Why Won't I Vote for Bloomberg? It's a Policy Thing.

I won't vote for Bloomberg for personal reasons. In his 3-and-a-half years as Mayor, my theater and my father's were torn down, my job became harder, friends were arrested, others were discriminated against, my subway fare went up, as did the height of towers in my low-rise neighborhood, and the careers of my talented and creative friends who should be saving the world have been squelched and suffocated by an oppressive occupier in City Hall.

Of course, not everyone has had my personal experience. So here are a few policy reasons to oppose Mike Bloomberg for Mayor.

Playing Chicken With Contracts
As Bloomberg was raking in union endorsements, three unions were noticeably absent from his list: the Police, the Firefighters and the Teachers. Ask regular New Yorkers their priorities and they'll tell you public safety and education. Ask New Yorkers who they admire, they'll tell you cops, firefighters and teachers.

Ask these everyday heroes who they respect, they won't tell you Bloomberg. Because he's been playing games with the men and women who protect and educate our city.

The Police blinked first in this game of chicken, accepting a contact that puts first-year salaries around $25,000. You make that in the notoriously low-paid liberal arts fields of publishing, issue advocacy and the arts. And we're talking about rookie cops who are going to be asked to deal with the dangerous and the sensitive...but not be paid enough to live properly in the City they patrol.

The Teachers' game of chicken lasted longer, all the way into the deep general election season. As a result, Bloomberg's negotiation with them is a campaign stunt. Is it the best contract for the city? The best for the students? Who knows? But we can be sure it's the best to ensure UFT non-endorsement of Ferrer. And Bloomberg accused Gifford Miller of abusing his status as Council Speaker...

As for the Firefighters -- one firefighter, my local bartender, explained that there have been no raises, only "give-backs" (more money for "giving back" more time...that is, not a raise at all), and not even appropriate cost-of-living increases. However, once the police signed, this one firefighter believes his union was "screwed."

Playing Legos With Our Lives
I liked legos too. But I would have been far more careful if those men with the little yellow heads were real people.

Mayor Mike, however, is not careful. His ethos of build-build-build bigger-bigger-bigger is almost Robert Moses-esque in its disinterest in community input and obliviousness to community needs.

The Westside Stadium...the Nets arena...the Jets in Flushing-Meadows Corona Park...a new Shea...a new Yankee Stadium...a Midtown West corporate corridor...a displaced fish market to a dispossessed Bronx Terminal Market...a Bronx velodrome...towers in Greenwich Village...towers in Hell's Kitchen...towers on the Williamsburg waterfront...

If you look at Bloomberg's vision for New York, the only place that isn't built up is Lower Manhattan.

Why? Because he doesn't control that area. They are somebody else's tinker toys and lincoln logs. So he doesn't want to play.

And if you look at these developments, the share a couple traits in common: they are about commerce, not residence; they are about pricing up, not affordability; they assume bigger-is-better, and ignore neighborhood scale and need.

It's not to say that big-is-bad. The city needs to grow higher...but does it want to do so at its island edges? Does it want to do so in historic districts? These are questions that need to be debated. Instead Bloomberg answers them with designs from his personal drafting board.

There are always community opponents to change. But with Bloomberg, communities have felt displaced, dismissed and disempowered.

And ambition isn't always an offense. When Bloomberg is as ambitious about affordable housing, transit infrastructure, community and arts centers, parks maintenance and creating livable, empowered communities, he won't just be playing legos...he'll actually be leading a City.

Playing Favorites with Friends
Isn't cronyism bad policy? If Halliburton is bad for America, then Related can't be good for New York City.

The Related Companies, the 800-pound gorilla of real estate, is attached to most of the developments the Bloomberg team has put its capital behind. And Steve Ross, the man behind Related, was once business partners with Dan Doctoroff, the Deputy Mayor known as Mr. Olympics.

The Jets Stadium, which nearly won a billion dollars in subsidies to take the last open land in Manhattan, then grasped for hundreds of millions and a big slice of public parkland in Queens, was propelled by Bloomberg buddy Woody Johnson.

The Nets arena in Brooklyn, and a handful of other projects, are the children of Steve Ratner, a big Bloomberg booster and bankroll in his own right.

And how many hundreds of millions are being set aside for a Goldman-Sachs downtown home?

Everybody helps out their friends. But when you're a billionaire, your friends are billionaires too. And favors for billionaires cost taxpayers a helluva lot more.

Bloomberg's term hasn't just hurt me. It's hurt New York. Double-dealing with unions puts us in danger; backroom dealing with pals puts us in peril. In Bloomberg's SimCity, he forgets that real people are inside those little blocks on the map, that real people attend the schools and are protected by the firehouses. He forgets that real people are paying for his friends' fancies...and real people are being ignore by the whims of the wealthy.

It's not just a personal thing. It's a policy thing. I don't like bad policy running my city.

Which is why I won't be voting for Mike Bloomberg for Mayor.

Comments

[george mooney]

I began writing about waste fraud cronyism NEPOTISM and NEGLIGENCE and corruption at the staten island Ferry since 1995. In 1996 Alan Hevasi the NYC comptroller agreed with me and did an audit that revealed even deeper problems. I became a target for reprisal. I was assaulted and left for dead broken and bleeding on the dock in St.George in the middle of the night. The city allowed the thug a deckhand named tom Lacey to be to be protected and to evade a drug and alcohol test. I eventually (16hours later )was operated on and had steel rods and surgical nails implanted ,pounded into my upper humers). The criminal case evaporated because the city would not produce the surveilance tapes from a new and very expensive system and the salty wall of silence w/ the see no evil hear no evil crowd in the forefront. (let's rehearse our story one more time .They will never find that woman who saw what really happened and called in the 911 center!)
The net result is my career is over and dh Tom Lacey is cooking on the dock in Whitehall terminal for his good buddies and still a continuing threat of violence for any crew member or passenger who doesnt recognonize when TOMMY BOY is having a bad day. Ask around if there was any passenger who was Yoked for not putting cigarettes out fast enough.
I have repeatedly asked the Mayor and his Commissioner for help under the NYC Whistleblower Law. All I have rec'd is more threats, death threats from supervisorsand alleged officers and Gentlemen and threats of termination from the Advocate General office. NO help. NOR any answers as to my staus.
Thank God that the Mayor (and NYCERS and maybe the Law Dept)saw the wisdom of granting Capt John Mauldin a Medical Disability Pension because he got nervous lying to the feds and then he got high blood pressure during the fed investigation of the Barbari crash and he absolutely had to lie to protect his brother in Law Pat Ryan . What the hell it always worked before the feds ask questions if we have to lie we lie , we get away with it It always worked before right?
So Now the federal judge will just grind the case into slow motion until after the election even though these guys copped a plea months ago.
11 people died in the SI Barbari tragedy. I cannot help but think that if the NYPD or the si Dist attorney or the FBI or the USCGor the NY ATTORNEY GENERAL, anyone of those agencies had done their job and paid attention to my letters of complaint about the sea of corruption that was and to a large extent still is the si ferry then perhaps 11 people would be still coming home to their families this year ,instead of them putting flowers on their graves. So Mr Mayor even now I ask at this very late date where is my protection under the whistleblower Law?
George D.Mooney
Lic'd USCG
Ass't Engineer(ret)