July 23, 2009 @ 6:05 pm
Live Blogging Fed Up New Yorkers Meeting
I’m here ( Jay, the web designer for Bloombergwatch) at the Fed up New Yorkers meeting at the LGBT Community center on 13th street. Thanks to said community center for allowing us to use their space. Rain may have suppressed turn out somewhat but there’s still a good crowd here. I will post comments on this thread to record whatever happens.
Filed under Uncategorized Permalink
23 Comments »
RSS feed for comments on this post · TrackBack URI
Posted by Jay
July 23, 2009 @ 6:09 pm
We’re starting a little bit late, people are still filtering in. People are thumbing through the first issue of the Fed Up New Yorkers newspaper. You can download a pdf version of it here
Posted by Jay
July 23, 2009 @ 6:17 pm
Neil Fabricant is starting us off - “Hello Fed up New yorkers” —
“I’m 71 years old, I’ve been in and around new york politics for 50 years, and I’ve never seen this level of looting and corruption- both here, in albany and in washington.”
Posted by Jay
July 23, 2009 @ 6:19 pm
Neil continuing…
We were glad our votes counted when we elected Obama, we thought that our votes counted when we the voters said “no third term” here in New York.
Posted by Jay
July 23, 2009 @ 6:22 pm
“…. bloomberg has a vision for new york, and that vision doesn’t include us. It includes big business and big real estate.”
“… we can beat this guy, and we’re going to start tonight.”
Neil is introducing the format of tonight’s event- various people are going to be invited to come up and tell their tales.
Posted by Jay
July 23, 2009 @ 6:29 pm
First speaker Angela DeSussa founder of the teacher advocacy group TAG NYC, started because of what’s been happening in the schools since bloomberg and Klein took over.
(i’m paraphrasing i can’t type fast enough to record it word for word)
“Bloomberg and Klein have made their reputation on the supposed turn around in the inner-city schools. In order to pull the wool over everyone’s eyes, they have to put the blame on the perennial scape-goat, the new york city teachers. In reality the New York City School teachers are some of the best in the world, but when you allow a system to operate without enough books, without respect for the teachers without consequences for students disrupting class, the teachers cannot be expected to perform miracles.”
….what’s happening is the greatest accademic fraud imaginable. Students who can’t read, who’ve not even shown up for most of the year are getting pushed through…. its a scam… its a scam across the board… students are given the answers for lab reports… “
Posted by Jay
July 23, 2009 @ 6:31 pm
Angela continuing “…. the teachers in the ‘rubber rooms’ are the teachers that the principals want to get rid of because they will not go along with this fraud”
Posted by Jay
July 23, 2009 @ 6:37 pm
Next speaker:
Annita Carl and Jim Kemp (not sure of spelling)
Here to talk about the buy-out process in the Mitchell-Lama program.
They lived in a north-brooklyn artist housing building. In august of 1999 after living there for 22 years. The landlord announced that he was going to buy out of the program. What this meant was that the 42 families living there were all evicted in 2004. The building was sold to a developer who planned to make luxury condos out of this building and to build another building in the court-yard.
Now the building they had lived in has a crater in the roof where the rain comes in and in what had been the court yard there is just a hole where they had started to dig but stopped.
Neil asks what about bloomberg.
they tried to go to every agency they could think of to get relief - Finally they went to Doctoroff — bloomberg’s master-builder– he said he would “see what they could do” — they were willing to do anything to save their homes, but in the end they said there wasn’t enough money to do anything.
Posted by Jay
July 23, 2009 @ 6:46 pm
Next speaker from marriage equality new york — missed name.
Bloomberg had a chance to support marriage equality and didn’t - she is not supporting bloomberg
next
Dominic DeRubbio — his issues are construction saftey and fire safety– over 130 construction workers have died during bloombergs terms. Remember the DeucheBank fire- missmanagement and corruption are exposed in this week’s village voice.
In Fire Safety- Bloomberg wanted to close firehouse 161- but that firehouse was saved - but there were 15 other firehouses bloomberg wanted to close.
On crime statistics- they only keep statistics on certain kinds of crimes- what is happening with the crimes we’re not keeping track of.
he’s from staten island- lots of other people clap — apparently there are some others…
Under bloomberg staten island is becoming over developed.
Posted by Jay
July 23, 2009 @ 6:57 pm
Next up Gene Crisco - retired teacher — “not going to rehash what other teacher said”- her comments were “on target”-
Gene says that Bloomberg is way out of line comparing himself to Chamberlin thereby implying that the state senate are like nazis.
The senators are responding to their constituents who do not want mayoral control.
We should not “roll over and play dead” -
bloomberg wanted mayoral control because it will look good for his national office aspirations.
Its time for Bloomberg to go and for the education system to be back in the hands of professionals.
Next up
Andy Hum — we should ask like Reagan did “are you better off” –The Tenant board has given increases to landlords every year- but when he was asked about it bloomberg tried to pretend he was not responsible.
next speaker: (again paraphrasing)
Alen Roskoff - Bloomber got the best gay support that money and power could buy- but he has no support from progressive gays because bloomberg is the biggest donor to the republican party.
Not only did Bloomberg go to court to defeat marriage equality but he invoked Leviticus- that’s why we call him “Michael Leviticus Bloomberg” - Bloomberg didn’t support Obama or Kerry - he was the largest donor to Bush in the nation. Gays who support bloomberg but were against bush are hypocrites.
Bloomberg didn’t support a bill which would have protected LGBT students from bullying
Christine Quinn is an embarrassment to the gay community — where is bloomberg in investigating her slushfund scandal? Nowhere?
Shame on anti-progressive gays.
Posted by Jay
July 23, 2009 @ 7:00 pm
Next speaker:
Betsy Combier
A watcher of the courts - if anyone has cases please contact her-she works part time for the UFT- and takes care of teachers locked in the “rubber rooms” — they do not deserve what they are getting.
She’s done 100 suspension hearings for black and latino students who are being put into impact schools- and “safe rooms” — rooms with no windows - they’re not allowed to eat- they are taught by only one teacher for all subjects — we are in the middle of the “cleansing” of new york–
Posted by Jay
July 23, 2009 @ 7:02 pm
All the seats are now filled — there’s people standing in the back
Neil speaking again — bloomberg’s focus is wall street - he wants to bring in new rich people into new york, and squeezing out middle class and poor people-
Posted by Jay
July 23, 2009 @ 7:14 pm
John from Independence Plaza — He’s worked to fight for affordable housing - Bloomberg has looked the other way.
But he wants to talk about education.
Bloomberg has taken all the responsibility away from parents and anyone else- its not mayoral control, its mayor dictatorship. He’s part of a group that is taking bloomberg to court.
If you don’t have parents involved - you can’t get good outcomes for the students. The state sentate is trying to give the parents more control.
Bloomberg said “if i don’t do a good job on education vote me out” - so lets vote him out.
Next speaker:
Maryelis from Brooklyn - substitute teacher in brooklyn one of 13,000 teachers - subsitutes were told in the summer that they could apply for unemployment — she waited and waited- the department of labor said her application was under investigation - meanwhile she had no money and couldn’t buy food- she ended up in the hospital- she was writing to her elected officials — the new york city school system was accusing her of having applied for unemployment in both NY and NJ- which was not true. Finally - they got a bill passed in Albany that said that the NYC school system could not tell the subs that they could get unemployment over the summer because they really can’t.
Posted by Jay
July 23, 2009 @ 7:14 pm
Now Mark Green is speaking
Posted by Jay
July 23, 2009 @ 7:20 pm
Mark Green supports this group —
He has two things to speak about in particular — for 7 and a half years Bloomberg said he supported term limits. Then on the first day of the olympics, when the attention was elsewhere he said “oh never mind”
Second- the job he loves “city advocate” is supposed to be a watch dog on city hall, but how can they do their job when city hall cut their budget by 40% - when the other offices are going to be cut 4% —
he supports mayoral control of education — but not mayoral control of the public advocate’s office.
When the voters vote twice for term limits you should respect it.
He will be supporting the Democratic Nominee no matter who it is.
Any candidate can loose– Bloomberg is just a mistake or two away from loosing.
“Together we can’t loose”
Posted by Jay
July 23, 2009 @ 7:23 pm
Next speaker Judy Francis - public park advocate- started brooklyn bridge park defense fund. Bloomberg is trying to turn it into 7 high rise buildings — inside a park — he did it also in the bronx where a parking lot was built in park- now also a restaurant is being built in union sq.
Public parks are being taken over all over the city. If we loose our public parks we loose the ability to have lower and middle class families in the city because children need parks
Posted by Jay
July 23, 2009 @ 7:28 pm
Next speaker Mariyng Galfnay ? (sp?)
There is a disease called greed crowding out small businesses on our streets —
she wishes boadway would go on strike to support other performers who are getting priced out of the city.
also the rent board is a joke- people on the board are ignoring the people speaking - a man in a fancy suit - she asked him- how much money do you need? how much money do you want?
its time to take back the power. She used to work for Christine Quinn but never will again.
its disgraceful that bloomberg is spending so much money on this campaign he should spend the money making the city better instead of all this advertising.
Speak up! everyone should take action!
Posted by Jay
July 23, 2009 @ 7:33 pm
NEXT speaker:
Andy Bellas –one of the original members of ACT UP–had a chance to talk with some of the mayor’s lawyers because a man was wrongfully arrested — gave him a chance to see what was really it was like to deal with the Mayor’s people — they were very hostile and disinterested in hearing about the real issues. He realized that the reason he’d even gotten the meeting was because Quinn was hoping to get his group to not protest the Mayor
Anything can happen. We could beat him. Even if he gets elected we’ll keep fighting.
Posted by Jay
July 23, 2009 @ 7:37 pm
NEXT- Scott Kavin - the most important issue is the NYPD- we can’t change the NYPD without changing the mayor- we’ve had 16 years of civil rights violations — before Rudy and Mike 700 pot arrests per year- after 40,000 per year — Mayor mike said not only did he smoke it, but he liked it- but his policies are making criminals out of people for doing what he had done.
people were wrongfully arrested during the RNC - the city still claims they did nothing wrong- we need to replace this mindset.
Critical Mass Bike rides- people are needlessly getting ticketed and arrested- a waste of resources and a violation of people’s rights.
School safety officers - principals were arrested trying to prevent the arrest of students — nypd should not be in control of schools.
we need to put an end to 16 years of a police state- Bloomberg has continued rudy’s policies.
Posted by Jay
July 23, 2009 @ 7:40 pm
Next -speaker — didn’t catch his name
174,000 people were without power in astoria and bloomberg was too slow to get con ed to fix it.
NYPD interfered with anti war protest
MTA constantly bumping up fees
NYU is the second coming of robert moses
Bloomberg is unable to relate to the concerns of ordinary citizens
Bloomberg can not be trusted-
Posted by Jay
July 23, 2009 @ 7:50 pm
Next speaker:
Michael White –layer and urban planner- talking about development– in central park they wanted to put up a building in the park–
bloomberg likes to give large areas to large developers -
there can be good development but bloomberg is all about selling off the public realm. The city council voted this week to destroy coney island.
Bloomberg has failed to do anything effective with the WTC site. -he writes at noticing newyork http://noticingnewyork.blogspot.com/
Next speaker
Eric Dickson-
native new yorker — knows small business owners - when bloomberg talks about being good for business–he means “mega business” but the small business owners, here in NYC are people that care about NY. They love the city — Mike bloomberg is only pro his business- its crony capitalism- capitalism for us socialism for him and his friends - its not going to stop unless we get him out of office.
under bloomberg NYC is a city for sale. If you have money you can get whatever you want.
Breaking news — the FBI rounded up 44 officials for corruption in NJ- we should do the same thing over on our side of the hudson. We have just as much corruption with the fantom nonprofits and the slush funds of the city council-
send Bloomberg back to the private sector.
Posted by Jay
July 23, 2009 @ 7:56 pm
Daniel Goldstien - from Develop don’t destroy ny- speaking only for himself not his group
Bloomberg doesn’t take bribes he gives them — bloomberg’s override of term limits is just the latest in a pattern of anti democratic behavior. Yankee’s stadium, Citi Field- tried to do the giants stadium and the atlantic yards - -all huge projects that benefit private interests at the expense of the public interest–
he’s abused the power of immanent domain
the mayor is a NIMBY- he wouldn’t allow these mega projects in his own neighborhood.
3 weeks ago they approved a sweetheart deal for Ratner in the atlantic yards project - allowing the developer to pay over 22 years.
there will be a protest outside of the state hearing on the atlantic yards next wed.
Posted by Jay
July 23, 2009 @ 8:01 pm
and that’s the end
Posted by Dominick R. DeRubbio
July 24, 2009 @ 1:12 am
Mike, Neil, Jay, thank you so much. You guys did a great job tonight.