Hudson Democracy

No Shelter for N.Y.C., N.J., L.I. as Irene Moves In

Storm track, 1 a.m., August 28

Hurricane Irene is moving through New Jersey, according to the latest projections moving just along the coast, brushing the Island Beach State Park area. Heavy rains here in Jersey City at 1 a.m. National Hurricane Center predicting secondary landfall near the Rockaways. History after the jump:

Irony In Our Schools

The Bloomberg school of school reform dictates heavy reliance on standard test scores, in order to evaluate student progress and teacher effectiveness. Mayor Bloomberg has appointed Cathie Black to run the schools, a former publishing C.E.O. to run the schools who doesn't meet the statutory requirements to be a New York schools chancellor. She has received a waiver of the requirements from the state commissioner of education, based on her extraordinary and hugely successful business career. There's a great irony here.

On the Split

So it turns out the Republican Party is not exactly on a roll. Tonight's primaries show a party very close to splitting in two. 

In Delaware's Republican Senate primary, Christine O'Donnell, an absolutely unknown right-wing candidate, whose previous political experience mainly involved advocating for abstinence and speaking out against masturbation, defeated Mike Castle, a former governor and stalwart Republican who has held Delaware's at-large House of Representatives seat since 1993.

In New York, Carl Paladino, a Buffalo real estate developer who sent obscene and racist e-mails to dozens of his business associates, including one mocking the president's race and others depicting bestiality, which his spokesman acknowledged and called simply "politically incorrect", beat Republican also-ran Rick Lazio in the Republican primary for the governor's race. 

New York Is Broke, Too

New York State is getting close to zero:

Without a budget deal, New York will be left with just $36 million in the bank by the end of December, according to current projections. And the money will last that long, officials say, only if the state chooses to fully exhaust its emergency reserves by tapping several billion dollars’ worth of temporary loans from its rainy-day fund and short-term investments. ...

In modern times, the state’s general fund has never had a negative balance, according to the state comptroller’s office. If New York does in fact run out of cash, it will have to delay paying some of its biggest bills. Chief among the bills the state will face in December are $1.6 billion in aid the state is supposed to pay school districts, $2.5 billion in property tax relief to individual homeowners, and $500 million in general aid meant to go to local governments. ...

There have already been any number of ways that the strain on the budget has been felt across the state. Billions of dollars worth of scheduled increases in school aid, enacted by Gov. Eliot Spitzer to settle a long-running lawsuit over the distribution of school aid, will be stretched out over seven years instead of four. Taxes on the wealthy have been raised, and fees of all kinds have been increased.

For the first time in decades, the state Police Academy probably will not have a new class for either the fall or the spring. The state has closed three upstate minimum-security prison camps and six facilities operated by the Office of Children and Family Services. Hours have been limited and facilities closed at parks including Jones Beach, and parks across the state are mowing fewer lawns to save money. The state ice rink was closed last winter.

Budget watchdogs say far steeper cuts are needed to reckon with deficits that will escalate sharply in 2011 as federal stimulus money runs out and the new wealth tax expires.

New Jersey is also in dire straits.

D.C.

Other Business: On the Waterfront

The Waterfront Commission, established in 1953 to eradicate mafia control and corruption at the New York and New Jersey ports, is now itself corrupt, according to a report by the New York inspector general.

From the Star-Ledger:

"This was a total agency breakdown," declared Inspector General Joseph Fisch. "Instead of ridding the waterfront of corruption, this agency itself was corrupt. What you have here is a sanctuary of political favoritism, corruption and abuse." …

"It wasn't a single person, but the people who ran the agency -- from the commissioners to the general counsel to an acting police chief," Fisch said. "It was difficult to scratch the surface without finding some abuse or corruption."

Gov. Jon Corzine, briefed on the report three weeks ago, has already fired Michael Madonna, the commissioner representing New Jersey, according to the governor's office. Madonna, a former state PBA president and a retired police detective, did not answer his phone at his Oakland home.