Two of the city’s greatest public-private projects on Manhattan’s West Side have suffered setbacks in recent weeks. First, various government entities have hinting that Moynihan Station—a $900 million project that ballooned into a $14 billion mega-development—will never see the light of day. Then, a deal between the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and a real estate developer to create office towers, apartment buildings and parks over the rail yards on the far West Side collapsed.  read more »

Even as the City Council begins its consideration of Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s stringent budget, some city workers are counting on their friends in Albany to support an irresponsible raid on the municipal treasury. Some people just don’t get it.

District Council 37, the huge municipal workers’ union, is hell-bent on getting Albany’s approval for a bill that would allow members to take advantage of an early-retirement package that was offered in—get this—1995.  read more »

Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s $59.1 billion budget is a model of discretion and restraint, the sort of document one wishes former Governor Eliot Spitzer would have presented last January. Unlike the former governor, the mayor understands that government must adjust to economic reality, and that reality is, for the time being, grim.

“We are living beyond our means,” the mayor said when he released the proposed budget on May 2. No politician enjoys saying those words, so when they are uttered, attention must be paid. Mr.  read more »

It’s hard to see how any city can thrive without clean air. And while New York City is still a long way from becoming the Beijing of the United States—the Chinese capital has had to spend $17 billion to get its air within a barely acceptable range for Olympic athletes—a new report from the American Lung Association places the city within the top 10 most polluted cities in the United States.

The association lists New York’s air quality as “dangerous,” with high ozone levels, and sees a resulting increase in risk for heart disease and lung cancer.  read more »

When the city and the United Federation of Teachers agreed on a new contract in 2005, the city agreed to establish a reserve pool of teachers whose jobs had been eliminated and who were unable to find work in another school. In the past, teachers with seniority were given first dibs on job vacancies, but the new contract ended that practice.

According to a report compiled by a teacher-training group called the New Teacher Project, the city will spend $81 million over two years to pay salaries and benefits for teachers in the reserve pool.  read more »

What often distinguishes a leader from a politician is that the former will resist the many opportunities power affords to boost one’s popularity with voters at the expense of the long-term benefit to the lives of those voters. With news this week that the city is still on track to post a $4 billion budget surplus this year, Mayor Michael Bloomberg is about to wade into the thick of combat with the City Council, many of whose members will press the mayor to let that $4 billion rain down on the city in the form of increased spending, tax cuts and other sugary treats. And given that Mr.  read more »

If you’d like to see an example of the benefits that flow from having a well-run, safe and solution-oriented city, look no further than the Japanese, German, British, Dutch, French, Venezuelan, Taiwanese, Australian and Norwegian tourists standing in front of you at Starbucks tomorrow morning.

Thanks largely to the city’s low crime rate and stellar international reputation, New York’s foreign tourists are spending money like crazy.  read more »

The burgeoning City Council spending scandal took a turn for the worse last week when two aides were indicted for embezzling nearly $150,000 in public money intended for a nonprofit group that, as luck would have it, was based in the home of one of the indicted aides.

The indictments come on the heels of revelations showing that the Council has been appropriating money to fine-sounding and seemingly needy organizations that simply do not exist.  read more »

New York parents are famous for the lengths they will go to make sure their children are given a leg up in life from the earliest possible age. While the parental passion slides easily into obsession, and in some cases surely does a child more harm than good, overall it’s a huge plus for the city to have families so deeply concerned with the well-being and education of our littlest citizens.

One flash point for parental ambition has long been the public school system’s “gifted and talented” programs.  read more »

Until Mayor Michael Bloomberg stepped in to quiet the conversation on Monday, there was talk last weekend of an effort to undo the city’s term-limits law so Mr. Bloomberg could run for a third four-year term. It was just a trial balloon, but the fact that the conversation took place at all was troubling. Mr. Bloomberg has done a remarkable job as the city’s chief executive, but the law is the law. And it’s a good one.

The city’s voters, not its political class, approved term limits in 1993 in a citywide referendum.  read more »