Ed Ott

This morning, Michael Bloomberg made the argument that congestion pricing would be good for the economy, and that without it, tens of thousands of jobs for New Yorkers “would almost certainly be dead in the water."

Standing with labor leaders outside the turnstile at the Brooklyn Bridge train station, Bloomberg told reporters, “The jobs created by congestion pricing, in both the short- and long-term, would be a real shot in the arm for our city’s economy.”  read more »

This year's Labor Day parade has been cancelled, according to The Chief.

The head of the Central Labor Council, Ed Ott, is quoted as saying the group felt it best "to remain focused on our organizational priorities and review the various observances of our Labor Day events as we consider how to march forward in the best way possible for workers."

The group did hold a parade last year, immediately after Ott's predecessor, Asssemblyman Brian McLaughlin, was indicted for misusing public money and steering contracts to allies.

"This shows there is new leadership," NYS AFL-CIO head Mario Cilento just told me. He denies McLaughlin's scandal had anything to to with this year's decision. He said around the time this year's parade would have been held, the group will instead honor labor workers by focusing on the health care needs of World Trade Center heroes and relevant legislation in Congress. That'll taje place on September 8th (more info on that after the jump, along with Ed Ott's statement).

Although it's not unprecedented for the parade to be canceled, it's the first so far to be done strictly for the sake of a legislative priority.

The parade was cancelled in 2001 because of the terrorists attacks, and in 2004 because the Republican National Convention was held in the City and, as Cilento said, "labor was squarely behind the Democratic candidate." But Cilento did say the parade was held more frequently in previous years.  read more »

Practically every major Democrat in the city was at the corner of 14th Street and First Avenue yesterday afternoon to announce the formation of a what they say is the largest housing coalition in the city’s history.

The group, New York Is Our Home, includes labor and tenant groups, the Working Families Party and others.

The most heated rhetoric (video here) came from the Central Labor Council's Ed Ott, who said, “The price of housing in this city is effectively theft” and that affordable housing units, like the ones in Stuyvesant Town behind him, “are being stolen by the greed of developers and the market.”

Which drew applause and energetic head nods from the crowd of elected officials behind him.

In attendance at the rally were Christine Quinn, Bill Thompson, Betsy Gotbaum, Tom Duane, John Sabini, Ruben Diaz, Jr., Keith Wright, Jonathan Bing, Linda Rosenthal, Dan Garodnick, Eric Gioia and Charles Barron, among others. Most of them spoke but none matched Ott’s directness.

After the speeches, the group formed a human chain around Stuy Town, which is several blocks long, and marched down to Union Square.

Practically every major Democrat in the city was at the corner of 14th Street and First Avenue yesterday afternoon to announce the formation of a what they say is the largest housing coalition in the city’s history.

The group, New York Is Our Home, includes labor and tenant groups, the Working Families Party and others.

The most heated rhetoric (video here) came from the Central Labor Council's Ed Ott, who said, “The price of housing in this city is effectively theft” and that affordable housing units, like the ones in Stuyvesant Town behind him, “are being stolen by the greed of developers and the market.”

Which drew applause and energetic head nods from the crowd of elected officials behind him.

In attendance at the rally were Christine Quinn, Bill Thompson, Betsy Gotbaum, Tom Duane, John Sabini, Ruben Diaz, Jr., Keith Wright, Jonathan Bing, Linda Rosenthal, Dan Garodnick, Eric Gioia and Charles Barron, among others. Most of them spoke but none matched Ott’s directness.

After the speeches, the group formed a human chain around Stuy Town, which is several blocks long, and marched down to Union Square.

UPDATE: Adolfo Carrion, Brian Kavanagh and Adam Clayton Powell IV also attended.

This morning, at a Drum Major Institute breakfast, Ed Ott, executive director of the New York City Central Labor Council, was leaning heavily in favor of congestion pricing, but he still warned that it would have to be preceded by massive transit improvements all around.

"It’s almost like asking what’s good sex? The only honest answer is, 'well, it depends.' It depends on what they do, and if they don’t do certain things up front, this will never happen."

Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s aides these days start their spiel about the long-range plan for the  read more »

The Mayor gave out 10 "goals" that he wanted the city to achieve by 2030 at Tuesday morning's speech in Flushing on sustainability. Many of them were vague ("cleaner, more reliable power"), others manageable (creating 265,000 more units of housing, which would be below the rate at which they are being built today), and still others quite ambitious (reducing global warming emissions by more than 30 percent).

Bloomberg got some laughs when he showed slides of himself in plaid PJ's and blue fuzzy slippers, but it was Tom Brokaw, who was moderating a panel afterward, who got spontaneous applause for introducing the topic of congestion pricing: "Do you think the city may reap some financial rewards by charging fees for driving into the city and charging people more?"

The panelists generally liked the idea (except for labor leader Ed Ott, who warned it could penalize workers whose only hope of affordable housing lay in the Poconos). Bloomberg's solution to traffic woes, by contrast, was "adding to the capacity of our regional mass transit system."

For the video, try here. (The pajama slides start around 21:00.) The Web site for the sustainability initiative is here.  read more »

- Matthew Schuerman