Community Unites in Support of Caribbean Nation

“You are Not Alone”

“This is one of the great tragedies to befall any country,” said Mayor Bloomberg of the earthquake registering a magnitude 7.0 on the Richter Scale at 4:39pm local time southwest of Port Au Prince.
“And the fact that it happened to a country so close to the United States, and particularly close to this city, it’s incumbent upon us to pull together.” Bloomberg joined by Gov. David Paterson, Borough President Marty Markowitz and many other city leaders at the Holy Cross Roman Catholic Church in Brooklyn’s Flatbush section yesterday, also spoke of how the search and rescue teams and other city resources were ready to be deployed and that efforts were being coordinated on the federal level, as well.
“What is needed on the ground right now is communications,” said the mayor, a statement echoed by everyone who spoke. “The already fragile infrastructure of Haiti has been decimated, and there is no meaningful communication capability left.”
The scale of destruction is such that basic infrastructure has to be first put in place, before many aid personell can be put on the ground. “The magnitude is such that it will be the United States government and the United Nations with the capability to bring assistance,” said the mayor. Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly, trying to convey the kind of devastation Haiti has been struck with, a nation that is known for its poverty, shanties, mud slides, hurricanes and coups. “The palace is a very, very substantial building, and the fact that this building collapsed, to think that it crumbled, goes to show you the magnitude of this earthquake.”
Kelly was speaking at a large press conference held at Holy Cross Church in Brooklyn, the spiritual home for “The largest population of Haitians outside of Haiti” according to a conversation that Borough President Marty Markowitz said he had with several members of the Haiti government.
“Brooklynites will be there big time with their checkbooks open,” said Markowitz. “And all the nations of the world, China, Russia, Korea, Japan, should all come together over this tragedy and invest the money necessary to help Haiti overcome this problem.”
“A community that is a part of the great fabric of New York, and today a community that is a part of the great collective prayer of New Yorkers,” is in dire straits said Governor David Paterson. The state is poised to help but “there is an unavailability of communications.” Paterson announced that “Deputy Secretary for Public Safety Denise O’Donnell is creating a registry of New Yorkers known to be in Haiti, so that we can as quickly as possible notify their families of their whereabouts and hopefully, safety.”
All spoke of the need for financial donations, rather than food or clothing. “The ports are closed” there is no communication and the best thing is to give the agencies the money for the flexibility to act where the need can be met. Stressed also was to be watchful for scams and to always give to known relief agencies. Those mentioned were UNICEF, American Red Cross, and Wyclef Jean’s Yele Haiti. go to http://yele.org to make a donation.
“This will be a consistent and lasting effort during this very difficult time for the people who live in that area,” said the governor. “I want to pledge all the resources of the state” for the relief effort that is being mounted for Haiti. “New Yorkers should know that New York has coalesced in a fight to help those, as they helped us, just a little over 8 years ago, when we had our city confronted by tragedy.”
Councilman Matthew Eugene, the first memberof the Haitian community to serve on the City Council said he sent “My prayers to my brothers and sisters” and “thank you to all my colleagues in government for the support for the Haitian community.” Eugene spoke about people calling his office at 2am, not knowing what had happened to their family members. “I want to say to the people of Haiti, You are not alone. You have friends working together as one team, the United States team, to send relief and assistance to you.”

(Follow up-to-date reports at http://www.haitiantimes.com/

One Valiant Effort: Thompson Concedes Run for Mayor

 

              During his yearlong quest for Mayor, Bill Thompson faced the biggest multi-million dollar campaign juggernaut in municipal history. He did so with style, grace and a gentlemanly comportment. The Thompson campaign spent election night at the New York Hilton, where hundreds of supporters packed the ballroom.

            A Who’s Who of Democratic leadership made remarks. Moderated by Harlem Assemblyman Keith Wright, those who addressed the crowd during the hours as the vote count between Bloomberg and Thompson remained tight (48% to 49%)  included  Norman Seabrook of the Corrections Officers Association, DC 37′s Exec. Dir. Lillian Roberts, President of RWDSU Stewart Applebaum, President of the Uniformed Firefighters Association Steve Cassidy, Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer, Bronx Borough President Reuben Diaz, Jr., Councilwoman Letitia James, Assemblyman Darryl Towns, Assemblyman Espaillat, NYS Comptroller Tom Dinapoli, Assemblywoman Debra Glick, Assemblyman Jeff Genowitz, Congressman Anthony Weiner, and Rev. Al Sharpton. 

            Bill DeBlasio said “our candidate Bill Thompson is one of the most decent people in public life. He has done everything right. He has served with distinction. Bill Thompson has served us well.  John Liu told the crowd that Bill Thompson “has confounded” every pollster, referring to re-election polls that inflated Bloomberg’s lead. Liu said, “we have seen results that speak well of democracy in NYC.” NYS Senate President Pro Tempore Malcolm Smith said, “It is Thompson’s time.”

            As the night wore on, the crowds jubilant mood began to change as word spread that the vote total moved to 51% for Bloomberg, 46% for Thompson.

            Governor Paterson said he could not leave the stage without telling the truth, “The fact is, there are too many Democrats who stayed home today, because they listened to the polls. They stayed home because they listened to people who represented everybody else’s interests except there own. Democrats need to believe in a Democratic party and those that represent the Democratic party – fighting against poor housing; fighting against drugs; crime; unemployment and underemployment. Fighting for decent educational facilities. Fighting to save the environment. And fighting for the education of our children.” Paterson added, “I want to congratulate Bill for not giving up.”

            Bill Thompson was called to the stage with the crowd chanting, “Billy! Billy!” and was greeted by warm, enthusiastic applause.

             Thompson’s words announcing he had just called to congratulate Michael Bloomberg was met with disapproving boos at the election results. Thompson said, “Although we have had our differences, we have always found common ground in our deep desire to serve this city. And to build a better future for this city.” He added, “And I pledge to do whatever I can to put the differences of the campaign behind us. And help him move this city forward as we work to address some very serious challenges.”

            With his head held high, Thompson said, “Tonight when the final votes are counted, the results will not be in our favor yet we still have much to be proud of.  This campaign was about standing up for your core values. This campaign was about standing strong, standing tall, and never backing down in the face of a formidable challenge. We are New Yorkers, That’s what we do.”

            “The work we started during this campaign doesn’t end tonight, in fact, it’s just beginning,” said Thompson. “I’ll continue to work with you to  make this city better. For others. It is our duty to make sure the issues we highlighted do not fade back into the shadows of our public dialog.”

            Thompson said he learned about public service from parents, a school teacher and an appellate court judge. He said, by their example, “I dedicated my life to giving back to this city that has given so much to me.”

            Citywide voter turnout was 1.1 million votes. Preliminary results are Bloomberg 51%  (557, 059  votes);   Thompson 46% (506,717 votes). Thompson won Brooklyn by 18,331 votes, and took the Bronx with 32,755 more votes than Bloomberg.

            Mayor Bloomberg spent upward of $90 million dollars, outspending Thompson by 14-to-1. With an average of $157.27 per Bloomberg vote compared to $13.12 per vote for Thompson, some attendees noted that Thompson may indeed be the better money manager.

            Thompson ended his remarks by saying, “Your support, your enthusiasm and desire for change is what carried me to this point.  We may not have won this election, and yet I know, this campaign had to be waged. I’ll never forget how much you gave to our cause”

            In central Brooklyn, election night affirmed the results of the primary. Councilwoman Letitia James won with 92% of the vote; Al Vann 63%; Mathieu Eugene 94%; Darlene Mealy 95%; and Charles Barron 93%. Jumaane Williams, who unseated Kendall Stewart, won with 76% of the vote.

            Public Advocate elect Bill DeBlasio won with 77% and John Liu, Comptroller elect, won with 76%.

View From Here: Why William Thompson for Mayor

Bill Thompson grew up on Putnam Avenue between Stuyvesant and Malcolm X Blvd.   The journey from those streets to being elected City Comptroller in 2001, managing a staff of more than 700 with a budget of $68 million and being overwhelmingly reelected in 2005,  is a long one with middle-class struggles, and successes achieved by hard work.  It is a journey that has attuned Comptroller Thompson to the problems that the middle class and middle class aspirants feel every day.  It has also given him the confidence to use the strategy necessary for this mayoral battle.  “The only way to compete with the richest man in New York City is to build from the ground up.  If you’re going to get into a dollar battle, you’re going to lose very quickly.” 

Thompson was speaking at a fund-raiser in the UN Plaza home of Edward Bergman and his family, high above the East River and about as far from Putnam Avenue as you can get. Here, Bill Thompson was speaking about education  and the need to go in a different direction.  “Our young people are being taught to take standardized tests,” he said.  “Our children are not taught critical thinking.  They’re not taught comprehension.  Not taught the skills they will need in the future.  We’re being given a false sense of accomplishment and all it is leading to is that our children are not being taught to compete.” 

Bill Thompson has an empathy with ordinary people that Mayor Bloomberg feels can be achieved by riding the subway four or five times a week.  But the Brooklyn Papers reported that in their interview with the Mayor, they asked about community benefit agreements, such as that signed by Bruce Ratner for the Atlantic Yards Project.  “I’m violently opposed to community benefits agreements,” the mayor replied.   “A small group of people, to feather their own nests, extort money from the developer? That’s just not good government.”    This statement alone disqualifies him as a choice for Mayor of New York City.  Here he is the richest man in New York, oblivious to the irony of his being “violently opposed” to small groups of unemployed Black men, many living pressed in by the explosion of construction in downtown Brooklyn, feathering their public housing nests, by demanding the opportunity to do hard work. 

He accuses them of extortion for insisting that developers of the gilded city rising only blocks away, put aside a portion of contracts and work for local people and companies.  He has $16 billion dollars, but helping someone bring home a paycheck for rent, food and clothing is “not good government.”  His concept of good government would have met with a vigorous nod of approval from Marie Antoinette, the Queen of France who, the apocryphal story goes, when told the starving masses had no bread, thought she’d be cute and said, “Let them eat cake.”  True or not, it was 1793 during the French Revolution and the people objected to the haughty attitude and the lady lost her head.  

The mayor’s team seems to have lost their collective heads as well or they must have read something in the polls saying it won’t be a double-digit win, to risk bringing in Rudy Giuliani, the biggest loser in the Republican presidential primaries, and someone anathema to the African-American community, to campaign with the mayor. Giuliani knows as much now as when he snickered at the Republican Convention at the thought of a “community organizer” becoming president.

Rudy’s connecting an election of William Thompson with a probable rise in crime and Bloomberg, frankly dishearteningly, going further, saying that New York can go the way of Detroit if Thompson were elected, was certainly the most offensive local politicking we’ve seen in some time.  Why does a billionaire have to resort to running a morally bankrupt campaign? Maybe it is as former mayor David Dinkins said at the Manhattan fundraiser, they have forgotten the great Negro Baseball League player Satchel Paige’s admonition, “Don’t look back, they may be gaining on you.” 

I don’t know what the calculus is here, perhaps the old tactic of tricking poor whites that they and the plantation owners share a bond, but it is certainly dismissive of the Black vote and those who would rather have the men of the neighborhood going to and from work rather than standing around chronically unemployed.   The mayor’s office has to become centered on the problems of regular working people and those who want to be working, and the city budget has to be used to not only deliver services but to circulate in the communities that need them most, lifting the quality of life for all New Yorkers.  It’s time for the Bloomberg era to come to a close.   Polls open 6am, November 3rd.  Every vote counts.

Thompson Offers Comprehensive Economic Plan For All New Yorkers

     New York has had eight years of what mayoral candidate Bill Thompson calls a “barbell economy” that “created low-paying jobs with no benefits on one end, high-paying jobs predominately in finance and business services on the other, and very few jobs in between.” According to Thompson, the “middle class, small businesses, entrepreneurs, and working families have been shut out.” Thompson has introduced a comprehensive plan “that focuses on  real solutions to create a diverse post-boom era economy that produces long-term, living-wage jobs.”

Thompson’s A New Direction for a New Economy has a three-pronged approach: make New York City a true center of entrepreneurial, small business growth; restructure our workforce development system to give New Yorkers the skills required to hold jobs that pay good wages; and include the entire city and all economic groups in the creation of long-term, living-wage jobs and career ladders to the middle class as a top priority.

In a recent presentation to the Staten Island Chamber of Commerce, Bill Thompson spoke of the plight of New York’s historic Garment District as an example of how private sector jobs and businesses have been negatively impacted by current policies.  

New York’s world-class Garment District has traditionally thrived because of the close proximity of talent across the field – clothing designers, pattern makers, fabric manufacturers, producers of buttons, zippers and trim makers, garment manufacturers, showrooms and merchandisers, and fashion show operations. These entities require space to sustain and grow the industry. Thompson points to Bloomberg’s development and rezoning policies as a threat to the industry – an assertion supported by the Garment Industry Development Corporation.

According to Thompson, since 2002, nearly 2,000 acres of manufacturing zones have been rezoned for other uses. “To make matters worse,” said Thompson, “the city now wants to rezone another 1,800 acres – a combined 20 percent of our manufacturing acreage and 40 percent of already-built industrial space – despite the fact that many of our 7,000 manufacturers are looking to expand.” Thompson said he will “enforce existing zoning regulations that were established to protect manufacturers from real estate speculators who offer only short-term leases – a practice that has discouraged many manufacturers from locating in New York City.” Thompson would place a “moratorium” on the proposed rezoning of an additional 1,800 acres in manufacturing zones. He said he will also “work with manufacturers, the fashion industry and labor unions to arrange for up to one million square feet of dedicated garment manufacturing space in nonprofit buildings, the amount of space the industry says it requires to thrive and to expand.”

With help from low-cost financing and grants, Thompson said he will also “replicate programs like the highly successful Greenpoint Manufacturing and Design Center which helps nonprofits acquire, rehabilitate and renovate run-down industrial properties. These new centers will be designed for occupancy at affordable rents by small manufacturers and creative firms in fields such as architecture, design and high tech.” In addition, as mayor, Thompson said he would develop a centralized, online, searchable  database of all available commercial space under 5,000  square feet for small business tenants looking for open, small commercial space. He would also establish “Retail Retention Zones” which would offer incentives to property owners so that “independent retailers can compete for retail space with deep-pocketed retail chains and banks.”

To better support NYC’s small business and long-term economic health, “We must also help New Yorkers acquire the skills they need to compete for jobs created by these newly empowered businesses,” said Thompson. “Under Mayor Bloomberg, the current $925 million dollar city-administered [workforce development] system is uncoordinated and often at odds with itself.” Thompson’s office found “the system lacks a unifying mission, and that its 33 different programs report to three different deputy mayors with no reference to a citywide economic development strategy.” Specifically, Thompson said, “It’s incredible that the Department of Education’s Career and Technical programs – which trains thousands of high school students in everything from aircraft mechanics to computer technology – are entirely separate from the rest of the workforce development system, and that no one is in charge of coordinating the whole effort.”

Thompson said as mayor, he would establish a Mayor’s Office of Skills Development to ensure that “our city’s workforce development efforts are comprehensive, coordinated and focused on sectors where our city seeks a competitive advantage.”

Thompson’s support for small businesses as NY’s economic engine is concrete. According to Thompson, “Roughly 98 percent of New York City firms have fewer than 100 employees. These businesses account for almost half the city’s private-sector payroll.”

The Office of the Comptroller under Bill Thompson has paid particular attention to Minority and Women-owned Business Enterprises. A recent audit found the Department of Small Business Services (DSBS) did not completely comply with Local Law 129, which was enacted in response to a disparity study commissioned by the NYC Council in 2005. The study found that there was a significant disparity in contracting opportunities afforded to certain M/WBE groups in the procurement of construction, professional services, standard services and goods. Local Law 129 was intended to address the disparities revealed by the study. As stated in the law, DSBS “shall administer, coordinate and enforce a citywide program established by local law for the identification, recruitment, certification and participation in city procurement of Minority and Women-owned Business Enterprises.”

Thompson said, “The fundamental goal of the program is to increase M/WBE participation in the city’s procurement process, not merely to give these companies an opportunity to compete.” The Comptroller’s Review of FY 2008 agency purchases from M/WBEs found that of the 23 agencies that were required to submit an agency utilization plan, 12 agencies met a total of 21 prime contract utilization goals out of 241 applicable categories. The total value of the prime contracts entered into by these agencies was $369,417,386, with a targeted goal to spend $107,816,905 in contracts with M/WBEs. “However,” said Thompson, “the actual value of contracts with M/WBEs was a paltry 14 percent of that goal, or $14,882,561.”

Comptroller Thompson found several noncompliance issues of contractors that were discovered by DSBS, including: a prime contractor adjusted the subcontracting requirements of a contract without notifying the agency; no proof of payment to a subcontractor was provided by the prime contractor for two contracts; and a prime contractor did not meet its subcontracting goals.  The Comptroller’s Office surprisingly found that although noncompliance was discovered, DSBS never notified the audited agencies and contractors of the findings.  “If an agency is not made aware of the audit’s outcome, especially when there are findings of noncompliance, there is no way to ensure they know what is taking place and certainly have no means to ensure the problem gets rectified,” Thompson said. “Common sense was missing here.”

Thompson has made several recommendations, including that DSBS should: immediately meet with all agencies not meeting their goals to discuss ways that they could improve, and document the results of those meetings; at least annually review and document its review of the utilization of M/WBEs by the agencies subject to the local law requirements to determine if they are meeting the goals stated in their M/WBE utilization plans; meet and document its meetings with the agencies that are not achieving their M/WBE utilization goals to determine the reason(s) the goals are not being met and whether the agencies are making all reasonable efforts to do so. In addition, based on the results of these meetings, DSBS should determine whether any common factors exist among the agencies that may need to be addressed, and establish a system whereby audit findings are followed up with contractors (both prime and subs as appropriate) and contracting agencies in a timely manner.

Bill Thompson has established on the Comptroller’s website a list of procurement resources for Minority and Women-owned businesses.