NYCDOE's Marge Feinberg: We Can't Afford To Remove PCB's From Schools Because We Spent The Money On Smartboards

Oh, yes - that's what she said:

A South Bronx charter school founded by a former city councilwoman replaced its city-issued toxic lighting fixtures by itself — rather than waiting for a Department of Education retrofit for the public schools in the same building this summer, the Daily News has learned.

The Bronx Success Academy, founded by Eva Moskowitz, spent its own money to replace the lights — which are leaking with cancer-causing chemicals — while two other schools in the same Morris Ave. building have to wait.

“I think it’s terrible,” Dean Gross, a science teacher at M.S. 203, which shares space with the charter school, Bronx Academy of Letters and P.S. 168.

Gross said he’s forced to teach students in a windowless classroom with a poor ventilation system and no air conditioner — and lighting fixtures that leak polychlorinated biphenyls, which are linked to cancer, reproductive and neurological problems, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.

“Our kids in the building have so many issues to begin with,” Gross added. “We’re the number one asthma district in the country. This does not help. The teachers are dragging. They’ve got headaches and stomach pains.”

Union health and safety officials are to meet with the city Tuesday to discuss how Success Charter Network removed the tainted lighting fixtures.

The Bronx Academy of Letters, one of four schools in the building, had its lights replaced last summer as part of a classroom redesign, according to the city.

Marge Feinberg, a spokeswoman for the Department of Education, said the building’s remaining tainted lights would be switched out this summer. Feinberg added the city spent more than $1.7 million upgrading the three public schools.

“The funding was spent on Smartboards, bathroom upgrades, laptop carts, drinking fountains, reconfiguring classroom space for Bronx Academy of Letters, and new classroom doors,” Feinberg said.

I'm going to leave aside the issue of unequal treatment between the Eva charter and the public schools in the same building for now.

Let's just focus on what NYCDOE spokesperson Marge Feinberg said about this PCB mess.

Let me repeat what she said here:

"We couldn't get the cancer-causing PCB's out of these schools, the ones dripping on people's heads and making them sick, because we spent all the money on Smartboards and laptop carts.  But don't worry - we'll get those PCB's removed this summer as soon as the new budget money kicks in!"

Marge Feinberg - quite literally one of the worst people in the world.

Can you imagine the lack of morality, empathy and humanity it takes to say the stupid crap she says?

Bloomberg: Butter Is Bad For Kids, PCB's Are Okay

From a comment by I noticed that...

In Bloomberg's world, Children First to get carcinogenic exposure!

Ironic, he bans sugar-laden sodas from the in-school vending machines, fights about the Big Gulp drinks, and he's on a new war against butter. But, PCB lighting fixtures in schools can wait for removal. I think his billions are keeping him in the dark when it comes to children's safety and welfare.

Bloomberg's been fighting the PCB removal for years and years.

Wouldn't it be nice if we had a press corp that could, you know, make this connection between the PCB's and the butter ban and ask Bloomberg to his face just why butter is unhealthy for kids but PCB's aren't?

Juan Gonzalez: Years Of Lies And Delays From Bloomberg Over PCB's In Schools Laid Bare This Week

The Children First mayor has been saying it will take 10 years to get the light fixtures with the PCB's in them out of the schools:

A fluorescent light suddenly exploded Tuesday morning in Room 316 at Intermediate School 123 in Harlem.

Fumes from the failed classroom fixture laden with toxic PCB fluid spread so quickly the entire school had to be temporarily evacuated. Nine pupils and two teachers were treated at a nearby hospital for asthma attacks and severe coughing.

“We had the same thing happen a month ago in Room 216, though it wasn’t as bad as this one,” Hope Scott, president of the school’s Parents Association, said.

Then late Thursday, Department of Education spokeswoman Marge Feinberg said: “Today a smell was emitted from a fixture on the second floor. It will be removed tonight and the room will be ventilated.”

These three incidents in just one Harlem school have finally laid bare years of lies and delays from the Bloomberg administration over the huge problem of PCB-laden lights in our public schools.

Just six weeks ago, a Brooklyn federal judge blasted the Department of Education for flouting the City Council, the federal Environmental Protection Agency and previous court orders that have urged faster action in removing PCB ballasts from public schools.

Until this week, the city kept insisting it needed 10 years to replace more than half a million lighting fixtures that contain the dangerous substance.

But in response to a lawsuit filed by New York Communities for Change challenging that 10-year plan, U.S. District Judge Sterling Johnson labeled the city’s reasoning “spurious.”

Johnson’s decision virtually predicted the harrowing incidents at IS 123 and other schools .

Since the federal government banned the use of PCBs in 1979, any such fixtures in city schools are now more than 32 years old — twice their useful life.

“As they age, the failure rate . . . increases dramatically,” Johnson noted, and he ordered the city to stop “foot-dragging” and mediate a settlement with the plaintiffs.

Other leaders have offered concrete plans. City Controller John Liu has proposed a bond issue that would more than pay for itself through energy savings.

Meanwhile, Assemblywoman Linda Rosenthal (D-Manhattan) has questioned why in some buildings a charter school’s lighting fixtures have been replaced but not those of the co-located public school.

Until this week, Mayor Bloomberg ignored everyone.

Then some students and teachers in Harlem ended up in the hospital. So Wednesday evening, only hours after Rosenthal called for a news conference outside IS 123, Bloomberg’s people suddenly announced the city is speeding up the removal of PCBs fixtures. But given their outrageous record on this issue, let’s see their plan.

These people in the Bloomberg administration are liars and criminals who do not care at all about the children in their care.

If they did, they would not send children to schools in these conditions.

Judge Slams DOE For Making "Spurious Arguments" And "Illogical Claims" In Move To Have PCB Lawsuit Dismissed

The Children First people want to delay taking cancer-causing PCB's out of the school system for as long as possible.

You see, spending money to remove PCB's that are present inside classroom light fixtures takes away precious resources that could be used for standardized testing, data systems to track the scores from those tests, and computer and software consultants to run the tests and the data tracking systems.

Parents sued to get Bloomberg and the DOE to move the timeline on the PCB removal up.

The city wanted that lawsuit dismissed, but a judge ruled it will go forward - and slammed the city for making "spurious arguments" and "illogical" claims in his decision:

A judge has rejected the city's request to dismiss a lawsuit brought by parents trying to speed up the effort to get polychlorinated biphenyls removed from schools.

As many as 800 city schools have been found to have PCBs in lights or insulation installed before 1979.

The New York City Department of Education gave itself 10 years to remove them from schools, but parents and public interest lawyers sought to expedite the removal, saying the long timeline endangers children.

Parents protested last year about the toxins.

"There have been leaks at our school we have found little droplets under chairs," said Daniella Liebling, whose son attends the Brooklyn New School.

City lawyers tried to have the lawsuit dismissed, but Judge Sterling Johnson said their claims were "illogical" and accused them of dragging their feet.

“With the cognitive development of children at stake, it would have been refreshing to see humanitarian concerns trump the compulsion to delay litigation with quite so many spurious arguments," Johnson wrote in his decision. "But some dreams remain deferred."

"Judge Sterling Johnson actually quotes Langston Hughes," said Christina Giorgio of New York Lawyers for the Public Interest. "He makes numerous references to the fact that parents really are entitled to have answers from the city, and that PCBs are toxic. Their impacts are well known, and what the city is doing with regard to insisting on this 10-year plan is simply irresponsible."

In response, New York City Corporate Council said it disagreed with the ruling, stressing that nothing is more important than the health of the city's children.

The Department of Education said that fixtures have been fixed in 92 buildings, with work planned for another 97 buildings this summer.

PCBs were banned in 1979, and exposure can affect the immune and nervous systems.

Liebling says the city told her that her son's school is on the fast track for repairs within five years but is hoping more will be done even sooner.

Indeed, it would be nice if the Children First people actually were true to their word and put the health of the children over the dither and delay, but that would be asking too much.

You see, Mayor Bloomberg and Chancellor Walcott do not care about your children at all.

They care about the politics around the schools, privatizing the system, busting the teachers union, firing unionized teachers and school choice.

But kids having safe schools to attend?

That they don't care about.

Judge Sterling Johnson called the Children First people out on this in his decision.

It's refreshing to see that kind of honesty from the judge, calling Bloomberg, Walcott and the DOE on their hypocrisy and their horsehockey.

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.

More PCB Horror Stories From One NYC School

Last Wednesday NYCDOE Chancellor Dennis Walcott struck out at striking school bus drivers and matrons, saying “The union drivers are striking against our children, plain and simple."

Walcott attacked the labor action as harming children and slammed the striking workers as selfish.

Meanwhile at PS 50 in Staten Island, the following was occurring:

OAKWOOD — Parents of children at P.S. 50, in Oakwood, rallied outside the school Friday to demand the city replace the PCB light fixtures in the school after light fixtures ruptured in two classrooms in January.

Peter Whalen, 6, a third-grader at the school, said that on Monday, the lights went out in his classroom and when he looked at the light fixture above him he saw smoke.

“I looked up [and] it popped and then started sizzling,” he said. “As it was sizzling it was smoking, white smoke.”

Peter said that another light caught on fire too, and the one he was sitting under came down right above his head.

Parents complained that they were never initially notified by the school of the Jan. 14 incident, and only found out about it when their kids came home from school talking about it. Parents said they were upset that the kids were going to go in the same room the next day.

“We don't want out kids going back in that classroom,” said Paul Whalen, Peter’s father.

After getting dismissive answers from the school’s administration, Paul Whalen contacted New York Lawyers for the Public Interest, which already has a 2011 lawsuit pending against the Department of Education about speeding up the removal of PCB lights in schools.

Christina Giorgio, staff attorney with the NYLPI working on the case, said that the DOE is required to tell parents immediately about any incidents, and said the DOE should work on replacing all PCB lights in schools before more situations like this happen again.

“It is a very clear example of the Department of Education acting irresponsibly,” Giorgio said.

“The Department of Education knows full well that these lights are leaking and many of them are going to rupture like this," she said. "This is not the end of the situation. This is the start of what's going to be a snowballing of recurring events like this in these schools.”

A similar PCB light fixture rupture occurred on January 7 at PS 50, but parents weren't notified by the school about the incident until a week later - too late to hold their kids out from school over health concerns.

Kids weren't taken from the room after the January 7 rupture.  Instead the windows were opened and kids were told to put their coats on to keep from getting cold.

This is the third school to have leaking PCB's this school year - the problems were previously reported at I.S 204 Long Island City and P.S. 41 in Staten Island in September.

For Walcott to slam striking bus drivers and matrons as selfish people harming children when his administration refuses to be held accountable for the PCB light fixture mess, had to be taken to court to even agree to get the fixtures out of schools, and is dragging their feet on the timetable to do it, is unconscionable.

Quite simply, Dennis Walcott and his boss, Michael Bloomberg, are two of the most horrible and hypocritical people on the planet.

They claim to be for children first...always when they're aiming their reforms at teachers and the UFT.

But when it really comes to really putting children first - like making sure they're attending school in a safe, healthy environment - they don't care AT ALL.

Bloomberg and Walcott First.  Always.

That's the real DOE motto.

Bloomberg and Walcott claim the teachers don't care about kids, the school bus drivers and the matrons don't care about kids - only they care about kids.

If they really cared about kids, the FIRST thing they would do, long before the Common Core implementation, long before the infusion of technology in order to carry out the Common Core/APPR testing procedures, would be to make sure the schools are safe and healthy for children to attend.

Clearly they care nothing for children, nothing for the adults who have to work in these schools.

You can bet if these fixtures were exploding at Bloomberg LP headquarters or over Bloomberg's head at City Hall, they would be fixed ASAP.

Maybe a better motto for the DOE would be:

Bloomberg and Walcott.  Hypocrites Always.

Kids Face Dangerous Toxins As They Go Back To School

No, not the Common Core Federal Standards or Mayor Bloomberg's "Close Schools First" reforms, although those are certainly toxic too - I'm talking school supplies:

AN ALARMING number of school supplies contain a toxic chemical that’s already banned in toys, a new report found.

Sen. Chuck Schumer and the Center for Health, Environment & Justice released the report on Sunday. The advocacy group found that 75% of vinyl back-to-school products tested contained higher levels of the chemical phthalates than are allowed in toys.

The chemical has been linked to birth defects, asthma, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, diabetes, and other health issues.

Researchers tested lunch boxes, backpacks, rain boots and raincoats bought at city stores. A “Dora the Explorer” backpack had 69 times the allowable level of the chemical.

Schumer (D-N.Y.) and the advocates are pushing for the passage of the Safe Chemicals Act, which would give the Environmental Protection Agency more authority to regulate chemicals used in consumer products.

If it was a slow news Sunday, Senator Schumer must have filled the void with a press conference.

Schumer's self-aggrandizing act aside, the point he tried to raise here is an important one.

Our corporate consumer culture is literally poisoning us - between the toxic food they grow, the toxic technology they hoist on us, the toxic clothing and toxic materials they sell us.

Did you ever stop to wonder just how safe all this wireless is - especially around babies and children?

Or all the iPhone use?

Or the laminated stuff we buy?

Or the non-labeled GMO crap Monsanto, ADM, Cargill and the rest sell us?

We live in a very toxic culture with very toxic materials - and it is a systemic problem.

From the education system to the health care system to the media culture to agriculture to consumer culture to the financial system to the political system - it's all toxic.

Don't have any quick answers for you, don't have any data to back up my "reforms", don't have some talking points I can go on CNN and Education Nation with to promote my latest "Bolder, Faster Change."

But I do know this - our society, our culture and our economy is sick, and it is harming everybody, young and old.

Toxic school supplies are just another emblem of what is wrong.

And then we wonder why autism rates are sky-rocketing.

Bloomberg's Education Policies: Toxins First!

Bloomberg claims he MUST close the 24 SIG schools because that policy is "in the best interest of students."

Meanwhile in Brooklyn:

Angry Brooklyn parents rallied at Public School 29 in Cobble Hill Friday to protest the city’s plan to start asbestos abatement during the school year.

About 30 parents huddled together in the school’s playground as construction workers began clearing asbestos from building windows as part of a multimillion dollar renovation project.

Parents demanded a delay in asbestos abatement work until summer. But Department of Education officials told parents that the asbestos work would be done in the evenings, after the school was empty.

The city School Construction Authority project involves the demolition and rebuilding of exterior walls and the replacement of the building’s roof and parapet. The work is expected to be finished by July 2013.

Oh yeah - Bloomberg cares about the best interests of students.

That's why he's having asbestos removed while there are kids around at PS 29.

Or let's not forget when he hid the fact that the building where PS 51 is located in the Bronx was full of toxins that were causing vomiting, dizziness, nausea, migraines and birth defects:

The state took the first step Monday in addressing longstanding concerns about the dangerous levels of toxins found at Public School 51 The Bronx New School last January.

The DEC will take environmental samples of the building and surrounding area, especially the basement and cafeteria, where TCE levels were highest.

...

“Three times a day kids were in that lunchroom,” charged parent Adeline Walker, who has three children who attended the school and have histories of migraines. “Recess, lunch and gym.”

Meanwhile, the DOH will publish a health consultation report, which will address possible health issues related to TCE exposure.

Many parents said over the years that their kids came home complaining of headaches, nausea, dizziness and vomiting.

But there is evidence the toxic chemical increases problems in fetal development, and a teacher who worked for five years at the school sued the city after terminating her pregnancy due to birth defects.

The state investigation started in the fall. Parents learned of the dangerous contamination nine months after the city Department of Education first made its discovery. The students have since been moved to the closed St. Martin of Tours school building on E. 182nd St.

“I think the reaction from the DOE has been outrageous,” said parent Miriam Ford, who had two children at P.S. 51. “The reality is, we have to push to make sure all the people affected are notified.”

How many cases of cancer, both current and future, is Bloomberg responsible for at PS 51?

Hard to know, but one thing is certain:

Bloomberg does not care about children, parents or teachers.

The best interest he is concerned with is his own political interest and the economic interests of his cronies.

PS 29 and PS 51 prove that.

Hey Bloomberg, you want to shut some schools?

Try the ones with the toxins in them.

EPA To Bloomberg: Ten Years Is Too Long To Rid Schools Of PCBs

Hey, what's a little cancer between friends?

New York City’s 10-year plan to identify and replace school-building light fixtures that are leaking toxic chemicals should be handled in a speedier and more comprehensive fashion, the Environmental Protection Agency said Friday.

Federal officials initially praised the city for taking a step in the right direction when it announced its plan last month as part of a wider energy efficiency effort. But the E.P.A. is rejecting the city’s timeline of 10 years and pushing for a shorter time frame, although how much shorter is still a subject of discussions with the city, said Judith Enck, the agency’s regional administrator in New York.

“Ten years is too long,” Ms. Enck said in an interview Friday. “From our inspections, we’ve found that there’s a problem with leaking light ballasts, and I’d be concerned with the problem lingering for a long period of time.”

The issue of replacing old fluorescent light fixtures has become a pressing one for the city since a pilot study that began last year identified leaking lighting ballasts as a major source of high levels of the toxic chemical compounds known as PCBs in air samples taken from schools. Subsequent spot inspections of schools by the E.P.A. this year found that the problem appeared to be pervasive in the school system. The city could face civil penalties if it does not properly address the PCB contamination.

Under pressure from both federal officials and worried parents, city officials announced in February that they would allocate $702 million to replace light fixtures in nearly 800 school buildings as part of a broader effort that would involve other energy efficiency upgrades. But the plan immediately drew criticism from school advocates who said that eliminating the PCB contamination was too urgent to wait a decade to complete.

On Friday, most members of the City Council added their voices to the criticism, calling a news conference and sending a letter to Ms. Enck asking her to insist that the lights be replaced within two years. The letter was signed by 41 of the 51 council members.

“This is something that has brought the Council together,” said Julissa Ferreras, a councilwoman from Corona, Queens. “This is a health hazard.”

Indeed, it is a health hazard.

But Bloomberg and Black don't give a shit about that.

They don't give a shit about children getting cancer.

They don't give a shit about teachers and staff getting cancer.

They don't give a shit if people die as a consequence of their refusal to remove the PCBs in a timely manner.

They just don't give a shit.

They DO care about saving money, and so what if some people get cancer or DIE as a result of their negligence.

After all, as my friend NYC Educator likes to say, the only thing that REALLY matters in this world is making sure that Steve Forbes pays less taxes every year.

Leaving PCBs in the schools for ten years certainly does help keep the Forbes tax bill low.

Bloomberg Agrees To Remove Toxic, Cancer-Causing Light Fixtures - In Ten Years

The Mayor of Money has heard the fears and concerns of citizens regarding the cancer-causing toxic lights in NYCDOE schools that are leaking PCB's.

He says he'll have them all out - in ten years:

Responding to pressure from federal officials and worried parents, the Bloomberg administration said on Wednesday that it would replace light fixtures containing the toxic chemicals known as PCBs in nearly 800 school buildings across the city over the next 10 years.

City education officials said they had allocated $708 million to the effort, which will also involve broad improvements in energy efficiency, and opening bidding for a contract this year. A total of 772 schools have fluorescent fixtures that must either get new ballasts or be replaced completely because they contain PCBs, or polychlorinated biphenyls, the officials said.

For months, the federal Environmental Protection Agency has been pressing the city to assess and replace older fixtures containing PCBs in all of those schools because of the danger of leaks. With so many buildings involved — nearly two-thirds of the city’s 1,200 school buildings — the Bloomberg administration balked at the cost, which it initially calculated at about $1 billion.

But advocates for environmental improvements countered that the city would recoup the investment through savings in electric bills because modern light fixtures are more energy-efficient.

The new plan immediately drew criticism from school advocates who said the problem is too urgent be addressed over a decade.

“The work can be completed in two years if they decided to make it a priority,” said Miranda K. S. Massie, director of litigation and training with New York Lawyers for the Public Interest, which has represented parents in a lawsuit against the city over PCB contamination from caulk in the schools. “There’s no reason to subject school children to PCBs contamination for an extra eight years.”

Health experts say that the PCB contamination does not pose an imminent health risk, but that the longer the problem persists, the higher the likelihood that the chemicals could prove harmful. PCBs have been linked to cancer, impairment of immune and reproductive function, lower I.Q. and other problems.

Here's a statement from Clueless Cathie Black on the PCB removal plan and the timeline:

“This is a progressive plan to increase energy efficiency at our schools and simultaneously address the issue of PCBs in old light fixtures,” the city schools chancellor, Cathleen P. Black, said in a statement. “Given that both the E.P.A. and the Department of Health have said there is no immediate health threat to students in these buildings, we believe this is the most responsible way to proceed.”

“This plan can be accomplished without any significant interruption to student learning, and it will generate significant energy savings in the long run,” she said.

What does that jive mean - "a progressive plan"? What the f--k is she talking about? A progressive plan would be to eliminate the toxic, cancer-causing material NOW.

Here's the UFT president in response:

Michael Mulgrew, president of the United Federation of Teachers, called the plan “frustrating.”

“It’s pretty clear that the mayor is kicking the can into the next administration,” he said. “The idea that they are prioritizing boilers and energy efficiency — how about prioritizing the hazardous materials first? There’s a health hazard inside the buildings. That’s the priority right now.”

And the lighting fixtures are NOT the only toxic materials in the school buildings.

Turns out that the caulk used around doors and windows is also toxic and potentially cancer-causing.

Maybe they can get all that stuff out in twenty years?

And how many people will come down cancer or die as a DIRECT result of this hazardous material?

Oh, well - if Cathie Black says the Bloombergian Ten Year PCB Removal Plan is a progressive one, then it must be.

Right?

Wrong.

Who knew that the school buildings themselves are actually more toxic than the overall education reform policies of Bloomberg and Black.

You can bet if Black's or Bloomberg's children were in any of these toxic schools, it wouldn't take ten years to get the PCB's out.

NYCDOE Says PCBs In Schools Are Fine

Wow - this one boggles the mind:

The Environmental Protection Agency plans to start inspecting New York City schools for PCB contamination early next month.

The federal government wants the city to replace fluorescent light fixtures that might leak PCBs. The city says they pose no immediate danger.

The city says replacing the fixtures would cost $1 billion and lead to 15,000 teacher layoffs. EPA Regional Commissioner Judith Enck says that figure doesn't make sense.

Schools spokeswoman Natalie Ravitz says the city is working with the Obama administration to find solutions.

Replacing lightbulbs will cost 15,000 teacher jobs?

What WON'T they use as an excuse to layoff teachers?

I bet we'll start to hear that they'll replace the light fixtures with the PCB's in them, but only if the union caves on seniority.

Using layoffs as leverage against the EPA - that's a new one.

I wonder if they could have afforded to replace the light fixtures if the CityTime scammers Bloomberg hired hadn't stolen $80 million dollars from the city and cost the city over $630 million in cost overruns for the CityTime payroll project?

I bet they could have.