Michael Bloomberg

Michael Bloomberg has joined Bill Gates in Times Square this afternoon to announce a $500 million initiative to curb tobacco use in developing countries.

“I’m delighted Bill and Melinda Gates are supporting one of the most important public health efforts of our time,” Bloomberg said in a public statement released prior to the event. The two just walked on stage here at the New York Times center on West 41st Street to discuss the initiative.

This announcement comes on the heels of a World Health Organization report about the widespread use of tobacco, which Bloomberg helped fund. He attended the release of the study back in February.  read more »

Mayor Michael Bloomberg has been on a campaign to make sure that the granting of tenure in New York City’s public schools is not the pedagogical equivalent of social promotion—something conferred simply for showing up. His efforts appear to be producing results: The number of teachers denied tenure has nearly tripled over the past year. This is good news.

The mayor has made it clear that he wants tenure to be something earned, not something regarded as an entitlement. The problem is that not everybody is so enthusiastic. Last April, state legislators made it more difficult to deny tenure, by barring test scores from consideration in the tenure process.  read more »

After signing an executive order this morning, Michael Bloomberg fielded a question from a reporter about the new M.T.A. fare hike, and whether the state might force the city to put more money in the M.T.A. budget.

“There is certainly not going to be more money coming from the city," Bloomberg said. "We don’t have it. If the state mandated that we had to put more money in, we’d have to raise city taxes."

Bloomberg said revenue has to be found elsewhere and suggested the state collect taxes from cigarettes sold on Indian reservations.

Funding mass transit, of course, it something of a sensitive issue with the mayor because of his failed congestion pricing plan.

Here’s Michael Bloomberg reacting happily to a question about Anthony Weiner’s friendly remarks about him this morning.

“That’s one of the nicer things he’s said,” Bloomberg said of Weiner, whose 2005 campaign for mayor was notably anti-Bloomberg.

Later, Bloomberg swatted down a question about overturning term limits, saying, “I don’t think that’s in the plans.”

Michael Bloomberg just signed an executive order requiring all city agencies to provide services in the city's six most commonly spoken languages: Spanish, Chinese, Russian, Korean, Italian and French Creole.

Each agency will also designate a language access coordinator to develop a plan to implement the policy.

While some agencies, like the department of education, already offer translation of documents, this is being presented as the most comprehensive citywide effort to date to expand language services.

UPDATE: Shortly after this announcement, State Senate candidate Simcha Felder unveiled a Spanish-language part of his campaign web site. The site (www.VotaFelder.com) directs readers to the Spanish-language section of his campaign web site (which also features a photo of Felder with Bloomberg.)

Michael Bloomberg wants to hear where Barack Obama stands on the issue of free trade, he said earlier today, adding that he thinks John McCain has “a better record on this issue.”

Bloomberg was speaking across the street from City Hall, where the Consumer Electronics Association launched a nationwide bus tour advocating free trade with Colombia, among other countries.

“I think that John McCain has a better record on this issue than Barack Obama,” Bloomberg said. McCain, Bloomberg said, advocates “trading with the only ally we have left in Latin America, namely Colombia.”

“I’d like to hear a lot more from him about how he thinks we could reopen NAFTA without becoming a big loser in that,” the mayor added.  read more »

From superintern Bharat Ayyar:

Police Commissioner Ray Kelly was a guest on last night's Nachum Segal Show, which was hosted by Zalman "ZK" Koppel and Councilman Simcha Felder, who is also running for State Senate. When Felder brought up the recent Quinnipiac poll that showed Kelly was the most popular candidate for mayor (that is, aside from term-limited Michael Bloomberg), Kelly called the result "flattering," but said he was too focused on his job to think about a run for office.

Felder also brought some of his staff, who he said had all acquired a taste for Jewish music, along to the show.  read more »

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Today, The New York Times brings us a mouthwatering, albeit hardly groundbreaking, trend piece on the time-honored summer phenomenon of public drinking. Yes, it's hot outside, and New Yorkers are quenching their thirst by throwing back cold ones at just about every turn. As Cara Buckley writes:

New York City is somewhat of a drinker's paradise year round, but a certain extra layer of permissiveness seems to infuse the city in the summertime, along with a wellspring of opportunities to get sloshed, slightly or mightily.

[...]

With bars on every corner, and—thanks to buses, subways or cabs—no need to drive after the drinking is done, New York City ... is like a giant—and boozy—college campus. And this is never more true than in the summer.

 read more »

Thirty-eight percent of New Yorkers polled by Quinnipiac want to see Michael Bloomberg elected mayor again in 2009.

Which will help fuel rumors that he may somehow work to overturn the term limits that currently prevent him from seeking the position a third time.

Since it's fairly unlikely Bloomberg could do that, here's how the other 2009 mayoral candidates did.

Overall:
12% Ray Kelly
11% Marty Markowitz
10 % Anthony Weiner
7% Bill Thompson and Christine Quinn
4% Betsy Gotbaum

Among Democrats only:

12% Markowitz
11% Weiner
10% Quinn
8% Thompson

Among independent voters, Markowitz, Kelly and Weiner each took 12 percent.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg has been talking about doing away with the city’s ancient draconian cabaret law for years now, and Robert Bookman, for one, seems frankly sick of hearing about it.

“It’s a nonreality story,” said Mr. Bookman—a rather curious position for a guy who speaks on behalf of affected cabaret operators citywide.

The oft-quoted lawyer represents the New York Nightlife Association, an industry group whose many members regularly wrangle with the dubious law, which has regulated dancing, of all things, at the city’s various bars, restaurants and nightclubs for the better part of the past century.

Under the law, first enacted back in 1926, places that permit dancing are required to get a special license; those that don’t risk getting fined or even shut down virtually any time patrons start bobbing their heads to the jukebox.  read more »

Democratic State Senator Ruben Diaz, Sr.--who is running for re-election on both the Republican ticket and the Democratic one--wants to clear the air about a few things.

He called to say that his August 13 fund-raiser features Democratic State Senate Leader Malcolm Smith and conference co-chair Jeff Klein, but they are not behind the event.

“They are not organizing it,” Diaz told me. “They never organized nothing for me.” Diaz said his paid fund-raiser for the event is Anne Noonan, and that he is calling contributors himself.

Diaz also said of the party, “I’ve been there when they needed me,” and added that he contributed money to help his conference pick up seats.  read more »

Michael Bloomberg is going to appear on CNN with Wolf Blitzer at 5:30 p.m. today to discuss his new formula for calculating poverty rates, according to a release the mayor's office just sent out.

The current method been around since the 1960s.

Here’s the Michael Bloomberg baseball card, in honor of the upcoming All-Star Game at Yankee Stadium. The card, made by Topps, does not include the potentially relevant Bloomberg fact that he's left-handed but throws right-handed.

Michael Bloomberg got stuck on a tarmac in New York City yesterday, and didn’t deliver a speech on poverty at the N.A.A.C.P. convention in Cincinnati, Ohio as he was scheduled to do. But the prepared remarks of the speech he didn't give show how Bloomberg was to spell out the shortcomings of the current formula the federal government uses to calculate poverty rates: “Right now, the federal government’s poverty formula tells us that the poverty threshold for a family of four is $20,000 – whether they live in Manhattan, New York or Manhattan, Kansas. This one-size-fits-all formula tells us about 19 percent of New York City residents are poor.  read more »

These pre-pre election polls have limited significance for any actual contest, but according to this poll from Siena, Michael Bloomberg is benefiting from his continued popularity as mayor, beating both David Paterson and Andrew Cuomo in a hypothetical gubernatorial election.

Here are some other interesting bits:

Paterson wins over Andrew Cuomo among upstate Democratic voters, 51-28.

Rudy Giuliani beats Bloomberg among Jewish Republican voters, 80-20.

Bloomberg beats Paterson among independent voters, 62-26.

And Giuliani edges Paterson among upstate voters, 43-42.

The poll was conducted by phone between July 7 and 10 and included responses from 626 registered voters.

Twenty-three percent of New York City residents live in poverty, according to a new formula unveiled by Michael Bloomberg yesterday, which he says is more accurate than the one used by the federal government, which puts the poverty number for the city at 18.9 percent.

Bloomberg's new formula is based on recommendations made in 1995 by the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) but never put into place. Bloomberg was scheduled to announce the new formula during a speech at the 99th annual NAACP Convention in Cincinnati, where John McCain and Barack Obama will speak later in the week, but due to storm conditions in New York City, Bloomberg's plane was not allowed to depart in time and a speech was delivered instead by deputy mayor for health and human services Linda Gibbs.  read more »

Michael Bloomberg is traveling to Cincinnati this weekend to talk about ways to reduce poverty, the mayor's press office just announced.

For those keeping track, it’s his third trip to a battleground state two months, and whether or not some people still seriously consider him as a viable presidential running mate, it will certainly keep him in the spotlight. He'll be talking to a convention of the NAACP, where, according to the official announcement from City Hall, he will "unveil a new alternative to the Federal poverty measure that was developed over the last year by the City's Center for Economic Opportunity."

In June, Bloomberg was in Florida defending both candidates against "whisper campaigns." Later this month he's going to Minnesota to fund-raise for the Independence Party.

New York City produces a lot of garbage. Over 36,000 tons of solid waste is produced every day by the city's 8,300,000 residents and millions of workers and visitors. While New York still has not developed an effective waste management system, and the Bloomberg Administration made some unfortunate changes in recycling rules in their first term, there seems to be a growing awareness that we have a major problem on our hands. The solution to our waste problem has four key dimensions:

1. Waste reduction.
2. Better waste transport.
3. Better waste disposal.
4. Increased recycling.

A small, but symbolically important part of the recycling puzzle is recycling waste in public spaces.  read more »

Tom Golisano’s new political action committee could put him on a collision course with Michael Bloomberg, who has openly talked very publicly about what he says would be the benefits of keeping Republicans in control of the State Senate.

As Bloomberg’s former communications director Bill Cunningham told me, “They may have dueling agendas.”

“The mayor’s agenda has typically been what’s good for New York City. Golisano’s agenda sounds like it is a traditional reform agenda about the process of state government. So here you have philosophy versus process.” He also said the mayor, since he’s in office, is dealing with “the real politics,” of the Albany-New York City relationship.  read more »

Here’s Tom Golisano, a registered Republican, being asked repeatedly by reporters in Albany yesterday if the goal of his new P.A.C. is to help Democrats take control of the State Senate, and answering repeatedly that the organization won't be about partisanship.

“I want to see the senate turn in such a way that we start accomplishing these things,” he said, referring to his eight-point agenda. “I want the assembly to do the same thing.” Later, Golisano denied a report that he told Joe Bruno the new P.A.C. would not help Democrats take control of the senate.

Choire Sicha sees today's New York Times story about the apprehension of the city's "corporate titans" about the end of the Bloomberg era as "a bit of sophisticated propaganda" from Kevin Sheekey and other Bloomberg allies who haven't given up hope of eliminating the pesky term limits law in time for next year's election.

Anthony Weiner said in a recent interview that the public hasn't noticed Michael Bloomberg's failure to push the city's agenda in Albany because the mayor has "had a lapdog press corps."

The Congressman, of course, may have to deal with that press corps if he runs for mayor next year.

When I asked Weiner spokesman John Collins about the "lapdog" comment, he emailed:

"We won't be a press critic. The mayor's operation does a good job on all fronts and I think Anthony will stay out of the press evaluation business."

 

Yesterday, Jon Bon Jovi and Michael Bloomberg held a joint press conference to announce a free concert in Central Park on July 12.

About nine minutes into the video, Bon Jovi is recalling other concerts in the park, and he notes that earlier, Bloomberg had mispronounced Art Garfunkel's name (he apparently said Garfinkel).

“Did I say that?” Bloomberg asks. “He’s my neighbor too. He lives next door.”

The local community board in Queens has endorsed the Bloomberg administration’s plans to redevelop Willets Point, the industrial 61-acre site by Shea Stadium, according to a late-night release from the Bloomberg administration. The vote comes despite opposition from the local City Council members, housing advocacy groups and property owners.

We don’t yet have key details—such as the margin of the vote or the conditions attached to the endorsement—but the city sent out an announcement hailing the vote a bit before 1 a.m.

Such community board endorsements are rather uncommon early in the process of contentious rezonings, as the boards usually vote against the developments with a set of conditions they want to see satisfied.  read more »

Spanish-language television ads that feature Michael Bloomberg encouraging people to vote are tentatively scheduled to air in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut in mid to late August and September, according to a person familiar with the plans.

The ads are part of a nationwide campaign called “Ya es Hora,” which is produced by the Spanish-language television network Univision and will feature mayors from around the country.

Univision has produced similar public service announcements in the past, but this is the first year they’ve included mayors. (Bloomberg, however, has touted his Spanish skills before.)

A person familiar with the program said they decided to include mayors like Bloomberg, Miami Mayor Manny Diaz, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom and others because they'll be recognized outside their city's borders.  read more »

Last night at the New York Blood Center auditorium on the Upper West Side, Assemblyman Micah Kellner moderated a panel on post-congestion-pricing solutions for city transportation that reached a general consensus but no real solution: Congestion pricing is not a bad idea, the proposal was just executed poorly, and right now the M.T.A. is, as one panelist said, in “deep doo-doo.”

“The congestion pricing plan proposed by Mayor Bloomberg failed to gain approval in the State Legislature in the spring,” said Kellner, who was a vocal proponent of congestion pricing. "Neither the plan’s supporters nor its critics seem to have a firm idea of what to do next.  read more »

Not everyone is happy with the $59.1 billion budget that Michael Bloomberg and the City Council agreed upon last night, which preserved property tax cuts and school aid by cutting funds to cultural programs and senior centers.

“I’m very dissatisfied in terms of calling it a budget negotiation,” Councilman Lew Fidler told me in an interview this morning. “A number of us went to the quote-unquote 'handshake' last night to support the speaker, but not because we thought there was a partnership with the mayor.”

Fidler said Bloomberg "wanted to raise the property taxes.”

Raising property taxes may be necessary if budget revenues continue to decline, Fidler acknowledged.  read more »

During his weekly appearance on John Gambling’s radio show this morning, Michael Bloomberg defended the amount of money going to education in the budget the City Council just passed, saying, “It isn’t like we’re cutting the schools' [funding].”

He added, “I’m in a business where if they ask for 10 percent, and you give them a 6 percent raise, they say, 'You cut us 4 percent.' In government speak, you talk about cutting, but cutting from the budgets.”

Referring to the overall budget, Bloomberg went on, “The truth is, in absolute dollars, we are spending this coming year, assuming it holds together, virtually exactly the same.  read more »

Earlier this afternoon, a diverse cast of politicians gathered in front of the Brooklyn House of Detention on Atlantic Avenue to protest the Bloomberg administration's plan to reopen and expand the downtown jail. (It was the Bloomberg administration that closed it back in 2003, due to high costs).

Councilman and city comptroller candidate David Yassky, comptroller and likely mayoral candidate Bill Thompson, State Senators Marty Connor and Velmanette Montgomery, Assemblywoman Joan Millman, and Randy Mastro, a deputy mayor under Rudy Giuliani, were among the rally participants. They all gave the current administration an earful for creating what they portray as a serious impediment to the goal of creating a financial hub in Brooklyn.  read more »

Earlier today, Michael Bloomberg defended the pledge he reportedly made to help Dean Skelos keep the narrow majority Republicans hold in the State Senate.

“Because I have said repeatedly I will help those who help this city,” Bloomberg said when he was asked why he made the promise during a Q&A with reporters in Lower Manhattan after unveiling the Waterfalls. “The Republicans in the State Senate were willing to vote for congestion pricing, and the Democrats were not. And there’s been a whole bunch of things where they have been there to help us," he added. "If the Democrats help us, I’ll support them as well.  read more »

Nearly 30 television cameras and countless reporters have gathered to hear Michael Bloomberg launch his latest public art project, aptly named "The New York City Waterfalls," here at Pier 17 in Lower Manhattan.

One reporter who covers City Hall regularly wondered aloud how to get Bloomberg's attention during the Q&A.

It's one of the largest crowds I've seen gather to hear Bloomberg, proving he can still get lots of attention without it necessarily being based on ruminations about his political future or frustrations with Albany.

All the new faces in the crowd seem to be foreign press.

Last night, newly minted State Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos explained to reporters that his priorities may shift now that he’s representing a statewide conference, and not just his Long Island district.

Speaking at a press conference, he said, “Of course I have a responsibility to my constituency--I’m elected to in the Ninth Senatorial District, but I think David Paterson has shown, as he moved from being the minority leader to lieutenant governor and now governor, that your responsibilities perhaps change a little bit, and you have to amend your ways a little bit.”

One of the accomplishments Skelos highlights in his biography is that he wrote the law ending what he called the "unfair and onerous" commuter tax, which cost the city millions of dollars in lost revenue.  read more »

Last Friday, Michael Bloomberg went to the nation’s most prominent swing state, into the heart of Palm Beach County, and spoke to a Jewish audience in Boca Raton. He went there to tell voters to ignore the “whisper campaign” of lies and falsehoods being spread through the Internet and on right-wing talk radio, and even network TV, about Barack Obama’s supposed ties to radical Islam. Mayor Bloomberg deserves praise for speaking out loudly against those pernicious whispers.

The lie first infested the Democratic primary, kindled by right-wing bloggers and stoked by a Clinton campaign employee sending Matt Drudge a photo of Senator Obama trying on traditional African robes and turban, as well as Senator Clinton’s misunderstood and overplayed statement that her opponent was not a Muslim “as far as I know.  read more »

When Dean Skelos takes over for Joe Bruno, one of the forces he'll have to come to terms with is Michael Bloomberg, who relied on State Senate Republicans to help pass New York City-related legislation in Albany, and who, in turn, gave them lots of money to get members re-elected.

The Skelos-Bloomberg relationship, whatever else there is to it, may already be strained.

According to the biography on Skelos' legislative web site, "Senator Skelos also wrote the law eliminating the unfair New York City "Commuter Tax." That's money New York City lawmakers have been trying unsuccessfully to get back ever since.  read more »

Here’s Michael Bloomberg speaking at the opening of the new exhibit, “Campaigning for President,” at the Museum of the City of New York.

After describing some of the items that appear in the exhibit, Bloomberg said attendees could pick up a Bloomberg '08 button from Kevin Sheekey. He was joking, I think.

Running out of City Hall this afternoon - where there’s been some chatter by folks lingering in the lobby that there might be a deal on the city budget as early as tomorrow night - I saw Dick Dadey and some good-government activists outlining changes they’d like to city put in place before the elections later this year.

The ideas suggested by Citizens Union, Common Cause and other groups are fairly granular for the most part, but they could, if actually enacted, amount to a significant change in the way things work on Election Day. The proposals include:

1. Increase the number of quality of poll workers by offering comp time for city employees working the polls.  read more »

Once again, Assemblyman Richard Brodsky and the city are in a public spat.

Mr. Brodsky, the most vocal legislative opponent of the mayor’s congestion pricing plan, issued a statement today publicly criticizing the Bloomberg administration’s concerns regarding a bill that would reform public authorities. Mr. Brodsky had been in three-way talks with the governor’s office and the state Senate, and told us last week that the city raised new problems with the bill days before the end of the legislative session.

Based on a summary of the city’s objections that Mr. Brodksy sent out, it seems the city is concerned about the independence of appointees on public authority boards, among other issues related to oversight.  read more »

This seems like a notably harsh front page from a newspaper that once was an outlet for Michael Bloomberg's aspirations for higher office.

The article makes what seems to me like a valid point--the dynamics of the state legislature would make it nearly impossible for a Governor Michael Bloomberg to act anything like a Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

At an education forum in Florida, Michael Bloomberg praised John McCain for defending President Bush's No Child Left Behind Act, and praised McCain and Barack Obama for supporting merit pay for teachers.

The legislation, which Ted Kennedy also worked on, has faced criticism. 

The mayor's office sent over a copy of the prepared remarks Bloomberg was set to give to the Excellence in Action National Education Summit at Disney World. The mayor said:

"Instituting accountability standards is central to the reforms embodied in the No Child Left Behind Act. And it says a lot about the independence and integrity of Senator John McCain that at a time when the allies of the status quo have made NCLB a political punching bag, he continues to express his support for those accountability standards.  read more »

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As if on cue, I just got one of those e-mails Michael Bloomberg was talking about this morning.

Courtesy of the Buchanan-y folks at Human Events.

Michael Bloomberg defended Barack Obama in a speech to Jewish voters in Florida this morning.

According to the Palm Beach Post, Bloomberg told an audience at an event organized by the Jewish Federation of South Palm Beach County not to believe the "online whisper campaign" against Obama.

Bloomberg's day in Florida -- he will be making three separate appearances -- has all the markings of a Kevin Sheekey project.

It's two days after a poll indicated Barack Obama is doing better than expected in that all-important battleground state, and, not insignificantly, as Bloomberg has been mentioned (for what that's worth) as a long-shot potential running mate for both major-party nominees.  read more »

The campaign to preserve the wildness of Ridgewood Reservoir in Queens--to stop the city from building athletic fields and a public park--continued today at a hearing before the City Council's Committee on Parks and Recreation.

The committee heard testimony from Adrian Benepe, commissioner of the Department of Parks and Recreation, Queens Borough President Helen Marshall, and a written statement from Bill Thompson, who has led the charge against developing the area around the reservoir, which was abandoned in 1989.

The proposal to develop the area into a park has been met by opposition from local community groups, who fear that development would endanger the wildlife (including, apparently, eight rare species of migratory birds).  read more »

Michael Bloomberg doesn't have very many reasons to be happy with Albany.

But here's one, maybe: Sheldon Silver is making encouraging noises about the mayor's effort to get a waste transfer station sited inside Gansevoort Park, an idea that seemed to stall in face of protests.

Here's a transcript, courtesy of an interested reader, of what Silver said during a press conference yesterday:

“One of the major problems with the bill that the Senate passed is that the actual language of the bill declares that a waste transfer station shall be deemed park purposes. We’re trying to understand if that means that children should be playing with the trucks that come in and out or the garbage that goes in and out.  read more »

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Michael Bloomberg just spoke to a room of environmentally minded business people at a daylong event hosted by George Pataki at the New York Athletic Club.

Bloomberg heaped praise on Pataki, referring to the former governor's “remarkable three terms in office.” He described Pataki as “great,” and added that at one point after he become mayor, his goal was just trying to do for New York City what Pataki had done for the state.

The thrust of his speech was that taxing carbon emissions would be a more effective system of limiting pollution than a voluntary cap-and-trade system, which some business folks like.  read more »

Mayor Bloomberg is no fan of federal pork for infrastructure projects, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t want some for New York. We just got around to watching the testimony the mayor delivered in Washington last Thursday, where he pushed for a more measured approach to funding infrastructure needs around the country, blasting pork spending.

“We ask for money for things that are totally local,” he said at a hearing of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs. “Why the federal government does it, I don’t know. They shouldn’t be doing it, although we will continue to ask as long as they’re giving it out.  read more »

Here’s Bill Thompson at yesterday’s rally against the city’s proposed cuts to education funding, coming up with an unsolicited math lesson for Joel Klein.

“The state just sent the city $600 million more for education, and the chancellor is talking about making cuts,” Thompson says. “Som