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Rudy: Shed Half Of Clothes Tax

By Homepage, New York Daily NewsNo Comments

January 12, 1997

by MIKE CLAFFEY and MICHAEL O. ALLEN, Daily News Staff Writers

Mayor Giuliani yesterday revived his call for 2-cent cut in the city sales tax on clothing buys — and vowed to press for approval even if the state doesn’t match the reduction.

In an election year bid aimed at city shoppers and stores, Giuliani said he will include plans to halve the city’s 4-cent share of the 8.25% levy in the State of the City address he will deliver on Tuesday.

The reduction, which requires state Legislature approval, would apply to all clothing purchases under $500.

Unlike last year, when the mayor scrapped a similar plan because Albany leaders balked at halving the state’s 4-cent share, Giuliani said he will seek state Legislature approval for a unilateral cut.

“The proposal we’re going to make to them is: I’m willing to cut the New York City sales tax in half, no matter what they do. I can’t see how they can deny us the opportunity to do that,” Giuliani said.

“I believe that there is a very good chance that we will, by Dec. 1, be able to cut our sales tax in half,” added Giuliani, who predicted the plan would stem the flow of shoppers to New Jersey and other localities with no or low sales tax on clothing.

Many shoppers and storeowners cheered Giuliani’s plan — even as it remained unclear whether the projected economic benefit would outweigh the loss of city sales tax income and expand city budget gaps.

“I absolutely think it would help,” said Nancy Ponce, manager of a Conway discount clothing store in Manhattan. “If you buy one item, it’s not really that much. But if you spend a lot of money, it adds up.”

Deborah Morton, a baker from Brooklyn, said “anything is better than nothing.”

The announcement was the latest in escalating calls for tax cuts as the city and state reap higher revenues generated by Wall Street’s bull market. City Council Speaker Peter Vallone (D-Queens) proposed cutting the sales tax on household goods like soap, toothpaste and diapers.

A spokeswoman for Gov. Pataki, who yesterday unveiled his own $3.4 billion proposal to cut property taxes and boost school aid, said the governor would would study Giuliani’s plan carefully. “The governor is always interested in reducing taxes,” said spokeswoman Eileen Long.

Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver (D-Manhattan) issued similar signals of approval.

Giuliani estimated the plan would cost the city $70 million in lost sales tax revenue during the 1997-98 city fiscal year and $150 million the following year. Despite new projections of a $500 million surplus by July, the city still faces an estimated $2 billion deficit for next fiscal year.

But the mayor predicted the sales tax cut would more than pay for itself.

Original Story Date: 01/12/97

January 12, 1997
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THE ZERO PROBLEM; Computer Glitch May Byte Big Apple

By Homepage, New York Daily NewsNo Comments

January 3, 1997

by MICHAEL O. ALLEN and GEORGE MANNES, Daily News Staff Writers

New York City is facing a mother of all computer glitches that could cause key city services to crash in the next two years. Welfare, pension and payroll checks for thousands of New Yorkers may be mailed or computed incorrectly, or stop flowing from government coffers.

Computers that handle vital information, from birth certificates to tax assessments, also could go on the blink.

The problem is in mainframe computers that use just two digits to store dates and aren’t programed beyond the 20th century. In three years, when the calendar changes to a “00” year, the computers will read 1900, not 2000.

The computers then could assume that a driver’s license set to expire Feb. 1, 2000, had expired 100 years earlier.

Known as the Year 2000, or Y2K, problem, it affects thousands of computers nationwide and has sparked a huge effort in corporate America to solve the problem.

But the city is far behind some private corporations in coming to grips with the glitch.

New York won’t even have a full assessment of what needs to be done until June, the Daily News has learned.

“Every New Yorker that depends upon the city to send a check could be at risk of not receiving that check,” said City Councilman Andrew Eristoff (R-Manhattan), chairman of the Council Task Force on Technology in Government.

Donna Lynne, director of the mayor’s Office of Operations, said the city is set to hire a consultant this month to inventory city computer systems and assess what needs to be fixed, and at what cost.

If city agencies are saying at this late date that they’re still assessing the situation, “they’re probably dead meat,” said Howard Rubin, chairman of the Hunter College computer science department and a nationally recognized expert on the Year 2000 problem.

Computer programs tripped up by the date could grind to a halt or spit out unpredictably inaccurate data.

If agencies don’t tackle the Y2K problem, said Steve Newman, first deputy city controller, “all kinds of financial analysis, budget analysis, would just be wrong.”

Some city agencies, like the Department of Finance, which spent about $30 million on a new system in 1992, are replacing aging computers with modern units that solve the problem.

The mayor’s Office of Management and Budget, city controller’s office and city Financial Information Services Agency plan to replace accounting and bookkeeping programs rather than try to fix the date problem.

Sources close to the project said it should cost about $50 million, although no official estimates were available.

Lynne said systems the city bought in the past 18 months for the Fire, Police and other departments don’t have the problem.

Fixing the glitch throughout city government could require a mind-numbing process of investigating millions of lines of computer program commands. Experts said it could require an army of costly outside consultants and overtime for city employes.

For example, sources at the Human Resources Administration said it has more than 3 million lines of computer code to review. The controller’s office has 500,000 lines of code that covers monthly pension checks for 220,000 retired city employes.

January 3, 1997
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Rudy Rips Probe Of Diplo Fight

By Homepage, New York Daily NewsNo Comments

January 2, 1997

by MICHAEL O. ALLEN, Daily News Staff Writer

Mayor Giuliani yesterday accused the State Department of dragging out its probe of Sunday’s slugfest between city cops and diplomats from Russia and Belarus.

In his latest lashing over the envoys’ invocation of diplomatic immunity, the mayor demanded that federal officials immediately back the two city cops involved in the Manhattan clash.

“If this was an American diplomat, rather than all of this fatuous discussion that is going on I would expect that our government would say that the diplomat acted improperly, he should apologize,” the mayor said.

“We certainly can sit by and pretend as if the police officers acted improperly,” he continued. “They didn’t. They did a good job.”

The mayor said he planned to fire off a letter today asking the Russian and Belarus consuls to remove their two envoys and send them back to their countries.

“We don’t need people here who, behind diplomatic immunity, are abusing police officers,” Giuliani said.

The diplomats, Boris Obnossov, 43, of Russia, and Yuri Nicklaevich Orange, 50, of Belarus, were taken into custody following a fracas with two 20th Precinct cops who tried to ticket their cars for parking too close to a hydrant on the upper West Side.

Cops said Obnossov appeared drunk and refused to present identification when they ordered him out of his car. Orange then got out of the vehicle and punched one of the officers.

Both consulates have disputed police accounts, saying the cops dragged Obnossov from his car and beat him after he showed his identification.

A statement issued in Moscow said police broke his hand, smashed his glasses and tore his clothes before handcuffing him and taking him to the stationhouse, where he was detained for 30 minutes.

The two men, first secretaries at their nations’ missions to the United Nations, went free after invoking diplomatic immunity.

Original Story Date: 01/02/97

January 2, 1997
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City Cites 30 Shops For Shady Practice

By Homepage, New York Daily NewsNo Comments

December 18, 1996

by MICHAEL O. ALLEN, Daily News Staff Writer

Unscrupulous electronics stores are ripping off consumers by using misleading ads, reselling used goods as new and other shady sales practices, city officials charged yesterday.

Following a three-week probe, the city hit 30 stores with more than 1,100 alleged violations of consumer laws — and announced plans to yank the licenses of several shops.

Ten of the stores, most in the midtown tourist and shopping area, racked up more than 50 violations each on charges that they bilked consumers.

“Although most of the businesses . . . are reputable places that do a good job and offer decent prices, there are some that have a history of violations and a history of fraud and a history of trying to rip people off and trying to take advantage of them during this time of year,” Mayor Giuliani said.

Joined by Consumer Affairs Commissioner Jose Maldonado, the mayor warned shoppers to beware of where and what they buy.

City inspectors who checked electronic stores around the city found some practicing bait-and-switch tactics — advertising products that are not in stock and then offering buyers more expensive merchandise.

Inspectors also found electronics retailers that offered items for sale above the manufacturers’ suggested retail price.

The alleged violators — 30 of the 40 stores checked by investigators — face fines as high as $500 per violation.

It’s easy to get taken, said Serge Naggar of Manhattan.

He said two salesmen at Marquis Galleries Ltd. on Lexington Ave. last June sold his wife a personal information manager different from the one she wanted, insisting it was the correct item.

When she returned to the store, employees at first offered a more expensive product, then refused to provide a refund or credit toward another purchase.

It took intervention by the state and city before the couple finally got their money back.

Marquis Galleries — hit with 102 alleged consumer violations — led the 10-store rogues’ gallery of shops where inspectors found the most problems.

The five worst offenders:

Marquis Galleries Ltd., 519 Lexington Ave., Manhattan. (102 violations)

Sharper Photo & Electronics Corp., 520 Fifth Ave., Manhattan. (89 violations)

Zion’s Electronic Corp., 66 E. Fordham Road, Bronx. (85 violations)

Golden Temple Funding, 885 Sixth Ave., Manhattan. (77 violations)

Rainbow Camera, 875 Sixth Ave. Manhattan. (76 violations)

Source: New York City Department of Consumer Affairs

December 18, 1996
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Queens Activist Is Shot Dead

By Homepage, New York Daily NewsNo Comments

December 18, 1996

by MICHAEL O. ALLEN and JOHN MARZULLI, Daily News Staff Writers

A Queens community activist who collected teddy bears for homeless kids and helped start a volunteer ambulance service was found slain in his printing shop last night, the victim of a possible robbery.

Richard Trupkin, 64, had been shot several times in the head and body, police said.

A neighbor discovered him about 5 p.m. in the basement of the Lamarr Printing and Offset Co., on Roosevelt Ave., near 57th St. in Woodside.

Trupkin, of Valley Stream, L.I., had owned the business since 1966 and had been a major fixture in the community.

City Councilman Walter McCaffrey (D-Woodside) said he knew Trupkin for more than 20 years and described him as a “really sweet guy.”

“Any time anything had to be done in the neighborhood, Rich was always there, Johnny on the spot,” McCaffrey said.

“This is a tremendous loss,” said Witold Rak, president of the Woodside chapter of the Kiwanis Club. “He gave his time and energy to make Woodside special.”

Rak said Trupkin, a former president of the club, had recently helped organize a raffle to raise money for community projects such as purchasing food for the needy.

Trupkin had sold the winning raffle ticket and had just received $5,000 to hand over to the winner yesterday.

Police were trying to determine if Trupkin was targeted for the winnings, said a source familiar with the investigation. Detectives found the $5,000 in Trupkin’s desk, but a petty cash box on the first-floor apparently had been rifled, sources said.

Trupkin usually kept the front door of his printing shop locked while he worked in the basement. The neighbor became suspicious when she found the door unlocked but Trupkin was not upstairs.

In a 1993 Daily News profile, Trupkin said the best part of his job as an activist was “seeing the fruits of volunteer labor.”

Trupkin, who published a monthly local paper called The Woodsider, was a former member of Community Planning Board 2 in Queens and was founder of a safe haven program for youngsters among merchants in the area.

Ed Fowley, the “unofficial mayor of Woodside” and fellow community activist, said Trupkin had recently collected about two dozen teddy bears for homeless children at Bellevue Hospital.

“Rich will be sorely missed, ” he said.

Original Story Date: 12/18/96

December 18, 1996
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Normal City? Are You Nuts?

By Homepage, New York Daily NewsNo Comments

December 12, 1996

by MICHAEL O. ALLEN and JANE FURSE, Daily News Staff Writers

New York ain’t normal, according to a new book — whereas Orange County, Calif., is.

That’s Orange County as in Disneyland and the biggest municipal bankruptcy in history.

Whaddaya mean New York is the “most abnormal” of American cities?

Merely a statistical term, Places Rated Almanac co-author David Savageau hastened to explain yesterday.

“New York is top-notch in the arts, in higher education and in transportation, but bottom-of-the deck in crime, cost of living and jobs,” he said. “So you see, it’s either hot or cold — nothing in the middle.”

Take yer book and toss it, suggested Mayor Giuliani after he heard about this volume.

“They’re screwy,” said Giuliani, who disputed the MacMillan-published almanac’s charge that Atlanta, Detroit, Newark, St. Louis, New Orleans and Los Angeles are all safer than New York.

FBI numbers say otherwise, the mayor noted. “Big experts on crime, right, MacMillan,” Giuliani scoffed. “I will take this report and say it comes from amateurs. They don’t know what they are talking about.”

Giuliani’s opinions notwithstanding, said Savageau, Orange County really is the best of the 351 metropolitan areas surveyed by the almanac.

“The climate is good, it has a very rosy outlook for jobs and, because of the drop in housing prices, it’s more affordable,” he said. “It’s an amazing place.”

Joining Orange County on the book’s list of top 10 metropolitan areas are Seattle-Bellevue-Everett, Wash.; Houston; Washington, D.C.; Phoenix-Mesa, Ariz.; Minneapolis-St. Paul; Atlanta; Tampa-St.-Petersburg-Clearwater, Fla.; San Diego, and Philadelphia.

As for life here in abnormal New York City, Long Islander Pamela Barrow was feeling just fine as she got off the train at madhouse Penn Station yesterday.

“Personally, I come here to feel normal again,” she said.

Original Story Date: 12/12/96

December 12, 1996
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Rudy Going on ‘Cos’

By Homepage, New York Daily NewsNo Comments

December 12, 1996
by MICHAEL O. ALLEN, Daily News Staff Writer
Mayor Giuliani will dust off his acting skills today when he tapes an episode of “Cosby,” guest-starring as himself on the CBS sitcom.

Is Shakespeare in the Park next?

Giuliani laughed when asked if his latest acting foray was a sign of things to come when he leaves office.

“The old adage about being mayor was there’s no place to go from there. It ruins your career,” he quipped.

Using the TV appearance to poke fun at predecessors David Dinkins and Ed Koch, Giuliani said, “it seems to me the only future career you have as a former mayor of New York City is as radio talk-show host, giving a very hard time to whoever the incumbent mayor is.”

Giuliani is no acting novice. He appeared in Whoopi Goldberg’s movie “Eddie,” and he twice appeared onstage at Metropolitan Opera New Year’s Eve productions of “Die Fledermaus” to belt out “O Sole Mio.”

He also has been a repeat guest on “Late Show with David Letterman.”

Bill Cosby, a friend of Dinkins’, wasn’t particularly complimentary of Giuliani at a 1993 Dinkins fund-raiser. Giuliani said he agreed to appear on Cosby’s popular show because it’s good for the city.

The TV episode focuses on a visit by Giuliani to the Astoria, Queens, home of Cosby’s character, Hilton Lucas. Lucas, a laid-off airline employe, expects a high-profile dinner guest — President Clinton.

When Giuliani arrives and samples appetizers, Lucas has him take care of filling neighborhood potholes.

Original Story Date: 121296

December 12, 1996
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Warning: Lead Paint Disclosure required

By Homepage, New York Daily NewsNo Comments

December 7, 1996

by MICHAEL O. ALLEN, Daily News Staff Writer

New Yorkers will now have to be told whether the home they are about to buy or rent contains lead paint, according to a federal rule that went into effect yesterday.

Advocates for children and low and moderate-income families hailed the new disclosure law.

“We are talking about million of units in the city that potentially would be affected by this,” said Kenny Schaeffer, vice chairman of the Metropolitan Council on Housing, a tenants rights union.

The new Environmental Protection Agency regulation requires that potential buyers and renters be given a pamphlet outlining the health dangers of lead-based paint and be informed whether the dwelling has such paint.

Sellers and real estate agents could face fines up to $10,000 and as much as a year in jail if the presence of known lead-based paint is not disclosed.

“The reason this is important,” Schaeffer said, “is that it’s been proven that if a baby eats even one chip of paint that has lead content, it’s enough to cause permanent and irreversible brain damage.

“We have worked with families who have had children hospitalized to have all their blood removed and cleansed of this poison.”

New York has a high incidence of lead contamination because its housing stock is very old. As much as 75% of New York State’s housing was built before 1978, when lead paint was banned, according to the state Division of Housing and Community Renewal.

“This will greatly contribute to our efforts to prevent and eliminate the incidence of childhood lead poisoning nationwide,” EPA Administrator Carol Browner said.

December 7, 1996
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Free Parking Bill Is Meter Made

By Homepage, New York Daily NewsNo Comments

December 6, 1996

by MICHAEL O. ALLEN, Daily News Staff Writer
The City Council wants to give you something for nothing: 10 free minutes at parking meters everywhere except midtown Manhattan.

But there’s a catch. As the city giveth, it taketh away: A quarter in that same meter would then get you only 20 minutes more.

The free meter plan was introduced yesterday by Bronx Councilman Michael DeMarco as a way to ease motorists’ pain when they stop to make a fast phone call or grab a cup of coffee.

Instead of double-parking, drivers could pull into a legal space without fishing for change to feed the meter.

“All they have to do is flip the meter and get 10 minutes,” DeMarco said.

But for somebody who wants to stick around longer, pumping in a quarter will push the meter up only an additional 20 minutes — 10 minutes less than what a quarter usually gets.

If you put a quarter in without flipping, you’ll still get 30 minutes.

Still, business leaders and drivers said they’ll take what they can get.

“The impact on business will be favorable,” said John Dell’Olio, president of the Westchester Square Merchants Association in the Bronx. “The meter will not be an enemy to the motorists.”

“Motorists shouldn’t have to pay just to run in to get a cup of coffee or pick up their dry cleaning,” agreed Marta Genovese of the New York chapter of the American Automobile Associaton.

Randy Barretto of Brooklyn said he could have used the plan yesterday, as he stopped in lower Manhattan to make a quick phone call.

He waved to an approaching police officer, miming that he was moments away from moving his car.

“I’m an outside salesman,” Barretto said. “I constantly have to stop and make quick phone calls, and I’m always pleading with police officers and meter maids not to give me tickets.”

This time, he was successful.

Typical of the city, the meter plan actually is geared toward making money.

DeMarco said it has been so successful in Yonkers and other municipalities that it has increased parking revenues 25%.

But Deputy Mayor Randy Mastro said it’s an interesting idea whose time may have passed.

In three years, the city will have phased out its mechanical meters, switching to electronic devices. You won’t be able to flip for the free 10 on them.

“Technology is changing so quickly it may be impossible to go this route, even if everyone agrees,” Mastro said.

About 20% of the city’s 68,000 meters are already electronic, he added.

Meanwhile, Staten Island Councilman Jerome O’Donovan wants to give freebies to commuters from his borough. In a new bill, he called for free ferry fares for passengers transferring from a bus or subway.

It will be up to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and the city to approve free transfers.

The MTA will have free transfers between buses and subways, starting in July.

Original Story Date: 12/06/96

December 6, 1996
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City Gets Needled Over Tattoos

By Homepage, New York Daily NewsNo Comments

December 4, 1996

by MICHAEL O. ALLEN, Daily News Staff Writer

Hiding cobras, birds, flowers and mythical creatures under their clothes, dozens of people went to City Hall yesterday to urge that a decades-old ban on tattoo parlors be lifted.

Andrea Tasha, 31, a tattoo-artist apprentice at the Rising Dragon tattoo shop in Chelsea, told the city Council’s Health Committee that the ban, enacted during a 1961 hepatitis scare, is no longer necessary.

“If we are talking about health, the professional tattooing industry has been self-regulating,” she said. “The proof of that is there hasn’t been an outbreak of disease in the city.” Tasha added that the city is a mecca for tattoo artists.

Councilwoman Kathryn Freed (D-Manhattan), sponsor of a bill to regulate the industry, said, “It’s a very popular form of body decorating, and a lot of kids do it.”

“That’s one of the things that this bill would do, make it so that minors cannot get it without their parents’ or guardians’ consent,” Freed said.

The bill would create an advisory board of health professionals and tattoo artists to oversee the industry. Artists would have to get permits expected to cost about $200, and fill out forms for each client they tattoo.
The hundreds of parlors operating in the city do so illegally, in defiance of the ban.

The city Health Department, which would inspect the establishments and generally oversee enforcement, favors lifting the ban while offering mandatory courses on infectious disease prevention, said department spokesman Fred Winters.

“We agree that there is not a sufficient public health threat to keep tattoo parlors illegal,” Winters said.

Carlo, who asked to be identified only by his first name, said he already sterilizes equipment used in his three city parlors.

Needles are used once and thrown away, he said. Dyes are poured into single-service caps that are discarded after each use.

Once the province of sailors, bikers and convicts, tattooing has moved into the mainstream in a big way.Carlo said half his customers are women and nine out of 10 customers are professionals such as lawyers, doctors and stockbrokers. “What else can you buy that lasts you a lifetime,” he said.

December 4, 1996
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