CITYWIDE

TAXPAYERS COULD PAY IF STADIUM COSTS EXCEEDS PROJECTION

City taxpayers could be stuck paying the bill if the proposed Jets stadium in Manhattan exceeds its projected costs, Rep. Anthony Weiner said yesterday. Mr. Weiner said the Jets should return to their original home in Queens, possibly at Willets Point.

The Congressman released a report from his office saying the last 10 NFL stadiums exceeded projected costs by an average of 19%. This would drive up the cost of a stadium on the West Side of Manhattan by $267 million to $1.67 billion. The city has already agreed to pay $600 million for the stadium. A general agreement between the football franchise and the city says the Jets will pay any additional costs. But Mr. Weiner says that document is not legally binding and neither party has signed it.

– Special to the Sun

PROTESTERS OBJECT TO MTA PLAN TO REDUCE NUMBER OF CLERKS

Critics protested the possible reduction of clerks by the MTA to reduce the agency’s budget deficit. At the Broadway subway line at 157th Street, the Manhattan Borough president, C. Virginia Fields, appearing with transit union officials, said the MTA should not solve its financial woes by removing the human presence in the subway system. Last week, the transit authority’s president, Larry Reuter, said he planned to close token booths and turn the clerks at the city’s 468 subway stations into roving agents. The transition would take three years as part of an effort to cut costs and increase automation. It is unclear how many of the city’s approximate 3,000 token-booth clerks would lose their jobs.

– Special to the Sun

MANHATTAN

LOTTERY WINNER HANGS ONTO JOB, FOR THE MOMENT

Newly minted multimillionaire Juan Rodriguez, who won the $149 million Mega Millions lottery jackpot, said yesterday he hasn’t quit his job at a Midtown parking garage – yet. Asked what he plans to do with his millions, Mr. Rodriguez said, “I have no idea.”

Family members and lottery officials joined Mr. Rodriguez at a news conference in front of the Second Avenue newsstand where he bought the winning ticket on Friday. He is 49 and a Colombian immigrant who came to America in 1982 and lives in the Richmond Hill section of Queens.

Lottery officials said Mr. Rodriguez chose to take his winnings in a single payment of about $88.5 million before taxes.

– Associated Press

LONG ISLAND

TWO COUPLES WAKE TO FIND CROSS BURNING ON LAWN

LAKE GROVE – Two interracial couples woke up early yesterday to discover a cross burning in front of their Long Island home, police said. The couples awoke about 3 a.m. when someone rang the doorbell of their Lake Grove home, said Suffolk County Detective Sergeant Robert Reeks. When they opened the door, they found a wooden cross burning on the front lawn. The two-family home is occupied by two interracial families, one on the first floor and one on the second floor, Sergeant Reeks said. Bias crime detectives and the FBI are investigating, Sergeant Reeks said.

– Associated Press

POLICE BLOTTER

EX-CON ARRESTED AFTER WALKING INTO PRECINCT

A Brooklyn man with a criminal past was arrested after he walked into East New York’s 75th Precinct station house yesterday wearing no pants and claiming to have stabbed a woman to death, police said.

Robert Zimmerman, 41, who has a criminal record, was wearing only his underwear when he walked into the police station at 1:45 a.m. and announced he had killed a woman in his apartment. Police officers took Zimmerman into custody and went to his apartment at 260 Montauk Ave., where a 40-year-old woman was found dead with a knife sticking in her chest and multiple stab wounds on her body. A source identified the woman as Deanna Gray, a transient with a criminal record whose last known address was at Brooklyn.

– Staff Reporter of the Sun

POLICE IDENTIFY MAN SHOT AT BROOKLYN

Police identified a man who was gunned down on a Brooklyn street on Saturday afternoon as an ex-convict from North Carolina .The shooter remains at large, police said.

Derek Martin, 36, of Newburn, N.C., was shot twice in the stomach at 1:53 p.m. in front of 242 Madison St. at Bedford-Stuyvesant. He was taken to Woodhull Hospital in critical condition and pronounced dead three hours after the shooting.

Two shell casings and one bullet fragment were found at the scene. Police did not provide a motive for the crime.

Martin served more than two years in prison for criminal drug possession and was released from custody in 1990. He would have turned 37 on Thursday.

– Staff Reporter of the Sun