Update on St. Vincent's Hospital

NYS Department of Health commissioner Dr. Richard Daines needs to do the right thing.

What does a ‘‘needs assessment’’ mean for us in our efforts to get a hospital at the site of St. Vincent’s ?

First, although the efforts are well intentioned, some have been working to have a ‘‘needs assessment’’ done to prove to the New York State Department of Health that we deserve a hospital in the Lower West Side of Manhattan. But if you look at the law, it is the NYS Department of Health, which needs to prove to us that we don’t need a hospital – not the community that needs to prove to them that we do need a hospital.

We should not be shifting the responsibility away from the NYS Department of Health, but rather pushing them to do the right thing – and remedy what we see as a serious breach in New York State law and a grave threat to public health and safety in Lower Manhattan.

Not only was the hospital not been closed in a safe manner, but the NYS Department of Health is required to continue the services that the hospital provided or go through a formalized procedure to determine that the services are not needed, which would include public input and public notice.

Why is it important to acknowledge that it was a violation of New York State law to shut St. Vincent’s down without a ‘‘closure plan ?’’

Because, according to the law, the closure plan needed first to be approved by the NYS Department of Health, so that it ensured safety not just in the way it was closed, but in the aftermath, including safeguarding records and ensuring continuing services. The closure plan isn’t a thing of the past, it affects community members now, including access to their medical records, and it entitles our community to continued health and medical services.

What have we done to get a new hospital ?

At the City level, after pressure from residents of the Lower West Side, Community Board 2 has passed a resolution that confirms that they will not allow a change in zoning or use for the hospital facility.

This will stop developers from attempting to convert this space into more luxury residential property. Also, we are delighted to read in a recent letter to the Chelsea Now newspaper that New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn “will continue our push for a full service hospital here.” The Community Board and Speaker Quinn are making clear, as powerful parts of the ULURP process, that they will block any attempts to put anything other than a hospital at the site of St. Vincent’s.

What do we still need to do ?

At the State level, we must put pressure on the NYS Department of Health and on its commissioner, Richard F. Daines, M.D, to comply with the law. New York State Senator Tom Duane has gone on record as saying a hospital is achievable, and Assemblymember Richard Gottfried has also pledged his support. Sign our petition to add your voice to this important cause.

Mike Bloomberg's disdain toward FDNY grows

Bloomberg: NYC to Fight Ruling on 9/11 FDNY Memorial

Posted: Tuesday, 27 July 2010 2:59PM

NEW YORK (AP/1010 WINS) -- New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg says the city will contest a court order to list a retired fire captain alongside his former colleagues on the Sept. 11 memorial.

Bloomberg said Tuesday the city "will fight this in court." He says the Fire Department of New York made a reasonable choice to list only active-duty firefighters in an FDNY section on the memorial.

Retired Capt. James Corrigan was working in a private fire safety job for the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001. That's how officials planned to list him on the memorial when it opens next year.

His family says Corrigan acted as a firefighter that day while helping colleagues and deserves the same recognition on the memorial. A Queens judge agreed with the family on Monday.

Idle Indulgences

Cars can sit, idling or parked, but veteran servicemen cannot put up tables as sidewalk vendors near the Mercer Hotel.

In New York City, everybody is always getting parking tickets for trying to park on the street.

Except for around the Mercer Hotel.

Suzannah B. Troy has reported that she has witnessed police officers walking passed idling or parked cars outside the Mercer. Pictured here, Ms. Troy stands next to the Mercer, with empty parked cars behind her.

There is a sign that says, "No Parking," but the idling or parked cars around the Mercer are empty. The cars are supposed to be loading and unloading, but there is no one loading or unloading, and these cars are never ticketed. If you are looking for parking spaces in SoHo around Mercer and Prince streets, go over to the Mercer, where the cops don't issue you tickets for parking your car. But you have to be right in front of the Mercer, not across the street, where you will get ticketed.

Just don't try to set up a table on the nearby sidewalk to sell your arts and crafts.

Because around the Mercer, limos, private cars, Cadillacs, and Range Rovers, are allowed to park in no parking zones for the convenience of the hotel's A-list guests, but veteran servicemen are not allowed to set up sidewalk tables. Sidewalk vendors are part of what gives SoHo its sizzle and joie de vivre, but, according to Ms. Troy, cops are issuing tickets to sidewalk vendors, but not to the illegally parked cars around the Mercer Hotel.

Now that Ms. Troy has taken this story public, she has already experienced harassment and intimidation from an anonymous person, who Ms. Troy has said she thinks might be an employee of the Mercer.

NYC has been disfigured

Can anybody recognise New York City anymore ?

Suzannah B. Troy gives us a preview of Amanada Burden's speech, scheduled for later this morning.

"One huge reason Mike almost lost to Bill Thompson," Suzannah B. Troy wrote on her blog, "was he and Amanda Burden displaced so many New Yorkers and made over our city like a bad plastic surgeon."

Suzannah's video has already been picked up by Queens Crap.

Manifest Destiny

Billionaire Michael Bloomberg, whose hobby is using the City Council to skirt the City Charter, and socialite Amanda Burden, whose own hobby is city planning, are modern day imperialists, only they operate in New York, where they are abusing eminent domain to rob Native New Yorkers of their land and property rights. Just like ethno-centric European settlers, who rounded up and moved Native Americans off of their lands, Mayor Bloomberg and City Planner Burden are the source of massive displacement of Native New Yorkers.

Present day city planning projects and policies are having serious consequences for native New Yorkers : look at the legions of people, who have had to flee from the unaffordable rents of East Village apartments, only to have to resettle in other area codes. Look at how entire swaths of Manhattan no longer have a hospital ; the Lower West Side used to be served by St. Vincent's Hospital, before other megamillionaires, the Rudin family, began to salivate at the idea of converting the former campus of St. Vincent's into still yet more luxury condominious. How many steam pipe explosions, Con Edison manhole fires, the Queens blackout of 2006, construction crane collapses, dangerous sidewalk electrocutions, or subway budget blackholes have happened under Mayor Bloomberg and City Planner Burden ? When will enough be enough ?

To add insult to injury, now comes City Planner Burden, who will be speaking tomorrow at what would be an unconscionable venue of the National Museum of the American Indian. But remember, these people so easily rob us of our property rights, so they naturally have no conscious.

The title of the speaking seminar is : The Changing Face of New York’s Neighborhoods: A Population Update. Meanwhile, I can tell them that the city's population is changing, precisely because the population is fleeing as a direct and deliberate outcome of the mayor's and city planner's cold and heartless city planning policies and real estate development deals.

Seating at this disgraceful public event is naturally limited and subject to screening by the mayor's office, but just in case you can lie your way in to heckle at the city planner, the mayor is asking you to call his Special Projects Office at (212) 788-2569, or send an e-mail to nycintern@cityhall.nyc.gov. The mayor's office is asking you to please include your name, agency and phone number.

With their displacing real estate development deals and construction crane accidents, Mayor Bloomberg and City Planner Burden are resettling Native New Yorkers either into other boroughs, into New Jersey, or into early graves, therefore making more land in Manhattan available for homesteading by wealthier, white Americans.

Stop and Frisk

Bob Herbert of NYTimes : End the NYPD policy of ''stop and frisk''

The New York Times columnist Bob Herbert has published an opinion essay, in which Mr. Herbert asks Gov. David Patterson to sign into law a bill that would end the New York City Police Department's unconstitutional practise of making a list of innocent citizens who have been ''stoped and frisked'' by cops.

". . . Allowing the police to continue accumulating these permanent files on the innocent, an abomination in and of itself, would also encourage the cops to continue their Jim Crow stop-and-frisk policy, which has led to the systematic harassment and humiliation of young black and Latino residents who have done absolutely nothing wrong.

This racist policy needs to stop — and stop now . . . ."

"The Police Department has compounded this outrage by loading information on these innocent New Yorkers into its permanent database of stop-and-frisk encounters. The database is one of the first stops for cops investigating actual crimes. Thus, these innocent individuals become a permanent focus of the police, not because of anything they’ve done wrong but primarily because of their ethnic background . . . ."

Separately, The New York Times published information that indicated that, "Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg 'will urge the governor to veto the bill,' a spokesman, Jason Post, said."

Remember, this is the same mayor, who ordered the NYPD to spy on and illegally arrest and detain thousands of protesters to the 2004 Republican National Convention. When it comes to civil liberties and civil rights, our mayor is incapable of knowing what is the right thing to do.

Lady Bunny's Fireworks Message

Courtesy of @Lady Bunny from FaceBook :

"If you aren’t concerned about the current state of affairs in this country, you’re no patriot. And if your love for this nation is confined to waving a stupid flag one day a year and you aren’t ready to pitch in and help get us back on track, by the next 4th of July you’ll be lucky if you can afford a damn hot dog. Luckily, you’ll still be able to enjoy the fireworks even if a foreclosure has made you homeless."

Log Cabin République connes

Bloomberg to Join Log Cabin at N.Y. Pride

Just a friendly reminder, based on facts, that despite Mayor Michael Bloomberg's march with the Log Cabin Republicans in this year's Gay Pride Parade, the legal debate over the constitutionality of same-sex marriages in New York came to an early abortion after Mayor Bloomberg appealed Judge Doris Ling-Cohan's 2005 trial court ruling in which she found that the right to marry the person of one's choosing is both a privacy right and a liberty right.

If Mayor Bloomberg cared about equality, then he would be taking action to create equality, instead of just showing up for photo opportunities with the farce of a group called Log Cabin Republicans. Mr. Mayor, what is your record on equality ?

Cy Vance's campaign responds

Anonymous leaks about Cy Vance's alleged Campaign Finance Irregularities triggers an official response from Mr. Vance's campaign treasurer.

A representative from Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance's campaign has called Suzannah B. Troy to issue an official communication in response to questions about campaign payments made or debts owed to Mark Guma.

Compromise the Investigator

Cy Vance, Mark Guma, Maura Keaney, and John Haggerty : Campaign finance irregularities that may compromise the Manhattan District Attorney's Office

Suzannah B. Troy has published a shocking independent journalist report, one that is brave, because we are relying on the integrity of anonymous information, to show that certain irregular financial transactions took place within Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance's election campaign.

'' In a series of shady campaign finance maneuvers reported on campaign filings throughout the 2009 election cycle, Cy Vance has apparently attempted to conceal the fact that Mark Guma has forgiven large sums of debt owed to Mark Guma Communications, Inc. previously invoiced to Cy Vance’s campaign. ''

If this is true, and you can read the entirety of Ms. Troy's information at the end of this post, then Ms. Troy is right when she draws the conclusion that District Attorney Cy Vance's campaign finance irregularities and/or ties to Mayor Michael Bloomberg's own campaign finance scandal, compromise the District Attorney's integrity. Mr. Vance's campaign must now fully explain its association with John Haggerty, since his own office is now investigating Mr. Haggerty's alleged criminal campaign activities.

Cy Vance Mike Bloomberg = Teflon Mike Bloomberg info sent to me by a source.

This was emailed to me and I am posting. I am a blogger and I don't have the resources that a David Seifman has or the contacts including a press pass. I have not gotten to interview this person but I wanted to share this with my followers and you decide what to make of this. If this is true than it proves that Cy Vance has every reason in his power as I am sure many others do for different reasons to make sure this powerful connected man, Mike Bloomberg who doesn't respect limits of any kind remains Teflon Mike -- that he remains above the law.

If this is all true than I am glad I have gone to "outside sources" beyond the NYPD forwarding the cyber stalker identity thief continued and on going harassment on YouTube of me and others. The Queens DA has the evidence from when the freak stole Tony Avella's identity the day after the election to harass me and others so I am glad the Queens DA doesn't have the issues that Cy Vance has. Here is the info I was sent:

Points of Public Interest pertaining to Cy Vance’s Campaign Finance Irregularities in collusion with Michael Bloomberg’s campaign and Mark Guma Communications.

· Cy Vance has a longstanding debt to Mark Guma Communications for $273,349 to whom he paid more than 1.1 million dollars to for consulting and electioneering activities from September 2009-January 2010.

· On January 15, 2010, Cy Vance mysteriously reported to the State Board of Elections that he had loan/liabilities to Mark Guma Communications in the amount of $273K that dated back to 9/14/2009. (2009 10 Day Post Primary)

· In a series of shady campaign finance maneuvers reported on campaign filings throughout the 2009 election cycle, Cy Vance has apparently attempted to conceal the fact that Mark Guma has forgiven large sums of debt owed to Mark Guma Communications, Inc. previously invoiced to Cy Vance’s campaign.

· In a series of campaign finance reports, Cy Vance’s campaign reduced their liability to Mark Guma Communications, Inc. by reporting campaign expenditures on section F of their filings (with corresponding check numbers) purportedly written to Mark Guma Communications, while simultaneously reporting on Section O of his finance reports that Mark Guma was making a donation to the campaign for the same amount.

· Vance’s campaign simultaneously reduced the liabilities in section N of its filings by the exact same amounts of each “donation” reported on section O.

*See State BOE Filer ID C36419 (2009 11 Day Pre-General, 2009 27 Day Post General, 2010 January Periodic)

· Thus far, $96,172.85 in debt owed to Mark Guma Communications, Inc has been “written off” by the Cy Vance campaign in a subversive manner, and thereby evading campaign finance limits placed on corporate donations.

· (Section 14 of Election Law)The New York State Board of Elections has ruled that a company or corporation that engages in public relations does not typically lend money to its clients. Therefore, “any loan by the company which is not repaid by the date of the election would be deemed a contribution in accordance with the provisions of the law. If the amount not repaid to the corporation on the date of the election exceeds $5000, the corporation would be in violation of section 14 of Election Law which limits corporate contributions to $5000.” (NYS BOE 1977 Opinion #8)

· In addition, if the company extends credit to a campaign for services performed, with the INTENT to eventually write off the debt, this is considered an act to violate and evade the contribution limits set forth in section 14 of Election Law. (NYS BOE 1977 Opinion #8)

· Section 14-126 of State Election Law clearly states that (3) Any person who knowingly and willfully contributes, accepts or aids or participates in the acceptance of a contribution in an amount exceeding an applicable maximum specified in this article shall be guilty of a misdemeanor.

· Section 14-126 of State Election Law clearly states that (4) Any person who shall, acting on behalf of a candidate or political committee, knowingly and willfully …makes expenditures in connection with a nomination for election of any candidate, or solicits any person to make any such expenditures, for the purpose of evading the contribution limitations of this article, shall be guilty of a class E felony.

· Of further consideration, and perhaps more intriguing, is the fact that Mark Guma is married to Maura Keaney, Mike Bloomberg’s Field Operations Director for the 2009 mayoral race. Keaney worked with John Haggerty and was allegedly involved in the Election Day poll operations and planning that has come to light in recent weeks that involved alleged criminal activities.

· Keaney was moved out of her job with the campaign committee in February, around the same time the NY Post began reporting Haggerty’s enormous Election Day pay-off.

· It seems that Cy Vance was receiving his big pay-day from Mark Guma Communications, Inc.

The way Brad Hoylman does things

A different YouTube video, showing what happened after Brad Hoylman yanked the microphone out of Yetta Kurland's hands.

" The Hedz-Up Report continues its coverage of the community's fight to preserve the legacy of St. Vincent's Hospital, w/ full coverage of Community Board 2's, St. Vincent's Omnibus Committee Meeting. This clip features lawyer-activist, Yetta Kurland, trying to negotiate future collaborative planning sessions, only to be stripped of the microphone by CB2 board member, Brad Hoylman. "

The circuit breakers for the power brokers

The highway and the hospital

The way Robert Moses disregarded the needs of the Greenwich Village community by proposing to build a highway through it is, almost 50 years later, very much the same way Mayor Michael Bloomberg is disregarding the needs of the same Greenwich Village community by letting more luxury condominiums go up in the Village, this time on the former space of St. Vincent's Hospital.

More and more, it seems that each power-hungry man sick with development-envy tests his limits over doomed urban renewal ideas for the vibrant and energetic Greenwich Village.

Keeping the site of St. Vincent's zoned for a hospital

Maintaining the zoning of the site of St. Vincent's Hospital is one way to attract another hospital corporation to 'adaptively reuse' the existing infrastructure already available at St. Vincent's former main building.

Why Are They Closing St. Vincent's Hospital? (Pt.10) - Hands Around St. Vincent's (Excerpt) from g. sosa on Vimeo.

"Too Many Free Passes"

Mayor Bloomb3rg's th3rd t3rm l3gitimacy can b3 s33n on John Hagg3rty's invoic3.

Check out Suzannah B. Troy's YouTube video, in which she discusses Mayor Michael Bloomberg's $750,000 campaign finance scandal. She also discusses how the Bloomberg administration put construction and development before infrastructure ; she adds, "There were too many free passes."

For some background about Mayor Bloomberg's campaign finance scandal, please read the independent blogger Gregg Walker's viewpoint report.

Wasted CityTime

CityTime is "a state of the art Orwellian time clock," says Suzannah B. Troy.

The artist and citizen activist Suzannah B. Troy has described Mayor Michael Bloomberg's time management system, called CityTime, as being a "technological nightmare and flim flam rip-off to the taxpayers." Watch her video :

I invite you to read the post authored by Ms. Troy with regard to CityTime.

Where is our mayor ?

Community anger grows over St. Vincent's closing

If this video makes you angry, join us in an e-mail campaign to do something about it. Help bring back a hospital to the Lower West Side of Manhattan.

St. Vincent's E-mail Campaign

Take action now to establish a full service hospital for Lower Manhattan.

Please copy and paste the addresses and the suggested message into an e-mail. Make any modifications, to personalise your own communication.

To :

mayor@nyc.gov; speakerquinn@council.nyc.gov; dohweb@health.state.ny.us; duane@senate.state.ny.us; GottfriedR@assembly.state.ny.us; arroyo@council.nyc.ny.us

Subject :

Coalition for a New Village Hospital

Suggested message :

Ladies and Gentlemen :

We need a hospital on the Lower West Side of Manhattan. The proposal to replace St. Vincent's Hospital with an 'urgent care center' is insufficient ; such a center will not be able to provide Level 1 trauma care, emergency rooms, critical healthcare attention, or hospital beds. Such a center would also be unable to adequately address any real public health or safety issues, were they to come up. Right now, there is no Level 1 Trauma Center below 14th Street in Manhattan, which we all know is a high risk security area. Everyone in our community is worried that people's lives are now in jeopardy, because of the longer time it will take them to be transported to the emergency rooms of alternative hospitals. There is no value we can put on human life. I am writing to you to let you know that our community is organising, and we demand a hospital in lower Manhattan.

Yours sincerely,

( If you think of new addresses to be included, or any changes that should be made, please post a comment on this blog. )

Les Parapluies de Bloomberg

We will never forget . . . , or, at least, we weren't supposed to forget so soon.

If you are worried about the lack of a hospital in Manhattan in the area stretching all along the West Side from Columbus Circle to Battery Park, join us in an e-mail campaign to do something about it. Help bring back a hospital to the Lower West Side of Manhattan.

Myths vs. Truths at St. Vincent's Hospital

Myths vs. Truths at St. Vincent's Hospital

View more presentations from NewellNYC.

If this slide show makes you angry, join us in an e-mail campaign to do something about it. Help bring back a hospital to the Lower West Side of Manhattan.

Graffiti at Grand Central

Clayton Patterson can't paint his front door, but Bloombo Dicto can put up graffiti on the steps of Grand Central Terminal.

The artist and activist Suzannah B. Troy talks plainly, and she wastes no time in getting to the point. Read her latest independent journalism exposé about how Mayor Michael Bloomberg is blurring the lines between his private and public kingdoms.

(Click on the quote box to jump to the story on her blog.)