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Rudy Giuliani

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

By Homepage, New York Daily NewsNo Comments

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.

January 25, 1997
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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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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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Rudy, Merchants In Mega Food Fight

By Homepage, New York Daily NewsNo Comments

November 27, 1996

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

Mayor Giuliani and opponents of the city’s megastore plan yesterday accused each other of failing to talk turkey on Thanksgiving food prices.

Merchants fighting the plan said the city Department of Consumer Affairs used bogus prices for a survey that found New Yorkers would save 30% on Thanksgiving fixings if they shopped in a food superstore instead of small, neighborhood markets.

The survey, released by Giuliani on Sunday, showed a basket of seven holiday food items cost $23.25 in small city markets — compared with $18.96 in a suburban supermarket and $18.27 in a city food superstore.

“The price of not only turkeys but all of the items that are in the Thanksgiving basket at independent supermarkets in the City of New York are substantially lower than the mayor’s press release would indicate,” said Howard Tisch, president of the Metropolitan Food Council.

Giuliani, however, claimed the survey prodded city grocers to slash prices by up to 16% since Sunday.

“Finally, these places were exposed for gouging people in New York City, and what happened is some of them reduced their prices,” Giuliani said.

“For the mayor to claim that he has reduced the prices further would require a feat of legerdemain that no wizard could ever perform,” shot back Tisch, who insisted the prices were set two weeks ago and haven’t changed.

The dispute escalated the fight over Giuliani’s plan to allow megastores of up to 200,000 square feet in manufacturing zones without approval by community boards or the City Council. Forcing stores to undergo time-consuming zoning and community reviews discourage developers from locating in the city, administration officials say.

City Council members, who are expected to vote on the issue next month, have said they will reject the plan unless megastores are subject to some reviews.

Original Story Date: 11/27/96

November 27, 1996
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Fifth May Hafta Stand Kiosks

By Homepage, New York Daily NewsNo Comments

November 15, 1996

by MICHAEL O. ALLEN, Daily News Staff Writer

Step aside, Saks Fifth Avenue. Move over, Bergdorf Goodman. And Tiffany’s, watch out. Newsstands may soon be coming to New York’s ritziest real estate.

The city plans to add 100 stands to the 330 already operating around Manhattan. And officials of the Municipal Arts Society said Deputy Mayor Fran Reiter told them that Fifth Ave. — home of some of the city’s toniest shops — won’t be held “sacred” when locations are picked.

Fifth Ave. merchants and esthetics experts look askance at the prospect of stands that might further congest the already heavily crowded sidewalks.

“We feel it’s inappropriate. Fifth Ave. has always been free of bus shelters and newspaper stands,” said Vanessa Gruen, special projects director for the Municipal Arts Society.

“My advice to the administration is not to go down that path,” agreed Tom Cusick, president of the Fifth Avenue Association.

Merchants along the avenue have traditionally resisted any sidewalk vendors. Their combined opposition — and heavyweight political clout — blocked any newsstands from springing up along Fifth Ave. between 42d St. and 57th Sts.

But the plan eyed by Mayor Giuliani’s administration and the City Council would replace the existing newsstands and open the new sites as part of a broader effort to open 30 automatic public toilets and 3,500 bus shelters.

City officials said all of the new fixtures would be carefully designed kiosks, probably with ads on the sides to help pay for installation and maintenance.

“We think it is going to be beautiful,” said Reiter, stressing that no locations have yet been selected.

In a bow to merchants’ fears, Reiter said any kiosks eventually designed for Fifth Ave. might be smaller, cylindrical structures that would take up less sidewalk.

The merchants weren’t appeased.

“Whether it is a square or rectangle or round shape, we don’t believe that newsstands makes sense,” complained Cusick.

But a sampling of Fifth Ave. strollers yesterday found support for the city plan. “I don’t think it will hurt if they regulate them — maybe keep them two blocks apart,” said James Morrison, 25, of Astoria, Queens.

November 15, 1996
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Rudy Sez He’s Tops, And Dems Are Flops

By Homepage, New York Daily NewsNo Comments

November 9, 1996

by DAVID L. LEWIS and MICHAEL O. ALLEN, Daily News Staff Writers

Mayor Giuliani fired the opening salvo of the 1997 mayoral battle yesterday, slamming potential challengers as inexperienced, extremist or “machine politicians.”

While insisting he hasn’t decided to seek a second term, the Republican mayor for the first time dropped his strategic refusal to rate the chances of possible opponents.

Giuliani also touted his own political strengths, saying any reelection campaign would focus on double-digit decreases in city crime rates during his tenure.

“When I say it’s the capital of the world, which I began saying in my inaugural speech, people now accept it,” the mayor said in an interview set to air tomorrow on WCBS-TV’s “Sunday Edition.”

Giuliani criticized six possible Democratic challengers who were listed in a recent Quinnipiac College poll. Several responded with sharp return attacks. Among his exchanges:

He tabbed Manhattan Borough President Ruth Messinger as the Democratic front-runner, and said: “Democratic primaries are won by the most extreme candidate and, ideologically, she is the most extreme of that group.”

Messinger spokesman Leland Jones voiced surprise at the sharpness of the attack just 72 hours after Election Day, saying, “It is a little surprising that the campaign hasn’t even started, and the mayor has already decided to go negative.”

Giuliani accused City Controller Alan Hevesi of politicizing his office and labeled the Queens Democrat “very much an old-fashioned machine partisan politician.”

Hevesi shrugged off the Giuliani attack. “He is simply trying to start another personal fight,” Hevesi said.

Giuliani labeled Bronx Borough President Fernando Ferrer as “very much the product of Bronx machine politics.” The mayor noted that Ferrer succeeded Stanley Simon, who went to prison for his conviction in a racketeering case prosecuted by Giuliani.

Ferrer did not respond to a request for comment.

Giuliani said former Police Commissioner William Bratton would be a weak mayoral candidate because of “inexperience in many, many other areas of government.” Bratton could not be reached for comment.

The mayor said two other candidates — City Councilman Sal Albanese (D-Brooklyn) and the Rev. Al Sharpton — wouldn’t stand a chance in a Democratic primary, much less against him.

Sharpton dismissed the attack and Albanese argued he was more qualified to be mayor than Giuliani.

Original Story Date: 11/09/96

November 9, 1996
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City XXX-pulsion Plan Put on Hold

By Homepage, New York Daily NewsNo Comments

October 25, 1996

by MICHAEL O. ALLEN and JAMES RUTENBERG, Daily News Staff Writers

Times Square sex shop owners yesterday said the red-light district would stay lit as a state appeals court temporarily blocked the city’s plan to start restricting X-rated businesses this weekend.

Smut shops advertising “Live Girls” and hawking such videos as “Slut Hunt III” continued to do a brisk business as managers and employees said they have no plans to move or change their inventory.

“We’re not going to go anywhere,” vowed a manager at the company that owns Show World and other porn establishments near Times Square. “We’re confident we’re going to get the relief we’re entitled to under the United States Constitution.”

The defiant boast came after the Appellate Division of state Supreme Court yesterday issued a stay blocking the city’s plans to start closing about 150 X-rated video shops, topless bars and other porn businesses under a zoning law that restricts the location of sex shops.

Yesterday’s court action temporarily overruled a Manhattan Supreme Court decision on Wednesday that upheld the zoning law — enacted by the city in a bid to disperse heavy concentrations of sex shops.

The appeals court set a Nov. 15 hearing on the legal stay, followed by December arguments on the zoning law itself.

Lawyers for the sex shops and the New York Civil Liberties Union declared victory after the appeals court issued the stay.

“There will be no closing of any of the adult establishments,” said Herald Price Fahringer, who represents a coalition of more than 100 X-rated businesses that claim the zoning law violates First Amendment rights of free speech.

But Mayor Giuliani and City Council leaders yesterday predicted the city eventually would win court backing to launch the shutdown plan.

“We are quite confident that we’ll prevail,” Giuliani said. “Not only did we prevail in the State Supreme Court already, but essentially throughout the country these kinds of provisions have been upheld by courts.”

October 25, 1996
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Statue Unveiled, Hil Hails Eleanor

By Homepage, New York Daily NewsNo Comments

October 6, 1996

by MICHAEL O. ALLEN and DON SINGLETON Daily News Staff Writers

Two American First Ladies came together in Riverside Park yesterday afternoon, one the current occupant of the White House and the other a larger-than-life bronze statue.

With songs and speeches and flags that rippled gently in the sunshine of a perfect early autumn day, Hillary Rodham Clinton led a crowd of thousands in dedicating the statue of her predecessor Eleanor Roosevelt.

The sculpture, portraying the lanky Roosevelt leaning against a rock, her chin resting on her hand as if she is in deep thought, stands on a low rise in the park’s 72d St., bounded by three mature trees and between two park benches. It is the first statue of a woman ever commissioned for a city park.

Clinton was greeted by a crescendo of applause and cheers from the audience as about a dozen placard-carrying people chanted, “Stop the welfare cuts.” The demonstrators were hustled off by police and park security officers. From the window of an apartment on W. 72d St., someone unfurled a banner that proclaimed, “Eleanor would have saved the safety net.”

A chorus of boos greeted Mayor Giuliani, but quickly subsided when he bagan to speak about Eleanor Roosevelt, a mother of five who was born on W. 37th St., married on E. 76th St. and kept a home on E. 65th St.

The mayor called Roosevelt “a great American, a woman committed to public service, the First Lady of the world. . . . one of the greatest figures in our century.”

“I must say that when the statue was unveiled I had just a great overwhelming emotional feeling,” Clinton said.

Then, after a long pause, she made a self-mocking reference to Bob Woodward’s book “The Choice,” in which the author reports that she took part in imaginary conversations with Eleanor Roosevelt and Mahatma Gandhi.

“And I have to tell you that when I last spoke with Mrs. Roosevelt she wanted me to tell all of you how pleased she is by this great, great new statue.” The crowd applauded wildly.

October 6, 1996
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$304,000 LOTTA GS FOR GIULIANIS

By Homepage, New York Daily NewsNo Comments

Saturday, April 13, 1996

by MICHAEL O. ALLEN, Daily News Staff Writer

Rudy and Donna Hanover Giuliani’s combined income jumped to $ 303,889 last year, thanks to the First Lady’s blossoming radio, television and film career, their 1995 tax returns show.

The 21% increase from the couple’s $ 250,343 reported earnings for 1994 marked the second large increase for Hanover Giuliani in as many years.

Their earnings will take another jump this year with the mayor’s $ 35,000 pay raise, which will boost his salary to $ 165,000. He also will collect $ 17,000 in retroactive pay.

Last year, the mayor earned $ 115,256 from his City Hall job after socking away $ 14,744 in a tax-deferred retirement account. His wife earned $ 145,643, up from $ 113,818 in 1994. They paid 35.9% of their combined income in taxes $ 73,927 to Uncle Sam and $ 35,235 to Albany and New York compared with 31% in 1994. They opted to apply $ 8,482 in refunds to their 1996 taxes.

GRAPHIC: SUSAN WATTS DAILY NEWS NO FOOLING, clowns from The Greatest Show on Earth are serious about taxes. Monday’s the deadline.

April 13, 1996
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