In the wake of revelations that the City Council had a slush fund (for rainy days when the mayor would cut budgets), City Comptroller William Thompson told City Council Speaker Christine Quinn that his office would review how the council uses discretionary money. In a letter, he wrote, "It remains clear…that the Council’s process was conceived and used to deflect legitimate inquiry into how our City’s tax dollars are being allocated.” The NY Times plays......

City Comptroller William Thompson Jr. sharply criticized the Parks Department after his office examined the 79th Street Boat Basin's financial statements, finding many discrepancies and possible criminal activity. Thompson said, "During the course of the audit, a number of red flags were raised. The number and magnitude of these red flags raised the question of whether fraud occurred at the Boat Basin.” The Boat Basin has 60 moorings and 110 slips for boat owners, and......

Mayor Bloomberg presented the preliminary 2008-2009 fiscal year budget which inclued cuts to almost every city agency, saying, "Everyone is going to have to tighten their belts." One big reason is the slowing economy and its effects on the city; for instance, the city had previously thought Wall Street profits would be $16.8 billion last year but they are more likely to be $2.8 billion. The Daily Politics noticed the presentation had three pages......

Just because the 2009 elections are over 22 months away doesn't mean some interesting moves can't happen. Adolfo Carrion Jr. (pictured, on left), the Bronx Borough President, has decided to run for City Comptroller in 2009, making it a tough field and shedding light on the mayoral contest. Carrion, born in Lower Manhattan and a former city planner, Community Board district manager, and City Council member (here's his bio), was seen as a likely candidate......

Rudy Giuliani told the American public, via a sit-down with Katie Couric, that the story pointing out expenses for trips to the Hamptons - to see then-mistress Judi Nathan - were billed across a number of obscure city agencies was a "typical political hit job" and a "debate day dirty trick." He even called it a "false story," but Politco, the website that broke the story, pointed out neither Giuilani or his aides "have questioned......

Just in time for last night's Republican debate, political website Politico broke a story claiming that former mayor Rudy Giuliani billed "obscured city agencies for tens of thousands of dollars in security expenses" for extra-marital Hamptons trips with future wife Judith Nathan. When Giuliani would travel outside the city, he would be accompanied by a police detail. And if he stayed overnight, the police would also need lodging and other expenses taken care of. Politico......

The NY State Division of Housing and Community Renewal finally closed a loophole in rent regulations that would have allowed owners and landlords leaving government-subsidized housing programs to increase rents to market rates by citing "unique and peculiar" circumstances. According to the NY Times, some tenants' rents would have skyrocketed from $981/month to $4,500/month for a two-bedroom on the Upper West Side and from $1,000/month to $5,275/month for a three-bedroom, also on the Upper West......

City Comptroller William Thompson Jr. stated in an audit released Thursday that the New York had wasted almost $6 million attempting to develop a Scottish links-style golf course in the Bronx. That's not how much the city spent; that's just how much Thompson thinks the city wasted. Developer Ferry Point Partners has been working on the project for the better part of the last decade (since 2000), and in 2002 requested additional funds for environmental......

For the past few years, the officials have been warning that NYC's Off-Track Betting, or OTB, has been on the verge of going broke, whether it's former State Comptroller Alan Hevesi or City Comptroller William Thompson. OTB doesn't give the city any revenues and recently pinned its hopes on attracting more customers by making over OTB parlors and allowing bets to be placed online and by cell phone or Blackberry. Yesterday, the Post revealed that......

James Williams, the drummer who was accompanying the break-dancing group Two Steps Away at the southeast corner of Central Park yesterday, denies that he deliberately spooked Smoothie, the carriage horse who apparently bolted at the loud noise of a snare drum and eventually died from shock after ramming into a tree. The drummer denied doing anything malicious and said that intentionally spooking a horse could have results more dire than even Friday's tragedy. The New......

A 12-year-old carriage horse named Smoothie died after frightened on Central Park South yesterday afternoon. The Daily News reports that a breakdancing troupe cracked a snare drum, which made Smoothie rear up in fear. A witness said Smoothie was "in full gallop,", and the NY Times has a description of the terrified horse's reaction: According to witnesses, a man walked past the horses while beating a small drum, which caused a brown horse that was......

The prominent Democratic party donor and California fugitive Norman Hsu's connection to New York City's New School is examined in the NY Times today. Hsu donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to national Democrats like Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, to governors like Eliot Spitzer of NY and Ed Rendell of Pennsylvania, and NYC politicians like City Council members Christine Quinn and John Liu and City Comptroller William Thompson. Hsu, who had been wanted......

Thought Governor Eliot Spitzer and Senator Hilary Clinton appeared at a press conference to discuss health coverage of New York children, they had to answer questions about campaign donations they accepted from fugitive apparel executive Norman Hsu. Clinton received $23,000 from Hsu and announced that she would donate the money to charity after revelations that Hsu has been wanted in California for defrauding California investors since 1991. Hsu has fled to Hong Kong but......

The laptop of a private consultant for the Financial Information Services Agency was stolen from a restaurant last night. The stolen computer could contain the personal financial information of as many as 280,000 retired city employees and the obvious concern is that the information could fall into the hands of identity thieves. The Daily News reports that the data could possibly include the names, address, social security numbers, and pension information of thousands of retirees.......

"Hard Times in the Projects," an in-depth review of New York City's publicly subsidized housing program, reveals how living conditions have declined over the past few decades. Federal legislators have reduced funds while operating costs have soared. As a consequence, the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) struggles to maintain its buildings, collect the trash, or respond to service calls. Residents have experienced rent hikes and service cuts, and face the possible closure of senior......

Last night was the annual meeting of the Rent Guidelines Board to decide on rent increases for the city's rent stabilized apartments. Amidst the usual chaos (the crowd yelled "Blah, blah blah!", "Free rent!", "Shame on you" and "Liar" while board members spoke), the board approved moderate hikes: 3% for 1-year leases, 5.75% for 2-year leases. These hike were less than last year's 4.25% and 7.25% increases, falling into a "middle range," given that tenants......

It's the countdown to the final meeting determining increases for rent stabilized apartments coming next week. City Comptroller William Thompson issued a letter asking the Rent Guidelines Board to either raise stabilized rents by the minimum or not to raise them at all, given last week's announced homeowner tax rebates and property tax cuts. Thompson's letter (here's a PDF) notes that the city has not kept up stock for low- and moderate-income housing and......

Democrat Micah Kellner won the special election to fill the Upper East Side Assembly seat vacated by Pete Grannis (who was appointed the Department of Environmental Conservation commissioner by Governor Spitzer). Kellner received about two-thirds of the vote over Republican opponent Gregory Camp. Kellner is 28 and has been an aide to City Comptroller William Thompson. He was born with cerebral palsy and managed to overcome it, a fact that was featured heavily in campaign......

Yesterday, Mayor Bloomberg traveled back to his Massachusetts roots and gave the commencement speech at Tufts University. Bloomberg, who grew up in Medford, name checked various haunts in the hood, tried to seem with it by mentioning Busta Rhymes, Ali G, and Salma Hayek, and reminded kids to call their mother. He also discussed free speech, in what the Sun called a nod to the Minutemen incident at Columbia: The fourth lesson is, in......

The city's Water Board approved to raise the water and sewer rates starting in July. The rate hike, which AMNY calls the biggest increase in 15 years, means that an average household's water bill will go from $623 to $700 annually. The water board says that the new $700 average water rate is still below the national average (apparently Boston, Philadelphia, San Francisco and Atlanta have average rates of over $1000 a year) and that......

Congratulations to everyone graduating this month! As NYU's commencement was today, with speaker jazz musician Wynton Marsalis, we decided to list the many NYC commencement speakers, with help from The Chronicle of Higher Education (if we've missed any or gotten it wrong, let us know in comments): Barnard College: Anna Deveare Smith, playwright-actress CUNY Lehman College: Representative Charles Rangel CUNY Brooklyn College: Roberta S. Matthews, provost and vice president for academic affairs at Brooklyn......

Going against the grain of current political conventional wisdom, city Comptroller William Thompson accepted "full responsibility" for the sad state of affairs in his office that allowed Tracy Ball to siphon millions of dollars from city coffers and blow it on bling. From the New York Post: Thompson said "the cause of this breach was primarily due to unauthorized disbursements by the bank," which was not supposed to allow electronic withdrawals. "Nevertheless, my office did......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: A crime scene at the East 69th Street and 2nd Avenue Eckerd Pharmacy in Manhattan, a building facade collapse on Myrtle Avenue in Brooklyn, and a hazmat situation at Cornell Medical at York and East 69th The city wants to do repair work to buildings that need it - and charge the landlords - in legislation proposed by the City Council and supported by the Mayor and other housing......

The Drum Major Institute released a study titled "Saving Our Middle Class," which suggests that NYC's middle class continues to be under more and more strain. DMI surveyed a number of city leaders and found: It's harder to enter the middle class: 92% "agree that it is harder to enter the middle class today than it was ten years ago." - They believe middle-class income is now between $75,000 and $135,000 for families of......

It's time go over this weekend's NY Times Weddings Announcements! Total Number of Weddings: 24 (including Vows column) Total Number of Same-Sex Weddings: 0 (but the Styles section had a feature about "Dinah Shore Weekend," aka "The L World") Youngest Bride: 22 Oldest Bride: 38 Youngest Groom: 23 Oldest Groom: 42 Biggest Age Difference: 11 years Number of Couples Where Bride and Groom Are the Same Age: 3 (25, 32, and 35) Number of Columbia......

A new Quinnipiac University poll shows that New Yorkers still really like Mayor Bloomberg. While his approval rating slipped 2 points since the beginning of the year (from 75 to 73), Bloomberg can claim that the citizens of New York like him as a mayor more than they like Rudy Giuliani's reign as Hizzoner. Forty-six percent liked Bloomberg more than Giuliani; 34% felt they were the same, while 16% thought Giuliani was better. All the......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: An unusual odor in the Bronx, two pedestrians struck (one in Manhattan, a fatal one in the Bronx), and three alarm fire at a tire yard in Brooklyn The Department of Education will reinstate 17 bus routes, finally realizing that giving 5-year-olds MetroCards is a very mean lesson We're so with East Village Idiot on this one: Dear Two Girls Who Work in My Building, Why did you feel......

The city's Franchise and Concession Review Committee is scheduled to vote this coming week on whether or not to approve a proposal to have twenty Manhattan private schools pay for part of the renovation of Randall's Island athletic fields in return for exclusive use of a majority of the fields. The plan, which is separate from the controversial water park, calls for schools such as Dalton and Spence to pay the city $52 million dollars......

Mayor Bloomberg was in London yesterday, meeting with Sir Callum McCarthy of the Financial Services Authority. Last month, the Mayor, along with Governor Spitzer and Senator Schumer, declared that NYC's status as the world's number one financial center was slipping. One reason they cited that global business was shifting to places like London was because London only has on regulatory body - the FSA. The Mayor said, "The FSA is an example of the......

The chaos caused by mid-year school bus route changes that included things like 5 year old being told to take public buses and kids being picked up after school begins seems to have settled down. The Department of Education apologized for the umpteenth time and even Mayor Bloomberg admitted that the changes didn't go very well (he did emphasize the savings were worth it). Of course, it's questionable how much the DOE will save after......