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ction agency today declared brooklyn s gowanus canal a superfund site over the city s objections and after considering the designation for almost a year on a morning conference call with reporters epa regional administrator judith enck announced that after holding over 50 meetings with city officials community leaders and other interested parties and receiving roughly 1300 public comments the agency had decided to add the canal to its national priorities list known as the superfund program we have determined that it is the most efficient and comprehensive cleanup enck said the gowanus canal which was built in the 1860s has long been a heavily polluted industrial waterway lined by coal manufactured gas plants oil refineries chemical plants paint and ink factories tanneries cement makers and machine shops dangerous chemicals coal tar sludge pesticides pcbs and heavy metals are found in abundance in its sediment raw sewage and an oily sheen can be seen on its surface superfund gives a federal mandate to the epa to hold polluters accountable to pay for the cost of the cleanup the epa estimates that cleaning the contamination of the gowanus canal will cost approximately 300 to 500 million and could take 10 12 years many superfund sites have taken decades to clean up due to years of litigation by companies defending against potential responsibility the is not going to happen overnight enck said but added that it took decades for the canal to become polluted so a cleanup that lasts one should be reasonable the debate in the neighborhood over whether to give the canal superfund status had been contentious the bloomberg administration had opposed the superfund designation claiming it would take too long and drive developers away the city had instead proposed its own cleanup plan which it said would not have taken as long due to voluntary agreements with past polluters to cover costs in addition it would have utilized funds from the federal water resources development act enck said her agency had concluded that not enough money would be available to take this path she said there were limited funds available under wrda and too much uncertainty in requiring annual congressional approval of federal money walter mugdan the superfund director for the region said that an agreement has already been reached with one of the potentially responsible parties prps national grid the successor company to brooklyn union gas which owned three manufactured gas plants along the canal other prps include the city of new york the u s navy con ed chemtura corporation rapid american corporation brinks beazer east and cibro petroleum products with others to be identified in the coming months enck also addressed the suggestion in recent weeks that development would be impeded by the superfund listing pro development and business groups have claimed that developers with sites within 3 000 feet of the canal would have difficulty securing private financing and obtaining hud and fha insured loans due to the stigma of a listing unfortunately there is already a stigma there she said i reject this as a reason why development can t move forward the epa s announcement clears the way for the next stage of the process to begin the epa says it hopes to complete a remedial investigation and an ecological and risk assessment by the end of the year leave a comment filed under green sustainability nyc politics tagged as brooklyn gowanus canal judith enck kieran k meadows national priorities list superfund u s epa walter mugdan december 7 2009 11 00 am citing signs of stabilization economists hopeful about next year by kieran k meadows what a difference a year makes jobseekers may not feel better but if you ask economists things are not nearly as bad as they thought they might be looking forward and looking backward we re better off than most people would have imagined at this point said barbara byrne denham an economist for eastern consolidated a real estate investment company just over a year since the financial crisis plunged new york into the depths of recession and uncertainty some economists are now cautiously optimistic about next year s outlook they predict a moderate turnaround in mid 2010 while conceding there s a long road ahead to a full recovery they point to some encouraging signs the economy is stabilizing some say this is largely the result of government intervention the government came in and bailed out the financial firms and they are major employers in new york city said ken mccarthy an economist for cushman wakefield a real estate services firm the financial sector is coming back more quickly than anybody expected after being propped up over the last year by the feds wall street to estimated to make 59 billion in profits in 2009 its highest ever and a complete u turn from huge losses of 11 billion in 2007 and 42 billion in 2008 on thursday the independent budget office reported fewer job losses and higher tax revenues than it had originally projected we expect new york city job losses to be far lower than we anticipated last spring said ronnie lowenstein the director of the ibo the revised report forecasts the city to lose 157 200 jobs from the peak of employment in august 2008 through mid 2010 much fewer than the 254 500 lost jobs from the earlier report that s a huge difference lowenstein said the construction sector has also showed signs it s slowly improving work began at 3 9 billion worth of projects in the third quarter of 2009 twice that of the year s first three months according to an analysis by the new york building congress the state department of labor reported that the city s jobless rate was 10 3 percent in october unchanged from september after deteriorating for months the city s unemployment rate appears to be stabilizing said comptroller william c thompson jr in a statement despite encouraging signs the city is not close to being out of the woods yet unemployment is likely to come down very slowly said rae rosen an economist with the federal reserve bank of new york she says banks are rebuilding capital which limits their ability to make loans to businesses with less access to credit small businesses which are traditionally engines of recovery have been unable to create jobs moreover the unemployment rate will likely inch higher until it levels off at least six months from now after we shed another 50 000 to 75 000 jobs to counteract this trend in 2010 jonathan bowles the director of the center for an urban future says city officials should focus on diversifying our economy to depend less on wall street we need to identify areas where there s substantial opportunities for growth he said citing the tech and creative sectors we attract the most talented and creative people which is a core strength he said new yorkers should hope the city follows the footsteps of the national economy on friday more evidence revealed the u s is turning the corner toward recovery faster than expected the u s unemployment rate dropped from 10 2 percent in october to 10 percent in november perhaps not a significant drop yet symbolic after a year of awful economic news positive job growth at the national level will be a huge boost in morale overall denham said building confidence on wall street and on the part of consumers which can help accelerate the city s economic recovery into the new year leave a comment filed under nyc tagged as 2010 barbara byrne denham center for an urban future comptroller william c thompson jr economy independent budget office jobs jonathan bowles ken mccarthy new york city nys department of labor rae rosen recession ronnie lowenstein unemployment wall street december 6 2009 1 37 pm the governor s power to grant clemency under the new york state constitution the governor has the power to grant clemency to prisoners upon such conditions and with such limitation as he may think proper excluding for crimes of treason or impeachment most states in the u s give the extraordinary power of clemency to governors or at least in some hybrid arrangement with a parole board the issue is currently in the news because of the recent shooting deaths of four police officers in washington state allegedly by maurice clemmons whose prison sentence in arkansas was commuted in 2000 by then gov mike huckabee the speculation is that the willingness of huckabee who ran an upstart presidential campaign in 2008 to grant clemency may hurt his presidential ambitions in 2012 it is in this context that i noticed an excellent post on the new york times city room blog on this very issue it begins this month gov david a paterson will be mulling the fate of roughly 150 inmates in new york prisons who have formally applied for clemency in the hope of having their prison sentences shortened or their criminal convictions forgiven it is a traditional if increasingly rare holiday gesture of mercy over three and a half decades the number of inmates who have had their sentences commuted or convictions pardoned has steadily dropped the post s author a g sulzberger goes on to say that unfortunately many governors now weigh the political consequences of granting clemency particularly if they are to soon to go before the electorate prison advocates like robert gangi director of the correctional association of new york fear that this year gov paterson facing low poll numbers and the upcoming election will grant clemency to few if any inmates similarly in 2006 when then gov george e pataki was mulling over a 2008 presidential run he declined to grant clemency to any inmates one wonders then whether he would have been willing to commute the prison sentence of elaine bartlett in 2000 if he had faced an upcoming election his next was in 2002 or considered vying for a spot on the republican presidential ticket that year i recently finished the book life on the outside the prison odyssey of elaine bartlett which tells bartlett s story of serving a 20 to life sentence for a first time drug offense under the rockefeller drug laws until pataki commuted her sentence after 16 years it was tough enough for bartlett to receive clemency when pataki did not face the circumstances described above so i can only imagine if he had she probably would have served at least another four years when in truth she should have been granted clemency after ten half of the minimum of the sentence but in 1995 pataki had just been elected in the mold of a law and order republican surely not someone who was going to be granting clemency but after watching this clip of pataki last week considered a dark horse for the 2012 republican presidential nod drawing a contrast between his record and that of huckabee i get the feeling that elaine bartlett was lucky to have received a commutation at all 1 comment filed under criminal justice tagged as a g sulzberger city room clemency correctional association of new york elaine bartlett gov david paterson gov george pataki kieran k meadows life on the outside the prison odyssey of elaine bartlett maurice clemmons mike huckabee new york state robert gangi rockefeller drug laws the new york times november 29 2009 5 18 pm ny high court rejects prison phone rate refund lawsuit the new york state court of appeals dismissed a lawsuit last week brought by prisoners families seeking refunds for the exorbitant phone rates it cost them to speak to their loved ones behind bars the class action suit walton v nysdocs was filed in 2004 by the center for constitutional rights on behalf of prisoners families and friends who for years had paid inflated rates for collect calls due to the state s monopoly contract with mci verizon lawyers for the families said that the excessively high rates amounted to an unfair and unlawful tax that resulted in millions of dollars being paid over a number of years the prison telephone service contract stipulated that mci pay the state 57 5 percent of the fees received from prisoners collect calls then mci would be allowed to charge well over the market rate a 3 connection surcharge and between 16 and 36 cents per minute the rate of a collect call from a federal prison is 7 cents per minute most of new york s calls are from prisons upstate to loved ones in new york city mostly due to the long struggle waged by the new york campaign for telephone justice upon arrival to office in 2007 gov eliot spitzer halted the arrangement rates then fell to about half of what they had been in june 2007 the state legislature made gov spitzer s decision into a law the family connections bill lawyers for the plaintiffs said that families were paying up to 300 or 400 per month to speak to their loved ones who were incarcerated since 1996 they said the state had collected about 200 million in profits from kickbacks outlined in the phone service arrangement with mci the lawyers maintain that families are owed compensation for this unnecessary burden the high court s 5 1 decision affirmed a lower court s ruling that the families had failed to assert a legitimate claim under the the state constitution the court said the the policy was bad but not unconstitutional 1 comment filed under activism criminal justice tagged as center for constitutional rights eliot spitzer family connections bill kieran k meadows mci new york campaign for telephone justice new york state court of appeals new york state department of correctional services prison verizon walton v nysdocs november 28 2009 7 06 pm inmates to work for nonprofits with details to be worked out in assembly by kieran k meadows state and local inmates will soon be able to work for nonprofit agencies again and this time it will be legal new york voters approved a ballot proposition in the recent general election that allows prisoners to perform volunteer work for nonprofit organizations the result now enables the state assembly to begin drafting a law outlining guidelines on how the work would be done the prisoner advocacy community is planning to make a concerted effort to influence the bill s content prisoners in new york have long worked on municipal jobs such as being part of a crew that cleans up a state run site like a park the ballot measure s passing by 68 to 32 percent clears up a legal question that had halted sheriff sponsored programs that had brought inmates to work at charities fairgrounds cemeteries churches and other nonprofits this just makes it possible once again said john caher spokesman for the state division of criminal justice services the practice had been considered illegal due to a provision in the state constitution that says no prisoner shall be farmed out contracted given or sold to any person firm association or corporation the constitution however does permit prisoners to work for public purposes on state projects according to caher the state commission of correction four years ago advised sheriffs to discontinue the practice of allowing inmates to work for nonprofits since then the new york ...