headline).
Naturally, Mr. Menchini is a very close and personal friend of Mayor Bloomberg. In 2005, Mr. Menchini was among those who attended the wedding of Miss Emma Bloomberg, Mr. Bloomberg's older daughter.
After he left his job as telecommunications commissioner, Mr. Menchini worked for a time with Northrop Grumman, one of the subcontractors on another controversial $2 billion Unified Call Taker-911 dispatch and emergency call system that is also known as the Emergency Communications Transformation Program (ECTP) -- a deal that has already become the subject of review by New York City Comptroller John Liu.
Agostino Cangemi worked as a lobbyist for Technodyne LLC, and while he was representing Technodyne, Mr. Cangemi was pimping Technodyne to the following New York City government agencies : Comptroller's Office, Department of Buildings (DOB), Department of Citywide Administrative Services (DCAS), Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications (DOITT), Department of Sanitation (DSNY), Department of Social Services/Human Resources Administration (HRA), Fire Department, Office of Management & Budget (OMB), Office of The Mayor (OTM), Police Department (NYPD)
Mr. Cangemi also worked as a lobbyists for The Doe Fund, Inc., the charity that received millions of dollars in donations from Mayor Bloomberg's charity during the time leading up to the change of term limits.
Information courtesy : http://www.nyc.gov/lobbyistsearch/index.jsp
Bankruptcy Judge Cecelia Morris has let the management of St. Vincent's avoid Freedom of Information requests and has let the Rudin Family to gut St. Vincent's and is about to let the Family take a wrecking ball to it. Now, Judge Morris is going to let the Management and the Family destroy evidence.
Management of St. Vincent's Asks Bankruptcy Court to Approve Document Destruction, So That No Investigation Can Ever Determine Why the Hospital Closed Abruptly And Without Any Legally-Mandated Closure Plan.
No politician -- not CB2 Chair Brad Hoylman, not City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, Mayor Michael Bloomberg, or Senator Tom Duane -- is willing to do anything to prevent the luxury condo conversion of St. Vincent's. With the shredding trucks about to pull into the ambulance bays of St. Vincent's, the obstruction of justice will be complete : there may be no more hope to ever investigate the shady decisions that lead the hospital to close on April 30, 2010. It's exactly as Sarah Jessica Parker said : ''The community needs a hospital — and I think there’s been some clever obfuscation.''
1782-Motion Re Info Mgmt Services and Trust Ageement and Document Retention PlanCity Workers’ Discrimination Lawsuits Rise under Bloombo Dicto's Thr33 T3rms, Reports NYT
From The New York Times :
"The number of discrimination cases filed by city employees in New York has risen even as Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg has adopted a far less adversarial tone than his predecessor did in dealing with the city’s vast work force."During Mr. Bloomberg’s first two terms in office, the number of lawsuits by employees accusing the city of discrimination was 12 percent higher than the number during Rudolph W. Giuliani’s two terms as mayor, according to government data furnished under Freedom of Information Law requests. ...
"Workplace discrimination has been an awkward issue for Mr. Bloomberg. The financial services firm he founded and led, Bloomberg L.P., has been battling a long-running lawsuit contending that Mr. Bloomberg and top managers created a hostile workplace for pregnant employees. Mr. Bloomberg testified for about eight hours over two days in 2009; the case is expected to go to trial next year," reported The Times.
Keeping in mind that Mayor Bloomberg is skilled at funneling campaign money in many ways that go undetected and undisclosed, a skill he shares with Speaker Quinn, who still maintains her shady City Council slush fund. These experts at funneling and slushing money around in opaque structures and technicalities are the ones, who never detected the massive $600 million CityTime Fraud. Really ?
During the 3 terms of the Bloomberg administration, Mayor Michael Bloomberg and City Council Speaker Christine Quinn kept approving each year's city budget, which included all the approvals and sign-offs on the CityTime cost over-runs.
During the Bloomberg-Quinn administration, lobbyists for the primary CityTime contractors, Scientific Applications International Corporation and Technodyne, kept teams of expensive lobbyists on their payroll to do exactly what ? Were lobbyists being paid to prevent any government agency to investigate the 2003 Richard Valcich letter ?
2003 02 19 Richard Valcich Letter SAIC CityTime Corruption Scandal
In 2003, Mr. Valcich was the Executive Director of the Office of Payroll Administration. In his 6 page letter to SAIC, Mr. Valcich questioned the motivations behind SAIC's poor performance on the CityTime contract ; SAIC kept dragging out deadlines and delivering product that Mr. Valcich described as "below acceptable standards."
As of the time of the writing of Mr. Valcich's letter, New York City had spent $35 million thus far on the doomed CityTime project. Current cost estimates put the price tag at over $700 million, of which $600 million has been described as "fraud."
During all this time, though, the principal outsourced companies working on CityTime were dispatching teams of lobbyists, to keep the cost over-runs being paid, and maybe for other motives.... The newsroom of WNYC, the public radio station, cannot pinpoint the exact role of the shady CityTime lobbyists.
"What prosecutors have yet to publicly discuss is the role played by former city officials from both the Giuliani and Bloomberg administrations that acted as lobbyists on behalf of SAIC and subcontractors such as New Jersey-based Technodyne. ...
"The city's lobbying database shows a small army of former prominent city officials who did work for SAIC and Technodyne. Defense contractor SAIC has retained former City Comptroller Liz Holtzman, Peter Powers, who served as Mayor Giuliani's top deputy Mayor for operations, and Seth Kaye, who worked in both the Giuliani and Bloomberg administrations. Technodyne's lobbyists include former Bloomberg Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications Commissioner Gino Menchini and Agostino Cangemi, who also held key posts in both administrations.
"National Strategies, the lobbying firm that employs Menchini and Cangemi, says the firm had no role in CityTime and discontinued working "on general business procurement" for Technodyne as soon as the criminal allegations surfaced. (Another Technodyne lobbyist of record, Sal Salamone, was director of the Mayor’s Office of Computer Planning and has worked for SAIC.)"
No journalism outlet has yet to report the extent of lobbying by other CityTime subcontractors, such as Spherion and Gartner. If the lobbyists were trying to thwart any investigation into the $600 million CityTime fraud, would those lobbying activities rise to the level of obstruction of justice ?
Eileen Dunn, R.N., tells residents of the Lower West Side of Manhattan that Mayor Michael Bloomberg put the ''knife to the chest'' of St. Vincent's Hospital, and that the mayor is responsible for blocking the restoration of a hospital to the Lower West Side.
Nurse Dunn also said that the municipal governments in Miami, Florida, and Chesapeake Bay, Virginia, either forbid ambulances from taking emergency patients to the kinds of first aid clinics that Lenox Hill plans to build at the O'Toole Building in the West Village, or forbid to license such first aid clinics altogether.
Too bad we can't count on Mayor Bloomberg to do the right thing -- and fight for a full-service hospital to replace St. Vincent's.
Community Activist Yetta Kurland presented a stack of over 7,500 signatures on a petition to a representative of the Rudin development family. The petition demands that the Rudin Family must be blocked from undertaking a luxury condominium conversion of the former site of St. Vincent's Hospital. In her presentation, Ms. Kurland explained the history of a prior deal that gave the Rudin Family use of a hardship exemption, but, which Ms. Kurland said, no longer applies. As William Rudin salivates over the condo conversion deal, Jane Jacobs is turning in her grave.
Under the cover of darkness, over a holiday weekend, and in usual opaque fashion, Community Board 2 announced with very short notice a meeting for tomorrow that will keep pushing a first aid clinic to replace St. Vincent's Hospital.
In spite of the Lower West Side's united demand that North Shore-LIJ open a hospital to replace St. Vincent's, Community Board 2 keeps its head buried up the ass of the Rudin Family.
JOINT LANDMARKS & PUBLIC AESTHETICS & ST. VINCENT’S OMNIBUS : Tues., 7/5 @ 6:30 PM– NYU Silver Building, 32 Waverly Pl. Room 208 - 30 Seventh Avenue (O’Toole Building) - Application for façade changes and new entrances. For more information go to: http://bit.ly/iNUSWj
If the U.S. Attorney General won't appoint a special prosecutor to investigate the CityTime scandal, can we ask Public Advocate Bill De Blasio to launch an independent ethics investigation into the Bloomberg-Quinn administration ?
Michael Bloomberg, our control-queen mayor who is famous for fighting for more and more mayoral control over everything, including public education, is spinning the tall tale that he was never in control over the fraud being committed during the cost over-runs during the CityTime payroll system scandal.
"The fraud-riddled CityTime payroll system is being transferred to the city's control in the wake of indictments, guilty pleas and the public demand by Mayor Bloomberg that he wants $600 million back from the company in charge of the project.
"Rather than rely on contractors caught up in the corruption scandal to oversee the system, the city will assemble a team of roughly 70 technicians under its own control -- including many who worked for the companies now under investigation," reported The New York Post.
Just a week ago, Mayor Bloomberg was defending the hundred million dollars in cost over-runs in the CityTime project. (As if mayoral control hadn't yet been exposed to be a joke (take, for example, the Cathie Black appointment) Mayor Bloomberg is now trying to extend mayoral control from public education to the juvenile justice system.) And if that wasn't enough, now that Mayor Bloomberg claims that ''control'' over CityTime is being transferred to City Hall, one wonders who is the man behind the curtain, who is pulling all the levers, flipping all the switches, and turning all the dials ? Meanwhile, to no one's surprise, now that the CityTime milking project has gone bust, the Bloomberg administration is now on the prowl for another "new" payroll system.
"Buried in the agency's resolution was the surprising announcement that, come January, the city will seek new proposals for computerized payroll management," The Post report added.
During these three terms of Bloomberg mayoral control, he and Deputy Mayor Christine Quinn have complete and total control over the city budget, including approving appropriations of most, if not all, of the cost over-runs on the CityTime project. Will Mr. de Blasio do the right thing -- and launch an independent ethics investigation ? For more coverage, please visit the CityTime cover-up reporting by True News From Change. For more coverage, please visit the CityTime cover-up reporting by True News From Change.
