Mayor Criticized on Judicial Stance by Michael Howard Sau l- WSJ.com

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Mayor Michael Bloomberg, vowing to keep fighting to shutter 19 failing city schools, suggested Friday that judges should take a more activist role when deciding cases.

The mayor's remarks—denouncing a unanimous appellate court ruling that prevents his administration from closing the schools—offer a provocative glimpse at Mr. Bloomberg's perspective on the role of the judiciary and would undoubtedly be a lightning rod if he launched a bid for president.

Mr. Bloomberg, 68 years old, contemplated a White House bid in 2008 and there is widespread speculation that he still harbors such ambitions.

On his weekly radio show, the mayor conceded it's "probably true" that his administration "didn't comply" with the procedures required under law to close the schools, but he suggested the five-judge panel on the Appellate Division of the State Supreme Court should have looked at the bigger picture.

"We're playing with children's lives, not whether the I's are dotted and the T's are crossed," Mr. Bloomberg said. "They should look at the context of it, and for them to think, 'Well, you know, I'm just here to interpret the law,' that's not true. They are part of society."

Mr. Bloomberg said the judges "made a terrible mistake, and...should have found a ways to interpret the law—and they have plenty of discretion, it's ridiculous to say they don't—to accomplish what's good for society."

Roger Clegg, president of the Center for Equal Opportunity, a conservative think tank based in Virginia, called the mayor's remarks "disturbing."
"The definition of judicial activism is a judge ignoring what the text of a law says—whether it's the Constitution, or a statute, or a regulation—and instead substituting his own view of what is the greater societal good," he said.

Mr. Clegg said the mayor's remarks "would come back to haunt him" if he decides to pursue a White House bid. Mr. Bloomberg has repeatedly said he has no plans to run for president.

Doug Muzzio, a professor of public affairs at Baruch College, said Mr. Bloomberg's remarks reflect his "hubris and arrogance."

"He's telling the judges that 'I am so right on the issue that your interpretation of the law doesn't matter. It's Bloomberg law. I am the philosopher king. I know best,'" Mr. Muzzio said. "It's outrageous, but characteristic of the mayor and his attitude."

Michael Mulgrew, president of the United Federation of Teachers, which brought the suit along with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, said the mayor's administration was instrumental in crafting the very law it violated.

"You support a law, you help draft a law, then, your agency goes out of its way to make sure they don't follow it," he said. "It's ridiculous."

He said judges should make decisions based on the facts and the law. "We're in a lot of trouble if the facts be damned," he said.

An aide to Mr. Bloomberg declined Friday to respond to the criticism that the mayor's comments elicited.

Quirk on Runoffs Allows Candidates to Keep Thousands by Alison Leigh Cowan - NYTimes.com

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New York City’s efforts to recoup taxpayer money it has awarded to candidates running for office have been hampered over the years by delays, legal fights, poor record-keeping and the plain defiance of some candidates determined not to give back extra campaign cash.
But sometimes, it turns out, the city’s inability to recover taxpayer dollars owes to rules that the city’s lawmakers devised and approved.

To wit, the cases of A. Gifford Miller and Peter F. Vallone Sr., candidates who took the city’s money, failed in their election bids, but got to keep tens of thousands of dollars for their own use because of an arcane wrinkle in the campaign finance laws involving runoff elections.

Here is how it worked: When candidates running for office — those who had agreed to limits on private donations and thus benefited from the city’s program for generously aiding them with matching awards of taxpayer dollars — suspect that they might be in a primary race that will result in a runoff, they can petition the Campaign Finance Board for the right to raise extra private money for the runoff.

Mr. Miller, who in 2005 was the City Council speaker and was trying to gain the Democratic nomination for mayor, made such a petition.

He had raised millions of dollars himself and stood to receive roughly $2.5 million in addition from the city, but he argued that he needed more as the primary approached and he battled for votes in a crowded Democratic field. Allowed to go back to donors, Mr. Miller, of Manhattan, wound up raising over $200,000 more.

Mr. Vallone, of Queens, was in the same situation in 2001. He was City Council speaker and hoped to win the Democratic nomination for mayor.

He, like Mr. Miller, raised an additional $200,000 or so with the city’s blessing, on top of the millions he had already raised, even though he, like Mr. Miller, ultimately failed to attract enough votes to reach a runoff.

In each case, the candidate wound up with a six-figure campaign surplus, even after repaying a good chunk of the matches he got from the city.

Ordinarily, the city is allowed to demand that any campaign surplus — whether it stems from private contributions that are eligible for matching, or interest on bank deposits that are not — be used to pay it back.

But in both these cases, the candidates argued that their surpluses were merely the fruit of their added bit of private fund-raising, and that they were entitled to keep control of them.

And in both cases, the candidates prevailed.

“Everything was done according to Hoyle,” Mr. Vallone said in an interview.

Mr. Miller would not discuss the money but issued the following statement through a spokesman: “Funds that Speaker Miller raised from private contributors for the potential 2005 mayoral runoff campaign never received any public matching dollars because the campaign never took place.”

He did offer contributors to his runoff account a chance for refunds, which left him about $100,000 that he was free to move into his own political action committee. And that committee, controlled by Mr. Miller, has sent tens of thousands of those dollars to some of Mr. Miller’s favored charitable causes, including one run by a close friend.

Since 2008, the committee has given a total of $37,500 to Friends of the High Line, a charity that supports the new elevated park on the West Side of Manhattan. The High Line’s co-founder is Mr. Miller’s college friend Robert R. Hammond. Records of the State Board of Elections show that Mr. Hammond was also the treasurer of “Miller for New York” in its early days.

Six charities shared $22,300 more last year, courtesy of Mr. Miller’s committee. The LGBT Center, an organization that serves the gay and lesbian community, got $5,000. New Yorkers for Parks, New York City Outward Bound, and City Futures each got $5,000, and the Council on the Environment got $300. New York Academy of Medicine got two gifts of $1,000.

Mr. Vallone, for his part, used the same wrinkle in the law to preserve about $200,000 of his runoff money, set aside in a war chest that has come in handy as Mr. Vallone has pursued a new career as a paid lobbyist.

New York City Struggles to Recover Unused Campaign Funds by Alison Leigh Cowan - NYTimes.com

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Few cities are as generous as New York when it comes to matching political contributions raised by candidates for public office.

June M. Eisland, spent years fighting the city’s attempts to recover money left over from her campaign.

In big election years, the city has given anywhere from $4 million to $42 million to candidates in an effort to limit the influence of special interests and level the playing field for candidates of modest means.

There were, though, supposed to be limits to the city’s generosity. Candidates who accepted taxpayer money and did not empty their campaign accounts in the course of their election fights were obliged by law to return all surplus money to the city.

But the city, while handing out a total of roughly $120 million to candidates over the years, has been unable to recover much of the money it is owed.

Tens of thousands of dollars that candidates initially reported as surpluses appear to have dribbled away as the city took years auditing campaigns to determine how much might be owed. There are also candidates who have seemed to be in no hurry to settle up. Today, for instance, two dozen candidates owe a total of $800,000 from publicly subsidized races in 2001, 2003 and 2005.

Though it has sought to clarify its rules, the city has also struggled to stay a step ahead of candidates who avoid meaningful repayment by using surplus campaign funds to hire lawyers during the audits to challenge the city’s calculation of what they owe, or by paying penalties with surplus funds they would otherwise owe the city.

And to this day the city cannot keep publicly financed candidates from using legal loopholes to funnel leftover money to political or charitable causes of their choosing. Quirks in the rules governing runoff elections, for instance, have allowed two former City Council speakers, Peter F. Vallone Sr. and A. Gifford Miller, to shift six-figure surpluses of campaign money into political action committees they controlled.

For their part, some candidates correctly point out that the city’s Campaign Finance Board, which is responsible for protecting tax dollars and the public interest, is not always careful to make sure that what it publishes about candidates’ finances on its Web site is accurate and up-to-date.

Responding to that criticism, Eric Friedman, the board’s spokesman, said: “There are 1.2 million transactions in the database available for public view, and 1,700 campaigns over the course of the program. Anybody in a government agency or any long-running concern that deals with this kind of volume will have challenges assuring everything is accurate.”

Given that, it is nearly impossible to say how much money the city has missed out on over the years in repayments from candidates it helped underwrite. What seems clear is that the city is in no position to lose track of even small sums when it is cutting library hours and closing senior centers to balance its budget.
June M. Eisland, an unsuccessful candidate for Bronx borough president in 2001, spent years in court fighting the city’s attempts to recover some of the $300,000 it had given her campaign. Helping her do battle were two of the city’s pre-eminent election lawyers, Henry T. Berger and Laurence D. Laufer, a former general counsel of the Campaign Finance Board who now advises campaigns.

Ms. Eisland and her lawyers succeeded in carving out $130,000 she had raised in prior races, depriving the city of much of what it thought it was due.

Under New York law, the Campaign Finance Board approves all public matching contributions, under formulas that have become sweeter over time. Currently, the city gives candidates $6 for every $1 in qualifying gifts raised from private donors. In certain circumstances, candidates can receive as much as $8.57 for every $1 raised on their own. “It is an extremely generous match,” said Mr. Laufer, the lawyer.

The board monitors the use of the public money — demanding and examining candidates’ detailed expenditure reports — and is the ultimate bill collector when it finds that campaigns have unspent funds or other debts to the city. But less than $10 million of the $120 million that the board has handed out since its inception in 1988 has come back to taxpayers, judging from campaign reports and other statistics posted on the board’s Web site.

To be sure, a lot of the money is properly spent on campaigns, and board officials argue that the benefits of publicly financed elections far outweigh what they contend are the smaller amounts that may get lost in the process.

“At the end of the day, New Yorkers can have confidence that their politics are cleaner and freer from influence, and that’s what their investment gets them,” said Mr. Friedman, the spokesman for the board.

“There will always be challenges in collecting money from people who do not want to pay,” he acknowledged. But he said, “We’re here to watch that investment pretty closely.”

He and his colleagues also reject the idea that they take any of the shenanigans lying down.

They point to more than 40 cases they have litigated in court, and more if small-claims court is counted. Eight staff members, they said, are dedicated to collecting surplus money, and Thacher Associates, an investigative firm, is on call for occasional help.

One oft-used weapon for trying to recover money is publishing the names of those who resist the board’s demands for repayment or remittance of penalties. As of last month, a couple dozen individuals who ran for city offices from 2001 to 2005 were listed as owing a combined $797,293 in “outstanding repayments of public funds,” reflecting unspent funds and other overdue obligations.

Michael Roth was one. He garnered a mere 3 percent of the vote when he ran for City Council in 2005 but has hardly faded from view.

The board initially ordered him to repay all $20,392 of the public funds he got, once auditors found scads of expenses he had charged to the campaign, including dog food and liquor bought during the race, and sushi dinners and airline tickets bought months after the election.

According to Mr. Friedman, Mr. Roth paid the last of what he owed on June 23, nearly five years after his race.

Some candidates seem to be less receptive than others to the public shaming or to the board’s ability to withhold future financing.

Miguel Martinez is listed on the board’s Web site as owing $128,786 from the 2001 race that put him on the City Council. Currently serving five years in federal prison for misusing money intended for nonprofit organizations in his district, he may not be concerned about repaying the city for its help in getting him elected.

There are also 13 instances in which the board has granted extensions to candidates who “are engaged in efforts” to resolve debts or other obligations totaling $594,000. Lawyers familiar with the deferred payment plans say the recipients pay no interest and sometimes have as long as 10 years to settle up.

The Rev. Edward J. Norman, a 2001 contender for the City Council, was the beneficiary of one such deal. Troubled by sloppiness in his campaign spending reports, the board initially dunned him the entire $65,496 that he had received in public matches. But the board reduced what he owed to $39,179 once he had better documented his spending, and gave him until last year — eight years after his race — to pay off the last of it.

“If they added interest, I’d still be paying back,” said Mr. Norman, the pastor of the Union United Methodist Church in Brooklyn. He chalked up his errors to the inexperience of a first-time candidate, unsupported by party operatives or professional advisers.

In more than a few cases, candidates argue that the board’s assessment of their financial performance is flawed or mistaken. And sometimes those candidates are right.

Just the other day, the board confirmed that information on its Web site concerning Norman Siegel’s 2001 race for public advocate and William C. Thompson’s 2001 race for city comptroller was incorrect. Double-counting by its computer program had made it inaccurately look as if both campaigns had hung on to huge six-figure surpluses.

“The numbers in 2001 are just wrong,” Mr. Siegel said in an interview.
He later said the board had acknowledged its error and was correcting the data. Proud he had run clean campaigns and was on good terms with the board, he said, “I’ll have to re-evaluate them now in light of this.”

The board’s next challenge will involve trying to collect some $9 million in potentially recoverable funds from the $27 million it gave campaigns in 2009. But it looks as though it will be years before it is clear how much the watchdogs actually win back.

Queens Father of Two Killed in Ambush by Sonja Sharp, Sarah Armaghan and Wil Cruz - NY Daily News

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Cops were hunting for a phantom gunman Monday who whacked a 41-year-old father near his Queens home.

Christopher Castellano was walking toward his car outside of his 79th St. townhouse in Howard Beach when he was ambushed Sunday just before midnight and shot in the back of the head.

"I saw him all laid out with a big hole in the back of his head," said neighbor Will Gonzalez, 38.

Castellano, who had two children and dabbled in several small businesses according to relatives, died immediately.

"He's a nice guy. There's no reason for this to happen," said Enrico Ardiso, 62, Castellano's uncle. "He took good care of his kids."

Ardiso said Castellano's mom booked a flight from Florida as soon as she heard the news.

Police said no one has been arrested.

The hit left Howard Beach residents spooked.

Daniel Pardo, 20, suspected that the timing of the killing - with Fourth of July fireworks blasting all night - was no coincidence.

"It's the perfect time to do something like this," he said. "No one thinks twice when they hear a loud noise because we all think it's fireworks."

Gil Suarez, who has lived in the area for 22 years, couldn't shake the shock. "Nothing like this ever happens here," Suarez, 46, said. "It's crazy."

City Starts Project to Preserve Jamaica Bay Marshes by Ivan Pereira - YourNabe.com

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The city has begun a massive overhaul of its water treatment centers near Jamaica Bay in an attempt to save the ecosystem’s dying saltwater marshes.

Last Thursday, the city Department of Environmental Protection announced that it had installed a new, biological nitrogen reduction system at its 26th Ward Wastewater Treatment Plant in Brooklyn. The excess nitrogen discharged by the plant and three others located near the bay have led to an excessive deterioration of the saltwater marshlands that make up the 31-square-mile environment.

“This is another measure in the steady drumbeat of great news for the health of Jamaica Bay,” DEP Commissioner Cas Holloway said in a statement.

Up until now, the plant was not able to remove nitrogen from treated wastewater and, combined with the other plants, would pump approximately 40,000 pounds of nitrogen into the bay every day, according to the DEP. The new equipment installed in the facility will use a chemical reaction to take the chemical element out of the water via a sludge process.

The process will reduce nitrogen discharge by 4,000 pounds a day, the DEP said.

The agency is also expanding its quality-testing program to determine the amount of bacteria in the water, the temperature of the water and other factors including the level of nitrogen.

“The new sampling we are doing will give us the most complete picture yet of water quality in the bay,” Halloway said.

For years, activists have been calling on the city to help curb the damage done to the bay, which has lost more than 70 percent of its marshland over the last 50 years. It contains 91 fish species and 325 species of birds, reptiles, amphibians and other organisms.

In February, the city announced it would be making $155 million in investments over the next 10 years to upgrade its facilities to reduce nitrogen and introduce new programs to save the marshland. Last month, it began planting eelgrass in the ecosystems to oxidize the water.

“Although a number of investments will take several years to complete, we’re already making good on Mayor [Michael] Bloomberg’s commitment to improve water quality in Jamaica Bay by taking immediate interim steps to substantially reduce nitrogen discharges while permanent facilities are under construction,” the commissioner said.

At Kennedy, a Rebuilt Runway and Sighs of Relief by Michael M. Grynbaum - NYTimes.com

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Bay Runway at Kennedy International could now accommodate the space shuttle. A JetBlue flight was the first to use it Monday. Chester Higgins Jr./The New York Times

Most travelers going through Kennedy International Airport did not really notice that the biggest runway there had been closed for four months of repairs.

For the stressed-out officials overseeing the $376 million project, that may have been the biggest accomplishment of all.

Runway 13R-31L, which reopened Monday, is a picturesque strip that handles a third of the airport’s air traffic. Before the runway shut down in March, pessimists, and even a few newspapers, predicted a chaos of delays and tarmac traffic jams at one of the nation’s busiest hubs.

But airport officials are happy to report that the number of delays during the construction period stayed more or less the same as last year, when about one in every five flights left late.

And save for one scary day in March, when high winds forced the airfield to operate on a single runway, the repairs went off with few problems and little fuss.

“The public cynicism for the capacity of an agency like the Port Authority to build on time, or on budget, is pretty high,” said Christopher O. Ward, the executive director of the authority, which operates the airport. “Failure would have been unacceptable.”

The repairs are expected to reduce delays at the airport and save millions of dollars in long-term maintenance. The lifespan of the runway, the second longest in the country, is expected to be extended by 40 years.

Its newly widened span can now accommodate the most advanced aircraft in the world (including the space shuttle). And its murky asphalt surface has been replaced by bright white concrete, producing a beaming strip along Jamaica Bay.

Just before noon on Monday, a JetBlue airplane taxied to the repaired runway and took off for Tampa, Fla. It was the first aircraft in four months to take flight from the landing strip, which was finished days ahead of schedule.

To choose which airline would be the first to try out the restored airstrip, airport officials picked a name out of a hat. But that may have been the only unplanned component of an ambitious renovation that was nearly four years in the planning stages before a shovel ever hit the ground.

The goal, at the start, was simple: to restore a heavily used runway that was overdue for a spruce-up. Long known as the Bay Runway, the airstrip was in operation when Kennedy, then called New York International Airport, opened for commercial flights in 1948. But its last overhaul was in 1993.

The airport built two and a half miles of barbed-wire fencing to isolate the construction area, to conform with federal security regulations. It paved a new access road to give machinery a direct path onto the airfield. And a cement plant, capable of producing 4,000 cubic yards of it daily, was built on the premise of saving travel costs and time.

The project was timed to coincide with springtime’s drier air and lighter travel load, but officials had to deal with a major variable: the fickle weather of New York City in March, April and May.

“Every week we hit the milestones was a week of relief,” Mr. Ward said.

A nail-biter took place on March 13, when winds swept through the airfield at upward of 65 miles per hour. About noon, the airport was forced to close all but one of its four runways, and those runways stayed closed for most of the day. Mr. Ward described his team as “pretty darn anxious.”

About 24 percent of departing flights at the airport were delayed in March, up from 16 percent a year earlier, according to data from the federal Bureau of Transportation Statistics. But in April, only 16 percent of flights were delayed, down from 21 percent a year ago.

Concrete is a more durable substance than asphalt, which saves repair costs in the long run. But it takes much longer to install and is not commonly used for runway rehabilitations.

The airport used a machine that paved 1,000 feet a day, but contractors still found themselves working more weekends than expected.

Airport officials had hoped to install a new design feature on the taxiways that would allow planes to overtake one another in the queue, a method for speeding departures. But the plan was not approved by the Federal Aviation Administration, which worried that pilots might be confused by lack of signs, a F.A.A. spokeswoman said.

About two-thirds of the 14,572-foot-long runway is now back in operation. A final, smaller segment will be repaired in September, which will require the closing of an intersecting runway for two weeks.

But Mr. Ward said the project was over its biggest hump. “And we don’t have to think about it for another 40 years,” he added.

Man, 49, Fatally Shot In Head In Queens by Shelley Ng - WPIX

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A man was fatally shot in the head just before midnight in Howard Beach, Queens.

Police say the 49-year-old man was discovered by officers at about 11:55 p.m. Sunday near the intersection of 79th Street and 151st Avenue.

Reports say the victim was found between two vehicles in a parking lot in the middle of the residential neighborhood.

EMS pronounced the man dead at the scene. The victim's identity is pending family notification.

No arrests have been made and the investigation is ongoing.

Protestors Tell Wal-Mart to "FUHGEDDABOUD" Coming to NYC -by Annie Werner - Runnin' Scared - VillageVoice.com

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Protesters of all kinds gathered at City Hall today against the prospect of Wal-Mart parking its corporate, labor-discriminating ass in the city. A Wal-Mart in New York City? "Fuhgeddaboudit!" they proclaimed.

"What does Wal-Mart not understand about, 'New York City doesn't want you'?" asked Stuart Applebaum, president of the Retail, Wholesale, and Department Store Union. He added that the RWDSU would work aggressively to prevent any Wal-Mart attempt at circumventing city representatives.

Protesters of all kinds gathered at City Hall today against the prospect of Wal-Mart parking its corporate, labor-discriminating ass in the city. A Wal-Mart in New York City? "Fuhgeddaboudit!" they proclaimed.

"What does Wal-Mart not understand about, 'New York City doesn't want you'?" asked Stuart Applebaum, president of the Retail, Wholesale, and Department Store Union. He added that the RWDSU would work aggressively to prevent any Wal-Mart attempt at circumventing city representatives.

"We don't want Wal-Mart in Brooklyn if they're not going to live up to our standards," Spellman said. "We need equal opportunity for everybody."

It's no secret that Wal-Mart is notorious for violating labor laws, discriminating against women, and damaging the well-being of small local businesses.

"Brooklyn doesn't want you," Stuart Applebaum said, "And for that matter, Queens doesn't want you. The Bronx doesn't want you. Staten Island doesn't want you. Manhattan doesn't want you."

Well, Manhattan doesn't really want anybody, but you know you're unpopular when not even Staten Island wants you on their water-locked wasteland. Fuhgeddaboudit, Wal-Mart.

BP Faces Lawsuit from New York State Controller Thomas DiNapoli Over State Pension Fund by Kenneth Lovett - NY Daily News

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State Controller Thomas DiNapoli announced he's suing BP on behalf of the state pension fund.

DiNapoli, the sole trustee of the $132.6 billion fund, decided on the lawsuit because the April 20 explosion that sent oil gushing into the Gulf of Mexico has trashed BP's stock.

In a statement, DiNapoli accused BP of misleading investors about its safety procedures and its ability to respond to events like the ongoing oil spill.

"We're going to hold it accountable," the New York Democrat said.

The Daily News first reported the possibility of the lawsuit last week while revealing that state pension fund lost $30 million on its slumping BP shares.

"It's my duty to protect the interests of the fund and the retirees and employees who rely on it," DiNapoli said Wednesday.

DiNapoli hired Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll to represent the fund, which will seek lead plaintiff status in order to give "the fund and other investors their best chance at recovering damages."

DiNapoli said the fund once held more than 19 million BP shares, before recently selling off 1.5 million shares.

BP stock as of midday Wednesday was trading at $29.67 a share, a huge drop from the $60.48 a share before the catastrophe.

It's unclear whether the city pension fund system will join the lawsuit.

The city's five pension funds, valued at about $100 billion, as of last week held $110 million in BP stock, less than half of the $228 million the city held a month before the disaster.

The city pension funds sold off 10 million BP shares since the beginning of April, and now hold about 15 million shares.

Time for DOE to be Schooled by Juan Gonzalez - NY Daily News

Where's the accountability for Chancellor Klein and Mayor Bloomberg..?

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The faculty at John F. Kennedy High School was accused of pocketing more than $90,000 from fund raisers.

Mayor Bloomberg and Chancellor Joel Klein were supposed to bring private sector savvy to improve the running of our public school system.

So how come all these cases of theft and shoddy financial management keep popping up at the Department of Education?

Recent reports by state Controller Tom DiNapoli and Special Commissioner of Investigation Richard Condon suggest a growing - perhaps systemic - problem in Klein's financial oversight.

Last week, a DiNapoli audit revealed that staff at John F. Kennedy High School in the Bronx stole or misused more than $90,000 of money raised by students at bake sales and other fund-raisers over a two-year period. Principal Anthony Rotunno quickly resigned as soon as the problem was uncovered.

Another DiNapoli audit concluded in May that the principal of Bronx Law and Finance High School, located on the same campus as Kennedy, used an account known as the General School Fund (GSF) to pay for more than $5,000 in credit card charges, most of them unrelated to student activities.

The investigation also found that officials at the schools periodically bounced checks and failed to keep proper financial records and receipts. DiNapoli blasted the DOE for failing to "provide adequate oversight and training."

Then there's computer hacker Albert Attoh. He was sentenced to one year in prison in March for breaking into the DOE's computerized payment system and stealing more than $640,000.

While any big agency can be victimized by a hacker these days, what's amazing about Attoh's theft is that it continued undetected over a four-year period. During that time, he kept withdrawing small amounts via a school system software program known as the Small Item Payment Process (SIPP).

"It is difficult to understand how the [agency] accumulated years of account statements, reflecting hundreds of thousands of public dollars spent to pay bills, but did not review them," Condon wrote in his investigation of Attoh.

"This is not the first time that [this office] has found serious lapses in fiscal oversight within the DOE."

Back in 2008, for example, an employee in the assessment office at DOE's Tweed headquarters used an agency-issued debit card to steal $60,000 in school funds that he blew on iPods, sound systems and international trips.

In that case, the thief also was enabled by lax supervision.

That same year, another Condon investigation at Public School 132 in the Bronx found that the principal's assistant and a payroll secretary siphoned more than $200,000 for their personal use over a three-year period.

The women used the school's computerized finance system to pay themselves for hundreds of hours of overtime that the principal had never approved, for thousands of dollars in credit card bills, for purchases of computers, digital cameras, jewelry, kitchen items, all of which were delivered to their homes.

In 2007, Condon found that the principal of Intermediate School 109 in Queens "misappropriated more than $30,000 in funds" collected from students and parents for school lunches, snacks and caps and gowns.

Even when they discover no direct theft, several Condon investigations have found a scandalous lack of financial training for principals and school treasurers.

In late April, the commissioner informed Klein that another investigation had revealed that two employees in charge of bank accounts at Thurgood Marshall Academy in Harlem "did not have receipts, bank statements or deposit slips" for the school's petty cash account, as required.

"Many investigations conducted by SCI have found this type of situation at DOE schools," Condon warned. In many cases, "those charged with the finances of a school...simply do not know how to perform those duties."

Klein has given principals and staff more responsibility over school finances, but he hasn't provided more training and oversight.

The watchdogs keep warning there's a systemic problem. When will the chancellor finally listen to them?

Randi Weingarten Accuses Ed. Dept. of Protecting 'Pet Programs" - by Stephen Sawchuk - Teacher Beat - Education Week

The Dept of Education should be required by Congress to drop the Race to the Top boondoggle...Duncan needs to drop RTTT...It's a scam, it's unethical and it's totally irresponsible during this bad economy...

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The feisty president of the American Federation of Teachers, Randi Weingarten, called this morning to give me an earful about the debate on Capitol Hill over the $10 billion edujobs fund.

As my colleague Alyson Klein reported extensively yesterday, some of those dollars would be funded by offsetting appropriations for the Teacher Incentive Fund and the Race to the Top. Now, Weingarten is furious that the Department of Education wants to preserve those programs.

"The department was all for saving jobs until it was their pet programs or pet projects that have to share in some of the pain," she said. "I'm very upset. You have an immediate, well- documented harm to children, because of budget cuts. Everyone's been trying to talk about that. All of a sudden, Congress was forced to come up with offsets, and [Rep. David] Obey did and made sure nobody was insulated, and you have this hew and cry."

To be clear, the AFT preferred the former, $23 billion version of the jobs bill that did not raid other pots of education funds. But with that bill no longer an option, the union supports the bill Rep. Obey has advanced.

Weingarten noted that continuation grants aren't touched under these proposals, nor are formula programs like Title I. The programs slated for cuts "are limited pots of money, they're not going to be spread evenly, whereas the education jobs fund goes to all states and all districts," she said.

Her union, as Alyson reported, is opposing an effort by some moderate Democratic lawmakers, like Rep. Jared Polis, D-Colo., to get the administration to seek cuts elsewhere, fearing it might derail the edujobs bill.

Woodhaven Traffic Study Moves Along by Bryan Yurcan - Queens Chronicle

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NYC Department of Transportation official Andrew Lenton listens to public feedback on improving traffic flow on Woodhaven Boulevard. Photo by Bryan Yurcan

The city Department of Transportation conducted another public input meeting last week in its continuing study of potential traffic flow improvements on Woodhaven Boulevard.

The session, which took place in the sweltering basement of a building in the Forest Park Cooperative, was the third overall public meeting since the study began in 2008, and the first this year. A final report is expected to be issued in January.

Since 2008, the DOT has been collecting data and public input as part of its study to improve traffic flow and ease congestion on the much-traveled thoroughfare in preparation for its final report.

Queens DOT Borough Commissioner Maura McCarthy said the purpose of the public meetings was to share the DOT's preliminary findings and use feedback from the public to make possible further changes.

“We analyzed existing conditions to get some ideas for improvement, and now we are coming back to the community to get some fleshed out ideas.” she said. “We are doing a lot of data collection.”

Andrew Lenton, a city planner with the DOT, said the agency has been studying 16 intersections along the 3.2-mile corridor for improvement. The intersections are Queens Boulevard, the eastbound Long Island Expressway ramp, Eliot Avenue, Dry Harbor Road, Yellowstone Boulevard/Cooper Avenue, Metropolitan Avenue, Union Turnpike, Park Lane South, Myrtle Avenue, Jamaica Avenue, Atlantic Avenue, Rockaway Boulevard, Liberty Avenue and 94th Street.

Lenton acknowledged the potential solutions being presented at the meeting were the same as ones given in September.

“We're trying to get feedback from as many people as possible," he said. “We want to be thorough.”

Among the solutions that continue to be discussed are sacrificing a lane “here or there” in order to maintain a uniform number of lanes throughout, widening or extending turning lanes and creating bus-only lanes.

Those lanes could go toward implementing a bus rapid transit style system on the boulevard, complete with raised platforms for riders to exit and enter buses.

“We have heard from a lot of people who said they would take the bus if it didn’t go so slow,” Lenton said. “This may be a way to speed the buses up a bit, which may entice more people to ride them.”

Another item of discussion continued to be making Woodhaven Boulevard safer for pedestrians, which has long been a contentious issue.

Many residents, particularly senior citizen groups, have complained that there is not enough time allotted to cross Woodhaven Boulevard, which is as wide as 10 lanes in some areas.

Longtime Woodhaven Boulevard resident Leonard Bluman can relate; he has been a frequent critic of the short walk signal across the boulevard.

“You get halfway across and you have to stand on the island and wait (for the signal to change again),” Bluman said.“I can’t make it the whole way. You absolutely need more time to cross.”

Among the solutions put forth by the DOT were changing the timing of crosswalk signals and creating “pedestrian refugee islands” in the median area between the northbound and southbound lanes.

Maria Thomson, president of the Greater Woodhaven Development Corp., said she will be keeping an eye on how any potential changes may affect the intersection of Jamaica Avenue, a major business artery in Woodhaven.

“What they do could have a big impact on that area,” she said. “They are still in the preliminary phase so the plans may still yet change. But we’ll certainly be keeping an eye on it.”

The next scheduled DOT public meeting on the Woodhaven corridor is tentativley slated for this fall.

DEP Launches Jamaica Bay Treatment Measures - Wave of Long Island

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Environmental Protection Commissioner Cas Holloway has announced the launch of the first phase of enhanced treatment measures to reduce the amount of nitrogen being discharged into Jamaica Bay at 26th Ward Wastewater Treatment Plant, a plan that will eventually impact the bay’s water quality at Rockaway as well.

The installation of biological nitrogen removal technology at the plant will reduce nitrogen discharges by more than 4,000 pounds per day, or 10% of the total nitrogen discharges from treatment plants into the bay, until additional investments are completed by 2014. DEP also began an enhanced water quality testing program in Jamaica Bay, increasing the number of sampling sites there by 50% — from 13 to 20 locations. Bay and harbor monitoring gives DEP vital information needed to ensure that the City’s 14 wastewater treatment plants meet or exceed State and Federal treatment standards. The nitrogen removal and sampling are part of the historic agreement announced by Mayor Bloomberg in February between DEP, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, the Natural Resources Defense Council, and other environmental stakeholders to improve the overall water quality and mitigate marshland loss in Jamaica Bay through $115 million of investments over the next decade. These investments, along with $95 million of capital projects will cut nitrogen discharges into Jamaica Bay in half.

“This is another measure in the steady drumbeat of great news for the health of Jamaica Bay,” said Commissioner Holloway. “Although a number of investments will take several years to complete, we’re already making good on Mayor Bloomberg’s commitment to improve water quality in Jamaica Bay by taking immediate interim steps to substantially reduce nitrogen discharges while permanent facilities are under construction. And the new sampling we are doing will give us the most complete picture yet of water quality in the bay. This is further evidence of what can be achieved when the City and our regulatory and environmental partners work together to reach a common goal.”

Although it is not a pathogen and poses no risk to human beings, high levels of nitrogen can degrade the overall ecology of a waterway. High levels of nitrogen can lead to reduced levels of dissolved oxygen in waterways and excessive algae growth, especially in warm weather months. Currently, the 240 million gallons of daily waste-water handled by the four waste-water treatment plants on Jamaica Bay result in the discharge of approximately 40,000 pounds of nitrogen each day. The Rockaway Peninsula closes off Jamaica Bay and prevents the circulation of oxygenated water, which exacerbates nitrogen impacts in the bay, as compared to surrounding waterways.

DEP’s waste-water treatment plants were not originally designed to remove nitrogen, a naturally-occurring component of all waste-water. The project at 26th Ward includes upgrades that will address this issue by retrofitting existing equipment to increase the treatment capacity of the existing infrastructure, which facilitates the underlying chemical reactions that remove nitrogen from waste-water via the activated sludge process. It is expected that these new processes will reduce discharges of nitrogen to the bay by more than 4,000 pounds per day, or 10% of the total nitrogen discharges into the bay. An innovative technology, called the Ammonia Recovery Process, is now being designed, which will further reduce nitrogen discharges from the 26th Ward by 3,000 pounds per day by 2014.

DEP’s Harbor Survey Program tests the New York Harbor waters and sediments at 56 locations. Sampling takes place year-round. Most sites are sampled weekly from May through September and monthly from October through April. Typical tests measure bacteria, turbidity, temperature and the level of dissolved oxygen in the water. The results are used to assess the effectiveness of all of the City’s water quality programs and to monitor water quality trends.

The City is investing $100 million to install new nitrogen control technologies at waste-water treatment plants located on Jamaica Bay. The other waste-water treatment plants that will be upgraded are the Coney Island Wastewater Treatment Plant in Brooklyn and the Rockaway Wastewater Treatment Plant in Queens. The first upgrade will be operational in 2015, and all improvements will be completed by 2020. These investments, made in concert with $95 million the City already has committed for nitrogen control upgrades, will reduce the nitrogen loads discharged into Jamaica Bay by nearly 50% over the next ten years. The City also will invest $15 million for marshland restoration projects around the bay.

Jamaica Bay has experienced marshland loss due to many factors, including sea level rise, a loss of sediment and fresh water flows and reduced tidal activity from the extension of the Rockaway peninsula. The City’s $15 million investment will be spent on saltwater marsh restoration projects in the interior of Jamaica Bay. Since 2002, the City has invested $37.4 million to reclaim more than 440 acres of environmentally sensitive land adjoining Jamaica Bay and plans to remediate nearly 100 additional acres. The City will leverage its new $15 million investment in the bay’s marshlands by applying for Federal matching funds, which could net an additional $30 million in funding for Jamaica Bay marshland preservation projects.

Last month, DEP launched the second phase of the Eelgrass Restoration Project to help improve Jamaica Bay’s local ecosystem. The project will consist of 1,000 individual plantings and is part of the City’s efforts to improve the overall water quality and ecology of Jamaica Bay. The project is being done in collaboration with Cornell Cooperative Extension and the National Park Service.

Jamaica Bay is a 31-square-mile water body with a broader watershed of approximately 142 square miles, which includes portions of Brooklyn, Queens, and Nassau County. The bay is a diverse ecological resource that supports multiple habitats, including open water, salt marshes, grasslands, coastal woodlands, maritime shrub lands, and brackish and freshwater wetlands. These habitats support 91 fish species, 325 species of birds, and many reptile, amphibian, and small mammal species.

Soundtrack of Mating Calls Helps Put Flock of Endangered Waldrapp Ibis at Bronx Zoo in the Mood by Barry Paddock - NY Daily News

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Six endangered Waldrapp Ibis chicks like the one above (l.) were born at the Bronx Zoo several weeks ago. The birds mated after a soundtrack of mating calls was piped into their enclosure. Watts for News

A low-libido colony of endangered birds in the Bronx got their groove back - thanks to love songs piped into its home.

The flock of 21 Waldrapp ibis living at the Wildlife Conservation Society's Bronx Zoo had produced no chicks for seven years.

After zookeepers piped in a sexy soundtrack of mating calls recorded halfway around the world, they turned frisky and have hatched six offspring from three sets of parents.

It's a coup because the birds are extremely endangered - there are just 400 left in the wild - and rarely reproduce in captivity.

"The whole species is at risk," said Mark Hofling, a zoo ornithologist who oversees the species survival plan for ibis in North America.

"They had pretty much stopped courtship behavior," Hofling said of the Bronx birds. "They were just going through the motions."

Two years ago, Dr. Alan Clark of Fordham University recorded the flock's own mating calls, hoping to create aural Viagra by playing them on an endless loop.

There was too much outdoor ambient noise on the tape, so Clark tried again last year at the Philadelphia Zoo's indoor display.

The recordings, played back in the Bronx last spring, did seem to get them in the mood, but they still produced no chicks.

So this spring, Clark upped the ante and visited a semiwild flock in Austria, returning with the perfect recordings of the birds' three distinct mating calls: a chirrup, a whoop whoop and a shrum shrum.

When they found the right sounds, they were played mornings and afternoons from an iPod hooked to speakers on the ibis' wire mesh enclosure near JungleWorld.

And the birds got busy.

They built nests, preened and necked. Several couples laid eggs, and the six chicks hatched in May. The birds grew to adult size, about 2 pounds, in six weeks.

Now zoo officials are trying the same technique on Caribbean and Chilean flamingos, also experiencing a dry spell.

"If it works with this one species, there's the possibility we can apply it to a wide range," said Dr. Nancy Clum, chief ornithologist at the zoo.

It took some experimenting to isolate the right flamingo calls.

"It can sound like a lot of noise," Clum said of the recordings. "You don't want to be playing a vocalization to them that's actually an alarm call."

Meanwhile, the zoo is installing a professional sound system for the ibis for next spring's mating season.

The adult fowl have pink featherless heads splotched with black spots. They can live into their 30s.

"They have beautiful glossy plumage," Hofling said. "People come and say, 'Oh, that's an ugly bird.' I tend to disagree. They're unique."

The mating success doesn't mean the ibis are on the road to repopulation.

"The reasons that made them endangered - human encroachment, pesticide use - are still with us," Hofling said.

Funding for Art Supplies, Music Instruments Falls by 68% at City Schools by Meredith Kolodner - NY Daily News

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It's not a pretty picture.

Spending on arts supplies and visits by cultural institutions has dropped drastically at city schools over the last three years, even as overall education spending has grown, a new report shows.

While education spending increased by about 13% between 2006 and 2009, funding for arts supplies, musical instruments and other equipment fell by 68%, the report by the Center for Arts Education found.

Spending on partnerships with city cultural institutions decreased by 31% - although the system did hire 139 more full-time arts teachers.

By some measures, the result has been a reduction of arts classes. The percentage of high school students taking three or more arts classes dropped to 28% last year from 46% during the 2006 school year, Education Department data show. And only 39% of elementary school students met state arts education mandates.

Arts advocates say the drop is linked to the Education Department's 2007 decision to stop requiring principals to spend a specific amount of their budget on the arts.

"Given the extreme pressure schools are under to raise test scores, and the greater autonomy principals have over school budgets, it is not surprising that we are witnessing a shift away from the arts," the report states.

The Education Department vigorously disputed the report's conclusions, saying more students are getting at least the basic arts requirements. For example, 84% of high schools offered the mandated two semesters of arts to students last year, up from 76% during the 2006 school year, agency data shows.

"We firmly believe that the investment in licensed teachers of arts is where schools should be headed," said Paul King, director of the Education Department's arts program.

The report's author, though, remains concerned about the state of arts next year.

"These declines and this lack of compliance happened during a period of historic school budget growth," said Doug Israel of the Center for Arts Education. "Now we're seeing real cuts. What comes next?"