Mayor Mamdani assigns the Department of Health to regulate zombie property lot pollution

Apologies for the f bombs, it's hard to contain my rage for this grotesque negligence. And yes this is the lot where two homeless people got killed and the abandoned house was set on fire 3 times

Happy Election Week and vote no on all of Mayor Mamdani's ballot proposals

 

 

Following in former Mayor Eric Adams’ footsteps, Mayor Mamdani created his own Charter Revision Commission. It was quickly and awkwardly formed, rushed through a few hearings and came up with five (5) questions. Once again, these questions are NOT in the public interest: they are all about consolidating even more power under the Mayor and removing the public entirely from the process.

The short answer is: VOTE NO ON ALL BALLOT PROPOSALS. NO, NO, NO, NO & NO.

But, by all means, please do your own research to decide if that’s what you want to do.

These are the Proposals directly as posted on the Mayor’s official website (which means you probably shouldn’t believe them…my comments are directly below in BOLD ITALICIZED CAPITAL LETTERS):

Question #1: Speed Up Timeline for Using Public Space – Including Outdoor Dining, Ramps and Benches

• Cut the 8-month outdoor dining application process by 75% (to 2 months)
• Save small businesses up to $1,800 on application costs and thousands of dollars of staff time

The Commission’s proposal would modify the revocable consent process that determines the use of public space by combining the sidewalk café and roadway dining revocable consent process into a single application and modernizing public notice requirements.

IN OTHER WORDS, IF YOU WANT MORE PARKING SPACES TAKEN AWAY FOR ROADWAY DINING SHEDS WITH ZERO INPUT FROM THE COMMUNITY, VOTE YES.

_____________________________________________________________

 

Question #2 and related non-Charter reforms: Reform the Contracting Process to Improve Procurements, including for Small Business and Nonprofits

• Ballot prop will save up to 30 days on procurements
• Internal reforms to cut qualified nonprofit procurement time by more than half (13 months to 6)

The Commission’s proposal would reduce burdens on small businesses and nonprofits by simplifying the pre-contracting questionnaire and requiring quarterly meetings of the Procurement Policy Board (PBB) to ensure consistent and transparent regulation of the City’s procurement system. The proposal would also allow the Mayor to delegate certain contract approvals to agencies, make permanent a public comment period instead of a public hearing for contract awards and streamline the issuance of the client service plan.

Beyond ballot props, the City will also begin to move nonprofit Council discretionary awards from procurements to grants, an approach that in pilot stage has shown to cut time to payment from 10 to six months. The City will also begin to competitively procure umbrella agreements with nonprofits to create pools of qualified, pre-vetted nonprofit providers eligible to receive future project-specific task orders, helping save up to seven months off a 13-month process. When approaching procurement, COGE took seriously its commitment to the labor force, both public and private sector, and specifically formulated recommendations that preserve all existing labor standards.

IN OTHER WORDS, IF YOU WANT EVEN LESS TRANSPARENCY AND PUBLIC INPUT ON BILLIONS OF DOLLARS IN CONTRACTS, PUTTING MORE CONTROL IN THE HANDS OF THE MAYOR WITH NO OVERSIGHT, VOTE YES.

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Question #3: Fast-Track Street Safety Infrastructure Including Bike Lanes, Acquisition of Office Space and Activation of City Land

• Speed up street safety projects, including bike lanes, by at least 33%
• Reduce time for sale of small plots of City land from seven months to 90 days
• Unlock more than $200 million in revenue for the City from sale of small surplus lots

The Commission’s third proposal streamlines how the City uses its own property. The proposal would simplify review of street safety projects to reduce construction timelines and allow the Commissioner of the Department of Transportation to fast-track critical street infrastructure improvements where there is an identified, immediate safety need. Additionally, this ballot question fast-tracks the sale or lease of small City properties, the air rights above landmarked City properties and the lease of office space for City workers.

IN OTHER WORDS, IF YOU WANT MORE AND MORE BIKE LANES, ENDLESS TERRIBLE ROAD REDESIGNS THAT PURPOSEFULLY CREATES MORE TRAFFIC AND CONTINUES THE WAR ON CARS AND PEDESTRIANS TO BENEFIT E-BIKES AND MOPEDS, MORE OF YOUR CITY-OWNED LAND SOLD OR LEASED TO QUESTIONABLE DEVELOPERS OR OTHER PARTIES WITH NO OVERSIGHT FOR SWEETHEART DEALS, AND SALE OF AIR RIGHTS FROM CITY-OWNED LANDMARKS GIVEN AWAY TO CREATE EVEN BIGGER MORE EXPENSIVE BUILDINGS, VOTE YES.

_____________________________________________________________

 

Question #4: Simplify Building Permitting

• Bring 40 approvals from 18 separate offices and agencies into one place, saving builders time and frustration

The Commission’s proposal would create a centralized permitting hub through which applicants could access and manage construction-related permits and approvals across City agencies. It would also allow additional divisions at the Department of Buildings to approve certificates of occupancy and centralize the City’s waterfront permitting process within the agency.

IN OTHER WORDS, THIS WILL ALLOW THE BUILDING INDUSTRY TO HAVE EVEN MORE POWER, AND WILL INCREASE THE LIKELIHOOD OF CORRUPTION THROUGH A CENTRALIZED BUREAUCRACY WHICH STIFLES SPECIALIZED AGENCIES, SUCH AS THE WATERFRONT PERMITTING PROCESS. IF YOU WANT THAT, VOTE YES.

_____________________________________________________________ 

Question #5 and Related Internal Reforms: Set Contributions Goals for Rainy Day Fund to Ensure Sufficient Budgetary Reserves

• Ballot prop establishes reserves target of 12%, aimed at ensuring long-term fiscal stability
• Internal reforms commit to review standard hires and promotions within 14 days and capital project initiation applications within 40 days

The fifth ballot proposal would set a target amount of funds held in reserve – 12% percent of the City’s total tax revenues. The proposal would also require the Mayor’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB), in consultation with the Comptroller, to establish a deposit formula that would govern mandatory contributions to the rainy day fund. Beyond the ballot proposal, the City will also begin implementation of OMB service standards for the review of hirings and promotions as well as the review of capital project initiation applications.

IN OTHER WORDS…YOU’VE GOT TO BE KIDDING. THIS PROPOSAL COMES AFTER MAYOR MAMDANI TRIED TO RAID THE RESERVE FUND OF $1.2 BILLION DURING THE BUDGET PROCESS AND ONLY DROPPED THIS WHEN GOVERNOR HOCHUL ULTIMATELY GAVE HIM BILLIONS (OF OUR TAX DOLLARS) TO BALANCE THE BUDGET. THIS CAN’T BE TAKEN SERIOUSLY WHATSOEVER. BUT IF YOU WANT IT, VOTE YES.

CLEARLY, NONE OF THESE PROPOSALS SHOULD BE TAKEN SERIOUSLY. They are toxic – just as anti-democratic (with a small “d”) as what former Mayor Adams did last year with the Land Use Ballot questions that we are fighting in court and the 2024 ballot questions as well.

We are facing at both the City and State level an unprecedented attempt to lock the public out of input, review and disclosure of our government operations in the name of affordability, streamlining, etc. – all gaslighting tactics to take away your rights!

If you care about this, VOTE NO!

 

This public service announcement was brought to you by Paul Graziano and S.A.V.E. 1 Family New York. If we don't vote no against these ballot proposals, especially prop 3 which will give the Department of Transportation Alternatives totalitarian power over our streets, it will be the end of democracy and civics in New York City.-JQ LLC

 

9/11 25: How the day began, how the terror unfolded.

 

NY Post

A haunting live NY1 broadcast from the morning of Sept. 11, 2001 shows the world suddenly change in real time — as the news segment shifts from mundane to terrifyingly tragic.

Morning news anchor Patrick Kiernan is first seen covering ho-hum stories about the weather, local primary elections and school dress codes — before the station abruptly airs footage of smoke billowing from the World Trade Center’s north tower.

“This is a live picture from our camera on the Empire State building looking toward the World Trade Center,” Kiernan says in the report, which went viral Thursday on X ahead of the 25th anniversary of the terrorist attack.

“You can see the plume of smoke from the top of one of the World Trade Center Towers,” he says calmly, adding it appears to be a large fire. “I don’t have a lot more detail on this other than that at the moment.”

The heartbreaking footage then captures reporters piecing together live and in real time that planes had been highjacked in a likely terrorist attack — one that would turn out to be the deadliest in American history.

When Kiernan takes a call from a witness, George Shay, he frantically describes hearing explosions and seeing a massive tire “smash down on the street in front of me” as he drove into the city via the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel.

“I heard an enormous explosion then I heard another enormous explosion and it scared me,” Shay says, adding debris filled the air.

“I looked out the window and what appeared to be an enormous tire smashed down on the street in front of me.” 

“It was the scariest thing I’ve ever seen,” he said.

The NY1 anchor man then cuts him off to report a plane had crashed into the tower.

 

IBX Reality Check

Stopped by the Metropolitan Ave station and had to school the MTA's mass engagement posse about how the IBX is not going to work in the future when the current transit system is still a hot mess. Spoler alert: Eminent Domain is a major factor with this project

Kathy Clown's senior day care donor money laundering circus

 Anti-fraud Club

Governor Kathy Hochul’s campaign received $55,000 from social adult daycare centers in Flushing, the New York City neighborhood where Nick Shirley investigated alleged fraud. This month, the New York Post reviewed donation records, visited the two largest donors, and found both centers empty of patients during business hours. Nick had found the same situation there about a month earlier.

There are nearly 400 of these centers in New York City, but only nine donated more than $5,000 to Hochul’s first campaign for governor in 2022. Those nine centers billed Medicaid about $49 million that year. In July, Nick’s investigation described Flushing as a place where billing no longer matched the population it was meant to serve. The Post’s donor list comes from this same small group of operators.

Nearly half of the donations came from two men. Baoli Zhang, gave $10,000 himself and another $5,000 through his business, Bao Kang Adult Day Care, according to financial records reviewed by the Post. Since 2018, Zhang’s businesses have claimed at least $32 million from Medicaid for tens of thousands of listed patients. He also owns Confucius Social Daycare Center in Manhattan’s Chinatown, which billed $15.7 million during the same time.

The other major donor is Jiemin Shang, who runs Livingwell Day Care. Livingwell gave Hochul $5,000 in 2022 and billed Medicaid $5.8 million that year. Another $5,000 donation came from Finest Adult Day Care, which Shang also manages. Livingwell’s Medicaid billing grew from $114,000 in 2018 to $8.05 million by 2024. Bao Kang’s billing rose from $1.5 million to $7.22 million in the same period. Overall, monthly daycare revenue in Flushing has almost doubled since before the pandemic.

At Bao Kang, a worker told Post reporters the center serves between one hundred and two hundred people each day, but then checked a security monitor and saw the common areas were empty. In July, a staff member at another Flushing center told Nick on camera that the thousands of names on its records were not actually present in the building. None of the centers mentioned in the Post’s report have been charged with a crime.

An industry source told the Post that these centers were struggling during COVID until someone helped them out, describing the situation as “Take care of me, I’ll take care of you.” This is just one anonymous person’s opinion about why the donations began, not a proven fact. There is no public evidence that Hochul or her campaign gave anything in return. Political donations from business owners are legal. The Post’s reporting shows that the centers donating to the governor are the same ones billing Medicaid at levels their facilities cannot explain.

Federal prosecutors have been investigating this type of spending throughout the summer. On August 4, the Justice Department’s Fraud Division charged 19 people in Medicaid home care schemes and expanded its Northeast Health Care Fraud Strike Force. The department links this work to the fraud task force led by Vice President JD Vance. CMS Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz, who visited Flushing with Nick in July, said in the announcement that the agency is creating safeguards to spot criminal activity before any money is paid out.

 

Happy 250 America

 

The streets of New York City, America then...

  

...and now.

All apologies Mr. President Washington

Stop Work Order High School

This is who is going to build the future of the City Of Yes, block by block like Mayor Mamdani has said.

FDNY Commissioner sells out smokeeaters, gives green light to bike lanes in Astoria

 

StreetsblogNYC 

The heat is on.

The Fire Department actually really does support the city’s expansion of protected bike lanes, the agency’s commissioner said on Monday — a revelation that shouldn’t be newsworthy at all, but for the fact that several FDNY rank-and-file as well as a key chief have recently criticized the life-saving street designs that the city has been implementing for decades.

“We are a life-saving agency, it’s our mission – our core mission, to save lives – and we appreciate the fact that bike lanes put people in a safer place and they save lives,” FDNY Commissioner Lillian Bonsignore testified at a Council budget oversight hearing on Monday. “The Fire Department has no problem with bike lanes.”

Bonsignore noted that there are some situations where “maneuvering around them are an issue,” but added that they work with the Department of Transportation to resolve those conflicts.

The FDNY has become a central player in street redesign fights, despite the fact that DOT consults with the agency experts and gives area firehouses a chance to weigh in on projects.

Opponents of bike lanes often claim that the safety infrastructure impedes emergency response — the opposite is true — and often find support from individual firefighters or the FDNY union.

Indeed, some smokeaters and their union bosses showed up en masse and in uniform to protest the 31st Street redesign in Astoria, Queens last month after a Supreme Court judge paused that overhaul because DOT allegedly did not get the proper paperwork to indicate that the agency had consulted with local firefighters.

And at a bizarre Council hearing in February, Chief of Fire Operations Kevin Woods, a 36-year veteran of the department, rattled off bikelash talking points – while senior DOT officials sat right next to him – claiming without evidence that protected bike lanes hobble first responders and adding the agency was against protected cycle paths.

 DOT’s bike lanes are, in fact, wide enough to serve as a clear emergency lane free of cars – vehicles that are the actual impediment to fast response times, as Streetsblog has previously reported:

 

Chief Woods walked back his stance on protected bike lanes after Streetsblog flagged them with the press office. But later, Council Member Lincoln Restler (D-Brooklyn Heights) wrote to Bonsignore to confirm that the agency was not obstructing DOT projects.

Woods also told Streetsblog at the time that he does not tell first responders to use bike lanes for faster access to a fire or other emergency, but the below video indicates otherwise. 

 

The agency did not say whether Woods or other rogue agents in the Department have faced any discipline for using their bonafides to rail against city safety policy. In fact, an agency spokesperson suggested that Bonsignore’s comments and Woods’s previous remarks were aligned.

At the Monday hearing, Restler also asked Bonsignore to commit to giving DOT feedback within 30 days, barring extraordinary circumstances, so as not to add to the already extensive bureaucracy lawmakers have dumped on the agency, which delays any bike or bus project exceeding three blocks.

The Firefighter-in-Chief declined to do so, but said the agency would do its “very very best.”

“Sometimes it’s not only the process, it’s not only the Fire Department I would say that slows things down, it may be something a more complex thing that needs to be reviewed, it takes a little longer,” Bonsignore said. “But we certainly will commit that we’ll do our best to get them a timely response.”

Never mind the fact that Department of Transalt are painting these bike lanes in defiance of a court order. I guess Lily wants more work for the EMT's to do.

Of course you know, this means that this is the third municipality to be regulatory captured by these insidious car xenophobic and e-micromobility violence enabling lobbyists

Apologies for posting a Streetsblog story. Everyone keep your head on a swivel outside and remember to close the door.

Update:

 

 

Update

The new bike lane just got christened with it's first crash. Congrats Lily, now you're another one who doesn't know shit about the streets, just like Transportation Alternatives

31st Street Bike Lane is not even a week old and we have our first accident. Even with a protected lane a cyclist and scooter collide. We need Pricilla’s Law now! @nyc_evsa @Shebbie4nyc @AFineBlogger @EricsRambles @ImpunityCity @queens_parents @JoannAriola32 @SpeakerMenin pic.twitter.com/siZ8ILb73c

— Maria G. (@mariagardenia22) June 4, 2026

Why does this keep happening?

How did Giuliani stop every cugine with a blasting car stereo but this is allowed to go on unchecked?

Mayor Mamdani's housing advocate aide is a self-loathing racist

 

NY Post

Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s newly appointed tenant advocate called to “seize private property” and blasted homeownership as a “weapon of white supremacy” in a series of pro-Communist social media posts.

Cea Weaver, Mamdani’s new director of the city Office to Protect Tenants, made the statements and urged her followers to elect more Communists in several lecturing posts on her now-deleted X account that were unearthed by internet sleuths.

“Seize private property!” she said on June 13, 2018.

 She later doubled down on that in a mini-manifesto in August 2019.

“Private property including any kind of ESPECIALLY homeownership is a weapon of white supremacy,” she said then.

Weaver also pushed to “Elect more communists” in December 2017 — when a Harlem street corner was being renamed in honor of former Manhattan Rep. Vito Marcantonio, who was a Communist.

She also unloaded on law enforcement in a May 2020 rant that came during the furor over the death of George Floyd.

“Private property including any kind of ESPECIALLY homeownership is a weapon of white supremacy,” she said then.

 Without landlords how to do you build and maintain housing? You think the government is going to do it? Look at NYCHA [New York City Housing Authority complexes],” said Humberto Lopes, founder and CEO of the Gotham Housing Alliance.

“You put a system in place to destroy landlords. Why are you s–tting on us?,” he said.

Mamdani wants to freeze the rent on 1 million rent-regulated apartments — a move that would need signoff from the Rent Guidelines Board.

  NY Post

Mayor Zohran Mamdani is facing the first major crisis of his week-old administration as his newly appointed tenant advocate’s radical views were exposed — including once branding homeownership a “weapon of white supremacy” and calling on the government to “seize private property.”

The series of past inflammatory social media posts by longtime housing activist Cea Weaver — Mamdani’s director of the Mayor’s Office to Protect Tenants — unearthed this week sparked outrage and a warning from the Trump administration.

Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights at the Department of Justice Harmeet Dhillon said the feds would be on alert for any potential violations tied to the Democratic Socialists of America member’s extreme views.

“We will NOT tolerate discrimination based on skin color,” Dhillon said in a Tuesday post on X. “It is ILLEGAL. [DOJ Civil Rights Division] is paying very close attention.”

Dhillon, in an interview with One America News, added that city government “should be on notice, they’re on high scrutiny.”

“We have several federal statutes that explicitly protect people of all colors and all different kinds of backgrounds and military status and so forth from the exact kind of land grabs and reallocation and redistribution that is being promised in New York,” she told the outlet.

Mamdani indicated Tuesday he was sticking by his DSA ally.

“We made the decision to have Cea Weaver serve as our executive director for the mayor’s office to protect tenants, to build on the work that she has done to protect tenants across the city, and we were already seeing the results of that work,” he told reporters following an unrelated news conference.

 It's very interesting that Mayor Mamdani insists on keeping Weaver with her history of inflammatory and ignorant tweets equating white supremacy and owning a house (maybe she should visit Jamaica, South Jamaica, Canarsie, Brownsville, Springfield Gardens or even South Richmond Hill to name a few) yet he sacked his director of operations for her John Rocker style racist tweets on riding the A train to Far Rockaway where Jewish people live. 

Looks like Mamdani is emulating his hero Bill De Blasio with the same kind of defiant hypocrisy he exhibited for 8 years. The dope from Park Slope has been succeeded by the Asswipe from Astoria.

 

 

 

Caption NYPD Comissioner Tisch