CITYWIDE

MILLER AIDE RESIGNS AFTER CHARGES OF SEXUAL HARRASSMENT

A senior policy adviser to the speaker of the City Council, Gifford Miller, has resigned after being accused of sexual harassment by three female employees in Mr. Miller’s office. The adviser, Barry Ford, resigned Tuesday after one of the three women went to the council’s chief of staff, Charles Meara, according to a colleague at the speaker’s office who declined to be identified.The woman who came forward said Mr. Ford, 41, had inappropriately touched her and two colleagues in social situations and made them feel uncomfortable. Mr. Ford, who could not be reached for comment last night, was suspended and later resigned, the source said.

– Staff Reporter of the Sun

SMALL-BUSINESS OWNERS PROTEST RISE IN FINES

Small businesses took a stand against the city yesterday, demanding that it reverse the increase in fines approved last month. Several City Council members and business groups joined the Small Business Congress in City Hall to attack the new policy, which eliminates the range of fines that was in place and replaces it with a higher minimum fine. The president of the Small Business Congress, Sung Soo Kim, said fines on businesses are projected to increase by 37% in the next year and that bankruptcies and closures among small business in the city are up. A spokeswoman for the city Department of Consumer Affairs denied that the increase in ticket collections was a result of a blitz.

– Staff Reporter of the Sun

MANHATTAN

DEATH PENALTY HEARING DRAWS ACTIVISTS

Supporters of capital punishment were outnumbered by a vocal crowd of anti-death penalty activists during a New York State Assembly hearing yesterday at the Midtown headquarters of the New York Bar Association. Panels of lawyers, family members of murder victims, and exonerated former death row inmates took turns decrying capital punishment.

Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau, saying the death penalty drains public resources while doing nothing to deter crime, urged legislators at the hearing yesterday to drop efforts to restore capital punishment in New York, the Associated Press reported.

Mr. Morgenthau, who has never sought death for a defendant, said “capital punishment merely allows proponents to convince themselves that they have done something to fight crime. It is a mirage that distracts society from more fruitful, less facile answers.”

– Special to the Sun

JAMES BEARD FOUNDATION FINDS ‘IMPROPER’ USE OF FUNDS

The culinary James Beard Foundation said yesterday that an internal audit has found its former president “engaged in inappropriate practices and improper use” of more than $1 million of the nonprofit group’s funds.

The report comes two days after the former official, Leonard F. Pickell, pleaded not guilty in Manhattan Supreme Court to charges of second-degree grand larceny and criminal possession of a forged instrument.According to the foundation, auditors found $284,915 in “unsubstantiated expenditures” so far this fiscal year, $371,907 last year, and $373,251 in 2002. George Sape, the foundation’s board chairman, claimed Mr. Pickell was solely responsible. “Those are all directly tied to activities that he was engaged in,” Mr. Sape said.

– Associated Press

QUEENS

CUNY CHANCELLOR FORCES YORK PRESIDENT TO TAKE LEAVE CUNY

Chancellor Matthew Goldstein has forced York College’s president, Robert Hampton, to take a leave of absence, The New York Sun has learned.

Mr. Goldstein told Mr. Hampton he was removing him from his job as president of the senior college at a meeting with the chancellor on December 3. Mr. Goldstein is to meet with York College faculty members, staff, and students this morning to discuss the president’s departure. Jay Hershenson, a spokesman for CUNY, it’s not clear why CUNY has forced Mr. Hampton to step down. “Health issues” of a “significant medical nature” that have affected the president’s job performance were a factor, a college source said. Mr. Hampton could not be reached for comment last night. He started his term as president in September 2003.

– Staff Reporter of the Sun

FIRE LEAVES ONE DEAD AT JACKSON HEIGHTS

A fire in a Jackson Heights apartment building yesterday morning killed one woman and injured several firefighters and police officers, according to an official from the New York City Fire Department. Just before 3 a.m. yesterday, 36-year-old Flora Penada was overcome by a fire that ripped through a second-floor bedroom and spread to her third-floor apartment at 37-52 89th St. in Queens, fire officials said. The blaze forced hundreds of residents onto their fire escapes and sent 20 civilians, six firefighters, and five police officers to area hospitals with minor injuries. According to FDNY officials, several unattended candles started the fire, and the blaze could have been better contained if fleeing residents had closed the building’s doors.

Following allegations that firefighters were slow to respond to the conflagration, the fire commissioner, Nicholas Scopetta, said in a statement at City Hall that firefighters were delayed because a 911 caller mistakenly gave the wrong address. – Special to the Sun

ALBANY

PATAKI SAYS TAX HIKE NOT NECESSARY FOR SCHOOL FUNDING

The state’s top two Republican officials say the state can meet the seemingly staggering cost of compliance with a court mandate to increase school aid without new taxes. Referees in the funding suit brought by the Campaign for Fiscal Equity have estimated it will take $23 billion to comply with a 2003 order by the state’s highest court to improve the constitutionally deficient New York City school system.While conceding that $23 billion is a “ton of money” in a state with a current budget of about $105 billion, Governor Pataki said, “We’re not going to destroy the fiscal or economic benefits of the past decade of work to do this…And we’re going to look to provide those funds without, in any way, raising taxes on the people of the state of New York. And I think we can do that.”

– Associated Press

GOVERNOR AND HIS FAMILY TO VACATION IN EUROPE

Governor Pataki said yesterday he’s putting together his own version of the Chevy Chase hit movie “European Vacation” for the Christmas holidays. While Mr. Pataki wouldn’t give trip details – although he said the family might go skiing – his spokesman, Kevin Quinn, said the clan would be visiting “several countries in central Europe.”

– Associated Press

POLICE BLOTTER

MEDICAL EXAMINER FINDS RAPPER’S DEATH ACCIDENTAL

Russell Jones, the rapper known as ODB, was killed by an accidental mix of cocaine and painkillers, according to the Office of the Medical Examiner, which announced toxicology results yesterday. Jones, 35, collapsed and died at a Manhattan recording studio on November 13, two days before his birthday.

– Staff Reporter of the Sun