Azi Paybarah

Freezing wages and capping property taxes are the only budget-cutting solutions that are overwhelmingly popular with New York State voters, according to a new survey by Quinnipiac University.

But the survey also found cuts to two of the most expensive programs in the budget - education and Medicaid - resoundingly unpopular.

Quinnipiac:

82-13 support capping property taxes
75-20 support a wage freeze for state workers
52-30 support furloughs of state workers
47-45 oppose layoffs of state workers
55-38 oppose reducing pension benefits for state workers
69-28 oppose cutting Medicaid funding
79-18 oppose cutting aid to public schools

All of this underscores the heavy lift facing Cuomo when he presents his budget to legislators next week.

My story:

Afterwards, Bloomberg released a statement calling the omission of gun control from the speech "disappointing."

Considering the effort Bloomberg put into forcing the issue onto the president's radar, that appears to be an understatement.

Leading up to Obama's third State of the Union speech, Bloomberg hosted 34 people who lost family members to gun violence — one for each person who, on average, are killed in America every day by guns. Among those represented were victims of the Virginia Tech shooting, the recent Tuscon shooting, and even Martin Luther King III, son of the slain civil rights leader.

At the event, Bloomberg said the nation needed someone with "courage" to address the issue.

Later that same day, Bloomberg appeared on CBS with Katie Couric — along with King — to further press his case.

The day of the speech, the coalition Bloomberg founded to combat "illegal guns" published an open letter to the president in the Washington Post. Hours before the speech, Bloomberg's office announced he would be joined at City Hall on Wednesday by "Gifford's hero intern" who "cared for Rep. Gabrielle Giffords after she was shot."

Democratic Rep. Carolyn McCarthy of Long Island said, "I'm disappointed that President Obama did not urge us to look at our nation's gun laws."

McCarthy — a gun control advocate spurred to action after her husband was gunned down on the Long Island Railroad — added, "I look forward to continuing that path and hearing from our president in the future."

Democratic Rep. Anthony Weiner also thought that the Arizona tragedy provided Obama a moment to lean into what has normally been a difficult issue.

"In a speech that seemed to strive for common ground, he missed a chance for common sense on guns," Weiner said.

Remarks of President Barack Obama – As Prepared for Delivery

State of the Union Address
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
Washington, DC

As Prepared for Delivery—

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Vice President, Members of Congress, distinguished guests, and fellow Americans:

Tonight I want to begin by congratulating the men and women of the 112th Congress, as well as your new Speaker, John Boehner. And as we mark this occasion, we are also mindful of the empty chair in this Chamber, and pray for the health of our colleague – and our friend – Gabby Giffords.

An unscientific, unofficial poll from ItsAFreeCountry.org (ItsAFreeCountry.org)

45 percent of It's a Free Country readers say it's "to be part of a national moment." Nearly 19 percent say to see if they "can fall back in love" with Obama.

I'm not sure what I agreed to by attending It's a Free Country's State of the Union Watch Party, co-hosted by featuring Story Pirates, at the Greene Space...but I'm seeing wigs and hearing music.

And there's plenty of beer.

Any dispatches from wherever you're watching the speech tonight will be a welcomed distraction.

A list of the 31 new, tech-savvy people recently hired by the Long Island-based daily, courtesy of a well-placed source.

Here's where they're going:

13-Long Island desk

10 -Newsday.com

4-news desk

2-"presentation desk"

1-Explore L.I.

1-Sports

It represents one of the largest infusions of new blood at the storied news outlet. They're already ahead of the curve, having already erected a paywall behind which nearly all their content resides. The New York Times is following suit shortly (after aborting an earlier attempt at it years ago).

The emphasis here seems to be on more local coverage, and more online friendly content.

Newsday is planning a party on February 2 in their offices to welcome all the new hires. So, I'll be loitering in their parking lot that day for more information.

MIchael Bloomberg on Election Day, 2009. He called the 2010 primaries a "royal screw up" by NYC election officials. (azi paybarah / wnyc)

New York City Board of Elections officials said at a public hearing today that four people have submitted resumes to become the next executive director, which was vacated in October.

The job came open in October when the previous executive director was fired.

Considering all the crap that comes with the job, the number of applicants is somewhat impressive.

The mayor said their handling of the primaries last year was a "royal screw up." And, although many good people work for the department, it appears that they're outnumbered by uniquely unqualified temporary workers (i.e. poll watchers) and spectacularly connected year-round employees (i.e. hacks).

But one other thing may be preventing people from applying for the job: a lack of a help wanted ad.

According to colleague John Keefe - who was at the meeting - a job description for the unfilled position "doesn't exist."

The city's new Chief Digital Officer is getting an informative conversationbrewing, by asking one simple question.

Some answers:

"We need to create solutions that are much more about empowering those who *don't* live with the latest cutting-edge tech all the time."

"apartment buildings are ripe for sharing platforms via web or mobile apps. Sharing vaccuum cleaners. Buying bulk foods. Coordinating child care."

"I'd like to see more anonymous data collection and analysis to improve the city's services."

"putting GPS units with 3G wireless antennas onto NYC buses. Citizens could use an app or even call a phone number (for those who still have features phones) to get the exact location and expected arrival time of the next bus."

"NYC gov't should be a platform that anyone can build their own services / businesses on top of. NYC doesn't have to provide the services, just the ability for its entrepreneurs to do so."

"Set up ways for the educators in the city schools to be able to talk to each other more freely."

"Several Facebook fan pages would need to be set up: ideally one per department."

(azi paybarah / wnyc)

Or something like that.

Rachel Sterne's job as NYC's chief digital officer won't be easy, and comes at a particularly crucial time for the Bloomberg administration.

My story:

For one, Sterne's hire comes at a time when more questions are being raised about Bloomberg's management of city government and it's information flow.

The CityTime project — which was supposed to save the city millions through computerizing its payroll system — has exploded in costs and has been acknowledged as a catastrophe.

The botched snow removal over Christmas highlighted what critics said were inadequate communication channels between city agencies, and between city government and its citizens. Also, Bloomberg's refusal to disclose his location, or that of his top aides who were coordinating snow removal efforts, has led to calls for disclosing their whereabouts more frequently.

Also, earlier efforts to disseminate information collected by the city agencies met resistance from top aides to the mayor.

On June 29, 2009, City Councilwoman Gale Brewer of Manhattan's West Side hosted a hearing on her legislation that would compel city agencies to publish "raw data" it collects online.

Arguing against the legislation were Sami Naim, assistant counselor to Bloomberg, and Ariel Dvorkin, special assistant for policy and government.

They said releasing raw data would be too complex for most users to comprehend.

"You might have a thousand records that you can say in two lines. Our goal is to be as user-friendly with the public as possible," Naim said.

Later, he added, "It’s not how much paper can you put up on the Internet."

Rep. Grimm wants to repeal the new federal healthcare legislation, saying it's costly and ineffective. (azi paybarah / wnyc)

Around the 7-minute mark in this debate about health care on NY1 last night, freshman Republican Rep Michael Grimm said, "I have yet to meet a doctor who thinks this is a good plan."

A spokesman for the DCCC, Josh Scherwin says that's because Grimm isn't looking hard enough.

"The AMA, the largest association of doctors in America, supported the Affordable Care Act, so if Representative Michael Grimm has never met a doctor who thinks it’s a good plan, it speaks more about Michael Grimm’s outreach to his constituents than it does about the health care law."

A spokesman for the p.r. firm run by Mark Penn, Burson Marsteller, is calling Rachel Maddow's description of them tonight inaccurate and misleading.

Maddow singled out Penn's company for having represented the people behind the "1976 Argentian military junta" and "that super creepy Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu."

"They had an American p.r. firm, working for them," Maddow said.

"Burson Marsteller, remember them? The p.r. firm now run by Hillary Clinton's pollster from 2008, Mark Penn, who continues to pop up as a talking head. Burson Marsteller represented those guys. They also represented Indonesia when they were putting down the uprising in East Timor. Three days after 9/11, Saudi Arabia hired Burson Marsteller, I wonder why?"

A spokesman for the Burson Marsteller, said Maddow's piece is misleading, and unfairly tries to tie the company's current leader to former clients that predated him. Penn joined Burson Marsteller in 2005, years after the junta, Indonesia and Saudia Arabian clients contacted the firm. The people cited by Maddow are no longer clients of Burson Marsteller, according to the spokesman.

The news hook of Maddow's piece is the return of Baby Doc to Haiti - the country he and his father terrorized. Doc now employs a former Republican congressman, Bob Barr.

Maddow said the practice of having unsavory, foreign leaders hire American companies who have ties to politicians here is, um, unseemly, at best.

"There is this class of american politicos who build up their rolodex and reputation and D.C. contacts and political capital by participating in American politics," she said, "but then they sell it abroad. They sell all that clout they build up here to the world's scuzziest dictators in the world."

"But it's not just Mark Penn and Bob Barr. This is a big industry," said Maddow.

Maddow criticized Rudy GIuliani for ripping up a $10 million check from a Saudi Prince who was critical of American foreign policy, but later accepting as a client, the Saudi government.

A fun, and live, conversation about Wikileaks

Vito Lopez, the Brooklyn Democratic Leader, will be speaking to the Manhattan-based club this Wednesday, at 8 p.m. at the LGBT Community Center (208 West 13th Street).

Lopez has weathered a storm of scrutiny over the lax financial oversight at the non-profit organization he founded. There's also a budding, yet not quite ripe, rebellion to his control of the Democratic organization in Brooklyn, thanks to the Obama-inspired young turks at the New Kings Democrats.

On LGBT issues, Lopez has been ahead of the curve. He announced, via press release, his support of same-sex marraige, way back in 2006 - about two and a half years before Chuck Schumer and other New York officials came around to it.

Other people speaking at Stonewall on Wednesday include Assemblywoman Linda Rosenthal and City Councilwoman Rosie Mendez, both of Manhattan.

Lopez chairs the housing committee in the Assembly; Rosenthal chairs the Mitchell-Lama Housing sub-committee, and Mendez chairs the Public Housing Committee in the City Council.

It's not that Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver expressed support for non-partisan redistricting that's so interesting in this interview with Sam Roberts, but the caveat that he attaches to it.

"To send a few professors out with a cookie-cutter and just have them plop districts down as they see fit, i don't think serves the people of this state. It doesn't serve the people of my community, especially with interpretations of the Civil Rights law, as they are now."

Silver also lays out a compromise on disclosing outside sources of income, and offers and complex view on the commuter tax.

Nate Silver has a counter-intuitive take on why Andrew Cuomo is proceeding so cautiously into his first budget presentation: despite the large election he won, he isn't coming to Albany with much of a mandate.

Appearing on the New Yrok Times Close-Up this weekend, Silver said:

Cuomo won a weird election. it was more of an anti-[Carl]Paladino vote. It wasn't really a mandate, despite the size of the margin. He had a very low turnout throughout the state. So, he's still introducing himself to New Yorkers. And I don't think we've really fully formed our opinions about him yet. So I think, especially now, his first major action - the way it's portrayed - could shape perceptions of him for months.

It is true that Cuomo won a large margin without doing much to raise the profile of the race. (He declined several opportunities to appear on national tv shows, or to give lengthy, possibly news-making speeches in places like Crain's business breakfast or the Association for a Better New York.)

But a recent Siena poll found Cuomo, and his agenda, pretty well-supported.

One of the president's most vocal supporters, Will.i.am. of the Black Eyed Peas, doesn't stick to the script when discussing the campaign, gun control and home foreclosure with Deborah Solomon:

--I don’t want to hope anymore. I don’t think we should hope anymore. We hoped enough. Now we have to do. We all have to do now.

--But is gun control the solution?

--I say: 'Let me pay for that house. It’s yours. You don’t got to pay me back.' It’s that simple.Why am I doing it? Because I said, “Yes we can.”

NYC\'s first digital officer. (capitalnewyork.com)

It's been six months since the Bloomberg Administration created the role of Chief Digital Officer, and they've been combing resumes since to fill the spot. Today they did, naming Rachel Sterne, the 27-year-old founder of citizen journalism site GroundReport and an adjunct professor of social media and entrepreneurship at the Columbia Business School.

Katherine Oliver, the mayor’s office of media and entertainment commissioner, had posted a job description on the city’s site asking for someone who can “help develop forward-thinking policies on social media, digital communications, web 2.0 initiatives and other tools to better serve the public,” and get a salary between $75,000 to $125,000 per year.

“Rachel is someone who has been an influencer in the social media sphere and a civic journalism entrepreneur,” Oliver said in a statement. “She will be a terrific advocate for digital media while at the same time helping to hone the City’s use of social media for years to come.”

Sterne will also serve as an advocate for the city's digital media and tech scene.

Local startups and venture capitalists have not always been happy with the Bloomberg administration: For more than 10 years, the city has been inconversations with leaders of the scene, who have been asking for support for the existing tech community—with more "digital native" liasons and possible rent abatements, for example—and a focus on tech entrepreneurship in schools. NYC Convergence recently interviewed some start-up founders who have been unhappy with intiatives so far.

Part of Sterne’s job will be to help smooth these contentions by opening up the communication lines between the startup scene and the city.

A Dobbs Ferry, N.Y. native, Sterne studied history at New York University. Prior to startingGroundReport, a hyperlocal news platform for citizen reporters all over the world, in 2006, she worked in business development at LimeWire and was a political intern for the State Department on the United Nations Security Council. She also consulted startups and businesses in social media and marketing before taking the chief digital officer position.

"I can’t imagine a more exciting challenge than helping to evolve digital government in the greatest city on earth," Sterne wrote in an email to Capital.

And just before publishing this item, City Hall sent out the official announcement about Sterne.

"Sterne will work on a 90-day report detailing the City’s online strategies. She will look at various ways in which the City can enhance its digital footprint, streamline its existing social media mechanisms and explore public-private partnerships that the City could implement in the digital realm. Her report will go to Commissioner Oliver and City Hall."

The world's largest retailer hopes to open their first store in New York City; opponents are weighing their options. (http://www.flickr.com/photos/minttea)

Wal-Mart's inability to open a store in New York City has been almost entirely due to the loud, coordinated and vocal opposition it's faced from labor groups and Democratic elected officials.

But as vocal as the opposition has been, there really is no legal backstop for them. There's no law (on the books, or proposed) that can prevent a particular store from opening up in New York City if they find space zoned for their purposes.

One person working to oppose Wal-Mart told me the retailer's arrival in the five boroughs is inevitable, and that the definition of "victory" against them needs to be "redefined."

Echoing that need to redefine the goals of opposing Wal-Mart is labor organizer-turned Democratic State Senator, Diane Savino, who told the Staten Island Advance:

I have always been opposed because of the impact on small business and Walmart's abusive labor practices, which have been well documented...But we have to begin to develop a different perspective. The stores are throughout New York state. People like to shop there. And with the passage of my Wage Theft Prevention Act, those not adhering to the law can be aggressively prosecuted. At some point there has to be a conversation to see what it would take to permit Walmart into New York City, and what they are prepared to do to be good corporate citizens and neighbors."

The store has gone green and is now pushing for healthier food preparations. They still resist letting employees form into a union.

UPDATE: Pressing the economic argument, a spokesman for Wal-Mart Free NYC emailed a statement from an East New York shop owner, Mark Tanis, who said small businesses "will be run out of town and shuttered forever" if Wal-Mart opened here.

The former GOP gubernatorial candidate is still still outspoken, and using email. (carl paladino's email)

The former GOP gubernatorial candidate continues making noise, in his favorite medium: emails.

His latest:

The volcanic eruption in Iceland, since its first spewing of volcanic ash has, in just FOUR DAYS, NEGATED EVERY SINGLE EFFORT you have made in the past five years to control CO2 emissions on our planet - all of you.