Bloomberg Official Is Arrested For Taking Bribes

New York City Housing Official Is Accused of Taking Bribes

'' ... Wendell B. Walters, the assistant commissioner at the Department of Housing Preservation and Development responsible for new construction, was arrested on charges that he took money from developers involved in building about $22 million in moderately priced housing overseen by the agency in the Bronx, Queens and Brooklyn since 2002,'' reported The New York Times.

It was alleged that Mr. Walters awarded contracts to developers in exchange for cash. He was charged with racketeering conspiracy, extortion, bribery, wire fraud, and money laundering, according to The NYTimes.

The charges against Mr. Walters further calls into question the pattern of corruption under the Bloomberg administration. Under Mayor Michael Bloomberg, we have seen multiple cases of fraud and corruption, from the overbilling of several high tech deals, most notably in connection with CityTime, in addition to the investigations and indictments under the City Council slush fund scandal.

Not only that, but The NYTimes reported that the charges against Mr. Walters ... ''represented another black eye for the administration of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, whose third term has been clouded by controversies involving senior officials. They include the tumultuous tenure of Cathleen P. Black as schools chancellor and the abrupt departure of Deputy Mayor Stephen Goldsmith, who said in August that he was leaving to work in municipal finance, but had been arrested in Washington on a domestic violence charge days earlier, a fact that neither he nor the mayor had mentioned in their announcements.''

After all these cases of corruption or official misconduct, you would think that we would need to protect the progressive era reforms, not roll them back, the way that Mayor Bloomberg has been trying, ever since he came into power.

Like Putin, Like Bloomberg

From The New York Times :

Like Putin, Like Bloomberg

October 4, 2011, 8:44 AM
By CLYDE HABERMAN

Political ploys under way in Russia could almost serve as an instruction manual for the leadership at either end of New York’s City Hall. You have to slap your forehead in wonder that the New Yorkers didn’t think up comparable high jinks for themselves.

In case your idea of foreign news is a revised menu at the International House of Pancakes, allow us to explain.

Dmitri A. Medvedev, who is Russia’s president but not the guy in charge, plans to step aside so that his place can be taken by Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin, Mr. Medvedev’s predecessor and still the true power. Once Mr. Putin is installed anew as president, Mr. Medvedev will move in as prime minister. In some countries, leaders swap political favors. In Russia, it seems, they swap jobs.

The reason for this folderol is that Mr. Putin, though not thrilled with the idea, yielded the presidency three years ago in accordance with a constitutional provision limiting him to two consecutive terms.

In other words, this former K.G.B. man, known for strong-arm tactics, was more scrupulous about observing the niceties of term limits than were New York’s political leaders: Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and his Medvedev equivalent, Christine C. Quinn, the City Council speaker.

You will recall that Mr. Bloomberg and Ms. Quinn could not bother themselves with observing the letter, let alone the spirit, of a voter-imposed city law limiting them to two terms. With the help of complaisant council members, they simply changed the law to reward themselves with third terms. Generally speaking, it’s not a good idea to look less faithful to democratic formalities than Vladimir Putin.

There is no need to belabor the wobbly nature of this third term. Names and phrases like Cathleen P. Black, the 2010 blizzard, Stephen Goldsmith and the CityTime scandal tell you at a glance how things have often gone.

For the privilege of presiding over all that, Mr. Bloomberg distorted campaign financing beyond all recognition — yet again — by spending $108 million in 2009.On Monday, he was forced to testify at the trial of a political consultant accused of stealing $1.1 million from that campaign. Theft, if proved, is bad, of course. But Mr. Bloomberg tosses around money so freely that his losing a million dollars is like an average person’s having coins slip between the sofa cushions.

Nor are finances the only area of distortion. The normal balance between the executive and legislative branches in this city has been knocked askew in the Bloomberg-Quinn era. Theirs is not quite the Putin-Medvedev relationship, but it bears a certain resemblance, sort of a second-rate Moscow on the Hudson. Not unlike the Russians, Mr. Bloomberg and Ms. Quinn are trying to make sure that power remains within their alliance.

He leaves no doubt that he wants her to take his place after 2013. His administration goes out of its way to include her in news conferences even when the Council’s role is close to nonexistent, whether the issue is Hurricane Irene or, as was the case last week, an announcement that New Yorkers were eating more fruits and vegetables.

In turn, Ms. Quinn often acts as if she were not the Council speaker but, rather, the deputy mayor for legislative affairs. The latest example came a week ago when she bottled up a bill loathed by the mayor. It would have required mayors, including the wandering, Bermuda-loving Mr. Bloomberg, to let the rest of us know when he strays far from the city — certainly when he leaves the country, as he did before the 2010 blizzard. Ms. Quinn made sure that the Council would not even debate this proposal.

There is, however, such a thing as excessive coziness. A NY1-Marist College poll last week confirmed that, for now anyway, Ms. Quinn is the Democratic front-runner in the 2013 mayoral election. But it also showed that nearly half of Democratic voters would be less likely to vote for a candidate who had Mr. Bloomberg’s support.

How does that aphorism go about being careful what you wish for?

Cathie Black Resigns Awwwwwww

Cathleen Black, Her Approval Ratings In The Dumps, Takes A Hike. Is Mayor Bloomberg Next ?

In a news analysis in The New York Times, today's resignation of the New York City schools chancellor is framed among other major failures of the stumbling and bumbling Bloomberg administration, such as :

• The city's botched snow removal following the post-Christmas blizzard ;
• The mayor's tin-eared suggestions that residents got to a Broadway show in almost 3 feet of unplowed snow ;
• The hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayer money wasted on the scandalous CityTime payroll system ;
• The tens of millions of taxpayer money allegedly stolen by CityTime contractors ;
• The horrible death of an emaciated 4-year-old girl in child protective services ; and
• The homicide charges against a child welfare worker and his supervisor in the death of the 4-year-old girl.

The above list, according to a conservative analysis by The NYTimes, points to a major setback for Mayor Bloomberg -- and it points to a bad omen for the mayor's th3rd t3rm.

''For his part, Mr. Bloomberg seems aware that symptoms of “third-term-itis” have manifested themselves. For weeks now, he has been using his own money to pay for campaign-style advertisements, nominally to bolster his battle with the teachers’ union, but widely taken as an effort to lift his sagging approval ratings,'' reported The NYTimes.

Maybe if she had billions, Ms. Black could have run endless loops of campaign commercials the way that Mayor Bloomberg does.

Kenneth Sherrill, a professor of political science at Hunter College, told The NYTimes, that voters are ''tired'' of Mayor Bloomberg.

Will Rudin Management profit from Bloombo Dicto's spree of school closings ?

OP-ED : After Rudin Management converts St. Vincent's Hospital into luxury condos, will the billion-dollar real estate empire next convert closed schools into even more luxury condos ?

Since he has become mayor, Michael Bloomberg has waged a sustained campaign to layoff teachers and close schools. Once wonders why he is systematically attacking public education, which is such an important underpinning of our society.

Remember how New York University got away with demolishing the Edgar Allan Poe house to build a new mega-building ? Well, yesterday, word was received that St. Vincent's Hospital, which closed after mysterious back-room meetings last year, is being converted into luxury condos by the Rudin Family. Are we beginning to see a pattern ?

In the last 10 or so years, no public institution (not a historical landmark like the former house of the famous poet Edgar Allan Poe, not St. Ann's Church, not the fabled St. Vincent's Hospital, not even public schools, where children go for an education) has been safe from being condemned and closed down -- all in the name of more and more reckless real estate development.

It is time for people to wake up and see what is on the horizon : the time is going to come when children are going to be loitering in the streets, having nowhere to go, nothing good to occupy their time, and no future to create, after all the teacher layoffs and school closings. There will be less firehouses and fewer hospitals. What kind of urban design for a metropolis is Mayor Bloomberg creating ?

But according to the real estate development wet dreams of Mayor Bloomberg, New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, and other development-crazed politicians, that is exactly what they want. Their vision for a new ''partnership'' for New York must include closing down public institutions, like schools, firehouses, and our historical landmarks, to make room for more luxury condo conversions and mega-buildings.

What happened to wanting to live in an exceptional city ? Aren't we capable of being better than this ? We need to organize grassroots efforts to block the elitist urban-renewal projects of real estate developers, like the Rudin Family, who seem to be joining Mayor Bloomberg on a renewed campaign to destroy the fragile character and experience of our local neighborhoods. It's time to get organized and fight back !

Bloombo Dicto Hosni Bloomberg

Maybe after #OpEgypt and #OpItaly, we'll have #OpCityHall or #OpCityCouncil ?

After Mayor Michael Bloomberg insulted parents who heckled Chancellor Cathleen Black, Michael Mulgrew, president of the teachers union, compared Mayor with Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak, reported The New York Post.

Ms. Black's ''Awwwwwww'' moment came when she mocked parents, who were going to desperate measures to save several schools from closing, and her insensitive mocking and juvenile immaturity has inflamed the anger of parents and has shocked the conscious of even some school officials. In response to the despair of parents, Mayor Bloomberg has predictably unleashed a ridiculous backlash against Ms. Black's critics.

Mayor Bloomberg, who subverted a public referendum to run for a third term as mayor, went on to say that angry parents were acting unpatriotic. "This is not democracy -- letting people yell and scream. That's not freedom of expression," Mayor Bloomberg said. "That's just trying to take away somebody else's rights. And if we want to attract good people to come and work for the public, you don't do this."

Under his tight fist of ''mayoral control'' over the school system, Mayor Bloomberg wields totalitarian control over the Panel for Educational Policy, which votes to close schools ; the Panel operates under the appearance of independence, but in reality the Panel is ''entirely undemocratic'' and takes its ''marching orders only from Bloomberg,'' according to the Post Mr. Mulgrew noted that if the Panel doesn't vote the way that the Mayor wants, he retaliates against them. ''The last time they voted against him, he fired them,'' Mr. Mulgrew said.

Even The New York Times Agrees : the ''Fix'' Was In.

Meanwhile, at a meeting on Thursday night, where more schools were voted to be closed, City Councilmember Charles Barron said, “You will let us scream until we get hoarse, and then we know what will happen — you’ll shut all our schools down.”

''The closing of struggling schools has been a key piece of Mr. Bloomberg’s agenda, and his eight-person majority has stood behind him, phasing out more than 100 schools, often replacing them with small schools and charter schools,'' reported The Times.

Update on Christine Quinn

While Mayor Bloomberg spent the week closing schools, firing teachers, and getting rid of classrooms and school lunches, City Council Speaker Christine Quinn was using NYPD as enforcers against activists outside a fundraiser for her presumed candidacy for Mayor in 2013.

Cathie Black Flunks Public Opinion

Mona Davids of the NY Charter Parents Association on Cathie Black

Mona Davids of the New York Charter Parents Association offers her thoughts on the selection of publishing executive Cathleen Black as New York City Schools Chancellor, in "Your 2 Cents," a series of on-camera, unedited editorials delivered by prominent New Yorkers.

Cathie Black Nomination Triggers Angry Voter Reaction

Reaction to Mayor's School Chief Candidate is a Litmus Test of the Bloombo Dicto Administration

The way that New Yorkers either ''support or oppose'' Cathleen Black's appointment to become the next chancellor of the New York City public school system has become a ''proxy'' for what the public thinks of Mayor Michael Bloomberg and his ''imperial style of running the city,'' reported Elissa Gootman in a news analysis published by The New York Times.

Mike Bloomberg and Cathleen Black - Cosmo Sex App Scandal

Mayor Mike Bloomberg's Schools Chancellor Nominee Cathleen Black Urges Sex App ; She Says Sex App Can Help You Save Money on Hookers !!

On a radio show, Cathleen P. Black, the chairwoman of Hearst Magazines and the nominee to become the incoming chancellor of New York schools, said a Cosmopolitan magazine iPhone App was "cheaper than a hooker," according to The New York Times and the True News From Change blog.

Meanwhile, on her blog, Suzannah B. Troy wrote that she wants to know if there is a NYC Government corruption app.