New York authorities say they’ve concluded a massive effort to crack down on unlicensed home improvement contractors. They’ve issued nearly 700 violations and seized more than 130 vehicles during a five-week sweep.
The city’s Department of Consumer Affairs conducted hundreds of routine and undercover inspections along with officials from Westchester and Nassau counties.
The department says there [...]
June 27, 2008 | Posted in
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While New York lawmakers are virtually high-fiving each other for what they called groundbreaking political progress, good government groups are unimpressed with the 2008 legislative session.
“After promising to change the way Albany operated, the governor allowed the process in Albany to return to it’s bad old roots: secrecy and insider negotiations,” said Blair Horner of [...]
June 27, 2008 | Posted in
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Thousands of Con Edison workers could be walking off the job this weekend, since contract negotiations did not improve Thursday.
Union officials from Local 1-2 said Thursday that they have not made any progress in talks with the utility, and say both sides remain “miles apart.”
A spokesperson says the utility won’t budge on wages and medical [...]
June 27, 2008 | Posted in
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A federal investigation into the City Council’s appropriation of funds to fictitious groups should conclude within 90 days, a prosecutor said on Thursday.
But the prosecutor, Rua M. Kelly, an assistant United States attorney who spoke at a hearing in State Supreme Court in Manhattan to determine whether the court would hold a separate public inquiry, [...]
June 27, 2008 | Posted in
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Two Democratic State Senate candidates are criticizing the Republican incumbents for ending the legislative session with unfinished business.
Democrat Rick Dollinger is challenging Republican Joe Robach in the 56th State Senate district. The legislative session came to an end this week, but Dollinger says the State Senate accomplished nothing.
Dollinger says New York started the year with [...]
June 27, 2008 | Posted in
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Taxpayers will have to cough up an extra $37.5 million to demolish the deadly Deutsche Bank building near Ground Zero.
The Lower Manhattan Development Corp. board Thursday approved spending the additional money, boosting the state agency’s cost to acquire and demolish the toxic tower at 130 Liberty St. to $274 million.
LMDC Chairman Avi Schick declined to [...]
June 27, 2008 | Posted in
Real-estate |
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The State Senate’s lightning-quick election this week of Dean Skelos as majority leader prompted a wave of verbal salutes and fond greetings from labor union officials.
From the AFL-CIO to the Civil Service Employees Association, top operatives expressed hope and even faith of retaining the same access and consideration they enjoyed under fellow Republican Joseph [...]
June 27, 2008 | Posted in
News |
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With a legal deadline four days away, city officials brokered a deal on Thursday night on a $59.1 billion budget that would preserve a popular tax cut for homeowners and a $400 rebate and add $129 million in education spending to what had originally been proposed.
Over all, the size of the budget for the fiscal [...]
June 27, 2008 | Posted in
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Does the reformist Brooklyn Democratic Party Leader, Assemblyman Vito Lopez, follow democratic voting principles within his own ranks?
Two Bay Ridge district leaders say “no” and when they asked him why, they got the cold shoulder and later called Lopez’s exclusion of their views “shocking.”
When Lopez was chosen to succeed now-disgraced Clarence Norman, the convicted former [...]
June 26, 2008 | Posted in
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Millionaire congressional candidates like Jack Davis cannot be treated differently under campaign finance laws than less wealthy candidates, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled this morning.
Deciding Davis’ challenge to the so-called “Millionaire’s Amendment,” which loosens fund raising restrictions on candidates facing off against self-funded opponents, the high court agreed with Davis that the amendment infringes on [...]
June 26, 2008 | Posted in
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