Michael Nelson // Source: council.nyc.gov
City Councilman Michael Nelson is demanding the United States Department of State reverse a policy allowing foreign governments to skip out on millions of dollars in city property taxes.
His criticism comes as a panel of federal judges ruled that foreign governments are exempt from local property taxes, citing State Department policy.
But the policy is new, according to the local legislator, and it’s a snub to city residents.
Nelson said a 2009 decision by the State Department exempts foreign governments from local property taxes on portions of their diplomatic office being used for non-diplomatic purposes. According to Nelson, the fed’s stance prior to the new policy was that United Nations missions must pay relevant taxes on those properties, but now the city can’t get them to pay up.
Nelson’s office estimates that New York City is expected to lose approximately $260 million in back taxes and about $7 million a year in current tax revenues.
“Although I am proud and honored that New York City is home to the United Nations, I am deeply concerned about the impact this court ruling will have on local revenue and the message it will send to other nations,” said Councilman Nelson. “I recognize the right to exempt certain properties occupied by foreign governments from paying property taxes yet I firmly believe this should not apply to properties that are used for anything other than diplomatic purposes. Therefore, it is more imperative now than ever that the State Department reverse its policy.”
Source: council.nyc.gov
New York Post is beating up on City Councilman Lew Fidler after discovering that he’s involved with a company profiting from police brutality cases.
Fidler serves as the general counsel for LawCash, a company that gives cash advances to people it believes will win a lawsuit, and then takes a hiked-up interest rate after a winning verdict. According to the New York Post, LawCash’s roster of clients includes many high-profile police-brutality suits, including Joseph Guzman, a victim of the hail of bullets that killed Sean Bell, and Abner Louima.
UPDATE (8/24/2010): Fidler contacted Sheepshead Bites with additional information about LawCash and the criticism from a Supreme Court Justice. See his response at the end of the post.
The councilman is well taken care of by the firm, which he said pays him between $60,000 and $80,000 – a nice part-time gig to supplement his $127,500 salary as a council member.
But is it a conflict of interest for a city legislator to be “betting against the city,” as the NY Post labels it? Not according to Fidler.
“There is no contact with the city of New York,” Fidler told the newspaper. “What possible conflict would there be, as I do no business with the city?” Fidler added that he doesn’t have any choice in which plaintiffs to invest in, and that decision is left to the company’s underwriters.
Keep reading to see other reactions to Fidler’s involvement with LawCash, and weigh in on the topic.
Congressman Weiner and Councilman Fidler in a pointlessly photoshopped image.
Councilman Lew Fidler isn’t finding an ally in Congressman Anthony Weiner for his crusade to protect consumers from feuding cable companies and content providers. But the councilman says it’s just a matter of time before he successfully woos the federal representative to his aid.
Fidler is pushing a City Council resolution to urge the federal government to support new rules governing deal-making between over-the-air broadcasters and their cable foes.
In a comment left on Sheepshead Bites, the councilman asked constituents to contact their federal representatives and “DEMAND that broadcast stations—the ones who seek and accept a license from the FCC to use YOUR public airwaves—NOT be permitted to charge retransmission fees. I will stay on this soapbox and continue to raise this issue tho the City Council has limited power over this largely Federal issue.”
Fidler will need the aid of federal representatives, since the companies are governed by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). Legislators will need to direct the agency to take up the issue and enact new policies.
But Congressman Weiner is reluctant to get involved, and said the contracts are a private business issue and should be left between the participants.
Keep reading to see what Weiner had to say and how Fidler reacts, as well as why the councilman thinks this is an important issue for all consumers.
Walmart’s best opportunity for a Brooklyn location is still the soon-to-be-built Gateway II development. But one lawmaker said he’s got the developer’s word that Walmart won’t be considered.
City Councilman Charles Barron, whose district covers the proposed Gateway II shopping center, said he extracted a promise during the site’s approval process that Related Cos. – the developer – wouldn’t accept Walmart as an anchor tenant.
“I had to accept Related’s verbal commitment,” Barron told NY Post. “If they want to go against their word, they’re going to have to deal with city officials in other projects who will see them as a company that cannot be trusted.”
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City Councilman Lew Fidler is in his final term, and recent fundraising victories are spurring politicos to speculate about his future.
According to NY Observer’s Azi Paybarah, Fidler packed a star-studded fundraiser last Thursday. The councilman is increasingly portrayed as the foe to Mayor Bloomberg and Democratic County Leader Vito Lopez. The growing distance between those unpopular public nuisances, his swelling war chest, and his impending departure from the council are creating a perfect storm for educated guessing.
The result? City Hall News toys with the idea of a run for Brooklyn district attorney, bolstered by his close association with current D.A. Hynes.
The Observer contacted Fidler, who responded by e-mail:
I don’t know Azi. I really don’t. I have a philosophy about these things. If you do your current job and do it well, opportuniites present themselves. I am not going to spend the next three and a half years running around the City trying to fit a round peg into a square hole. There are a lot of ways to serve. I do not intend to ride off into the sunset. I guess I am proud of my record, proud of the nice array of core support that I have as evidenced by the Club dinner, and maybe even especially proud of the diversity of that support.
Whatever his intention, the Observer’s Payharah intones, Fidler’s star is rising. What that means for his district, which includes parts of Sheepshead Bay, Marine Park and Gerritsen Beach, remains to be seen.
Though Walmart hasn’t confirmed any Brooklyn openings, they’ve started taking on critics who say their non-union jobs would do harm to the borough’s workforce.
“A majority of national retail is non-union,” Steven Restivo, Walmart’s director of community affairs, told Brooklyn Paper. “When you look at retail and what we offer employees, we’re very competitive to both full-time and part-time workers.” He added that chain stores as Target, Walgreens, Best Buy, Home Depot and Lowe’s are all non-union.
An employee at one of Target’s three Brooklyn locations told the paper part-time employees start at $8.50 an hour, comparable to wages earned at a New Jersey Walmart. According to an employee, part-time Walmart employee wages range from $8–$15 per hour, depending on department.
But union reps aren’t buying it. They say Walmart is different than Target because of the larger role it plays in the American business scene. Walmart is the nation’s top retailer in sales, while Target is the fifth largest.
“Walmart may create jobs on the front end, but they erode them later,” Stuart Appelbaum, president of the city’s retail, wholesale and department store union, told the paper. “Union-busting, neighborhood-crushing Walmart forces out good jobs and reliable retailers while bringing down wages and benefits.”
Courtesy of Koonisutra via Flickr
From Crain’s New York:
The 630,000-square-foot Gateway II shopping center off Jamaica Bay in Brooklyn is among the sites Walmart is eyeing in a renewed push to build its first New York City store, sources familiar with the situation say.
Union leaders, fearful of a potential Walmart deal at the Related Cos.-owned site near Spring Creek Towers, are planning a protest in the next 10 days, but so far both the Arkansas-based retail giant and the developer insist there is nothing to announce.
“We know that New Yorkers want to shop and work at Walmart, and as a result, we continue to evaluate potential opportunities here,” says Steven Restivo, the company’s director of community affairs. “New Yorkers want quality jobs and affordable groceries, and it remains our goal to be part of the solution.”
So far, no lease has been signed between Walmart and Related Cos. But, according to Crain’s, Gateway offers an as-of-right development site, meaning Walmart’s plans won’t need to be voted on by the City Council, where the elected are heavily dependent on union votes.
Gateway is also looking pretty snazzy to Walmart suits because it has a “low-income population nearby and pent-up demand for jobs and supermarkets.”
Walmart in Brooklyn’s Gateway Shopping Center? Keep reading.
From Courier-Life:
Still fuming from the WABC–Cablevision fiasco of two weeks ago that caused southern Brooklynites to miss Academy Awards’ slam-bang opening number, Fidler said he’s putting forward two City Council resolutions he hopes will change how cable companies haggle with networks in their continuing price war.
Every 10 years, cable companies re-negotiate their contracts with television networks. While the negotiations were supposed to take place in 2008, they were postponed to this year, explained Fidler, who said that the average viewer is the one who misses out when two titans like these clash over pricing.
“Over the last number of months, myself and other viewers have gotten increasingly pissed off with how the cable industry is running,” Fidler said. “They seem to hold viewers in a low regard. We’re being held hostage.”
…
In his resolutions, Fidler calls upon the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to pass a regulation that would ensure that any television company that broadcasts on the airwaves — like WABC or any other network television channel — cannot charge a cable provider any more than the cost of linking the channel up to the cable system.
What do you think? Should the city government be looking out for our entertainment interests? Or is this something that market forces would rectify on their own?
Councilman Michael C. Nelson is pushing a new bill that would give a free pass to recipients of parking tickets that have wracked up late fees. You can read the press release below.
I’m not a driver, so I don’t have parking tickets. My general reaction to this is that it’s plainly unfair to give forgiveness to people too irresponsible to pay their bills on time. Parking tickets are a problem in this city, for sure, and the city could use the immediate revenues this would produce. But none of this is a real solution. Instead, it seems to me the city should lean on those who haven’t paid and get every penny the taxpayers are owed. Simultaneously, there should be reform in the way parking tickets are given out to reduce excessive and abusive ticketing processes.
But again, I’m not a driver, so maybe it looks different from your side of the windshield. I welcome your opinion.
Here’s the release:
Councilman Nelson Introduces Parking Violations Amnesty Program Legislation
(City Hall) – Council Member Michael C. Nelson proudly announces the introduction of legislation which, if passed into law, will initiate a forgiveness program for parking violation penalties. Introduction 22-2010, which is co-sponsored by Public Advocate Bill de Blasio, is modeled after the same concept as the ECB forgiveness program implemented by the Council last year. The ECB bill provided an opportunity for individuals, who were issued violations by various city agencies (Department of Buildings, Consumer Affairs, Sanitation, etc.) and were currently in default to eliminate their debt with the city by paying only the base fine, thereby avoiding all penalties.
Click to keep reading the release
