Bloomberg Lowers Expectations As He Asks for More Antiterror Funds

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The New York Sun

Mayor Bloomberg is lowering expectations as he prepares to ask Washington bureaucrats to overturn their decision to cut the city’s antiterrorism funds.

Mr. Bloomberg is scheduled to speak with the homeland security secretary, Michael Chertoff, by phone today in an effort to reverse the decision to chop New York’s antiterrorism funds by 40%.The mayor predicted an uphill battle.

“I think the way Washington tends to work is once they make announcements, it’s very difficult for them to change it,” Mr. Bloomberg told reporters before marching in the annual Salute to Israel Day Parade on Fifth Avenue. “They tend not to do that.”

The city’s elected officials have been unanimous in their outrage at the federal government for cutting New York’s funding to $124.5 million from $207.5 million while increasing funding to cities in Kentucky, Nebraska, and other areas that terrorists are seen as less likely to target.

Mr. Bloomberg has expressed dismay with the federal government’s formula for dishing out the security funding, and last week he suggested the allocations to other cities were a politically motivated attempt to protect Republicans who face close re-election races for Congress.

As Mr. Bloomberg attempts to win the city more funding, a group of minority police officers that often criticizes the mayor, 100 Blacks in Law Enforcement, turned the blame on the city. The group claimed that the New York Police Department’s primary antiterrorism program, Operation Atlas, improperly requires officers to issue at least two tickets a shift in order to generate revenue under the guise of terrorism protection.

The NYPD’s chief spokesman, Paul Browne, called that a “grossly absurd thing to say.” Mr. Bloomberg refused to address the claim, telling reporters to consider the source.

“That organization tends to blame the NYPD for everything,” the mayor said. “The Mets split a doubleheader yesterday, I’m sure they’re going to blame the NYPD.”

In an effort to put to rest other criticism about how the city proposed spending its federal funding – mostly on paying police overtime and a new surveillance system in Lower Manhattan – Mr. Bloomberg called the 211-page application one of the “more detailed, well-written studies that I’ve ever read.”

Federal authorities were apparently dissatisfied with the city’s proposal, and said it did not properly submit the application. The mayor said the application was submitted electronically and on time. He said he believes the money would best be spent on putting trained officers on the ground, not on equipment and technology, as federal officials prefer.

Mr. Bloomberg seemed resigned to losing the immediate funding fight and more focused on salvaging the city’s relationship with the Department of Homeland Security. He said the city has to deal with the agency on “lots of different programs” and that “there’s always next year.”

That prompted Senator Lautenberg of New Jersey, one of many politicians at the parade, to pipe up: “It’s not over, mayor.” Senator Schumer later called Mr. Chertoff’s decision “close to betrayal” and said, “To abandon New York so quickly after 9/11, less than five years after 9/11, is disgraceful and won’t serve the national interest.”

Mr. Schumer continued: “When he met with us in the New York delegation before he was appointed he said his no. 1 priority is going to be fighting for New York to get a fair share of terrorism funds. He did it one year last year, but if he thinks that commitment has expired he is sadly mistaken.”

The senator also said the federal government was planning to cut the city’s bio-terrorism preparedness funding through the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to $21 million from $25 million last year.

“When you begin to see a pattern, you say to yourself, ‘Well, this isn’t just an accident. This is much rather a pattern that’s probably coming from the top, from the White House,’ ” Mr. Schumer said.

Mr. Chertoff said last week that while New York is a top priority, homeland security needs to provide seed money to other areas because they haven’t yet made initial security investments.


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