New York Assembly Passes Bill to Legalize Gay Marriage 80-63; Legislation Now Heads to Senate by Kenneth Lovett - NY Daily News

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Same-sex marriage moved one step closer to being legalized in New York with  Assembly's vote.. Justin Sullivan/Getty

The Assembly Wednesday passed a bill to legalize gay marriage while Senate Republicans battled over whether to let the measure come to a floor vote.

The measure passed 80 to 63, the lowest margin in the four times it has been approved by the Assembly since 2007.

"It feels different this time because I'm very hopeful it will pass the Senate and become law this year," said Assembly bill sponsor Daniel O'Donnell (D-Manhattan), one of a handful of gay state lawmakers.

Gov. Cuomo, who has made gay marriage a priority, crowed, "We are on the verge of a pinnacle moment for this state."

The fate of the bill is still up in the air in the GOP-controlled Senate, where 31 senators are on record as supporting it - one shy of the 32 needed for passage.

Senate Republicans discussed the issue behind closed doors for four hours Wednesday. Saying they were unable to decide how to proceed, they are scheduled to continue the talks today.

Just two of the 32-member GOP conference publicly support legalizing gay marriage. Four others are on the fence.

Sources said those who oppose the bill were split over what the Senate should do. Some senators argued against bringing the measure to the floor.

Others are said to have pushed for a floor vote to get the issue off the table in time for next year's elections as the GOP tries to maintain its slim majority.

Senator after senator were said to have spoken "passionately" about his feelings on the gay marriage issue at the four-hour conference.

Some expressed religious objections to the gay lifestyle. Others fear political backlash from conservatives that could cost the GOP the majority next year. Still others had legal concerns about the way the bill submitted by Cuomo was written.

Cuomo said his bill offers exemptions from anti-discrimination laws for certain religious groups and affiliated groups, like the Knights of Columbus.

Several Senate Republicans who are lawyers, including Stephen Saland, one of the four undecideds, have argued that under Cuomo's bill, those groups still could be sued under other parts of state law, sources said.

Senate Republicans are considering reworking the bill or asking Cuomo to amend his legislation, sources said.

"If there are any imperfections in the bill, it behooves us to address them and quickly clean them up," one senator said.

Two of the four undecided Republicans - Andrew Lanza of Staten Island and Greg Ball of Putnam - want stronger religious exemptions.

The legislative session ends next week.

Ballfields at $120 Million Randalls Island Largely Unused, Not Attracting Neighborhood Kids by Daniel Beekman - NY Daily News

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If you build it, they will come - but not to Randalls Island.

Dozens of new ballfields in the sprawling park beneath the RFK-Triborough Bridge went unused last summer by the kids who need them most, the city parks boss admits.

And with school almost out for summer, advocates are complaining the $120 million revamp of Randalls Island Park in early 2010 created a playground for the rich and took crucial dollars from neighborhood ballfields.

Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe cited the low traffic earlier this year to justify plans for a private sports camp.

"Fields on Randalls Island have gone largely unused during weekday daytime hours in July and August, and thus availability should not be an issue," he wrote City Councilwoman Melissa Mark-Viverito in January.

The deal called for Florida-based IMG Academies to operate the camp on Randalls Island after donating $200,000 to the Randalls Island Sports Foundation. But plans for the $895-a-week camp fell through in April, with IMG citing low enrollment.

Mark-Viverito (D-East Harlem/Bronx) slammed the pricey park rehab, claiming thousands of trees were cut down to make way for the artificial turf fields.

"Why would you build so many fields and then have a problem in terms of utilization?" she asked. "It was shortsighted and now we're paying the price."

"From day one, we were concerned there was no need to build so many" new fields, said Geoffrey Croft of NYC Park Advocates. "Now that has come to fruition. The result is the fields are empty."

The park boasts fancy golf and tennis centers, but no basketball courts, he added.

During the rehab, the city took heat for a $2.2 million-per-year pay-to-play scheme involving Manhattan private schools. It was struck down in court after East Harlem and Bronx community groups sued.

"The fields were built mostly to accommodate the private schools," Croft said. And Marina Ortiz, of East Harlem Preservation, called the park "a private playground ... designed to bring in revenue."

There's a move afoot now to try and spread the word about what's in the park. Randalls Island fields go unused partly because they are isolated and more people need to be made aware of the space, said Frances Masrota of Manhattan Community Board 11.

A renovated E. 103rd St. pedestrian bridge is set to reopen soon, while the M35 bus runs between the park and E. 125th St. - but few youngsters make the trip.

The Parks Department has assigned a representative to attend Board 11 meetings and share info related to Randalls Island to try to spread the word on what's there.

The fields are "generally permitted to capacity" in the evenings and on weekends, Parks spokesman Zachary Feder said. The park foundation also offers a free summer program, he noted, and softball leagues.

Queens Woman Critical After Van Jumped a Curb in Ozone Park by Lisa L. Colangelo and Joe Kemp - NY Daily News

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A 51-year-old woman was in grave condition Friday after a van jumped a curb on a Queens street and plowed her into a building, police and witnesses said.

The van lost control after it collided with another van at 103rd Ave. and 93rd St. in Ozone Park about 2:30 p.m., cops and witnesses said.

"I looked up and saw the white van crashing into the stoop," said David Quintana, who was reading a paper nearby. "I saw bricks flying everywhere. There was a woman lying unconscious in a pool of blood."

The woman was taken to Jamaica Hospital, where she was in critical condition.

Francisco Mena, 49, the driver of the van that didn't hit the woman, was later arrested for driving without a license.

Bibi Ibrahim, who lives next door to where the van crashed, said it was just a matter of time with so many drivers racing through the stop signs.

"They should really put a light in there," she said.

City Prepares to Spend Nearly $1 Billion on Education Consultants as it Fires 4,100 Teachers by Rachel Monahan - NY Daily News

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As the city prepares to lay off 4,100 teachers, the Department of Education is planning to spend nearly $1 billion on consultants next school year, a new analysis shows.

Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer blasted the agency's budget as a "black hole" and took issue with the 6% increase on consultants, after his office pored over the latest budget documents.

"There are a whole lot of troubling increases that have nothing to do with spending money in the classrooms," said Stringer, noting the city's plans to lay off teachers was "political gamesmanship" and the "solution" may lie in the $20 billion Education Department budget.

"This is a black hole that gets darker and deeper as time goes on," he added.

"It's time to shine some light on what these services really are."

Stringer's analysis, which agency officials dismissed, found the agency is increasing its spending on consultants under the central administration budget by $25 million - with $23 million of the increase spent on computer services.

The analysis also found increased spending on consultants to recruit teachers by nearly $1 million - while the city is cutting teachers.

Education Department officials have said that it's necessary to continue recruiting teachers to shortage areas like special education even during cuts.

City Education Department officials rejected the analysis, saying that most of the consulting budget is for required services and directly goes to serving students with disabilities.

"The Borough President either fails to recognize an important fact about these consultant costs or he is intentionally misleading people," Chancellor Dennis Walcott said. "The truth is that over $840 million of the $981 million he cites are dedicated to direct services for our students with the vast majority going towards our students with disabilities which are services that are required under the law."%A0

Agency officials also disputed that the computer contracts are increasing so steeply, saying instead that they underestimated expenses last year.

Jose Gonzalez, whose sons Alvaro, 10, and Allan, 9, attend Public School 73 in the Bronx joined a protest against budget cuts held yesterday at City Hall.

"We want a better education for our children. How are we going to do that?...They're really wasting money on consultants and contracts," said Gonzalez, a member of the Coalition for Educational Justice.

Comptroller John Liu Audit Shows Ex-Operator of Forest Park Carousel has Shoddy Bookkeeping, Poor Maintenance by Lisa L. Colangelo - New York Daily News

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As city officials embark on another search for someone to run the shuttered Forest Park Carousel, a new audit shows how the former operator almost ran the historic amusement into the ground.


City Controller John Liu said the concessionaire, New York One LLC, failed to make about $500,000 in capital upgrades to three city-owned carousels.


That includes more than $50,000 for Forest Park, $110,000 for the carousel at Flushing Meadows-Corona Park and more than $400,000 for the Central Park Carousel.


The audit also said the snack bars, pushcarts and surrounding areas were not maintained 'in a safe and sanitary manner.'


Supporters of the Forest Park Carousel, closed since 2008, had long complained about poor maintenance there. The company let its contract expire in 2009.

Queens Assemblywoman Nettie Mayersohn Retiring: Special Election On Tap by Celeste Katz - Daily Politics | New York Daily News

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Assemblywoman Nettie Mayersohn, the dean of the Queens delegation who was first elected back in 1982, announced today she is retiring.

Our Lisa L. Colangelo reports:

"After much deliberation, I believe the time has come for me to step aside," said Mayersohn, who turns 87 in May and represents the 27th Assembly district.

Sources said she is retiring to spend more time with her family and not because of any health issues.

Mayersohn’s longtime aide, Michael Simanowitz, is being touted as the frontrunner to replace her.

During her tenure, Mayersohn authored a number of laws focused on health issues. Her “Baby AIDS” law, enacted in 1996, requires doctors to tell mothers of HIV-infected newborns about their children’s condition.

Last year, Mayersohn was sued for a car accident that took place near her Flushing home.

Voters will pick Mayersohn’s replacement in a special election. But placement on the critical ballot is chosen by the four District Leaders - Mayersohn, Simanowitz, former Councilman Morty Povman and Charlotte Scheman.

"I could never have been able to accomplish anything without my constituents," Mayersohn said in a release. "They gave me the privilege of representing their interests for 28 years. I never took their support for granted and worked very hard to ensure their continued trust. All I can say is thank you; I will never forget you."

Disclose the Details: Cloaked City Technology Contracts Result in $185K for a Help Desk Operator by Juan Gonzalez - New York Daily News

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New York City's private computer army keeps mushrooming under Mayor Bloomberg - and no one has any idea of its exact size.

What we do know is the city's overall contract spending has doubled to more than $10 billion in the last five years - and a huge part of the increase is for technology contracts.

Those computer armies can be found inside every city agency. Its foot soldiers sit at city desks.

They carry city ID cards. They spend all their time - often years - devising and maintaining huge information systems with Orwellian names like NYC WIN, ECTP, ACRIS, NICE, CitiServ.

Yet the outside contractors remain a world apart from the ordinary civil servants of our city. The techies routinely bill taxpayers for enormous salaries.

Since their salaries often come out of the city's capital budget, their names, titles and pay rates rarely appear in any expense reports the mayor makes public.

Last week, Brooklyn City Councilwoman Letitia James took a bold step. She introduced a bill that would require an annual report on the size and cost of outside contractors.

"This period of budget deficits is not the time to increase outsourcing," James said.

This column has documented for more than two years the runaway costs of such contracts. They include:

• The 63 consultants from a little-known Florida-based company, Future Technology Associates, being paid an average of $250,000 a year to develop a new financial accounting system for the Department of Education. All of this money went to a firm that had no office and operated out of a mail drop.
• The 230 consultants from defense giant SAIC who were paid an average of $400,000 a year - some of them for a decade - to design and install the infamous CityTime payroll and timekeeping system.
• The nearly 200 Hewlett-Packard consultants who spent years overseeing the $2 billion upgrade to the city's 911 system, known as ECTP. Before Hewlett-Packard was bounced from the job for repeated delays and cost overruns, most of its consultants were being paid between $300,000 and $400,000.
• The $500 million paid to Northrop Grumman to erect NYC WIN, a wireless network for first responders that has been dogged by problems. On top of that initial expense, the city pays Northrop $37 million annually just to maintain NYC WIN.

Under Northrop's contract, a low-level help desk operator is paid $185,000 annually. Meanwhile, a help desk operator directly employed by the city receives $46,000. Throw in pension and health insurance and the cost of that city employee barely reaches $70,000 - about a third of what Northrop charges.

In 2009, lawmakers in Albany required every state agency to provide annual reports on the number and cost of all outside contracts. Consultant costs have plummeted ever since.

James wants the same thing for the city, but Christine Quinn, the Council's powerful speaker, is bobbing and weaving. A close ally of the mayor, Quinn says she supports legislation to better track outside contracts, but she has yet to back making public the actual number of consultants per agency and their salaries.

Why the hesitation?

Taxpayers have a right to know how many $400,000-a-year consultants it takes to build one of these troubled computer systems.

jgonzalez@nydailynews.com

Weiner Preps Mayorl Run by Richard Sisk - New York Daily News

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Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) made it all but offical that he’ll run for mayor again in 2013 and all but certain that he’ll have the Clintons in his corner this time.

“I have a passing interest in the management of New York,” Weiner said in one of many asides during a Washington speech on the first anniversary of President Obama’s health care bill.

The launch-pad setting for the Weiner address was the Center for American Progress, a Clintonista think tank run by John Podesta, who was chief of staff to former President Bill Clinton.

And if anybody missed the point that Weiner was likely to get the Clintons’ blessing and the big bucks that come with it, the speech also featured a not-so-surprise star turn by his stunning and savvy wife
Huma Abedin, a top aide to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

As Weiner droned on about mandates and public options, Abedin entered stage right from a side door to take a front-row seat. “Hi Huma,” Weiner said. “Apparently there’s peace in the world, so she was able to stop by.”

Weiner later said his mayoral ambitions have not exactly been hidden. “Hey, news flash, I’m interested,” said Weiner, who was chased out of the 2005 primary by Mayor Bloomberg’s bankroll.

“It would be exceedingly coy of me, especially in this town (D.C.), to present that I’m not interested” in being mayor, Weiner said.

Weiner might also have a leg up on getting Bloomberg’s backing over potential rivals such as City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, Controller John Liu, Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer and Public Advocate Bill De Blasio.

Bloomberg calls Weiner “Anthony” and in off-the-record chats, loves to relate Weiner’s profane rants against Republicans.

Queens Senior Center at Risk: State Budget Cuts Could Close Lifeline by Lisa L. Colangelo - NY Daily News

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Eleanor Errante (left), 89, and two pals socialize at the Woodhaven-Richmond Hill Senior Center

The neighborhoods of Woodhaven and Richmond Hill are so close that their borders often blur.

But when a senior center closed in Woodhaven nearly two years ago and residents were offered the chance to go to a facility in Richmond Hill, many opted to stay home.

Thanks to an unusual partnership, a new senior center opened on Jamaica Ave. in Woodhaven - also providing a steady stream of income for a struggling volunteer ambulance corps.

"This has made my life much happier," said Stella Pyatok, 89, who played cards at the Woodhaven-Richmond Hill Senior Center last week with friends while waiting for lunch. "I'm here practically every day."

The center celebrates its official opening on Friday. It serves more than 70 seniors a day at its renovated space at the Woodhaven-Richmond Hill Volunteer Ambulance Corps site.

The cash-strapped corps gets a monthly rent check.

"I'm just so glad to see they have somewhere to go," said Kathy Sexton-Dalbey, chief operating officer of the ambulance corps. "People don't realize how much these senior centers mean. I see what happens when they live alone and don't get checked on."

Queens Borough President Helen Marshall and other elected officials came up with the funds to renovate the facility so it can be used as a senior center.

Everyone is hoping those efforts weren't for naught. Catholic Charities of Brooklyn and Queens, which operates the facility under a contract with the city, just found out that it is one of 22 centers that could close if vital state funds aren't restored.

Eleanor Errante, 89, who has lived in Woodhaven since 1933, said the center is a safe place for seniors to get a nutritious meal, companionship and mental stimulation.

"Sometimes this is the only hot meal some seniors have for the day," Errante said.

Debbie Hoffer, director of field operations, and site manager Pat Critelli said the center also focuses on senior health with exercise classes, including yoga and t'ai chi.

"The number of people coming grows every day," said Hoffer. "And all we keep hearing is 'wait until the weather gets better' because even more will be here."

Councilwoman Melissa Mark-Viverito of East Harlem is 1 of Just 2 Politicians in Upper Manhattan by Frank Lombardi - NY Daily News

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Councilwoman Melissa Mark-Viverito is one of just two uptown politicians

Women are scarce in uptown elected offices. The list begins and ends with Democratic City Council members Inez Dickens of Harlem and Melissa Mark-Viverito of East Harlem, both Democrats.

That's just two out of 11 uptown legislators on the city, state or federal levels, or 18%. The city's population is 52.3% female and 47.7% male.

"It's a shame - that's embarrassing," said Mark-Viverito. "It's an indication that we haven't done enough to open doors to women to be in those positions."

Mark-Viverito and Dickens took contrasting paths to win their Council seats in 2005.

Dickens, 61, is an insider who was was invited to the party. She's a protegé of Harlem Rep. Charles Rangel and his co-leader in the potent Martin Luther King Jr. Democratic Club. Her late father, Lloyd Dickens, was a prominent Harlem insider.

Dickens was elected her first time out in the 9th District (Central Harlem and parts of Morningside Heights, the upper West Side and East Harlem). Then-incumbent Bill Perkins was blocked from seeking reelection by term limits, and is now a state senator.

Mark-Viverito, 41, is an outsider who had to crash the party to win her seat in the 8th District (East Harlem, parts of Manhattan Valley and a piece of Mott Haven in the Bronx).

Born in Bayamón, Puerto Rico, she came to New York at 18 to attend college, earning a BA from Columbia and a master's from Baruch College. She then worked for several nonprofit agencies, including the Hispanic Education and Legal Fund (HELF) and ASPIRA of New York, and was a strategist for 1199 SEIU, New York's health-care union.

She said she was involved in East Harlem issues and causes through her work, but got more involved after moving into the district in 1998. She made her first Council bid in 2003, getting crushed in a crowded primary against incumbent Philip Reed.

Two years later, with Reed term-limited, she won a six-candidate primary by 167 votes - becoming the first Puerto Rican woman to represent the East Harlem Council district.

Single and guarded about her private life, she explained that her hyphenated name comes from the last name of her late father, Anthony Mark, and the maiden name of her mother, Elizabeth Viverito (whose father was of Italian-American heritage). Her father was a doctor and a founder of San Pablo Hospital in Bayamón, where her mother still lives.

Mark-Viverito has a reputation for being outspoken and for embracing controversial issues - sometimes to the consternation of fellow Council members.

"Maybe that's why I won't be able to look at any other position, because I don't play well with others sometimes," she joked.

One recent example is her call for a pardon for Oscar Lopez Rivera, a Puerto Rican independence activist serving a 70-year sentence for "seditious conspiracy" involving the FALN paramilitary group.

Mark-Viverito insists Rivera, now 68, was never linked to FALN violence and bombings. She said his pardon after 29 years in prison would be "a matter of justice." The U.S. Parole Commission rejected a pardon last month, and Rivera remains in prison.

Her trail of controversies could also hurt her chances of moving up to Council speaker in 2013, when current Speaker Christine Quinn (D-Chelsea) is forced out by term limits. Dickens also has been mentioned, among others. The new speaker will be chosen by a vote of the 51 Council members.

"I'm very flattered that people think that I may have the capacity and the ability to be in that position," Mark-Viverito said. "I mean people talk to me about it ... so I don't exclude it. I definitely want to be involved in that process."