Bloomberg Finally Gets Some Public Scrutiny

Last night at the Daily News mayoral debate, the candidates hammered Bloomberg over his piss poor handling of the Sandy aftermath:

"It's quite possible Mayor Bloomberg does not know what mold is," mocked Comptroller John Liu when the questioning turned to the city's response to super-storm Sandy.

All six candidates agreed the city hasn't done enough to help residents still struggling to recover.
"This is a city administration that wanted to run a marathon while people were just moving into shelters and unfortunately bodies were still being found," said former Comptroller Bill Thompson.

City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, who is closest the the mayor of all those running, said mold removal should have been included in the "rapid repairs" program initiated by the city after a homeowner from Gerritsen Beach said hundreds of homes there might be lost due to spreading contamination.

How did Bloomberg respond? 

With a Howard Wolfson tweet:

But Deputy Mayor Howard Wolfson felt compelled to tweet last night, "Reality check-- Bloomberg at 65-23 (per cent in polls) on Hurricane Sandy performance."

Try polling people in Staten Island, the Rockaways, and Gerritsen Beach and see what the numbers are.

Wolfson 's job is to lie and spin for his boss, the Mayor of Money, so of course he will look for any way to push back against these charges.

But the fact is, the mayor and his people do think they've done a great job on the Sandy response - even as the mold and other problems post-Sandy destroy houses all over the Rockaways and Staten Island.

Just another example of how out of touch Bloomberg and his henchmen are.

Casey Blames Bloomberg, Walcott Blames UFT

Each side is pointing fingers over the lack of a teacher evaluation agreement.

Leo Casey wrote up his side at Edwize.

The Daily News gave Chancellor Walcott the space to publish his side of the story.

Just who do we believe?

The words of both of these men are just about worthless.

Leo Casey writes pro-Unity propaganda for a living and looks for different ways to explain how the crap the UFT often agrees to (like the odious '05 contract, the Teacher Data Reports, or APPR) is not actually crap but crap-encrusted gold if one can only scrub off the crap around the wealth beneath.

Let's just say that telling the truth is not high on the list of Casey' s job description.

Walcott, meanwhile, likes to say that teachers only care about themselves, don't really care about the kids, only he and his boss actually care about the kids.  He does this while knowingly sending students to schools laden with cancer-causing toxins, PCB's, and mold - often while hiding these facts from parents and staff.

Walcott is one of the most despicable people on the planet - anyone who knowingly sends children to buildings laden with PCB's, cancer-causing toxins, or black mold and hides that fact from parents can't be anything other than despicable. 

So truth be told, hearing these men tell you the other guy is lying is like hearing OJ Simpson tell you he's found the "real killers" - it's difficult to believe anything they say.

That said, Ernest Logan, the head of the principal's union backed up the UFT on this and said that Bloomberg essentially blew up negotiations with his union in the same way that he did with the UFT, so I guess we have to take Casey's side of the story as closer to the truth.

But make no mistake - it is not truth.

Casey is going to try and spin this so that when the inevitable sell-out comes and we get a horrible evaluation system with unfair scoring metrics that are rigged to "get" teachers, he can blame Bloomberg and Walcott for that rather than have himself and his UFT negotiators blamed for it.

I wish it were otherwise - I wish I could believe the statements made by my union leadership.

But to be frank, my 12 years of experience with these guys tells me I cannot believe them anymore than I can believe Walcott, Bloomberg, or the NY Post or Daily News editorial boards.

In Glengarry Glen Ross, a representative from Mitch and Murray downtown come around to tell the salesmen that they need to be following this formula:

ABC - Always Be Closing.  Always Be Closing.

With the UFT leadership the formula might be adapted to ABS.

Always Be Spinning.  Always Be Spinning.

And that's all we're getting from them now too.

They're looking to spin the inevitable sell-out that comes to their advantage and make the crap they agree to look more like crap-encrusted gold.

But when you scrape the crap off what they're selling us, there's nothing under it but more crap.

Why Won't Test-Happy Dennis Walcott Test PS 114 For Mold?

As I wrote earlier, Chancellor Dennis Walcott already has a track record of putting children at risk by allowing them to attend schools that he knows are unsafe.

At PS 51 in the Bronx, Walcott KNEW that the school was contaminated with toxins and did NOTHING for months until finally he admitted that the school was unsafe and needed to be remediated.

At least one person connected to the school has filed suit claiming the toxins there gave her cancer.

Now parents at PS 114 in Belle Harbor are worried that Walcott is repeating this callousness at their school:

The school was flooded during Sandy -- the water line went halfway up the front door.

Monday night, representatives of the health and education departments tried to address parents' concerns including the possibility of mold inside the school's walls.

"I personally looked down in the basement underneath into the crawl space to make sure you didn't see any moisture or anything that was left that could be causing mold," said John Shea from the city's division of school facilities.

Officials said they followed health department guidelines, which say if mold can't be seen and if all sources that cause mold to grow are disposed of then no mold testing is necessary.

But parents said the hurricane was an extraordinary circumstance and the normal rules shouldn't apply.

"Being that this room was submerged I'm not comfortable with these walls that are still here that took five feet of water," a parent said.

She also conceded that they hadn't tested the water for the school, which received some sarcastic chuckles from the parents in the crowd.

Parents said they're concerned that untested water would be in the food their kids eat and the fountains they drink from.

But schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott said the water is safe.

"It's part of people's perception that it hasn't been tested," Walcott said. "But it's being tested on a regular basis by the Department of Environmental Protection. That's for the community and the school is part of that community.

The school is still being run on generator power and parents said they are still able to smell fumes from inside the building.

Walcott said he will do his best to address the concerns addressed at the meeting as quickly as possible.

You can be sure that Walcott and the NYCDOE cannot be trusted.

Last week they assured parents all necessary tests were done on the school.

When asked if the school had been tested for mold, they demurred in their answers.

Now they admit that the school hasn't been tested.

With all the money these test-happy educrats spend on standardized testing, why can't they open the coffers and test PS 114 for mold?

Could it be because they KNOW there is mold there and don't want to expose themselves to the parent furor (and lawsuits) now that they've reopened the school?

Or are they just stubborn about this and they really believe that sight testing is enough?

Who knows the motivation for the refusal to test for mold, but we do know one thing:

Dennis Walcott is a liar with a track record of putting children at risk in schools he knew to be unsafe.

If I were a parent of a child attending PS 114 or an employee there, I would lawyer up and sue the NYCDOE, the City of New York and Dennis Walcott himself.

The only thing these people in Bloomberg's government understand is subpoenas.

The DOE spends hundreds of millions on testing every year.

Let them spend a little more to test PS 114 for mold.

Walcott Assures PS 114 Parents The School Is Safe For Children

NY 1 reports:

Parents want to know: is there mold growing behind the Sandy battered walls of P.S./M.S. 114?

Until tests provide a definitive no, Maggie Murphy isn't going back to her fifth-grade classroom.

"I was scared if I could get sick," she said.

"How could you possibly open up the school and put these children and teachers and so on in jeopardy?" said parent Don Murphy. "I don't understand that."

...

The school's auditorium and gym were submerged by flood water. The New York City Department of Education said the gym and auditorium stage are off limits for now, although the auditorium was used for a welcome back pep rally.

On Thursday, Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott said P.S. 114 was safe for students to attend.

"We have clean air samples for 114," he said. "We do not put students in a school that's not healthy, and so I have the report, the report is fine."

But on Friday, the DOE said the air was tested for humidity, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide and other materials. It said nothing about mold. So now, the teachers' union is checking.

"Let's just do the right thing," said Michael Mulgrew, the president of the United Federation of Teachers. "Let the professionals check it, and then they can assure the parents that the school is a safe place for their kids."

It's not clear when the test results will be available. Parents said they want to be reassured their kids are safe at school so they can focus on rebuilding other parts of their lives.

"I feel helpless, because all I want is for her to be safe and have an education," Moore said.

I'm so sure the report on air quality at PS 114 that Walcott has in his hands is accurate and comprehensive.

I am also sure Walcott would never try and deceive parents about the air quality or safety in a NYC school.

Except for that school in the Bronx with the toxins left over from a lighting factory that were 10,000 times the state safety limit that Walcott said was safe but turned out not be.

Remember that story?

I do:

Parents at a North Bronx elementary school have just been treated to an unpleasant late-summer surprise. At an "emotional" meeting with the parents of Bronx New School students yesterday, Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott announced that the school's air and soil were contaminated by the potentially carcinogenic chemical trichloroethylene (TCE), and that the Department of Education had known of the contamination since February.

According to the the Daily News, the Department of Education not only waited for months to drop the bombshell, but had never tested the building and its soil before, despite the fact that it had been a factory building for 70 years. The building's last inhabitant before the old Board of Education leased the building in 1992, Nessen Lamps Inc., generated hundreds of gallons of "spent halogenated solvents used in degreasing" (like TCE) in 1986 and 1987. And the DOE has been spending $28 per square foot in rent for this literal dump each year, on top of paying for the renovations necessary to turn the space into a school.

The school's 300 students will be sent this fall to St. Martin of Tours, a former Catholic School more than 2 miles away. Walcott said the health risks presented by the exposure to the site, where soil contamination was more than 10,000 times the limit determined by state regulations, were "minimal," and that a pediatrician was on-site to test children. However, parents of course came forward with reports of their children's complaints of headaches, dizziness and nausea. One parent, Leona Johnson, told NBC her daughter, now 24 years old, graduated from the school back in 1997 and continues to suffer health problems. The parent of a 7-year-old is being told to have the girl's heart checked out.

Reports NY1, "Parents said they did not think the chancellor admitting the city made a mistake and apologizing was enough." The rage of a horde of parents has probably never been more succinctly understated.

Dennis Walcott's word is worth nothing.

The events around the DOE's handling of PS 52 prove that statement.

Walcott says PS 114 is safe.

Parents should believe that as much as they believe Richard Nixon's "Your President Is Not A Crook!" speech.

We have evidence from the very recent past that the NYCDOE and Chancellor Walcott knew that a school was unsafe for children, indeed Walcott had the test results IN HIS HAND - and they did nothing about it for months.

I said at the time that if even one person at the school comes down with cancer or any other illness attributed to the toxins, Walcott, Bloomberg and the NYCDOE are responsible.

The same is true at PS 114 and other Rockaway schools that have been opened with the DOE's assurance that all is well.

Walcott does not care about the health of children or the safety of the people in the schools.

He cares about the appaearance of those things.

Mostly he cares about making his boss happy by making things seem like they're back to normal.

So what if black mold is growing in the auditorium and behind the first floor walls of the school?

This is about making sure the kids get back to school.

There is no time to make sure this school is safe for kids and staff!

There is only time to get the kids ready for their standardized tests!