Looking Ahead

LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis

While the local Democrats are in a vocal 2005 election struggle, with four Mayoralty, four Public Defender, seven Councilmanic District #2 and four CD #4 candidates vying for public support in the September 13th primaries, the Republicans have a different problem. The November 2006 election is getting to be a serious concern for the state GOP politicos. Gov. Pataki’s decision not to run leaves the Republicans without a clear-cut candidate. Frank Scala, the affable district leader of the local club, Vince Albano Republicans, provides some insights.But first a little background on the Republican organization in our area.The Vincent F. Albano Republican Club is the active organization for the74th Assembly District, from Waterside Plaza through Alphabet City and theEast Village. The 74th AD East part – District leaders Frank J Scala andSusan C. Cooper – covers ST/PCV. There is also a South part – DLs IsabelM. Pena and Bryan A. Cooper, a North part - DLs Phillip Caracci andElizabeth Schacht, and a West part – DL Dena Winokur, PhD.The club is named for the legendary NY Republican County Chairman VincentAlbano, who guided many local politicians to office, such as Congressmen Theodore Kupferman, John V. Lindsay and Bill Green, and State Senators Roy M. Goodman and Whitney Seymour. Albano passed away in 1981, a yearafter leading an unsuccessful G. W. H. Bush delegation into the 1980Republican Presidential Convention.The current Republican concern is to find a presentable Gubernatorialcandidate, to overcome the huge lead of the activist State Attorney GeneralEliot Spitzer, who has no serious Democratic opponents. The State party hasnot succeeded in luring either ex-Mayor Rudy Giuliani, current MayorMichael Bloomberg, or ex-secretary of State Colin Powell into the fray, andhas to contend with making a choice from a huge list of lesser lights.

The menu includes B. Thomas Golissano, the Rochester industrialist who ran as anIndependence Party candidate in 2002, garnering 15% of the vote againstPataki, attacking the Governor’s economic record and angering the partystalwarts in the process. It cost him $75M, and he’s ready to spend again.The less monied but more politically acceptable candidates are led byCongressman John Sweeney of Hudson Valley, a GOP favorite with no priorstate-wide exposure, Assemblyman Patrick Manning from the same area, unknownexcept for a commendable effort to reform the undemocratic NYS leader-dominated legislative system, Lieutenant Governor (twice) Mary Donohoe,former prosecutor and judge who has been chafing in Pataki’s shadow, theeffective NY Secretary of state Randy Daniels, a African-American, formerCongressman Rick Lazio from LI, outscored by Hillary in the 2000 Senaterace, and Assemblyman John Faso, a Conservative. There is also thestrange case of jovial and wealthy William Weld, former Governor of Democratic Massachusetts and unsuccessful candidate for Ambassador to Mexico (blocked by Jesse Helms), who returned to his native New York some years ago, but is no Hillary ingenerating local support for a newcomer.Speaking of Hillary, Westchester County District Attorney Jeannine Pirro, the candidate of NYS Republican Chairman Stephen Minarik (of Monroe, a suburban Rochester county, you’ll hear of him more later), has decided to vie for the Senator’s seat, claiming that Mrs. Clinton has been using her public servant’s status as a springboard for herPresidential ambitions. The photogenic Pirro has her own luggage, in theform of her husband Al’s conviction for tax evasion. Although a 2 to 1underdog, Pirro hopes to win party favor by injuring the Senator enough to hurt her chances in 2008. Meanwhile, NYC lawyer Edward Cox, a son-in-law or Richard Nixon’s, is seen as a more serious candidate by many Republicans, and will contest. Surprisingly, the NY Post does not like Pirro; evidently, it is more expeditious to be nice to Mrs. Clinton, a candidate of unlimited horizons. The other statewide offices in contention are less defined. Comptroller Allen Hevesi has no serious Republican opposition. As for Attorney –General, Democratic candidates abound. Former Secretary of HUD Andrew Cuomo has to contend with his former brother-in-law Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Assemblymen Richard Brodsky, Mike Gianaris and the ever-hopeful Mark Green.

So where does that leave for the Albanos? The obvious, to work for the reelection of our Republican Mayor in 2006, and, for the immediate 2005 run, to back Patrick Murphy for Eva Moskowitz’s vacated 4th Councilmanic District seat. There is also a Republican candidate forthcoming for the 2nd, formerly Margarita Lopez’s seat. The GOP has no viable candidates for the Manhattan Borough President and the Public Defender offices - that’s the kind of city this is.

As for the state-wide 2006 run, the local GOP people would like Rudy Giuliani, good but unattainable, and might accept William Weld, a recently returning native New Yorker, as potentially the most effective, with his stature, looks, public record and money-raising capabilities. Golissano is too right-wing for our local Rockefeller Republicans (“he speaks up for the working people but jobs keep disappearing).”

Wally Dobelis also thanks Gary Papush

LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis

E-mail is a wonderful way to be informed about the doings of your children and friends, a lifeline for the shut-ins. It is also a fine source of misinformation and distribution of urban legends and harmful lies.

My ex-colleague Sarkis sends me and some fifty others periodic fresh-off-the press warnings about worms and Trojan horses materializing as unsolicited e-mail messages with attachments that will destroy your computer. Checking his warnings through Internet sources, they all turn out to be revivals of hoaxes, mass messages that were distributed and discredited two or more years ago. Just to quote some, there was the warning not to open attachments to e-mails that say “ It takes guts to say Jesus,” or “A message from a WTC survivor,” else your computer or c-drive would be lost. Another hoax was the warning not to punch the number 90 and # sign when requested by an AT&T technician ostensibly tracking a problem; the crook would be able to charge his bills to you.

There must be someone in Internet Land who periodically re-sends the old hoary tales, once the passage of a year or two has dulled the public’s ability to remember. Others who were taken in include friends, Julie and Tom, who can be counted to send good Jewish jokes mixed with reports of iniquities perpetrated by the Washington crowd. Their most recent missive, of which they were the fifth generation of re-senders, threatens cell phone owners with a flood of telemarketing calls. It sounds credible, but it is a scare and a hoax. To quote it in full:
“Subject: Release of cell phone numbers Date;8/18/2005
“JUST A REMINDER... 31 days from today, cell phone numbers are beingreleased to telemarketing companies and you will start to receive salescalls. YOU WILL BE CHARGED FOR THESE CALLS. To prevent this, call the following number from your cell phone: 888/382-1222. It is the National DO NOT CALL list (sponsored by the Federal Trade Commission). It will only take a minute of your time. It blocks your number for five (5) years. PASS THIS ON TO ALL YOUR FRIENDS! Signed: D. Moe”
This rumor first appeared in December 2004, and was promptly discredited by such hoax hunters as Snopes.com, breakthechain.org and the entertaining urbanlegends.about.com. Nevertheless, such reputable groups as SierraTimes.com and the PalmCoast.org were taken in by the story. The anonymous authors linked it to the then recent national Do Not Call law, under which there was a deadline for requests by the public to be opted-out. Actually, the opting out for subscribers to land-based telephone services - and cells -continues to be available, and the current number of telephone subscribers so registered is at 69 million (May 2005).
What is happening with cell phones is that six service providers – AllTel, At&T Wireless, Cingular, Nextel, Sprint PCS and T-Mobile – had hired Osent, Inc. to produce a wireless 411 directory and service, with lookup charges, same as the land-based 411 and 555-1212 services. It allows for telemarketing, but it is illegal to use automatic dialers to access cell phones. Unsolicited sales calls made before 9 PM on most systems would cost the subscribers valuable minutes and predispose them against the advertiser, therefore one could naturally expect the main volume of telemarketers clogging up your lines in the evening and on charge-free weekends.

Although only those customers who would opt-in were to be included in the directory, and those who would not answer requests would be left out, the directory project naturally invoked protests from user groups. Verizon and US Cellular anticipated trouble and wisely stayed out of the plan, and AllTel and Sprint PCS eventually withdrew, but the others are going ahead, with a planned wireless 411 directory to be implemented in 2006. For those of us the 170 million cell phone users who fear that we might have been enticed into being listed, calling the national Do Not Call service is a good idea.

All of us are vulnerable to invasions of privacy in this techno age, and a number of laws have been put into effect to protect the public, despite certain objections from the strict interpreters of the Constitution, particularly those of the right-to-lifers objecting to Roe v. Wade, who claim that privacy was not part of the Signers’ intent. But privacy has been imbedded in a large body of laws, with federal Do Not Call, HIPAA (vs. unauthorized disclosure of medical information) and other statutes, and state laws supplementing them.

Why the fuss? Well, there are enough attempted infringements to worry about, real intrusions into our privacy. Trumped-up charges, even by well-meaning individuals, confuse the factual issues and serve to discredit real problems. I love getting the jokes, but please be careful, dear friends. By distributing unchecked information you may be spreading fear and perpetuating lies as facts. The era we live in makes us fearful and mistrustful enough as is.

PARK TOWERS NEWSLETTER
201 East 17th Street, New York City
Special Annual Meeting Edition, June 2005

201 East 17th Street (”Park Towers”) Cooperative Annual Meeting onThursday. 6/16/2005 – Notes by Wally Dobelis

Renovation. President Sam Haupt opened the meeting with the good news that
the 100% brick replacement/ renovation will be completed inOctober-November 2005 (that’s 2005, practically tomorrow).

A discussion of future repairs indicated that, having cured the leaks onthe 17th Street plaza and the Local Law 11 façade replacement, we must now think of equivalent maintenance of the 18th Street plaza, of replacement of the main roof and any work indicated for the 3rd Avenue below- street- level plaza accessingthe doctors’ offices. Scheduling will take place in accordance with the evaluation of needs and availability of funds.As to the latter, Fred Rothman, in his Treasurer’s report, supplied thefinancials. There are still projects that need addressing, and the recentrefinancing and increase of the mortgage, from a 7.5% to a 5.33% rate(principal due 2014) was key to paying for required work withoutassessments or maintenance increases (for details see Note 4. of theFinancial Statement). A prepayment by the garage tenant put us nearly outof the coop category (20-80 commercial income ratio) for a month. That hasbeen balanced out, legally, which accounts for the extra statement lines.

Bob Lepisko, in his June-to-June coop apartment sales report, indicated arise in values. The two 2BR apts sold averaged $700k, vs. last year’s$634k (12 apts), and the four 1BRs averaged $426k vs. last year’s $370k (15apts). Susan Steward observed that current listings show a 35% rise. Wow!

Three Board vacancies were open, two incumbents returning (Steward, JackCalcagno) and the third, vacated by Rothman, being contested by MarkGoldman and Dr. Lewis Burrows. The incumbents and Mark Goldman wereelected.

Some questions from the floor:

No, sorry, the roof recreation area will not be reopened for sunbathing this Summer, it is too dangerous.

Window washer – we have no arrangement. Residents must solicit their own contractor for window washing, who is licensed and insured.

Can we expand basement rental storage space? – the Board is investigating the possibility.

Can we stop the 18 Street scaffold vibrations? – have patience, it isnearly over.

Can we remove unsightly remnants of building repairs? – ditto.

Why not prepay the mortgage rather than increase it, since the balloon
payment is due in 10 years? – we refinanced at favorable fixed rate, the alternative would have been assessments or maintenance increases.

Can we explain mysterious dirt on bathroom floor ?– bathroom and kitchen air vents should be vacuumed and cleaned on a regular basis.

At the conclusion of the meeting, the audience extended a vote of thanks to the Board and Mr. Nikc and the building staff for work well done

The Board and the tenancy also offered their sincere condolences to Jack Calcagno,who was unable to attend due to the death of his father on the day of themeeting.

Board of Directors, June 2005:
Jack Calcagno
Mark Goldman
Samuel Haupt
Robert Lepisko
Samuel Lewis (Goodstein)
Kathy McLaughlin
Carole Pfeiffer
Alex Repola
Susan Steward

Building Management
Cheryl Castellano
Peter Nikc

A copy of these minutes will be posted in the blog attached to websitewww.dobelis.net

LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis

Catching up with Community Board #5 activities: the May 12 meeting attracted a huge public attendance, some 70 local citizens. The subject was the design of the 27th Street Commons, a proposal by the Fashion Institute of Technology, contained in application to the NYC Department of Transportation. It involved closing 27th Street westbound between 7th and 8th Avenues, for 2/3 of the long block, to create a pedestrian plaza. The remaining 1/3 of 27th Street would be opened to two-way traffic.

The community objected, citing loss of 70 street parking spots, loss of vehicular access, dangerous double-parking on a two-way street, and inability to turn trucks around. There were 28 speakers against the application, and 18 supporting it. Consequently the meeting ran to 10:30 PM, 2 ½ hours beyond normal. bedtime.

The business meeting of the board opened on the topic, and after a lengthy discussion, the members rejecter the application, 20 to 6, one abstaining. However, as a palliative, the Fashion Center BID (did you know one existed?) was granted the installation of newly designed news racks, to replace the decrepit ones at intersections, as many as 12 in some. The new construct, by Antenna Designs and doubling as planters, will lessen the crowdedness of street corners. Great idea for all areas of the city. Sponsor, anyone?

As for street permits, the Epoch Times [a Falun Gong publication] festival on Lexington Avenue in early July was directed to find a less crowded destination and time, ditto for DETNY Footwear, aiming for Times Square late in June.

Landmarks Committee approved the restoration of the 1151 Broadway (26th St.) building to its pre-WWII status. The 857 Broadway (17th St) building earned the recommendation with reservation, in its effort to change signage, lighting and ironwork at the 1847 neo-Grecian structure built for Peter Goelet [descendents of an ironmonger on Hanover Square, the family became 2nd richest landlords in NYC, after J.J. Astor].

As for the former Tiffany Building, 401 Fifth Ave [37th Street], the application for transfer of 172,000 sq. ft of developmental rights, enough to build a 602 ft. residential tower, was denied, likewise the request for a glass front, as not fitting harmoniously with the neighboring buildings. A glass-front 22-story tower at 39-41 W. 23rd Street was also denied, as unfitting.

The June 9 CB5 full meeting was relatively placid, with normal 15-participant public attendance, and speakers on various topics.

In the business session some holdover street use applications were approved, unenacted due to the loss of quorum when members left the long May meeting. Consents and Variances Committee denied the request for a Pakistan Day Parade and Fair, for Madison Ave (23rd to26th Streets), on August 28. The applicant showed up too late. Likewise, the India Abroad Tourism Exposition, seeking a similar area on June 30, was advised to find a less crowded location and time, as was the World Outreach, September 10, 14th Street and Broadway (bad spot, guys).

The Landmarks Committee approved a storefront infill, restoring the original design, at 16 West 23rd Street, likewise at 20 West 23rd, a neo-Renaissance structure, with a recommendation that the owner copy the design of the existing service doorway, for consistency. A request to legalize an installed flagpole and banner at 24 West 23rd Street was denied as not conforming to the design, and the owner was advised to discuss a more appropriate banner signage with the Landmarks Preservation Commission.

Bank of America’s request to reclad and add signage at 67 Sixth Avenue (21st Street) was approved as appropriate to the surroundings. All of the above buildings are in the Ladies’ Mile Historic District. New signage was approved for the Paramount Building at 1501 Broadway, an individually land marked structure.

As for liquor licenses, were there none applied for in two months? Are we losing our rah-rah reputation? Actually, there was one request, for 14 East 27th Street, the former Social Club. The new owners, Tribeca Entertainment Group, came prepared with a signed affidavit, promising to keep down loud music and noise, discourage parking, clean up the street, not to seek a cabaret license, keep the waiting line inside the premises, and provide the phone number of one of the three owners who will be on premises, and of another, available in emergencies. With that approved, the CB5 members declared a well-deserved adjournment at 8:06 PM, and the neighbors of 14 West 27th can breathe easier, the club owners have signed a document practically guaranteeing protection for your sound sleep.

LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis

Africa should learn the Botswana message

A local reader, who, knowing of my interest in mystery fiction, asked whether a current series about a lady detective in Botswana was based on fact, prompted this discourse.

Anyone who picks up a copy of No 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency, by Alexander McCall Smith, or one of its four sequels, in their bright yellow covers, is bound to be charmed by Mma Precious Ramotswe. her assistant Mma Makutsi who graduated from the Botswana Secretarial School with the unheard-of average of 97, and her husband Rra J.L.B. Matekone, owner of the Tlokweng Road Speedy Motors, who pines for the old days of uncomplicated cars for Botswana’s dusty roads. They all speak in a curiously stilted and formal English, direct translation from the native Setswanan by their creator, author Smith, the law professor who helped set up the Law School at the University of Botswana.

This is a different Africa, of dignified middle-class people who eke out an unsophisticated professional existence on the 1950s level of technology, of their homely problems and positive solutions that leave you with an upbeat feeling about survival of civilization in a complex techno world. Poor Third World countries can rise and survive, despite AIDS and corruption, with or without outside assistance.

Alexander. Smith, born in Zimbabwe, then Rhodesia, came back to Botswana, former British Bechuanaland Protectorate, to help. The county has a history entwined with that of its legendary founder, the late Sir Seretse Khana (1921-80), a hereditary chief who shocked his world by marrying a Scottish wife while at law school. His regent-uncle disowned him, the Brits, courting the South African Boers and other racist colonialists, exiled him in 1951. But the world opinion rose, Seretse returned, formed a democratic party and pressed for independence, which Botswana attained in 1966, with Seretse as the President, in charge until his death of pancreatic cancer in 1980. He fought off the violent independence seekers of South Africa and Rhodesia who wanted him involved, and built a national economy for the Bantus and the Bushmen of the Kalahari in a hostile environment, on the crossroads of Africa. Diamonds, Botswana’s natural resource, provided the stepping stone, ant Botswana now is a middle-income ($6.6K) country despite an adult lifespan of 37 years due to AIDS.

Why such a shocking carnage, in this now prosperous country, size of Texas, with a thin population of 1.5M? Where are the IMF, World Bank, the UN and the US with its AIDS program?

Let’s get the historical overview from economist Jeffrey Sachs, the Harvard wunderkind of post-Soviet economies. In the 1950s the West started feeding the newly decolonized countries with development assistance, for humanitarian reasons as well as an antidote to the USSR’s Marxist propaganda, a mixed and confused effort. In the 1970s-‘80s the World Bank, IMF and regional development agencies, prompted by the US and the UK, reformatted the effort as a “structural adjustment” (or Washington Consensus) requiring that aid recipients adhere to specified market-oriented conditions, such as deregulation of domestic markets, enforcement of state budgets, privatizing of state-owned enterprises, and free access for foreign investment capital. The theory behind the actions promised private investment and successful economic development. In practice the underdeveloped recipients ran up huge debts, spent their income in debt service and sank deeply in distress, and in the 1990s the World Bank and IMF abandoned the structural adjustment practice in favor of a poverty-reduction strategy, China and India, not using the WB/IMF resources, pulled up by themselves, like Botswana, while the former USSR, exposed to the shock therapy of a reborn structural adjustment regime, suffered greatly. As to combating AIDS, there was much denial in the aid recipient nations, deep-set cultural obstacles, and lack of communications, understanding and of everything else that let the epidemic settle in.

Is there an answer? President Bush and Prime Minister Blair are in a dispute over one. Sachs has a technocratic solution, in End of Poverty, Economic Possibilities for Our Time, and his new book. It is a continuation of an UN-based donation program called Millennium Development Goals, with its objective to cut poverty in half now extended to 2025. Preliminary aims are to cut disease, build skills, and improve agriculture.

James Shikwati, an economist with the Kenya-based Region Economic Network, strenuously objects to the gifts, which discourage the African governments from building their countries’ own resources, and encourage the begging for aid, with the politicians getting rich as a side benefit. Booming population growth, with consequent depletion of resources, revolts and internecine warfare contribute to the trouble. The current disaster is Niger, with two million people starving, due to draughts and locust attacks on crops. African economies are strange, agricultural goods imported from neighbors incur an average 33% tariff (ridiculous, Sachs agrees), while European food is charged only 12%. Botswanans spend much of their income in policing the country’s borders, discouraging refugees from starving neighbor states, particularly Zimbabwe. The solution? A blend of Shikwati and Sachs, and less denial from the 53-member African Union.

LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis

Report from the battlefield. That’s what it feels like, when you leave the comfort zone of Union Squareand go downtown. Our area takes the concerns about potential terrorists smoothly, at the city’s fourth largest subway station. You have to go asking questions, to hear of a transit policeperson checking the shoulder bag of a passenger (no backpacks, this is the school holiday period.) But, leaving the IRT Wall Street station, the first thing I noted was a disheveled person at the exit, slowly tucking some miserable-looking personal papers and belongings back into a black zipper bag. The street-dressed detective who had done the search was standing by, gently helping the searchee get it all together.

I would guess thepolice were taking their own advice.In case you are not familiar with the advisory, a week ago the NYPD publicized a memo summarizing the hints of an experienced police sergeant, who had been on TV,giving safety tips to worried bus passengers. Be wary of a transit rider with clenched fists – suicide bombers have used devices that require squeezing the hand-held trigger mechanism; designed to explode when the grip is released. An ordinary bomb that has a gun-type trigger would be disabled if the terrorist were shot and let go of the weapon. The mind boggles.Some of these cautions stem from reports of one of the London bombers. Arider who is nervously feeling under his clothing may be a terroristadjusting the bomb. Also, someone who wears a coat in the summer, or otherunsuitable clothing, or reeks too much of cologne, trying tomask the scent of an explosive. Someone who perspires profusely, or mumbles or chants, avoiding eye contact. Talking with some insurance people at lunch about the subjects, one of them remarked; “that could be any one of our actuaries!” A joke, nevertheless it is serious, since on the subways of our fair city we encounter the floatsam and jetsam of our era. Actually, the homeless, the sleepers and the bag people have been nearly gone from the trains. Part of the police enforcement?All this invariably brings up concerns about stereotyping, or profiling, as the current cant will have it. The police memo carefully avoids any mention of official policy or ethnic types; nevertheless, profiling cannot be avoided. One has to quote Justice Jackson, this time in full: "The choice is not between order and liberty. It is between liberty with order and anarchy without either. There is danger that, if the courtdoes not temper its doctrinaire logic with a little practical wisdom, it will convert the constitutional Bill of Rights into a suicide pact."Thus spoke Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson, in a dissent opinion decades ago. Those among us who protest against searches as intrusive should hear my neighbor, the mother whose student daughter was on Russell Square minutes before the bomb attack. Come on, those of us who have nothing to hide will accept any number of searches, if that inhibits a deadly bomb attack.

Now, profiling. There is an Internet quiz floating around that describes 12 terrorist attacks since 1983 (McVeigh omitted), and gives multiple choice answers for identifying the culprits. In each question, one of the answers is “Mideastern men 17-40 years old,” the correct answer for each of the atrocities. At the end the quizmaster wants to know why do we search grandmas, mothers with strollers and old men, people who have no history. Why waste the time and create inconveniences by randomly selecting the searchees?. The answer is our objection against profiling, the crime of prejudice. Again, one tends to ask the Jackson question. Let’s face it, we, even those of us who never leave East Midtown are living under a threat, and defenses are essential.
Speaking of defenses, a neighbor called, warning that there is no protection against a dirty car bomb exploding on Wall Street, thus closing the country’s major financial institutions for months if not forever, with ill-placed backup facilities, unable to communicate with their Iron Mountain record storage caves. I told him that steel plates rise out of the asphalt on Nassau Street north of Wall, that another set is at 40 Wall, and a third on Exchange Place south of Broadway, along with what I call “street diamonds” (brassy bricks weighing a ton, their edges blunted in a jewel-cut) and cross-parked pickup trucks, all barricading access to the Stock Exchange, America’s symbol of its wealth. But the concern persists – is this another misapplied defense, when Homeland Security should concentrate on the rivers and the boats, and ships, and container docks in Bayonne, and Depository Trust , the world’s clearing house for securities, sitting unprotected on Water Street. But enough already, this thinking leads to paranoia. At least, the Muslim organizations have snapped out of their denial, have issued a fatwa against terrorists, and will actively monitor their reckless young. We may never have peace until Muslim women acquire equality, but it is a hope.