Mayor Michael Bloomberg unveiled his third campaign accountability report during a news conference at an Ozone Park high school Monday, showing that he lived up to 96 percent of the promises he made during his 2005 bid for re-election.
"Over the past 5 1/2 years, we worked to bring accountability and transparency to city government," Bloomberg said of his administration. "I've always believed that when you make a promise, you keep a promise."| |
The school opened in September with ninth-graders and is expected to enroll close to 1,000 students when it is at full capacity. The mayor, who toured a computer room in the state-of-the-art school before making the announcement, said 1,900 applicants expressed interest in the 200 spots designated for the ninth-graders.
He said the report, which is a self-evaluation, showed that 96 of the 100 campaign promises he made in 2005 are either done or have been launched.
The report splits the promises into five categories: "done," "launched," "to launch," "not done" and "reconsidered." Bloomberg said "launched" means action has been taken to implement the promise, "to launch" means a course of action has been initiated and "reconsidered" means the administration decided not to implement a proposal for various reasons.
A promise had to be in the "done" or "launched" categories to be considered one that was kept.
Two examples of launched projects, according to the mayor's report, are the Jamaica rezoning plan and the initiative to develop Willets Point.
There were no Queens-specific promises in the "not done" or "reconsidered" categories.
When asked why the public should trust a self-evaluation, Bloomberg said the press should be holding elected officials accountable and told reporters to "look in the mirror."
"It's the fourth estate that should be doing this and they don't do it," the mayor said.
Bloomberg was joined at the news conference by Dick Dadey and Richard Davis of the Citizen's Union, a good government group, who commended the mayor for keeping track of his campaign promises and urged other elected officials to start producing self-evaluations.
The 96 percent mark in 2005 improved upon the 91 percent of the mayor's campaign promises that were kept during his 2001 campaign, when 343 of his 382 promises were kept.
Bloomberg attributed the 2001 figures to 9/11, saying the attacks led his administration to reconsider some of its proposals.
