a.  a miniature PB&J sandwich robot
b.  a 6” heel woman’s shoe style
c.  the URL for the Jarrett Meeker Foundation
d.  a garbage truck driver in Flatbush
e.  all of the above

Letter e. became the right answer when NYC Deputy Mayor for Operations Stephen Goldsmith — the famous Missing Man of the 2010 Blizzard — designated BK14 (Flatbush-Midwood) as the pilot district for garbage truck-tracking by GPS.

Stephen Goldsmith

It is not clear how truck-tracking could have made a difference in how the Sanitation Department responded to the December blizzard, where City Hall’s late decision to declare an emergency played a significant role.

But improving snow plowing is secondary on Goldsmith’s agenda. The point of the GPSs is to make sanitation workers interchangeable — like robots — and to define prescribed routes that can be competitively bid and privatized.

Such defined routes could preclude traditional Sanitation “specials” such as diverting a snow plow to prioritize a dead-end street where a handicapped dialysis patient is trapped, or plowing the loading zone in front of a day training center for cerebral palsy patients.

Monitoring and controlling truck movements centrally and eliminating local route discretion would prevent community boards and sanitation supervisors from responding to special needs. It would violate the intent of Chapter 69 of the city charter, which deliberately aligns Sanitation and community board districts to enable local service delivery coordination and monitoring by the boards’ district managers.

New Yorkers will pay a price for Goldsmith’s intended privatization of sanitation services. Any dollar savings will come at the cost of sanitation worker initiative and the ability of community boards to assist local residents with special problems.

A huge city with hundreds of distinctive neighborhoods can’t afford an inflexible and high-risk centralized system.  The Bloomberg administration needs to rely less on failure-prone technology and more on human decision-making. The  limits of the 311 system during the December blizzard demonstrated this.

Larry's Favorite Former Jet, Santana Moss

Larry is one of the smartest guys in Flatbush. So when he started defending Brooklyn’s lack of clout at City Hall, I did a double take.

“The Board of Estimate was a bad idea. Staten Island didn’t deserve to have the same power as Brooklyn.”

But isn’t it worse for Brooklyn to have no power, because the mayor — the creature of Manhattan media  — controls everything?

Larry shrugged and turned back to the TV. It was easier for him to watch his beloved Jets self-destruct than to grapple with one of the thorniest issues facing New Yorkers in 2011: how to ensure that Mike Bloomberg’s successor — whoever he or she is — will balance the needs of the BBQSI boroughs against those of the Manhattan business community.

Whatever one thinks of Mike Bloomberg’s policies (John H. Richardson in Esquire quotes Bloomberg as having said “I’m not certain, I’m right,” there’s no guarantee that the next mayor won’t be just as imperious — and a lot less smart — than Bloomberg is.

If that happens, we’ll be stuck for at least four years. Since 1989, no municipal official — or combination of officials — has had the power to derail a mayor who’s determined to have his or her way.

Even if the state legislature were to discontinue mayoral control of the schools (which the 1989 charter didn’t address), the concentration of municipal power in the mayor’s office would force a reconstituted board of education to bow to the mayor’s will if it wants to get things done. The board’s historic sponsors, the borough presidents, have had no operating budget power — and little clout — since the charter changed. And the City Council, despite its theatrical public hearings, rarely risks opposing a mayor capable of punishing individual members at will.

So while Larry may be right about the unconstitutionality of the Board of Estimate, even the Super Bowl shouldn’t distract us from the urgency of our situation: Unless we’re very lucky, the next mayor of New York City could turn out to be a petty tyrant, an opinionated blowhard, or a maverick with a diffuse vision of the city’s future.

Or the next mayor could be another billionaire businessman, just as convinced as Mike Bloomberg is that his way is the only way, but without Bloomberg’s redeeming focus on public health.

Oddly enough, the only place we can seek a way out of this bind is through the state legislature. Unfortunately, that legislature doesn’t enjoy the public’s confidence right now and has a budget crisis to deal with.

Let’s see how this one gets spun.

photo: learnplayguitar.org

The San Men were played like cheap guitars.

Bloomberg and Goldsmith are very smart — no one denies that. They surely were smart enough to know that staff reductions and the October edict demoting 100 Sanitation supervisors would provoke a DSNY job action —formal or not — at the winter’s first big snow storm.

As predictable as worker backlash was, so was the anger that many New Yorkers are feeling today.

Is there anyone out there naïve enough to believe the Bloomberg crew didn’t expect both of these responses?

Who, then, do we hold responsible for how the blizzard was handled?

The instruments, or the musicians?

And what’s the tune?

Deputy Mayor Stephen Goldsmith

Deputy Mayor Stephen Goldsmith said today that “we’re 30 days away” from giving community boards “real-time 311 data,” but that he would have to confirm this.

He made his comment in response to a question by Councilmember Gale Brewer at today’s City Council hearings on the Blizzard of 2010.

But a Brooklyn community board district manager who has seen a prototype of the system cautions that the 311 data will not be what the boards had requested.

Despite some incisive questioning, especially by Councilmember Jumaane Williams (45CD), the mayor’s representatives toughed it out and protected Bloomberg by saying that they, not he, had made the crucial decisions.

Sanitation Commissioner John J. Doherty

But when it came time to specify which managers had made which decisions, no one took responsibility. Goldsmith called himself a “coordinator” who had left it to commissioners John Doherty (DSNY) and Joe Bruno (OEM) to make the critical operational calls. They said the decision-making scenario was a group process.

No one admitted City Hall had erred in delaying declaration of a snow emergency.

Meanwhile, Bloomberg’s political operatives are working in Albany on their real agenda: gutting the civil service merit system.

Stephen Goldsmith and Michael Bloomberg photo: City Limits

“Let’s remember what we really want. This is about getting rid of civil service. It’s my last term. No one can hurt me. We’ve already lined up our media friends. By next year, all anyone will remember is that the San Men pulled a slow-down and we instituted measures to prevent that from happening again.”

“But Mr. Mayor, what about our decision not to declare a snow emergency?”

“I was out of town. Goldsmith was in D.C. They’ll beat us up mercilessly about it, but we’ll just tough it out, the way we did with Cathie Black’s appointment. When we’re ready, we’ll admit some errors.”

“Everyone will blame John and Joe anyway. They won’t talk. No one knows who said what. We’ve already thrown in EMS. And the Federal investigation will muzzle the union. All they can say is, ‘We can’t comment on that now. It’s part of a criminal inquiry.’ We can use the same excuse until we’re ready to go public. By the time the press figures things out, we’ll have what we need from Albany.”

“Mr. Mayor, we looked at the media numbers: Almost two-thirds of the stories are on our side.”

“It started with Halloran and it’s ballooned the way we expected. With the Feds, DOI, and the DAs all doing probes, the only story with legs will be the slow-down.”

“John already distributed the GPS phones in Brooklyn 14. Greenfield is satisfied. The Council hearings will be manageable. With those shots of the trucks parked on Coney Island Avenue, we have plenty of evidence. And we’re making sure that our people are feeding the blogs all the right comments.”

“Once we roll out the cell phones city-wide, and 125 Worth Street is tracking 2,200 garbage trucks, we can get rid of more supervisors. The public won’t object. They’re already convinced the workers were the problem. We’ll even offer people a free app so they can track the truck that serves them and find out whether it’s on schedule. This is the app age. They’ll eat it up.”

“Who came up with that idea?

“It’s irrelevant. The important thing is that we’re breaking the supervisor’s union. When our people in Albany move to kill civil service, Rupert and Mort will chime in, the Governor and the Senate will endorse the ‘reforms,’ and the Assembly will have no choice but to go along. We’ll give union leadership a few crumbs so they can save face and Silver can look good. The days of civil service are numbered.”

* * *

We made this conversation up. But its essence draws on reality: a confident and willful technocrat in charge, a cost-cutting deputy mayor to spearhead the mayor’s “program,” foot-high blocks of ice studding unsalted roadbeds and keeping plow blades elevated, supervisors undermined by threats of lay-offs and demotions, enough worker slow-downs to divert attention from City Hall, and a citizenry that gets most of its perceptions from media controlled by billionaires who — like the mayor —- want lower government costs, a weaker Democratic Party, and the demise of civil service unions.

The NYC Sanitation Department already has eliminated 200 supervisors, with 200 more due to go this month and another 200 to follow. City Hall probably feels it won’t need bosses to follow trucks around once all vehicles are being tracked by GPS. The next step could be equipping trucks with scales to weigh trash and monitor worker productivity in real time: sanitation workers being paid by the pound.

The key to the public’s acceptance of City Hall’s strategy — if that’s what this fiction resembles — has been to hype the message that Sanitation workers and supervisors were the primary reason for the Christmas Week snow disaster.

But worker behavior — or misbehavior — was fully predictable, and controllable by City Hall: A Snow Emergency declaration on Christmas Day, when commissioner John Doherty said City Hall knew the strength of the oncoming storm, would have meant plenty of morale-building overtime; further, a press announcement saying supervisor demotions were being reconsidered could have energized experienced snow fighters. Street salting outside of Manhattan could have made next-day plowing more effective.

The Transit Authority has yet to adequately explain why it couldn’t revise its decision not to mount chains on its buses. The TA has a desk at the city’s Cadman Plaza East emergency operations center along with Police, Fire, Sanitation, DOT, and OEM, among others. Presumably Transit was present on Saturday, when snow-fighting decisions were being made.

Without chains, buses got stuck on major thoroughfares. Outside of Manhattan, salt never made it beyond the major highways onto city streets. Once the storm hit, snow fell so fast that salt spreading was ineffective. With buses clogging Snow Emergency Streets, Sanitation’s plows couldn’t move. Neither could EMS’s ambulances.

Whether most New Yorkers subscribe to the “worker-slow-down-conspiracy theory” version or the “out-of-town-during-a-perfect-storm” version is irrelevant to the Bloomberg administration. City Hall will shape public perception of the Blizzard of 2010 to advance its labor agenda. From Bloomberg’s perspective, he will make lemonade from lemons.

But eliminating half of Sanitation’s field supervisors could destroy the main promotion path for its rank and file. This could damage departmental morale, the quality of new recruits, and the cohesiveness of the organization.

Stephen Goldmith’s academic experience and patrician orientation may be blinding him to the importance of Sanitation’s organizational dynamics. His efficiency initiatives could hurt if another major storm hits. For this, he could end up being made the biggest fall guy for the Bloomberg administration. He’ll return to Harvard and write a book about his NYC experience.

But this too, could be part of a plan.

John J. Doherty

Mike Bloomberg said that budget had nothing to do with the screw-up. He also avoided admitting any management errors — even his own, when he hamstrung veteran Sanitation Commissioner John Doherty. He placed Doherty under the control of a new deputy mayor whose nominal assignment —  operations — took a back seat to his obligation to trim the budget.

Stephen Goldsmith

Deputy Mayor for Operations Stephen Goldsmith cut the legs out from under Doherty and destroyed Sanitation Department morale in October by announcing that he would demote 100 supervisors at the end of 2010 and retire 100 more. His edict forced out experienced workers who feared for their pensions. Many supervisors and other retirees didn’t get replaced, cutting the department’s field force head count.

The smaller field force meant that Doherty had no choice but to redeploy office workers into the field to deal with the storm. They didn’t have a clue.

The missing supervisors were the department’s most experienced snow fighters. Now they were gone, or at least, demoralized.

This may have been as important as City Hall’s most obvious error: its delay in declaring a Snow Emergency. Goldsmith, away in Washington, D.C. for the Christmas holiday, says he was not consulted by phone. Had emergency managers declared the Snow Emergency on Saturday, when the storm’s approach was confirmed but before the heaviest snowfall had started, parking would have been banned on major arteries and salt could have been spread to prepare streets for plowing.

But declaring the emergency on Saturday would have meant calling in workers at holiday double overtime rates to mount chains and spread the salt throughout the city. Apparently, without an OK from his budget-cutting boss, Doherty didn’t do it.

Westminster Road, Friday, December 31, 2010

By Sunday it was too late. Without salt on most roads, fast-falling snow quickly got compacted into hard ice. Plow blades skidded over it ineffectually. Westminster Road between Newkirk and Foster Avenues in Brooklyn still was packed with a half-foot of ice at this writing, five days later.

John Doherty arguably is the best Sanitation Commissioner New York City ever has had. But Bloomberg placed him under the control of someone whose mandate was to cut costs. It was an unfair contest.

Leonie Haimson

Leonie Haimson needs help. New York’s most passionate education blogger has not appreciably changed the way the city’s public schools are run. A persistent critic of Mike Bloomberg’s educational policies, and president of a group called Class Size Matters, Haimson gets noticed but continues to be shrugged off by City Hall.

It doesn’t matter how many “ordinary” New Yorkers agree with Haimson. City voters have almost no power to shape municipal policy. They lost most of their clout two decades ago when they approved a new government structure that gave the mayor almost sole control over the city’s budget, land use, contracts, and, de facto, over the City Council itself. (Most Council members would deny this.)

Even a local referendum to change the city charter can be preempted by the mayor. Today, New Yorkers usually must resort to litigation or to state intervention to derail an initiative the mayor truly wants.

And with the 1989 loss of the Board of Estimate, the mayor’s historic partners — the city comptroller, the City Council president and the five borough presidents — lost the control over resources they needed to give their board of education appointees teeth.

Faced with this strong-mayor reality, in 2002 the state legislature capitulated to Bloomberg’s arguments to extend mayoral control to include the school system. The board of education was replaced with a Panel for Educational Policy, dominated by mayoral appointees. Bloomberg’s firm grip on the system got renewed in 2009.

Once he had this authority, the billionaire computer systems and business communications magnate used it to “corporatize” the school system. He hypercentralized the education department bureaucracy, marginalized the teachers union, and vastly expanded the role of technology and testing in the public schools.

With the help of Federal education programs such as No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top and a fiscal stimulus called the New Markets Tax Credit program, which supports charter school construction, Bloomberg has been able to put his imprint on K-12 education in New York City, close marginal traditional public schools, open more charters, and dramatically increase the Department of Education’s use of private sector services.

To critics such as Haimson, this transformation has been largely destructive.

But as compelling as Ms. Haimson’s writing may be, she has had limited impact — probably because her focus has been more on symptoms than on the underlying cause: the huge concentration of municipal power in the mayor’s office.

She needs a counterpart who can focus on a political strategy to convince Albany to rescind or diminish mayoral control and replace it with a more moderate alternative.

This doesn’t need to be a frontal assault. One of the beauties of political power is that it is fungible, so any partial transfer of control from the mayor to other elected officials — over land use, the budget, ethics rulings, franchises, or contracts — could force him to negotiate for political support when he’s making major education policy decisions.

Of course, that may frighten other elected officials. Once they are perceived as affecting school policy decisions, they, like the mayor, could be blamed for anything that goes wrong. The borough presidents, the comptroller, the Council, and the public advocate may be more content to stay out of Leonie Haimson’s sights and let the mayor be her sole target.

The story, headlined “Report: Recovery brings no respite for NY’s poor,” told of the increasing difficulty that low-income New Yorkers are facing as 2011 approaches. Low income is defined as less than $44,100 annually for a family of four.

Tag-Heuer Monaco V4

The item was paired with a holiday-season ad for  Tag Heuer wristwatches, which range in price up to $80,000.

Illustration: FRBSF

Charter schools are among the big winners in the tax cut extender deal signed into law on December 17 by President Barack Obama.

Section 733 of H.R. 4853 provides for an additional $7 Billion in 2010/2011 New Market Tax Credits, an economic development program created in 2000 during the Clinton Administration.

So-called Community Development Entities can apply for these tax credits on behalf of non-profits such as charter schools, and package them for wealthy investors who use the credits to reduce their own IRS obligations. To someone in the highest tax bracket, the after-tax equivalent return on such an investment can be about 10-12% per year, with minimal risk.

Most ordinary tax-payers these days have to settle for bank interest rates that hover somewhere around 1%.

To bundle these tax credits and to comply with complex IRS and Treasury Department regulations, specialized bankers, accountants, and lawyers craft a web of complex financial relationships that involve “leveraged lenders,” “community development entities, and “QALICB’s.” For their efforts, they get paid a few percentage points — which is real money in a multi-million-dollar New Markets deal.

The net proceeds from the sale of a charter school’s tax credits usually come in the form of a loan that doesn’t have to be repaid.  The charter school can use these funds, bundled with other monies provided by a “leveraged lender,” to pay for constructing a building.

This lucrative financial partnership between charter schools and millionaires was spotlighted by Daily News columnist Juan Gonzalez, who said in May, 2010 that “wealthy investors and major banks had been making windfall profits” through charter school deals using the New Markets Tax Credits program.

Now the Obama Administration and Congress have extended this windfall for two more years. In addition to charter schools, the tax credits program will benefit universities and other qualifying organizations located in or serving economically distressed communities.

Among the beneficiaries of the Federal program is the Robin Hood Foundation’s “Achievement First” High School in Brooklyn, which gained millions in New Markets Tax Credits funds in 2009. To observers aware of the Robin Hood Foundation’s commitment to anti-poverty giving, this could have seemed like a good deal for everyone.

Not quite. Like other tax credits and tax write-offs crafted for wealthy investors, the New Markets Tax Credits program reduces their tax obligation and — in today’s stagnant economy — simply shifts more of the nation’s growing tax burden to the middle class.