Libberg: You have to understand how powerful real estate is in New York.Īngotti: Wait a minute. He never backed strong rent and eviction controls, let equity funds take over buildings, and looked on while predatory lending invaded our neighborhoods. Under his watch we lost more affordable units than we gained. Libberg: Well, he’s a strong supporter of affordable housing.Īngotti: Sure, he uses it as a fig leaf to sell his zoning schemes that feed gentrification in our neighborhoods. Libberg: He got rid of the school bureaucracy.Īngotti: Yeah, and did everything possible to bust the teachers’ union, manipulate parent councils, make principals into high-paid executives and teachers into testers. And he uses 311 as an excuse to cut and abuse the city’s 59 community boards, the closest thing we have to grassroots government. Like he started the 311 system.Īngotti: Which disproportionately serves wealthier neighborhoods. Libberg: He made government more efficient and the gains will be long-term. Why did he let government rely so heavily on Wall Street revenues? Why did he spend billions of tax dollars to subsidize downtown office development and the Yankees and Mets stadiums, and propose other boondoggles like the Jets Stadium? And then cut our services when his budget didn’t balance? He’s supposed to be an expert on finance but never forecast the collapse of the financial sector. Libberg: The collapse of the economy was far beyond his control.Īngotti: That would be true for most mayors, but he’s among the wealthiest people in the world and a secure member of the culpable class. In hard times we need someone that can deal with the budget.Īngotti: If he had been such a good manager why did we get into this fiscal mess?
Libberg: But at least Bloomberg isn’t egging on the police and alienating minority communities like Giuliani did.Īngotti: Then why is stop-and-frisk in minority communities up under Bloomberg? And what about Sean Bell? Omar Edwards? The militarization of the police during the Republican Convention? The crackdown on Critical Mass? So tell me what did Bloomberg do in the seven years that he wasn’t Giuliani?
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