N.J. Wins Battle In Sewage-Dump War

February 19, 1997
by MICHAEL O. ALLEN, Daily News Staff Writer
New York retreated in the Great Sewage War yesterday after tough talk from New Jersey Gov. Christie Whitman.

After a day of counter-charges, the city and state agreed to at least a year-long delay in plans to release 560 million gallons of raw sewage into the East River — a plan Whitman (below) warned would trigger environmental damage.

“We are going to agree to go through further review process to make certain that there are no questions about this, to make certain that it is perfectly safe,” Mayor Giuliani said.

Under the agreement, city, state and federal environmental officials will conduct months of study on the consequences of a massive sewage release. That means the release will be delayed until at least next winter, because the dumping is allowed only in cold weather.

The concession, announced after renewed threats of a federal lawsuit by Whitman, avoided a showdown that would have pitted her against Gov. Pataki and Giuliani — fellow Republicans.

Whitman claimed victory, saying the decision would help preserve New Jersey shellfish beds.

“It is utterly medieval when you talk about putting this kind of raw sewage into the waterways,” Whitman said.

The battle erupted last week, after New York State environmental officials approved the city’s plan for shutting down a lower East Side sewage treatment plant for repair work on two valves.

The shutdown would have released the massive quantity of untreated sewage into the East River over four days, the first release of its kind since 1987.

State and city officials initially said the release would cause few environmental problems.

Whitman, however, warned that the sewage would flow through Lower New York Harbor to the Sandy Hook and Raritan Bay area, damaging shellfish beds there.

Before the agreement, city officials accused their cross-Hudson counterparts of maintaining a sewage double-standard. They said the New Jersey communities of North Bergen, Woodcliff, New Brunswick, Perth Amboy and Rahway have dumped untreated sewage in the shared waterways for many years.

Whitman spokesman Pete McDonough said the city’s planned sewage release would have been far more massive than anything from New Jersey.

Original Story Date: 021997

Rudy Probes His Own Campaign

February 17, 1997

by BOB LIFF and MICHAEL O. ALLEN, Daily News Staff Writers

Mayor Giuliani’s reelection campaign has launched internal audits to determine whether any corporate contributors gave donations that exceeded the $7,700 limit allowed by the city’s public campaign finance law.

Campaign officials disclosed the reviews after the Daily News reported that a company that landed a lucrative recycling contract gave $77,500 to Giuliani’s reelection drive after concluding the deal.

Campaign treasurer John Gross described the audits as a regular process designed to insure that Giuliani does not violate campaign finance laws as he runs for a second term.

Based on an initial review, Gross and Giuliani said they did not believe any other givers had contributed amounts above the $7,700 limit.

“I’m not aware of it,” Giuliani said yesterday, adding that his campaign “returns money any time there are questions.”

The campaign pledged to refund all of the contributions made by Pratt Industries U.S.A. after the Daily News reported that the firm got a no-bid city contract to build a $250 million recycling plant on Staten Island. The deal calls for the firm to process up to half the discarded newspaper and wastepaper in the city.

Giuliani yesterday dismissed the company’s excess contributions as “technical violations” of the campaign finance law, which gives taxpayer-funded contributions to candidates who agree to abide by limits on their private fund-raising.

The law bars companies and subsidiaries they control from giving a total of more than $7,700 to a single candidate who accepts public campaign funds.

The News reported on Saturday that the firm and nine subsidiaries began making contributions to Giuliani in January 1996, two weeks after reaching the recycling deal with the Giuliani administration.

City officials said there was no connection between the contract award and the political contributions, and Gross said the campaign discovered the overpayments and initiated refunds without any prompting.

“Anyone who would like to investigate our finances can have at it,” Gross said.

But three Democrats vying for the nomination to challenge Giuliani in November called for an investigation of the Pratt contributions.

The three, Bronx Borough President Fernando Ferrer, Manhattan Borough President Ruth Messinger and the Rev. Al Sharpton, charged that the contributions raised questions about Giuliani’s fund-raising.

“This looks like the worst kind of government quid pro quo since the corruption scandals that United States Attorney Giuliani uncovered nearly a dozen years ago,” Ferrer said.

Giuliani fired back, accusing the Democrats of using the issue for political purposes.

Original Story Date: 02/17/97

Swiss Ask Jews For Help With Fund

February 14, 1997

by MICHAEL O. ALLEN, Daily News Staff Writer

The Swiss government yesterday invited the World Jewish Congress to Switzerland next week to help administer and distribute a fund set up for aged Holocaust survivors.

It was the first gesture by the Swiss, under increasing pressure to compensate Holocaust victims for looted World War II assets, to reach out to Jewish groups.

Ambassador Alfred Defago, the Swiss consul general in New York, offered the invitation at a hearing conducted by the state Assembly’s Standing Committee on Banks at the New York Bar Association in Manhattan.

The hearing was held to examine how the state can help heirs of victims reclaim assets deposited in Swiss banks during the war.

Israel Singer, secretary general of the Jewish Congress, accepted the invitation and called it a “turning point” as he addressed the hearing, led by Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver (D-Manhattan) and Assemblywoman Aurelia Greene (D-Bronx), the committee’s chairwoman.

Elan Steinberg, executive director of the World Jewish Congress, said the invitation moves the two sides “from confrontation to cooperation.”

“The trouble is that the investigation into the looted assets can take many, many years, and the survivors are aged,” Steinberg said. “So that their immediate desperate needs can be taken care of, this fund has been established.”

Switzerland has been weathering accusations from Jewish groups for 18 months that the nation was more than a neutral bystander during the war and that its banks hoarded up to $7 billion left in the country for safekeeping by families who later died in Nazi concentration camps.

The Swiss government established a fund — which now stands at $71 million but is expected to grow as banks, industries and individuals contribute to it — to meet the needs of elderly Holocaust survivors and heirs of Nazi victims.

American and Swiss officials will attend a meeting of the Jewish Congress today to discuss the disbursement of the fund.

Sen. Alfonse D’Amato (R-N.Y.), who has been pressuring the Swiss about the assets, has more recently softened his stance after, for instance, accusing Swiss Foreign Minister Flavio Cotti of “arrogance and contempt for history” for announcing that the Swiss government would administer the fund.

Yesterday, D’Amato said he is reassured that Switzerland will do the right thing about the fund, especially now that Jewish groups will be involved.

Poll: Wild About Mayor, Not Rudy

February 12, 1997

by MICHAEL O. ALLEN and FRANK LOMBARDI, Daily News Staff Writers

City voters soundly approve of Mayor Giuliani’s job performance and would reelect him in a walk, even though they aren’t wild about his personality, according to a new poll.

The Quinnipiac College Poll showed 62% of voters approved of the first-term Republican’s performance as mayor, while 32% disapproved and 6% were undecided. That’s the best showing for Giuliani since the Quinnipiac mayoral surveys began nearly two years ago.

With the help of his high job approval rating, Giuliani would rout any of five potential Democratic challengers in a head-to-head match, the survey showed. That includes former Mayor David Dinkins — who was to announce today if he would take on Giuliani for a third time.

Dinkins, Bronx Borough President Fernando Ferrer and Manhattan Borough President Ruth Messinger would lose to Giuliani by at least 20 percentage points if the election were held now, the poll showed.

Giuliani would beat Dinkins 55% to 34%, the poll found. Ferrer would lose 53% to 33%, and Messinger would lose 54% to 34%, it showed. The remaining Democratic contenders, Brooklyn City Councilman Sal Albanese and the Rev. Al Sharpton, would fare even worse.

Still, the survey wasn’t all good news for Giuliani. It found voters split on his hard-charging personal style — with 43% describing him as likeable and 52% disagreeing.

“I can deal with that,” said Giuliani, noting that the poll gave him high marks for leadership and getting things done.

While cautioning that poll results fluctuate, Giuliani said “it always feels a little better [to be ahead] by 20% than to be behind by 20%.”

The survey showed Giuliani has not bridged racial and gender gaps as he tries to expand the narrow margin he won over Dinkins in 1993.

While white voters gave him 77% approval on job performance, that dropped to 52% among Hispanics and 34% among blacks.

Among male voters, 71% gave Giuliani thumbs up on job performance, compared with 55% among women.

White New Yorkers were evenly split on his personal style; 48% liked it and 47% didn’t. Hispanics were equally split, with 49% approving and 48% disagreeing. Among black voters, 29% liked his personality and 66% did not.

“New Yorkers like the way the mayor does his job,” said Maurice Carroll, director of the Quinnipiac College Polling Institute. “But they don’t think he’s a likeable guy.”

The poll of 845 voters was conducted Feb. 3 to 9 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.4 percentage points.

Original Story Date: 021297

Rudy Hedges Bets On Riverboat

February 9, 1997

by MICHAEL O. ALLEN, Daily News Staff Writer

Mayor Giuliani yesterday said he could support riverboat gambling under some conditions but would have to study its effect on neighborhoods near where the boats dock.

The mayor also said he would need to be assured the venture is free of organized crime — and that the city pockets a large share of the profits.

Giuliani, responding to an idea by City Council Speaker Peter Vallone, (D-Queens), said the city should work out “an acceptable fee” that would help it “at least make back the amount it is going to cost us in the burdens that it creates.”

But, Giuliani cautioned, the city has yet to hear public debate on the issue and how it would affect communities.

“The assumption is that you are going to make so many dollars back that it’s worth the inconvenience,” Giuliani said. “I believe that’s probably true but . . . we should spend more time looking at it.”

Vallone said the City Council, which studied the idea about a year ago, will move ahead with the plan.

“It is going on now,” Vallone said, pointing out that gambling boats sail from Sheepshead Bay and Manhattan’s West Side. . “Why would we not want to capitalize on it?”

The City Council is set to vote this week on a bill that would set up a commission to regulate Liberty I, which docks in Sheepshead Bay.

Giuliani said he favors gambling but fears the city might get into a situation like that of Atlantic City, which sees little in casino revenues while the State of New Jersey gets about $320 million annually from taxes on gambling.

The Council’s Finance and Economic Development committees will hold hearings on the issue within months.

Original Story Date: 020997

City Has Net For Deadbeats

February 7, 1997

by MICHAEL O. ALLEN, Daily News Staff Writer

The city yesterday launched a cyberspace hunt for deadbeat parents who owe tens of thousands of dollars in child support payments.

Computer users around the city and the world can now access the Internet and view a “Deadbeat Hall of Shame” with names, photographs and other data on the 25 most-wanted deadbeat parents, Mayor Giuliani said.

“With a click of a mouse on the picture of the deadbeat parent or parents,” Giuliani said, computer users can get vital statistics, the amount owed and other information on each nonpayer.

“These are people who we are seeking and we have warrants for and that will be arrested once they are found,” said Nicholas Scoppetta, head of the city Administration for Children’s Services.

The city is seeking about 65,000 New Yorkers for failure to pay as much as $750 million in support owed for 90,000 city children, officials said.

Paul Milson, a 51-year-old marketing executive whose last known address was in Long Valley, N.J., holds the top spot in the new hall of shame. He owes a whopping $205,000.

Also high on the list is Eric King, son of millionaire boxing promoter Don King. He has yet to make a single support payment for his daughter, and now owes more than $175,000, city officials said.

The computer effort, similar to programs already launched by the state and federal government, features identifying traits similar to “Wanted” posters hung in post offices.

For instance, computer users who click on the photo of Peter Paul Lynch, 51, learn that he sports tattoos of cartoon characters Yogi Bear and Boo Boo on each arm and is now believed to be living in Florida.

The information represents an international expansion on the Top 10 poster of worst deadbeats that the city distributed in government offices and libraries last year.

City officials said the poster helped nab three deadbeats, who either coughed up what they owed or are negotiating to pay up, ACS officials said. Two others have been located, and their cases are pending.

Giuliani announced that the city office of child support enforcement collected $235 million from absent parents on behalf of 135,000 children during 1996, up $29 million, or 14%, from 1995.

To view the deadbeat list, click on the Administration for Children’s Services site.

Roommate Linked To PAL Slay

February 2, 1997

by PETE DONOHUE and MICHAEL O. ALLEN, Daily News Staff Writers

Police Athletic League coach Anthony Pickens was killed because a woman selling drugs out of his Queens apartment was annoyed that Pickens had fallen behind in his rent, law enforcement sources said yesterday.

Police were hunting yesterday for the roommate, a woman neighbors identified only as Bernadette, and at least two accomplices who allegedly beat Pickens, 38, to death last week, then tried to get rid of the body by soaking it in a bathtub filled with muriatic acid.

Two other men, Guy Daquin, 19, and Eric (Black) Williams, 22, were arrested Friday and charged in the crime.

Pickens, a father of three, interned last year in the domestic violence unit of the Queens district attorney’s office.

The woman used the room as a crack den, the source said. But Pickens’ financial troubles and possible eviction put the location in jeopardy.

The killing occurred after Pickens and the woman argued last weekend, the law enforcement source said.

Queens District Attorney Richard Brown said the assailants beat Pickens in the head and torso. The body was then dumped in the tub.

Original Story Date: 020297

Big Banks Charging Big Bucks

January 31, 1997

by MICHAEL O. ALLEN, Daily News Staff Writer

The city’s biggest banks are continuing to take the biggest bite out of depositors’ wallets. Chase Manhattan and Citibank top the list of the most expensive banks in the city, according to a new survey released yesterday by Public Advocate Mark Green and State Sen. Franz Leichter (D-Manhattan).

Chase retained the dubious title of the most expensive bank for fees for checking accounts, money orders and stopping payment on checks, even though it slashed minimum-balance requirements.

The banks offering the best bang for depositors’ bucks are small, neighborhood institutions such as Fourth Federal Savings and Maspeth Federal Savings, the survey showed.

Green said consumers could reap big savings if they comparison-shop for banks the same way they shop for food, clothing and services.

The survey rated banks by gauging how much depositors would gain or lose in one year, based on the most advantageous combination of checking, savings and money market accounts.

A mid-level depositor, defined as someone with bank balances between $800 and $3,000, would come out $100 ahead at Fourth Federal Savings because of interest paid. But at Chase, that same depositor would probably face $130 in annual fees.

“That’s a $230 shift in savings,” Green said. “It’s like getting a salary increase.”

Chase spokesman Ken Herz called the survey “ridiculous,” saying that it failed to include the bank’s self-service checking account, which has a $1,500 minimum-balance requirement.

Herz also criticized the comparison of small banks with few services to large, full-service institutions like Chase that have branches all over the city.

“New Yorkers are smart,” Herz said. “That’s why we have by far more customers than anyone else in the city.”

Chase recently merged with Chemical Bank.

Citibank is the city’s only bank offering home banking and free and unlimited electronic bill payment, said spokeswoman Susan Weeks.

“Our customers are looking at the total value they derive,” she said.

SLOWDOWN NOT THE TICKET; Rudy sez cops’ll be punished

January 25, 1997

by MICHAEL O. ALLEN Daily News Staff Writer

Mayor Giuliani yesterday escalated his contract fight with city cops, warning rank-and-file officers not to engage in a ticket slowdown — or else.

“If a police officer absolutely refuses to do his or her job, then that police officer will have to be disciplined,” he said. “But that isn’t for me to do. That is for the police commissioner.”

It was Giuliani’s first direct threat to street cops after a week of blasting union leaders for rejecting the package of wage and benefit hikes offered by the city Tuesday.

“My advice to police officers would be: Don’t push this too far, otherwise you are going to be in serious trouble,” he said.

Giuliani’s remarks, made at a Harlem mosque, came a day after thousands of chanting, sign-waving cops took their contract fight to the streets outside police stationhouses in all five boroughs.

Dennis Sheehan, a Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association spokesman, declined to comment on the mayor’s salvo.

Giuliani visited the mosque just four days after he was heckled, taunted and booed during a Martin Luther King Day celebration at a Harlem church.

It was Giuliani’s second visit to the Malcolm Shabazz Mosque, which hosted him a year ago in the wake of the fatal fire at Freddy’s Fashion Mart on 125th St. that killed eight people, including the arsonist.

Mayoral spokesman Colleen Roche said that yesterday’s trip had been planned “a couple of months ago.” The mosque’s leader, Imam Izak-El M. Pasha, is friendly with the administration.

Afterward, at a news conference on the first floor of the mosque, the mayor again blamed the PBA for lack of leadership and not doing a better job of presenting the city’s contract offer to the rank and file.

The city offered cops a five-year contract with no raises the first two years and increases totaling 15.8% in the final three years.

The city’s proposal to the PBA is 2.5% over what had been offered any other municipal union, the mayor said.

“I did that because I believe that the police officers deserve some special consideration for the risk that they take and for the job that they do,” Giuliani said.

“I can’t say yes to everything one group wants because that will take away from what other groups also deserve,” he said. “This is a fair program; it’s a balanced one. It’s a shame that there isn’t any leadership there at the PBA to explain this to the police officers.”

Giuliani said arrests are up compared to a year ago and that essential law enforcement work has not slowed down. Ticket-writing is a little trickier to gauge, and it will take about a week before the city can tell if cops are involved in a slowdown, he said.

Police Commissioner Howard Safir will monitor ticket-writing, the mayor said.

“If we have police officers that, over a period of several days, are so far off of what they should be doing, I’m sure they are going to be taking disciplinary actions,” Giuliani said.

MONEY, MONEY, MONEY AND FUN IN FUN CITY; We Spend Our Lives Focusing On the Dollars

Tuesday, January 21, 1997

by MICHAEL O. ALLEN AND PAUL SCHWARTZMAN, Daily News Staff Writers

Money is at the root of all that troubles and excites New Yorkers. They fight about it and dream about it–far more, even, than sex.

Many spend more than they have, and a large number have no savings at all.

It is the biggest source of stress in New Yorkers’ lives, followed closely by job and career pressures.

But New Yorkers don’t measure success primarily in dollars and professional achievement.

Most look for success at home, in a happy family life or in achieving a balance between work and their households.

And, perhaps most surprising, by an overwhelming margin New Yorkers say they are happy in their jobs and careers. The sentiment stretches from the working poor to the well-to-do although the more you make, the more likely you are to say you are happy in your occupation.

The role of money in New Yorkers’ lives emerged vividly in the Daily News lifestyle poll as it examined ambitions and dreams in the world’s most competitive city.

“New York is an expensive town to live in,” said Julie Weprin of Blum & Weprin Associates Inc., which conducted the poll for The News. “So it’s not surprising that economic concerns are key to daily lives.”

The findings of the poll proved, yet again, a truism about money: No one has enough. The more you have, the more you think you need.

Asked how much money a family of four needs to live comfortably in the city, 43% of the poll respondents said $ 50,000. The percentage was highest, though, among people who make less than that and dropped sharply among those making more.

Those making $ 100,000 and up said they needed at least that much to survive.

The tax situation and the cost of living here is extraordinary compared to some place down South,” said Dan Patsiner, 24, a Queens media planner whose annual household income is more than $ 100,000.

“And just to add to that,” he continued, “for a family of four, you’ve got to think about college and other major expenses.”

At all income levels, many New Yorkers appear to be spending to the limit. Whether they earn $ 25,000 or $ 100,000, more than four in 10 say they carry a balance on their credit cards.

With at least 10 credit cards to her name, Nelsie Wharton, 32, a lab technologist from the Kingsbridge section of the Bronx, knows what it’s like to have to bump against financial limits.

“I owe so much,” she said. “I’m paying it off little by little.”

At the same time, about a third of New Yorkers have no savings at all. Those on the bottom of the economic ladder save the least, and those doing better save more.

What are people saving for? Their first goal is to pay for retirement, especially those over 30; their second is to cover the cost of their children’s education.

“I would like my son to have the opportunity to go to college, which I didn’t,” said guard Wayne Knight, 37, of Flatbush, Brooklyn, “and to be able to be free to have the choice of a profession that he wants to get into.”

Against this backdrop, it’s not surprising that New Yorkers focus constantly on money.

Asked what they daydream about, the largest number of poll respondents by far 28% said money. Sex finished far down the pack, cited by a paltry 8% of New Yorkers. Only those making more than $ 100,000 focused on anything other than money: They daydreamed most about vacations, followed closely by romance.

Typical of the daydreamers is 27-year-old student-teacher Isaac Stein of Staten Island. With a career in teaching, he said, he does not expect to get rich.

So, “When I close my eyes,” Stein said, “I see myself sitting in the lap of luxury, being able to go wherever I want and do whatever I want whenever I want to do it.”

And nothing causes more tension for New Yorkers than money. Asked what stresses them out, poll respondents said, first, money; and second, their jobs and careers. Family circumstances followed except for those earning less than $ 25,000, who cited home pressures the most.

“In today’s society, the family becomes less important because it’s so important to have two incomes,” said Walter Tuft of Queens, whose annual household income is more than $ 100,000.

“On Christmas Day, the kids were up and I wasn’t there because I had to work. Maybe I should have picked a different career,” he added.

On the other end of the spectrum, Michael Dickerson of Brooklyn reflects the concerns of people on the lowest rung of the economic ladder.

“My biggest thing is not only money, but love, love for my children,” said the 37-year-old man, who makes less than $ 10,000 a year delivering milk part-time. “Money just helps you get certain things for them. You can’t live without money.”

Finally, with all this stress, it is perhaps no surprise that when asked how they would spend an extra $ 1,000, most of those polled said they’d take a vacation.

Notes: Graphics by Trine Giaever, Jim Willis and Jeff Rosenkrantz Daily News showing statistics pertaining to New Yorkers and money not available electronically.

Series: NEW YORKERS THIS IS YOUR LIFE. Third of five-parts