CITYWIDE

MORE THAN 10,000 CLASSROOMS OVERCROWDED, UNION SAYS

Three weeks into the new school year, 10,700 classes are still overcrowded, the teachers union said yesterday.

On September 23, a United Federation of Teachers survey of chapter leaders found that 11,114 classes had too many students. As of Monday, that figure had only dropped to 10,765. The union has scheduled arbitration hearings at about 30 high schools this month to try to force the Department of Education to place excess students in other classrooms.

“It’s October and tens of thousands of students in our system are still packed into oversize classes,” said the union president, Randi Weingarten. “Instead of issuing statements denouncing the union for pointing out this problem and delaying the resolution by forcing us to go to arbitration, the department should be making a real effort to reduce the size of these classes.”

A spokesman for the education department, Keith Kalb, said only a small number of cases actually went to arbitration last year, and he expects the same will happen this year.

“The vast majority were resolved at the region and school level as will be the case this year,” he said. “In fact, they are being resolved at this very moment. The issue of overcrowding occurs annually and affects a small percentage of our classes, with register numbers changing on a daily basis. As in the past, proper adjustments are being made.”

– Staff Reporter of the Sun

STATEWIDE

STATE, CITY SWAP MONEY IN DEBT REFINANCING

State government and the city of New York are swapping payments of $170 million each in an unusual money shuffle that clears the way for refinancing $2.5 billion in city debt.

The swap resolves Governor Pataki’s last objection to the refinancing deal, which he unsuccessfully tried to block in the Legislature and in court.

The complex transaction will save the city government $2.5 billion over five years, at a cost to the state of $5.1 billion over the next 30 years. A spokesman for Mayor Bloomberg, Jordan Barowitz, said city officials are making final preparations to float new bonds, which will be used to pay off the remaining debt from the fiscal crisis of the 1970s.

Governor Pataki, along with state Comptroller Alan Hevesi, lost a lawsuit against the refinancing plan last year. He had proposed to skip the first year’s payment and did not include the $170 million in his budget for the year. But city officials insisted that the payment should go through, to reassure investors that the state will make good on the 30-year commitment.

A fiscal analyst who has criticized the plan, E.J. McMahon, said, “This deal deserves to go down into the public finance hall of shame.”

– Staff Reporter of the Sun

FORMER BRIDGE AUTHORITY CHIEF PLEADS GUILTY

The former head of the state Bridge Authority pleaded guilty yesterday to charges that he attempted to defraud the state through expense vouchers for personal trips to Florida and Texas, the latest development in Albany’s scandal-filled autumn.

Jack Gaffney, 68, faces up to two years in jail when sentenced on the misdemeanors, said state Attorney General Eliot Spitzer.

Spitzer found that from 1998 to 2002 Mr. Gaffney, while he was paid $137,703 a year, took four personal trips to Florida and three to Texas that he charged as state business. Mr. Gaffney’s travel expenses were $8,675 and he was paid $7,455 in salary for days he didn’t claim as vacation.

“Public officials who break the law and undermine the public trust must be held accountable,” Mr. Spitzer said. “This plea, which is the result of close cooperation with the Inspector General’s Office and the Ulster County District Attorney, shows that no one is above the law.”

– Associated Press

COUNCIL COMMITTEE TO INVESTIGATE VELELLA RELEASE

The City Council committee on fire and criminal justice will hold a hearing later this month to look into the decision by a four-member panel to grant a former state senator, Guy Velella, early release from prison.

The council is expected to invite the four members of the Local Conditional Release Commission, the little-known panel that has taken heat for releasing Velella after three months on a yearlong sentence, to testify on October 18. The commissioner of the Corrections and Probation departments and members of the criminal justice community will also be invited.

Velella, a Bronx Republican, pleaded guilty to accepting bribes. The council will consider whether the four-member board should remain in existence and examine the rules that govern its decisions to release some prisoners.

“Clearly, this Commission has operated without public scrutiny for too long, so the Council will act on our oversight responsibility and hold hearings to cast a spotlight on how the Commission reaches its decisions,” Council Speaker Gifford Miller said in a statement.

The city’s Department of Investigations is also probing the matter. And, Mayor Bloomberg said he would meet with the head of the Conditional Release Commission. He has said he doesn’t think any of the panel members acted inappropriately.

– Staff Reporter of the Sun

UPSTATE

LENNON’S KILLER DENIED PAROLE FOR THIRD TIME

ATTICA – John Lennon’s killer will remain in prison for at least two more years after being denied parole yesterday because of the “extreme malicious intent” he showed in gunning down the former Beatle in 1980. Mark David Chapman, 49, was notified of the decision late yesterday after appearing before a three-member panel earlier in the day.

“During the interview your statement for motivation acknowledges the attention you felt this murder would generate,” the board wrote in its single-page decision. “Although proven true, such rationale is bizarre and morally corrupt.”

It was Chapman’s third bid for freedom. He was denied parole in 2000 and again in 2002, on what would have been Lennon’s 62nd birthday.

The latest denial “is based on the extreme malicious intent you exhibited during the instant offense where you fired a handgun multiple times, striking your victim-John Lennon,” the board wrote.

“Your course of conduct over a lengthy period of time shows a clear lack of respect for life and subjected the wife of the victim to monumental suffering by her witnessing the crime,” the decision said.

Chapman has been in prison more than 23 years for shooting the former Beatle outside Lennon’s Manhattan apartment as the musician returned from a recording session. Chapman became eligible for release after serving 20 years of a maximum life sentence.

– Associated Press

POLICE BLOTTER

VICTIM OF GUNSHOT, MUGGING IS ARRESTED FOR HEROIN POSSESSION

A New Jersey man started his afternoon yesterday in the hospital being treated for a gunshot wound, but ended it under arrest for heroin possession after he was mugged, shot in the leg, and then found to have a large amount of heroin, police said.

According to police, Ronald Kordis of Vineland, N.J., was mugged at around noon after he had stopped off at the Commerce Bank near 14th Street and Fifth Avenue. After his visit to the bank, the suspect, who is described as a white or Hispanic male in his 20s wearing a blue hooded sweatshirt, began to tail Mr. Kordis. He then approached Mr. Kordis in front of 108 Fifth Ave. and demanded money. Mr. Kordis refused, struggled with the gunman, and was shot once in the leg with a semiautomatic 9mm pistol. The suspect then fled down 16th Street towards Sixth Avenue, and is still at large.

Mr. Kordis was taken to nearby St. Vincent’s Hospital and treated for the gunshot wound. While he was being treated, officers discovered Mr. Kordis, who has one prior arrest for dealing drugs in 1999, had with him a large amount of heroin, police said. The heroin was packaged in “decks,” glassine sleeves the length of two postage stamps, which sell for about $10 on the street, and provide a user with a single hit of heroin. There were 76 decks of heroin found among Mr. Kordis’ possessions, as well as several hundred dollars in cash, police said. Mr. Kordis, 54, was placed under arrest and charged with criminal possession of a controlled substance. He is listed in stable condition.

– Special to the Sun

STUDENT OF PUBLIC SAFETY ARRESTED ON WEAPON POSSESSION

A student at the High School for Public Safety and Law in Bedford-Stuyvesant was arrested yesterday after authorities found a handgun in his locker, police said.

The student, whom police have identified as Anthony Jones, a 17-year-old resident of Brooklyn, was found to have the unloaded 9mm semiautomatic in his school locker after an anonymous student tipped off school authorities, police sources said. School authorities called police, who searched the locker, and then placed Mr. Jones under arrest. He has been charged with criminal possession of a weapon, police said. The High School for Public Safety and Law is an alternative school that prepares students for careers in forensics, public safety, law, and corrections.

– Staff Reporter of the Sun