| First, some goodies from Bloomie's plan:
The city also would encourage the construction of platforms over railyards and highways to create land for housing. In addition, the plan would open 290 schoolyards as playgrounds, eliminate city sales taxes on energy-efficient hybrid vehicles, increase the number of bike paths and cultivate mussels to suck pollution out of the rivers...
In another measure, the city would plant more than 1 million trees in the next 10 years. It would offer incentives - intended to capture storm water runoff - for larger and deeper sidewalk tree pits and green roofs.
Mussels! A million new trees! Does it get any better? But of course, there's the 800-pound gorilla of congestion pricing. Some short-sighted politicians claim this is a tax on working peope who commute via car. That sounds like an oxymoron if I've ever heard one. Only wealthy people drive to manhattan to work, and everyone knows it. Everyone, except maybe Adolfo Carrion:
"I wonder if it is another hidden tax on working people," said Adolfo Carrión Jr., the Bronx borough president. "I worry about people who need to use their cars to get to work."
Newsflash, Mr. Borough President: the only part of the Bronx without good subway access is Riverdale, and it's all wealthy people there. Nobody who isn't rich drives to Manhattan for work- especially from the Bronx. It's time to consider the externalities commuting via car creates and time to make the actual cost of driving reflect the true cost of driving. But this is probably falling on deaf ears to a guy who supported greatly increasing the amount of parking spots for the new Yankee Stadium despite the new stadium having less capacity than the old one. But hey, Asthma doesn't matter!
As for the second initiative, gay marriage- Kudos to Spitzer for introducing the legislation himself in a procedure known as a "program bill":
"The governor made a commitment to advance a program bill, and he will fulfill that commitment during this legislative session," Ms. Anderson said, using the term that refers to legislation introduced directly by the governor rather than through a state agency or by the Legislature. of course the bigoted GOP senators are shitting a brick.
Joseph L. Bruno, the Senate majority leader, has supported legislation to outlaw hate crimes and workplace discrimination against gays, but he remains opposed to same-sex marriage.
And Shelly? Who would have ever predicted this response:
Sheldon Silver, the Assembly speaker, has declined to take a stand on the issue. Still figuring out how much civil rights are worth in pork for your district, huh Shelly?
So I ask everyone to do 2 quick things. Write your state and city (if you live in NYC) representatives and ask them to support the plaNYC agenda and the gay marriage bill.
There are interesting times we are living in. Thanks for reading this whole thing! |
