Water, water, everywhere

Irene Drenches City

Winds Just Bluster,

Nature Lends a Hand.

Mayor Back in Groove

Today we enjoy the calm after the storm. The sky is clear and we have a pleasant breeze. It is a perfect day to go outside and breathe air that is cleaner than usual. You can also leave your apartment windows open.

The contrast, of course, is with last week, when Hurricane Irene dropped millions of gallons of water over the Eastern Seaboard, starting with Puerto Rico, and heading north to Canada, finally dissipating over Quebec. Hurricanes have no regard for political boundaries. Landfalls slow them down but do not stop them.

Fortunately, Irene turned into a tropical storm as it approached New York City, and we were spared the worst of the winds, which would have inflicted enormous damage on property and probably would have killed many people, as tornadoes frequently do.

This column tends to view significant events, including natural disasters, in terms of their political effect, if any, and the competence of public agencies and officials in dealing with crisis.

In that regard the Bloomberg and the Cuomo administrations did very well. It is possible that the Mayor's good work was, in part, based on his determination to avoid another fiasco like the late December blizzard in 2010 which was not anticipated and not responded to promptly by city officials, some of whom were out of town. There is nothing wrong with the mayor's learning from that experience, and in fact it is a credit to him that he did.

There was one change in the lineup, Deputy Mayor Stephen Goldsmith, who lived in Washington, D.C., and became, somewhat unfairly, the official scapegoat for all that went wrong in the city's response to the blizzard, was replaced by Cas Holloway, who had been Mayor Bloomberg's Commissioner of Environmental Protection. Holloway lives in Brooklyn Heights, and had served years in the mayor's office, and before that, in the Department of Parks & Recreation, a well-known incubator of young talent (e.g. Adrian Benepe, Ed Skyler and Bradley Tusk).

The city had the advantage of five days' notice that Hurricane Irene was headed our way, and used the time wisely to make arrangements as to how to deal with the approaching storm. The mass evacuation of nursing home residents turned out not to have been necessary, but anyone who remembers senior citizens drowning in their beds in New Orleans during Katrina did not want to see a repeat of that tragic scenario.

HISTORICAL CATASTROPHES

The death toll from Katrina was 1,836, making it one of the deadliest natural disasters in the United States since the Johnstown, PA, flood in May 1889, where an estimated 2,200 people died, mostly by drowning. That tragedy was caused by the catastrophic failure of the South Fork Dam on Lake Conemaugh, which released twenty million tons of water which raced 14 miles downstream to reach Johnstown. The worst natural disaster in United States history was the Galveston flood of September 1900, which killed an estimated 8,000 people. The multiple attacks on 9-11-2001 killed nearly 3,000 people, but that was a man-made tragedy and not a natural disaster. Outside this country, the Haitian earthquake of January 2010 resulted in 316,000 deaths, more than a hundred times as many as died at the World Trade Center.

As of this afternoon, just one death in New York City has been attributed to the storm, which is the result of good luck, sound planning, and fine work by first responders. The men and women who worked to achieve this result deserve praise for their efforts. We hope they suffer no after-effects from their work.

This hurricane was extensively covered by the media, particularly television, which had great visuals of surging waves. Reporters and cameramen were placed in different neighborhoods and showed the extent of the flooding, which never seemed to be as deep as their descriptions. Winds are less visible on TV, but one could see reporters trying to stand up straight while they spoke, with gusts occasionally pushing them around.

Mayor Bloomberg had periodic press conferences to report on developments, which is what Mayor Giuliani did after the 9-11 terror attack. Governor Cuomo called out 2000 National Guard troops, deployed them in flooded areas, visited upstate counties, praised local officials and showed himself to be deeply involved, with State Operations Director Howard Glaser coordinating the state's response, where flash floods upstate endangered lives, with people trapped in motels by rising waters.

After 9/11, candidate Andrew Cuomo got into trouble for saying that all Governor Pataki did was hold Mayor Giuliani's coat. This year Governor Cuomo spoke wisely and to the point, telling what the state was doing, and saying nothing negative about anyone. By highlighting the hurricane's effect in Long Island and upstate counties in the Hudson valley, he avoided Mayor Bloomberg's turf and showed that he was ready for prime time. Good.

Even President Obama got into the act, speaking live for a few minutes at 5 p.m. Friday about federal assistance in the disaster area, and how all levels of government were working together. He also mentioned ways people could prepare for impending hurricanes. It was somewhat reassuring to know that he cared about us New Yorkers.

In another first for natural disasters, we received e-mails all day from miscellaneous elected officials, district leaders, city councilmembers and even one aspirant to a Queens Assembly seat, advising their constituents how to deal with the winds and the flood. These messages were harmless, and might even be helpful if one had no other source of information as to what to do in the event of a hurricane, or were watching TV for the first time.

These e-mailings were evidence of the maxim, "It's an ill wind that blows no good", because the raging hurricane provided an opportunity for the politicians to send mailings to their constituents at the expense of the State or City of New York. Watch for the next rainstorm, and see whether we are advised to carry umbrellas.

We defend the city from accusations of over-reacting, which were implicit in some questions from skeptics in the press. For the next hurricane, we can do fewer evacuations, but it is important periodically to test emergency management situations, and Irene was an excellent occasion to find out what works and what doesn't.

I think of the two men on the beach in Florida talking about what had brought them there. One man said he had a candy store which burned to the ground after a serious fire. The other fellow said that he had a clothing store, which had been blown away by a tornado. The first man expressed surprise, and asked his companion, "Tell me, how do you make a tornado?"

Since we cannot make tornadoes or hurricanes, we should use the ones that God sends us to learn all we can as to how to deal with them, and minimize the loss of life and property. It is not wrong for a disaster to be a test of public officials, they are elected in part to protect us, and a crisis gives them the chance to show what they can, or cannot do.

President Bush looking out the window of Air Force One flying over New Orleans after Katrina six years ago was not a helpful image, and his words on the ground to his FEMA chief, "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job," reverberated to his discomfort. It is remarkable what the elected class has learned since then.

We wish that hurricanes, floods, earthquakes, tornadoes and forest fires do not threaten our State. If they do come, we depend on our public officials to lead our response. There is also a great deal that individuals can do, and they should be more prepared for disasters than they are today.

We have lived for over a half century under the threat of weapons of mass destruction. With nuclear proliferation under way, with unstable regimes in some countries, and others led by psychotics, the world is a dangerous place, whether or not it is warming (and it probably is). The more people can do to provide practical protection for themselves and their families, the better their outcome may turn out to be, as my mother used to say, "if anything happens."

Annus Horribilis

Bloomberg Beleaguered

By Medley of Mishaps.

Third Term Troubles?

The flood of personal criticism leveled at Mayor Bloomberg because of the city's poor response to the December 26 blizzard is somewhat over the top.

Many factors contributed to the city's failure to clean the streets, and there is likely to be at least one investigation to explore the sequence of events and offer proposals to prevent or mitigate a recurrence. Actually, the last two major snowfalls had been well handled, which led to the public's expectation that this storm would be dealt with promptly and professionally. That turned out not to be the case.

Of course, the Mayor had the responsibility of command. You take credit for the good things that happen on your watch, and get blamed for the bad things that happen. People know at some level that the chief executive does not usually make immediate decisions which affect the outcome of these crises, but, nonetheless, success or failure are attributed to the king, chieftain, or the leader of the tribe.

The Mayor attracted criticism because of his initial attitude toward the storm, treating it as a nuisance rather than as a serious blow to others, whose homes could not be reached by ambulances or were unable to get to work. As of today, we have not had reports of fatal heart attacks caused by people shoveling the snow that blocks their automobiles that are parked in the street. That is fortunate, but the situation is still risky.

As the crisis continued, the Mayor changed his stance and took the situation much more seriously. He did not repeat his suggestion that they attend a Broadway theater, which had a Marie Antoinette quality when addressed to people trapped in their homes by snowdrifts, or unable to travel owing to blocked streets or subway and elevated lines which were not running.

Actually, the MTA response to the storm appears to have been far worse than the Department of Sanitation’s, judging from the length of time that lines were out of service, but chief Jay Walder maintained a low profile. We have not previously associated the unpopular MTA with failure to respond to snowstorms which blocked the tracks, but they sure messed up this time.

The MTA’s low point came when they held a trainload of passengers during a very chilly night at Howard Beach, the station closest to JFK airport. When one thinks about it, the failure to retrieve their own passengers from a frozen stalled train for seven hours is a remarkable example of incompetence, and the investigations that will follow should not ignore that episode. We assume that the passengers who had cell phones used them, otherwise the situation would have been far worse as citizens searched for relatives missing in the tundra.

With all the city’s faults, we believe that the concentration of blame on Mayor Bloomberg is unjustified in this instance. It seems to us as if the media and the people finally have found a plausible reason to express their dissatisfaction at a number of unpopular decisions made by the Mayor over the last few years.

First, and most important, was the 2008 reversal of his long-held public position on his own tenure, when he decided to seek re-election by using his puppets on the City Council to rush through a law extending eligibility from two to three terms. The public, when polled, objected to this change by a margin of 89 per cent to 7 per cent. The unfairness of changing the rules in the middle of a conflict was widely perceived; it basically runs up against people’s ideas of fair play.

What the Mayor did, however, was clever and wise. He personally sought, and received the support of, his fellow billionaires who owned newspapers. His alliance with Rupert Murdoch of the Post, Mort Zuckerman of the News, and Arthur Sulzberger of the Times (who may no longer be a billionaire) secured the success of his scheme.

Actually, there is nothing wrong with seeking support from one’s peers, especially when one has so few peers. The reporters hated the switch to three terms, and expressed that view in their columns and articles to the extent that they could, but the owners control the editorial pages, and they lose enough money on their papers that they have all paid for the privilege of expressing their opinions. It is also an underlying fact that Mayor Bloomberg has so far been a generally good mayor, and, having seen seven relatively closely and three at a distance, I know that some were much better than others, and some were far worse.

A number of other matters have chewed at the Mayor’s reputation. The repeated indications of pre-Presidential activities, travels and speeches and the formation of nation-wide organizations and coalitions for various good causes, coupled with the same denials Bloomberg made repeatedly when he was asked whether he would run for a third term, tug a bit at the credibility of the non-candidate. Of course he is not running today, but if circumstances a year or two from now warrant a change of heart, there is no reason why he should not run.

It was once seen as possible that he would be a more moderate and effective President than either Mr. Obama or Ms. Palin, assuming they were to be the major parties’ nominees. Recent events have taken the bloom off that rose, just as Mayor Giuliani’s support for Bernie Kerik as Secretary of Homeland Security doomed his hopes in 2012, although it was not immediately realized that that was the case.

The Kerik situation illustrated one of the parables of politics: how many years of relatively good work can be canceled out by a single error in judgment. The public can be forgiving, but it usually takes time for outrage to dissipate, and in this country, unlike England, elections come on a fixed schedule.

On November 9, Mayor Bloomberg suddenly announced the appointment of Cathie Black, recently kicked upstairs to be chair of Hearst magazines, as Schools Chancellor, and Joel Klein was tossed to Rupert Murdoch to do something or other. Ms. Black had absolutely no experience in education, but is an engaging and attractive member of the mayor’s circle of acquaintances. She required a waiver of State legal requirements, which was obligingly granted by the State Education Commissioner, a decision so far upheld in court.

The justification for approval here is that the Education Mayor is responsible for the school system, and should be allowed to appoint his own choice as long as she can read and write.

Basically, no one who was not in on the plot takes Ms. Black seriously. What can she contribute to a professional field so difficult to manage that experts are sharply divided and statistics are notoriously suspect? The Black episode took its toll on the Mayor’s earned reputation for excellent, well-vetted appointments.

Then, on December 12, the Mayor’s confessed on NBC’s Meet the Press that “I want to go out being, having a reputation as a very good, maybe the greatest mayor ever.” Although the context of the statement may have been a denial of Presidential ambitions, the words were criticized as overly self-referential.

As luck would have it, on December 15, the first (and hopefully the last) major scandal of the administration broke, with $80 million reported stolen and uncounted millions wasted in a computer fraud. Juan Gonzalez of the News had written a year of stories about City Time, naming the bad guy who ran the agency (Bondy) while completely under the thumb of a his buddy (Mazer), a worse guy who, with the aid of his relatives, stole all he could gets his hands on, which came to eight or nine figures.

The case became public when six people were indicted by the United States Attorney for the Southern District (an office previously held by Mayor Giuliani), who worked with the NYC Department of Investigation. This was the largest depredation of public funds in a century, comparable to Boss Tweed’s profits from the construction of the New York County Courthouse in the 1860’s and 1870’s.

Although the Mayor was obviously unaware of the thievery going on, and expressed “zero tolerance” for such behavior, the question at once arises as to who, under him, was in charge of the CityTime project. There must be a chain of command and responsibility here. Who oversaw the thoroughly corrupt Office of Payroll Management?

Note that former Comptroller William Thompson shared control of this agency with the Mayor, and reported nothing. The new Comptroller, John Liu, sounded the alarm in 2010, but the horse was long gone from the stable. The series of frauds, which continued for six years, was not helpful to the Mayor’s reputation as a professional manager with particular expertise in computers.

The timing of this descending series of incidents created an unfortunate karma before the December 26 blizzard. The latest report, posted on the Daily News website today, is about Deputy Mayor Stephen Goldsmith’s tweet at 11:06 p.m. Sunday night: “Good snow work by Sanitation.” Needless to say, and fair or unfair, this tweet will be remembered as the local equivalent of former President Bush’s memorable words on September 2, 2005: “Brownie, you’re doing a heck of a job.”

The good news is that all this is happening toward the end of 2010, which may be comparable to the year 1992, which Queen Elizabeth II described in a speech to Guildhall on November 24, as an “annus horribilis”. For a list of the misfortunes that Her Majesty endured eighteen years ago, click here. You see, it can happen to anyone.

We hope that the curse of the third term worked itself out this year, and that the remaining three years will be happy and peaceful ones for the city and for its Mayor. The problem is that substantial budget cuts lie ahead, which will lead to reduced services and increased unemployment.

These are hard times for anyone who governs. Mayor Bloomberg knew that. In fact, he said on October 2, 2008 at the press conference announcing his intention to seek a third term that “handling this financial crisis while strengthening the essential services such as education and public safety is a challenge I want to take on for the people of New York.” He has that responsibility and that obligation.

As the year 2010 comes to a merciful end, we hope that 2011 will be as good as it can be under the circumstances. Rough times lie ahead for all governments, but out of the three sovereignties: federal, state and local, it is the City of New York that has been most financially responsible for the last decade.

We have a decent, honorable and intelligent mayor. His personality appeals to some, and not to others.

A problem he will face in his tenth year in office is that after a while the people get tired of you. It happened to LaGuardia, Wagner and Koch, all now highly regarded mayors.

The Mayor should try to do as much good as he can in a climate of reduced sustenance for the city and lowering clouds for himself. We particularly recommend that he follow Rule 19: "Be kind to man and beast."

We wish all of you good health and good will in the new year.

See No Evil

Richard Valcich's Letter

Blew Whistle on Payrolls,

But What Was Follow-Up?

The indictment of six people last week by the U.S. Attorney, with the assistance of the City Department of Investigation, broke open the CityTime scandal, which has not yet been denominated as a "-gate". Suggestions are invited; we will honor the winner and thank everyone else. Payrollgate (?) dwarfs many other thefts from the City of New York. This case is a biggie; it deserves a name of its own.

A previous low point in municipal depredation was reached in the construction of the New York County Courthouse under Boss Tweed. That building, at 52 Chambers Street, cost over $13 million in 1867 dollars to build, almost twice the price ($7.2 mil) the United States, guided by a New Yorker, Secretary of State William H. Seward, paid Russia to buy Alaska, whose islands are, on a clear day, visible from Siberia, and vice versa.

There are a number of differences, however, between Tweed's era and the current decade. Because he dominated the political machinery in his day, Tweed and the ring he controlled had the power to steal, whether people liked it or not. In today's ostsensibly more transparent times, the frauds could not have been carried out if the public were aware of what was going on. One issue that will presumably be examined by investigators over the next months is: Who, if anyone, was responsible for concealing from the people to whom OPA reported (The mayor and the comptroller) the massive ongoing fraud, which continued for six years. Did the higher-ups, or their staff members, know what was happening?

An early warning of serious problems with the contracts is laid out in a very specific six-page letter, written in February 2003, signed by Richard Valcich, who at the time was director of the Office of Payroll Administration, which was in charge of the project. You can click here to read the Valcich letter. The entire situation is laid out in an excellent article by David Chen, published across the top of pA28 of today's Times. You must read, at least the lede, to understand what is known so far about the issue.

"Last week, federal prosecutors sketched out what they said was an $80 million scheme to defraud a giant information technology project to automate the payroll system for New York City employees. The participants in the fraud essentially stole the money for their own enrichment, billing the city for work they did not do, the prosecutors charged.

"But some city officials had huge concerns as far back as 2003 about the integrity of the project, whose costs have ballooned by hundreds of millions of dollars.

"In a scathing letter made available on Monday through a state Freedom of Information Law request, the city official in charge of overseeing the project, known as CityTime, accused the company that designed CityTime, SAIC, of repeatedly delaying the project in order to get paid more, failing to hew to basic industry standards and rewriting contracts on its own. The official even predicted, sarcastically, that SAIC would try, in a year's time, to charge the city '8,000 hours' for shoddy work.

"The letter, dated Feb. 19, 2003, offers a devastating critique of the company, and raises questions about the city monitors of the project - the mayor's and comptroller's offices. And the consultants hired to ensure quality control, it appears, were doing very little of it.

"In the letter, Richard R. Valcich, executive director of the city's Office of Payroll Administration, assailed SAIC, a giant engineering company based in McLean, Va., for conducting numerous reviews without approval from the city, other than to 'further delay the project and, of course, increase SAIC's costs.' Mr. Valcich also said 'a certain level of professionalism and compliance with acceptable industry standard practices is expected of a contractor for the execution of a $100 million-plus project.'

"The cost of the project is now more than $600 million, and counting.

"Stating that SAIC's 'commitment to quality is almost nonexistent,' Mr. Valcich also described a document outlining SAIC's plans to finish the project as a 'straw man' and said 'the cost in ill will, damage to SAIC's credibility and reputation within the city, and reduction of expectations within SAIC's team are a high price to pay for this document.'"

The Daily News, which was on the story first, ran today's Juan Gonzalez column on p3, the lead news page. The letter by Valcich was made available in response tor a FOIL (freedom of information law) request made by the News. Their reporter and columnist, Gonzalez, has been writing about the scandal for over a year. Several of his articles were published in the News over at least a year. Apparently, however, they were ignored by the authorities with the power to correct the situation. The headline of Gonzalez' column today: 'CRACKS' GOT BIGGER: Ex-Payroll Boss Blew Whistle on CityTime in 2003 and Nothing Was Done.

Today's Post has a brief item by Sally Goldenberg on p16: MIKE LAUNCHES CONTRACT REVIEW.

"Mayor Bloomberg yesterday ordered all major city technology contracts to undergo another layer of review in the wake of the mammoth CityTime scandal that erupted last week.

"He said Deputy Mayor Stephen Goldsmith will review large 'subcontracting, consulting, billing and record-keeping practices.'

"The biggest scandal of Bloomberg's tenure came to light last week when federal authorities discovered contractors working on an electronic city-payroll system stole $80 million over five years without anyone realizing."

As a result of today's revelations, a dozen new questions come to mind. We know it is easier to ask questions than to answer them, but the City pays millions of dollars to supervise these activities, in order to save the hundreds of millions that may be wasted because of failure to control a gang of thieves, not to mention the contract not being fulfilled.

1. Did Valcich send copies of his 2003 letter to anyone else besides the contractor?
2. Whom did he report to in the Mayor's Office and the Comptroller's Office?
3. Were they informed of the situation?
4. Did SAIC respond to Valcich's letter in any way? If so, how?
5. Did Valcich have any relationship with any contractor after he retired in 2004?
6. Did he write anything at the time of his departure to indicate any concerns about the project?
7. What, if any, was his relationship with his successor, Joel Bondy? Did he recommend Bondy for the job?
8. How were Valcich and Bondy appointed to the OPA position in the first place? How long did Valcich serve? (The earliest reference on the web to his time at OPA is an article from March 1997.)
9. During his tenure, did Valcich ever have contact with oversight agencies, or city investigators, over the situation that was developing with SAIC?
10. Which staff member, if any, actually wrote the letter that Valcich signed? Are the employees who worked on this matter still with OPA?
11. What was the role of Comptroller William Thompson's office in all this? He had leadership responsibility for OPA from 2002 until he left office in December 2009. Did he ever say or do anything about the ballooning costs? Was he aware of the problem? Did someone represent him in dealing with these matters?
12. Who in the mayor's office had responsibility for OPA? Did Valcich and Bondy submit regular written reports dealing with the situation? If they did, who read the reports and what did they do about them? If they did not submit reports, who failed to demand them? If they submitted false reports, did anyone check them?

We ask today, what agencies, if any, are trying to find the answers to all the issues in this case, of which we have simply enumerated the first ten questions? It will take some time to completely solve this massive case. We would hope there would be reports, from time to time, as facts are discovered by the probers.

The fraud here endured for six years. The investigation must not be as protracted as the wrongdoing. Although at first it appears like a case of: Who left the barn door open, and why, it may turn out that there were more serious derelictions on the part of individuals with responsibility to oversee the contracts.

By the way, what ever happened to the payroll reporting system SAIC and others were supposed to produce?

Dogs and Weasels

MTA Cuts Service

DOT Doesn't Want

Private Operators

To Fill the Slack.


Daily News Calls 64

Legislators 'Weasels'


Today was the third workday New Yorkers have coped with more crowding in subways and buses, and delays at those bus stops that are still operating. These problems have been aggravated by the MTA's service cuts necessitated by its substantial deficit which, in part, is the result of reduced appropriations by the state legislature.

Service is highly unlikely to be restored by the MTA as long as the fiscal crisis continues, which will be a prolonged period of time.

We do not believe the public should be deprived of necessary service just because the MTA cannot operate without losing money.

Why don't the black cabs or other transit vehicles take over and serve the locations that the MTA has abandoned?

There are enough vehicles and enough drivers to serve the majority of the riders who have been shucked by the MTA, which incur much higher operating costs than necessity requires.

This is a field in which Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan and Taxi & Limousine Commissioner, former Councilmember David Yassky should take the initiative. (BTW, both these posts were held during portions of the Giuliani Administration by Christopher R. Lynn.)

Mayor Bloomberg's new Deputy Mayor, Stephen Goldsmith (former Mayor of Indianapolis) is noted for his past success in privatizing municipal services. What better area is there to try out privatization than one in which the public agency in charge has abandoned for financial reasons its commitment to provide service?

The advocates of 'planned shrinkage' a generation ago did not, as far as I know, actually withdraw services from neighborhoods they predicted would shrink. In this case, service is also being curtailed in stable or growing areas, simply because it is uneconomic for the MTA to operate it. The reason transit is a public service rather than a private operation is because service is assumed to be maintained as a basic civic amenity, whether it is profitable for the transit provider or not.

Three years ago the MTA acquired seven private bus lines which had received city subsidies, mostly in Queens, and assumed their obligations. Could their financial picture have changed so drastically that the lines the MTA (capital budget tax dollars) bought and paid for are now incapable of operating without substantially increasing the transit agency's deficit? Why buy the lines if you weren't going to operate them?

The entire affair undermines to some extent the credibility of the long-suffering MTA, which is wrongly accused as much as it is properly faulted. Whenever the MTA is short of money, existing subway and bus lines it operates are at risk of abandonment.

How do you build a community, or persuade home buyers to invest in it, if its lifeline of transportation is likely to be cut any year the agency has a fiscal shortfall - which, of course, will be every year since they appear incapable of containing their labor costs?

This is not to say that no lines should be eliminated. Some express buses are substantially underutilized. The MTA cannot provide taxi service for a handful of passengers. But when calculations begin after the number of reductions is fixed, some routes are likely to be abolished which provide valuable service. Tens, possibly hundreds of thousands of people, may now be more than a half-mile from a subway station. Think of the consequences in rain or snow, and on the disabled who cannot be accommodated by Access-a-Ride.

The picture is made more complex by the division of responsibility for the MTA between the state and the city. The governor has ten appointees on the board, plus fractionals. The Mayor has four. This enables the Mayor to escape responsibility for the decisions made by the agency, including resource allocation decisions for lines within the City of New York, which should be within his purview.

The City Council has used its budget authority to keep firehouses and senior centers open, and to reduce cuts for libraries. Yet it seems powerless to do anything about the MTA's abandonment of subway and bus service, although these cuts will have more impact on peoples' daily lives than the cuts that were restored. The MTA is insulated from elected officials, and the farcical 'hearings' held for each borough, although required by law, are no substitute for civic participation. The non-elected MTA board members, who are unknown to the public except for the lady who is dating Paul McCartney, either follow their own wishes, or the desires of the person who appointed them.

As Chris Lynn has suggested, the lines should be made available to private operators, who can determine whether the market will support them. One such entrepreneur, Joel Azumah of Brooklyn, says the MTA is discouraging riders from taking his buses.

The News reports the situation today in an article on p13 by Barry Paddock, CHARTER BIZMAN VOWS TO MOTOR ON:

"The young entrepreneur running private buses along discontinued MTA bus lines blames his lower than expected ridership on interference from the city. Joel Azumah says the Department of Transportation is scaring his customers away by claiming he’s not legally authorized to pick riders off the street."

We wondered whether and why this was so, and called DOT to find out. Here is the agency's response:

"We have asked the operator to submit documentation to show cause why they believe they can operate without the required authorizations and we await their reply. Until we have an opportunity to review their submissions, we have directed them to cease and desist from operation."

To us, this attitude evokes the story of the dog in the manger, one of Aesop's immortal fables. "One afternoon a dog lay down to sleep in a manger (a trough or open box in a stable designed to hold feed or fodder for livestock). When he woke up, he kept the cattle from eating the hay he had rested on, although he was unable to eat it himself. (Dogs don't eat hay.) A hungry ox uttered the moral: "People often begrudge others what they cannot enjoy themselves." The MTA and the DOT should not try to prevent others from using a service that they are no longer able to provide.

As long as we are moralizing, allow us to call to your attention to a Daily News editorial from Monday, THE GREAT TRAIN ROBBERY: These Pols Slashed Transit Funds Then Blamed the MTA. Click here, it reads much better than our synopsis.

Last December, both houses in Albany, with the governor's consent, reduced state aid to the MTA by $143 million. In order to make up for a portion of this newly-imposed addition to its deficit, the MTA board felt compelled to reduce operating costs by $93 million through service cuts. Then, the same legislators who voted to cut the MTA funds had the gall to denounce the agency for the service reductions necessitated by their actions. The News, irate at what it considers hypocrisy and showboating, lists the 64 members who voted to take $143 million from the MTA, and then denounced the agency for $93 million in service reductions.

We now quote the News editorial: "What these lawmakers excel at is deceiving their constituents.

"The MTA's service area is represented by 142 members of the assembly and senate. Fully 64 of them wrote letters, testified or issued statements railing about planned transit cuts, after voting to cut the MTA's funding.

"They had the gall to posture as champions of a furious public. Each of these weasels must be held to account. Here are all of their names in alphabetic order."

Click here to see if your Senator and Assemblymember are on this list.

What could the legislators' excuses be? Experience gives us some hints as to what they might say.

1) If we are all guilty, then none of us is guilty.

2) Albany, like Sodom, is a city of liars, why pick on us?

3) The devil (Speaker Silver) made us do it.

4) I thought the cuts would be in the other guy's district.

5) We'll make it up in a supplemental budget.

6) The MTA is no good anyway, why should you believe them instead of me?

7) I didn't make that statement. It was an error by staff.

8) Any combination of the previous seven excuses, whatever sticks to the wall.

Readers are invited to submit their excuses for the legislators who the Daily News dubs weasels. Actually, that characterization is unfair. The weasel is small (6 to 14 inches long, not counting their tails which can be just as long) and furry. It is a mammal that burrows underground. Their family includes ferrets, stoats and ermines. They eat frogs, toads and small rabbits, and are certainly no enemies of human beings.

Merriam-Webster defines a weasel as "a sneaky, untrustworthy or insincere person." This is rampant speciesism. Weasels of the world, unite. Help prevent hate speech about innocent creatures.

P.S. The budget is now 90 days late. The distance between bases in baseball is 90 feet. A right angle is 90 degrees. The latitude of the North and South Pole is 90 N or S. And as we now know, there are 90 minutes in a soccer match. When we were very young, 90 in school was a grade of A, and rarely achieved. Interstate 90 includes the Massachusetts Turnpike and the New York Thruway, which was named for Gov. Thomas E. Dewey (1943-54), whose reputation by comparison rises daily.