The City Council announced they will not be funding any initiative in fiscal year '09 that is not already slated to get funded under this year’s city budget.

In a public statement, City Council Speaker Christine Quinn said, “As we enter more uncertain economic times, we need to set fiscal priorities in the budget,” and added, “Putting a moratorium on new initiatives will allow us to cut back on city spending and to focus on restoring funds to essential services that New Yorker’s already depend on everyday.”  read more »

Governor Paterson is moving closer to picking a chief for his main economic development agency, the Empire State Development Corporation, a body that has sat without a clear leader since its downstate chairman under Governor Spitzer, Pat Foye, announced his resignation two months ago. The agency oversees many of the state’s large, high-profile development projects including Moynihan Station, Atlantic Yards and the Javits Center.

A committee of mostly business leaders and led by Sandy Weill is due to recommend a new chairman to Mr. Paterson in one to two weeks, at which point the governor will have the final say, according to multiple people familiar with discussions.  read more »

One of the remaining bidders for the West Side rail yards, a team of the Durst Organizaiton and Vornado Realty Trust, said it is expecting that S.I. Newhouse’s Condé Nast will remain part of its bid as an anchor tenant.

“We expect that Condé would be our partner,” said Durst spokesman Jordan Barowitz.

However, Condé, which began a new search for space after Tishman Speyer was named the winner over the Durst/Vornado team in March, did not make clear its plans, as a company spokeswoman, Maury Perl, declined comment.  read more »

Democracy for New York City, the progressive group related to Howard Dean's Democracy for America, is holding a forum on Sunday, May 18 for the candidates in two upcoming elections: the one for Sheldon Silver's Assembly seat, and the challenge to State Senator Marty Connor.
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It’s hard to tell we’re in an economic contraction – or, dare we say, recession (cue scary music) – what with retail rents continuing to rise along prime New York shopping corridors.

Haven’t the landlords paid any heed to Ben Bernanke? Or to the plight of their colleagues in commercial real estate who, as this paper has reported, are hiking up the amount of goodies they’re giving renters in exchange for signing leases?

Apparently they haven’t.

According to the Real Estate Board of New York’s annual spring retail report, released today, ground-floor rents along Third Avenue, between 60th and 72nd streets, rose 51 percent to $329 per-square-foot compared to the same time last year. On Fifth Avenue between 14th and 23rd streets, rents rose 50 percent to $401 a square foot.  read more »

Juniper Park Civic Association, a (surprisingly?) large and organized community group in western Queens, is hosting a debate for candidates in the June 3 special election to fill Dennis Gallagher’s City Council seat, and it will be followed the next day by a forum for candidates in the same race.  read more »

Last year I wrote a piece about “Hillary Haters,” a prime specimen of which was a group called StopHerNow.

So it was interesting to see an advertisement across the top of the Drudge Report today for StopHimNow, a Web site, from the same people, dedicated to portraying Barack Obama as naïve and unintelligent.

An example: A cartoon depicts an imagined meeting in the Oval Office between Obama and his "spiritual adviser," the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

"Is love black and white?" Obama asks.

"No, it is black," Wright screams.

"Really?" asks Obama.

"God damned right it is," screams Wright.

"That's what I'd thought you'd say," answers Obama, assured.

It’s an indication that what Clinton once called the "vast right-wing conspiracy" has already begun to shift its energies to Obama. (The fact that the URL is still stophernow seems to show just how much Obama's likely nomination caught them by surprise.)

The main man behind the Web site is Dick Collins, who I spent some time with in Texas and who was certain then, as most everyone was, that Clinton was going to be the nominee. When I had asked him at lunch why he was concentrating on Clinton, he said, "Because she is going to be the leader."  read more »

It's quitting time at Blackbook.

On the heels of the major departures of its managing editor and photo director, Blackbook has now lost its publisher, Joe Landry.  read more »

Here’s an invitation for a Sex and the City-inspired fund-raiser on May 29 for Democratic City Council candidate Alfonso Quiroz of Jackson Heights.
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Journalista: The Comics Journal Weblog is reporting that Will Elder, the famed illustrator and one of the founders of Mad Magazine, has died at 86. (This comes via boing boing.) Elder was considered a major influence on artists like Robert Crumb and Daniel Clowes.  read more »