....February 9, 4:00 PM
 
 
   
NY News Blame, Game, and Shame

Kitty Genovese, who was slain on a Queens street, became a symbol of urban apathy.
By MICHAEL SCHENKLER

A quick react to some recent items in the news and on my desk:

PAROLE DENIED FOR KITTY GENOVESE KILLER
Last week on Feb. 3, Winston Moseley, one of the most notorious names in Queens criminal history, was denied parole after spending almost 40 years in prison.

Winston Moseley killed Kitty Genovese on March 13, 1964, on the Kew Gardens street where she lived. More than 3 dozen people heard her screams during the attack which spanned a half an hour,and did not respond. The attack began at 3:20 a.m. as Genovese was returning home from work. Her struggle and screams lasted for a half an hour causing many lights to be turned on and off in her 10-floor apartment building. The first call was recorded by police at 3:50 a.m. from a neighbor of Genovese who reportedly said: “”I didn’t want to get involved.”

The story of the Genovese murder became an almost instant condemnation of urban apathy in New York City.

It was the twelfth time that Moseley, who is now 70 years old, has been turned down by the State Division of Parole.

He may apply again in two years. Published reports indicated in his parole hearing, his defense asserted that “For a victim outside, it’s a one-time or one-hour or one-minute affair, but for the person who’s caught, it’s forever.”

Initially sentenced to die in the electric chair – back when “old sparky” was the legal and New York’s way of dealing with murderers – he was later re-sentenced after State Court of Appeals intervention.

The 38 people who failed to respond to Kitty Genovese’s cries for help were punished only by their consciences.

PRESIDENT’S FRIEND BETTS ON NYC2016







Do the words of President Bush’s confidant Ronald Betts foretell a NYC 2016 Olympic effort?


Roland Betts, a classmate, former business partner and close personal friend of President George Bush may have given the Yale Daily News a scoop of interest to Queens and New York City readers.

The Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity brother of W, who served on the US Olympic Committee and was a member of the board of directors of the 2012 NYC Olympic effort, was just invited to join a presidential delegation to the 2006 Olympic Games in Turin, Italy.

In a subsequent interview with the Yale Daily News, Betts said, “We are still giving serious thought to bidding for the Games in 2016 for New York, so it’s important to keep touching the IOC bases,”

Betts, who is founder and chairman of the Chelsea Piers and was previously the lead owner of the Texas Ranger baseball team with partner George W Bush, told the Yale Daily: “The opportunity to interact with members of the International Olympic Committee is valuable given the possibility of another New York bid for the 2016 Games,.”

The Betts comments are the first positive signs for a NYC 2016 Olympic effort which previously have been dismissed by the Bloomberg administration.

Is there hope?

ANOTHER HIDDEN TAX COURTESY OF ALBANY
So, Ria, my comptroller, gives me this New York State Unemployment Tax bill for several thousand dollars more than I had budgeted. I don’t take to such surprises lightly and insisted on an explanation.

The ever-ready Ria knew the scoop and explained that New York State had failed to repay a loan to the Federal Government and as a result NYS business owners are being taxed to cover the cost.

What?

The NYS Department of Labor Web site explains: New York State borrowed $400 million from the federal government in 2003 to keep the NY state unemployment insurance fund solvent in the wake of a surge of layoffs post-9/11.

Federal law provides the borrower two years to repay the debt before a mandatory federal FUTA tax assessment is levied to make up the debt. Additionally, after the two year period expires, interest on the unpaid loan must be paid. NYS law provides that the interest payment is to be funded annually by an Interest Assessment Surcharge on NYS employers.

The bill I was looking at was an Interest Assessment Surcharge for 2005 at the rate of 0.05%. In subsequent years, it will be hidden within the quarterly assessments.

So our State legislature borrows money in order to keep our unemployment tax system whole. The State fails to repay the money and all New York employers are assessed – and for how long?

No, that’s not a new tax on business. It’s just business as usual in Albany.

Michael Schenkler can be reached via this contact form.

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Primary Elections Replace Judicial Conventions

Henry Stern
By HENRY STERN

The most important political event in New York in 2006 was a decision handed down last Friday by Federal Judge John Gleeson of the Eastern District of New York, which ruled unconstitutional the judicial conventions through which party bosses have chosen State Supreme Court Justices for a century.

Judge Gleeson ruled that the convention system, in which judges are hand-picked by delegates chosen for that purpose, usually officers of local political clubs, deprives the public of its legal right to participate in the selection of judges. Under current rules, all judges in New York State except Supreme Court Justices are either appointed by elected officials or chosen in open primary elections.

The convention system for Supremes has resulted in the evils of judges buying their judicial offices from county bosses. The grateful beneficiaries of these nominations are sometimes expected to assume obligations to the men who put them there, which may influence their decisions in cases directly involving the leader or his clients, or in cases where litigants have appealed to the county leader to intervene, in the style of The Godfather, who assisted his people in the settlement of disputes. Judges have also tried to recover the money they paid for their robes by extorting sums from litigants that appear before them.

The reality of the current judicial nominating process is that the delegates ‘elected’ by the voters, are in fact persons unknown to the great majority of voters, who ritually approve the nominees of the county political organization. If the election is not publicly contested, the names of the nominees do not even appear on the ballot. The judicial candidates of the Democratic Party, in boroughs where that nomination is tantamount to election, are in fact chosen by party bosses, sometimes in exchange for substantial sums of money, theoretically intended for campaign expenses, but often finding their way into the political leader’s pockets, or to favored business firms for minimal and totally unnecessary goods and services. The businesses (pollsters, printers and publicists) launder the boodle before paying off those in power who had sent the judicial candidates to them to be fleeced.

HOPE FOR FURTHER REFORM
It was in a Brooklyn case in which Judge Gleeson’s decision was in the finest tradition of responsible judicial activism. He found an undemocratic situation in which the people were left powerless to elect judges. The concentration of power in one man or a tiny group spawned other evils. Just as it is dictatorships that start wars rather than democracies, it is political dictators who plunder and twist the mechanisms of justice to serve their own ends. And for every crime in the courts that is exposed and punished, think of how many wrongs are done of which we are unaware. Bribery is a crime of consent and collusion, and it is rare for a victim of extortion to make a complaint.

The underlying principle here is that if a system is too unfair and unbalanced, giving power to one at the expense of everyone else, the courts will intervene. There is wide latitude allowed in methods of election and districting.

The State Legislature now has the opportunity to reform the system to comply with Constitutional requirements of access and fairness. Our prediction is that they will be unable to do so, they can’t even agree on buying voting machines. The matter will inevitably return to the courts. There is a particular problem here with judges seeking re-election. If we want them out of politics, we cannot require them to raise substantial sums for advertising in order to remain on the bench.

If there is an appeal to the Supreme Court, the issue here is what level of unfairness must be reached to raise a Constitutional issue. We believe that deprivation of the right to vote is eminently unfair. The public has a fundamental right to elect judges, or to delegate that right to an official whom they have elected.

Beset by murdered children and transit strikes, it is comforting to reflect that something has happened which, if followed up, will lead to a more honest judiciary, which is required if justice is to be done for all people, rich or poor, wired to the political machines, or independent of them.

One cannot write about this case without thanking the Brennan Center for Justice, which brought the lawsuit. While we do not necessarily agree with every case they bring, this case was in the best tradition of the quest for honesty, decency and fairness.

We know Justice Brennan would be proud.
starquest@nycivic.org

Not4Publication.com by Dom Nunziato
Michael Schenkler can be reached via this contact form.