CityHallNews.com

Mayor Mike's Ambitious Plans
In sixth State of the City address, Bloomberg looks to the future

By Edward-Isaac Dovere

Brought on stage by a brass band and energetic dancers, Mayor Michael Bloomberg delivered a State of the City address Jan. 17 full of goals and proposals for the year ahead. Some were controversial and criticized. Some were nearly universally applauded. But all were marked by ambition and a level of forward-thinking which Bloomberg has been trying to make hallmarks of his second term in office.

Among the topics generating the most attention: a plan to further rework city schools, which the Bloomberg administration took over from the state in 2003. Bloomberg wants to give principals power over their schools without having to answer to regional offices or outside consultants. This, he believes, will enable another reform-sending out performance reports on every school in the Big Apple to all public school parents.

"Personally, I can't think of a better way to hold a principal's feet to the fire than arming mom and dad with the facts about how well or poorly their children's school is performing," he said.

He also wants to change the tenure system. His stated goals: to keep talented teachers from leaving the system after only a few years on the job and push lackadaisical teachers out of the classroom. Moreover, he plans to change city funding formulas to allocate money based on the number of students, rather than simply providing equal cash to all schools.

Local Heroics Inspire Long-Term Planning

Rows of chairs flanked Mayor Michael Bloomberg on both sides of the stage where he delivered his State of the City address.

But unlike at many political events, those who joined the mayor on stage were not other elected officials or other political power brokers. They were people he recognized over the course of the speech for recent acts of heroism with local connection, from two sanitation workers who lifted a van off a pinned girl with their bare hands to a Staten Island native just returned from active duty in Iraq.

In January alone, a construction worker jumped onto the train tracks to save a 19-year-old student having a seizure. An off-duty police officer, despite being wounded, chased down two bank robbers trying to use his family's car as a getaway car. Even a German Shepherd named Ranger put himself on the line for the city, gashing a tendon while he and his K-9 unit were chasing down a criminal in Brooklyn.

"How can you not feel that New York's future is bright with promise and that the state of our city is alive with hope?" Bloomberg asked.

He said these heroes provided extra incentive and inspiration to plan for the road ahead.

"Now, fueled by the energy of New Yorkers like these, we are ready to take the next strong and confident steps forward to reach our goals."

-Edward-Isaac Dovere

Though Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum agreed with Bloomberg's assessment that the schools still have "a long way to go," she called some of the administration's proposals "confusing."

As part of his effort to keep crime at historically low levels, Bloomberg reiterated his commitment to ridding urban streets across America of illegal guns, a campaign he first announced in his second inaugural address last year.

"Instead of constantly changing the organizational chart, I hope the proposed reform of the reforms will translate into a better learning environment for the city's children," she said. "It is not yet clear to me how constantly changing organizational structure makes the schools better."

Meanwhile, Bloomberg will oversee the City University system's transition to offering dedicated morning, afternoon and evening tracks to enable students to attend school while working.

"As far as we know, no community college system anywhere has attempted this approach," Bloomberg said. "But every successful business offers services that reflect customer needs, and so should government." Bloomberg has already pledged to bring a longterm sustainability approach to planning in the city. Stressing the need to create more affordable housing, he spoke about creating master plans in conjunction with rezoning across the five boroughs. Continued backing of the city's business improvement districts is an integral part of the plan, as is a $1.6 million "NYC Clean Streets" initiative aimed at beautifying commercial corridors across the city.

Leading cultural institutions will receive funding as well. The Museum of Natural History will have its façade restored and surrounding sidewalks improved. The New York Aquarium in Coney Island will get a major renovation, Bloomberg said.

A central plank of his agenda: protecting New York's status as the financial capital of the world. He is working with Sen. Charles Schumer to take the "local and national steps needed to ensure New York's continued leadership in global financial services, including reopening our nation to the highly-skilled workers from every corner of the globe who truly make our economy thrive."

Together with asking the state government to extend the $400 property tax rebate, Bloomberg proposed lowering the tax rate by approximately five percent for one year, with the possibility of extending this lowered rate. Bloomberg explained that surpluses earned during a recovery from the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks which "exceeded our wildest dreams" had made this possible.

He estimates this will total $750 million in refunds and relief. He seeks to lower taxes by an additional $250 million by reducing the unincorporated business tax and general corporate tax, and eliminating completely the city sales tax on clothing and footwear.

Also on the topic of taxes, Bloomberg announced that his Department of Finance has already filled out forms mailed for 120,000 households that never claimed Earned Income Tax Credits from the city, state and federal governments for which they were eligible.

Households receiving the forms will only have to sign the forms and mail them in to get the money.

As part of his effort to keep crime at historically low levels, Bloomberg reiterated his commitment to ridding urban streets across America of illegal guns, a campaign he first announced in his second inaugural address last year.

In 2005, he said, "55 law enforcement officers were murdered across our country, 50 of them with guns. This has just got to stop."

Following up on the speech, Bloomberg helped organize more than 50 American mayors for a Mayors Against Illegal Guns conference in Washington this week.

He will ask the State Legislature to eliminate youthful offender status for any violent felony committed with a firearm.

And in a high-tech move to empower the general population in fighting crime, Bloomberg announced plans to outfit 911, www.nyc.gov and 311 to be able to receive photographs taken with digital cameras or cellular phones of crimes, potholes and other problems. West Side City Council Member Gale Brewer, who cochairs the Council's Manhattan delegation, said this is one of the proposals which stuck most in her mind.

"Everyone can send something to YouTube, I assume they can send it to 911," she said, calling it "a good concept, but I wouldn't say it's taking broadband to the next step like I would like to."

She said the proposal is the kind of realistic, utilitarian approach to improving the small details of city life without major visionary or transformative plans which marked Bloomberg's speech.

"There was no big idea, but on the other hand I know he's been chipping away at trying to improve things for the last five years," she said.

The mayor seemed excited about the new governor's agenda as well.

He echoed Gov. Eliot Spitzer's push for Albany reform and called for an end to the Public Authorities Control Board, which was responsible for killing his attempt to build a stadium on the far West Side. The board controls the fate of Moynihan Station and other major projects around the city.

Christine Quinn, the City Council speaker and West Side Council Member, said she was pleased to hear one of the last notes in Bloomberg's speech: a call to improve the campaign finance system, which he said was necessary "to give New Yorkers greater confidence that decisions by their elected officials are based on merit, and merit alone." Quinn said the Council will join Bloomberg in that effort.

"New York City has a great public finance system, but questions of candidate fairness and special influence still need to be addressed," she said.

In addition to the reforms made last summer aimed at reducing the influence of lobbyists, Quinn said the Council is currently weighing "reforms to safeguard public funding while encouraging candidate participation and limiting the contributions of those who do business with the city."

Judging the speech overall, Brewer said she is concerned about another overhaul of the school system since those proposals are most likely to have the biggest impact for her constituents.

"In terms of the West Side, it was schools, it was the American Museum of Natural History and the tax rebate for those who own, but not those who rent," she said.

She said she wanted to hear more about building affordable housing and addressing the different needs of those who live in co-ops and condominiums, a pressing problem for the West Side. East Side City Council Member Dan Garodnick, the other co-chair of the Council's Manhattan delegation, said the speech showed the mayor is "ambitious, but that he is focused on the right things."

Before leveling a final judgment on Bloomberg's agenda, though, he said he wants to see more details. "I would have liked to have seen more discussion about addressing New York City's debt and the 'non controllable' expenditures, and I still have some questions about his school funding system and what that would mean for schools in my area," he said.

The focus on affordable housing will be "critically important," Garodnick said, and is one of the parts of the citywide agenda which will have the most effect in this borough.

"He didn't talk a lot about Manhattan specifically, and I think that we all know that Manhattan has issues of infrastructure, transportation and, of course, housing," Garodnick said. "But some of those were incorporated in the broader themes."