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NEW YORKERS WILL RUE THE DAY THEY GAVE BLOOMBERG A THIRD TERM!
If New Yorkers give Mayor Mike Bloomberg another term as mayor, we'll be as disappointed with Bloomberg's third term as we were with President Bush's and Mayor Rudy Guiliani's second term. Bloomberg is just for the rich in New York and those rich folks he can coax to live here from across the rest of the nation.
But these are 10 reasons (there are many more) not to give him a third term.
1) HE'S IGNORED THE WILL OF THE PEOPLE FOR TERM LIMITS - New Yorkers voted twice for term limits and established a limit of 2 terms for mayor. After making speeches that it would be a mistake to go against the will of the people, he proceeded to do just that. He coerced and bribed the city council to overturn the people's will. To me, this is enough of a reason not to re-elect him, because this billionaire has used his money to say, MY WILL TO BE MAYOR IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN WHAT THE PEOPLE HAVE DECIDED. What happened to the democratic process?
2) BLOOMBERG'S POLICIES HAVE SHRUNK THE MIDDLE CLASS IN NEW YORK - New York is becoming very unaffordable to middle class families. The following items will make this clearer.
3) VERY LITTLE WORKING AND MIDDLE CLASS HOUSING - Working and middle class housing in New York has been virtually non-existent among all the projects for luxury housing that have dominated the market, however, many are virtually unoccupied due to the poor real estate market. His attitude is, LET THEM EAT CAKE! This mayor appoints the members of the board that regulates the rental rates for rent controlled housing, and those board members have consistently voted against the people, in favor of the landlords and developers - who have raked in the cash the last 8 years.
Bloomberg allowed two of the biggest middle class developments in the city to move from rent controlled to market rate housing. Recently, the court sided with the tenants of Stuyvesant Town housing, reversing the sale of that middle class development, telling the owner to also pay the tenants $200 million for the cost of increasing their rents. The court cared where Bloomberg didn't. Bloomberg has also been guilty of allowing a lot of Mitchell Lama housing (middle class) to revert to market priced housing, chasing even more middle class families out of the city.
3) BLOOMBERG HAS NOT BEEN A FRIEND TO SMALL BUSINESS & MOM AND POP STORES. - These Mom & Pop businesses have been the backbone to the distinctiveness of New York and a foundation to the middle class. Bloomberg continued a path that Rudy Guiliani had started by bringing in national brands into the city, knocking Moms & Pops out of business. Again, shrinking the middle class. Not only has New York lost a lot of it's quaintness, however, these national brands have assisted in making New York a part of Same Town, USA that you can find in any mall across the country. The rip off of this country (banks, Wall Street, & Bush policies) has made it difficult for many of those national brands to survive due to the drop in retail sales and the high cost of their leases that are leaving parts of the city looking like a ghost town.
4) BLOOMBERG SIDES AGAINST THE PEOPLE REGARDING MASS TRANSIT- The MTA (Mass Transit Authority) has been allowed to rip off New Yorkers in their mismanagement of the bus and subway system and consistently raising fairs. Paying executives very large salaries with ridiculous benefits, like cars & gas (so they wouldn't have to use the system they operate) in this public option. Unclean trains and platforms, high crime, late trains & buses and rising fares. Bloomberg chose 3 members for the MTA board, and each time this group has voted against the people during some of the toughest economic times the city has seen.
5) BLOOMBERG HAS CHANGED NEW YORK FROM THE CITY THAT NEVER SLEEPS TO ONE ON PROZAC! The edge New York has had as an innovator, trend setter, a manufacturing city and a place to go for fun and a good times has been replaced by a LET'S MAKE THIS PLACE QUIET FOR THE RICH AND THE OLD. Neighborhoods that were once energetic and vibrant seem like some of the old folk settlements down in Florida. This man has killed the energy of this city.
6) BLOOMBERG HAS MADE THE EDUCATION SYSTEM IN NEW YORK WORSE - And that's after the state gave him unprecedented power to control the school system. The figures for improvement are bogus. The drop out rates are high. Graduation rates have been fudged. And for the additional money that has been brought into the system for high paying administrative people has only brought 'fuzzy' improvements in reading, writing and math scores. Let's not talk about science, the arts, and physical education - ain't nothing happening. A $20 billion budget for 1,200,000 students and the money isn't reaching the kids in the classroom. Yet, the school administration has seen unheard of increases in money spent on so-called experts. The biggest thing this system needs is a change in the curriculum along with shrinking an over bloated administration. Bloomberg has done everything but, with school violence rising.
7) BLOOMBERG IS A PROUD ADVOCATE FOR N.Y. BEING A SANCTUARY CITY FOR ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS - This is coming from the same man who said, 'We are a city and nation of laws', as he has welcomed illegal immigrants to our city protecting them from deportation. This is a man, not only exacerbating the problem by asking the police not to carry out their duty, but those graduating from our poor schools have to compete with illegal immigrants for jobs, that illegals are dominating (restaurants, construction, hospitals, maintenance, meat packers, etc.).
8) BLOOMBERG BACKS THE STOP AND FRISK PROGRAM THAT SHOWS BIAS TOWARD BLACK AND HISPANIC COMMUNITIES - Almost 800,000 stop and frisk incidents so far this year. 9% of these stops were Whites, the rest were of Black and Hispanics. Out of those stopped and frisked, only 7% were arrested, and that was mainly for marijuana possession. The continued occupation of minority communities by police and the constant abuse of innocent citizens is not building good community relations with the police department. The results in arrests do not justify this treatment.
9) BLOOMBERG LACKS IMAGINATION AND INNOVATION AS A CITY PLANNER - We used to have ports for commerce, manufacturing paying decent liveable wages, housing for working and middle class folks, and all this has been replaced by this mayor turning the city into a tourist town. The funny thing is we've always had healthy tourism here because people wanted to see New York at work. Now, the jobs are gone and we've become a tourist resort. Time Square has been turned into a gigantic mall. Our streets have been transformed into a design he's borrowed from France (what about originality). And for all the tourism he's seeking, street parking and garage prices are through the roof, which is not tourist or shopper or native New Yorker friendly. This man made these changes complaining there was too much traffic congestion in New York, calling for congestion pricing (once again, like they have in France). This was the same man who wanted to build a stadium in mid-town Manhattan which would have exacerbated the problem of congestion.
10) HAVING A BILLIONAIRE BUSINESSMAN AS MAYOR HAS MEANT A DISCONNECT BETWEEN THE NEEDS OF THE PEOPLE IN THE CITY AND THE MAYOR THAT'S TO PROVIDE FOR THEM.
Tuesday, when the people go to the polls to vote for mayor, should they re-elect Mike Bloomberg, they will be sick of him by the second year of his third term. He's spent $100 million on advertising lies about what he's done for New York and telling lies about his opponent, who doesn't have the deep pockets he has. And with all the advantages he's had in this race, he's resorted to having Rudy Guiliani come out with race baiting statements and fear tactics about Bill Thompson. And the mayor never said a discouraging word about Guiliani's tactics. Talk about win at any cost!
Although Mike Bloomberg is basically a decent man, HE DOESN'T DESERVE A THIRD TERM AS MAYOR OF NEW YORK.
QUESTION EVERYTHING! THAT'S WHERE THE TRUTH RESIDES.
As a New Yorker, I concur.
Thanks, Mel! I going to the polls tomorrow to vote for Bill Thompson. I
believe he's gonna be for working and middle class families in the city.
He's already pledged not to let the fairs go up for bus and transit riders,
as well as hold down increases for housing. Bloomberg's record over the
last 8 years has shown a total disregard for the middle class.
When Bloomberg first became Mayor was right after 9/11. The hole at Ground
Zero was there when he came into office, and 8 years later, that same hole
is at Ground Zero. He didn't use his bully pulpit and power to shame the
developers into filling that hole with buildings and a memorial. Another
major reason he doesn't need to be re-elected.
What are the polls like on this? Is Bloomberg likely to get a third term?
I've always thought the US was strongly in favour of term limits on
powerful public positions; I'm surprised he even gets the option on another
go.
BlackPhi, how's the mail strike going over there? It turns out Bloomberg
won, but not by much. This mayor spent almost $100 million on this race
against an opponent who wasn't even in the running money wise. The fact
that Bloombergs record wasn't even enough to beat Bill Thompson says just
how bad this mayor's record is. There was a low turnout at the voting
polls.
Mail strikes are postponed until after Christmas, 'to give time for talks'.
If, as seems likely, the Conservative party wins the next election, then
that's the end of Royal Mail. The strikes give the Tories the excuse they
wanted to shut them down, in the process wiping out thousands of small
village post-offices.
Bloomberg just squeeked out the election even having spent so much money.
It should tell him, the city wasn't crazy about him. The fear is that he
will attempt to make radical changes here - using the city as his
playground. I'm hoping I'm wrong!
"The U.K. is sounding a lot like the United States these days,
BlackPhi! " - that's long been our strength and our weakness :-\