New York Desk

This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

The New York Sun
NY Sun
NEW YORK SUN CONTRIBUTOR

CITYWIDE


MILLER, WEINGARTEN OBJECT TO $5 LIMIT ON GIFTS TO TEACHERS


An appropriate teacher gift this holiday season might include a plastic pocket comb, a few Advil tablets, a pack of gum, a roll of toilet paper, and a Lotto ticket, according to the teachers union president and the City Council speaker’s reading of the new Department of Education rule on holiday gifts. The council speaker, Gifford Miller, who is expected to run against Mayor Bloomberg next year, said the new $5 limit on holiday gifts is symbolic of other ways the Bloomberg administration is shortchanging teachers.


Ms. Weingarten objects to the limit and thinks the city should return to the “common-sense” policy in place until this year. She wrote to the chancellor, asking him to reconsider. She has received no reply. “Teachers have struggled with layers of over-regulation and micromanagement at Tweed,” she said. “First they can’t have their students sit in rows.Then no lesson can last more than 10 minutes. Now they have to police their students’ holiday gifts.” A spokesman for Mr. Bloomberg, Robert Lawson, wrote off the attack as politically motivated.


– Staff Reporter of the Sun


MAYOR ANNOUNCES PLAN FOR AFFORDABLE CO-OPS


Mayor Bloomberg inched closer yesterday to his goal of creating 65,000 new units of “affordable housing” by 2008 as he unveiled a $100 million program aimed at setting up apartment financing for middle-income New Yorkers. Working with the municipal Housing Development Corporation and the Bank of America, the city plans to set up a revolving loan fund of $100 million, which is expected to create 3,000 affordable apartments in the next five years. Most of the money in the latest fund will finance developments not yet under construction, the mayor said. The program would give builders low-interest loans to finance developments of cooperative apartments. Once the apartments are built and sold, HDC would finance the underlying mortgage. The new program is expected to allow the city to increase the production of home-ownership developments.


– Staff Reporter of the Sun


BLOOMBERG UNVEILS BRONX MOBILE COMMAND CENTER


Mayor Bloomberg unveiled a new state-of-the-art Mobile Command Center in the Bronx yesterday in a bid to upgrade the emergency response abilities of the borough. The center, costing $570,000, will be the Fire Department’s command post during large-scale, long-duration incidents. The new vehicle is part of a plan put forward after McKinsey & Co reviewed the Fire Department’s operations after the September 11, 2001, attacks. The command center is equipped with the latest communications technology available including a radio system that allows for interoperability between the Fire Department and Police Department, as well as other agencies.


– Staff Reporter of the Sun


BRONX


SCHOOL AIDE HAD SEX WITH STUDENT


A school aide had sex with a 17-year-old student at Lehman High School while a second school aide acted as a lookout. The second aide introduced the student to a pimp and suggested she work for him, according to a report released yesterday by the special commissioner of investigation for the public schools. The report by Special Commissioner Richard Condon found that the two school aides, Clayton Fitz Coy, 25, and Aaron Stroud, 22, routinely made inappropriate, obscenity-filled comments to students. The central incident occurred at the end of the 2003-04 school year, when Mr. Stroud unlocked the fifth-floor generator room and then watched out as Mr. Fitz Coy had sex with a student. In a statement, Mr. Fitz Coy admitted he had sex with the student but wrote, “I didn’t force her to go any were [sic].” Mr. Stroud admitted he introduced the student to Terrell Ellis, whom he knew to be a pimp. The Department of Education said yesterday that both men have been suspended without pay.


– Staff Reporter of the Sun


MANHATTAN


JUDGE REJECTS PART OF LAW RESTRICTING FREE LEGAL AID


A judge in Manhattan rejected provisions yesterday of a federal law that opponents say deprived poor people access to legal advice in housing, family, consumer, and other types of civil cases. The ruling, by U.S. District Court Judge Frederic Block, upheld arguments by three New York-based programs that offer free legal services for low-income individuals and families. All three plaintiffs were represented by the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law. The groups argued against a law enacted by Congress in 1996 that barred private nonprofit organizations that received federal funding through the Legal Services Corp. from defending poor people in certain cases.


– Associated Press


JURORS BEGIN DELIBERATIONS IN GOTTI TRIAL


Jurors began their first full day of deliberations yesterday in the racketeering trial of Peter Gotti, brother of the late Gambino crime family boss John Gotti. Peter Gotti and co-defendant Thomas Carbonaro are accused of conspiring to murder mob turncoat Salvatore “Sammy the Bull” Gravano by sending mobsters to Arizona in 1999 and 2000.


– Associated Press


QUEENS


REMAINS OF TWO MAFIA CAPTAINS UNEARTHED


Remains recently discovered buried in a suspected Mafia graveyard in Queens were those of two mob captains who were murdered in 1981, the FBI said yesterday. An investigation by the FBI’s Evidence Response Team and the city medical examiner determined the victims were Bonanno crime family captains Philip Giaccone and Dominick Trinchera, said Pasquale D’Amuro, head of the bureau’s New York office. The FBI started searching in early October at the vacant lot. No other remains were found.


– Associated Press


STATEWIDE


SOCIAL SECURITY REVERSES DECISION ON GAY MARRIAGE


The Social Security Administration reversed course yesterday and said it will accept marriage licenses issued for heterosexual couples in two communities that performed weddings for gay couples earlier this year. The agency initially rejected all marriage certificates issued when officials wedded same-sex couples in Asbury Park, N.J., Multnomah County, Ore., New Paltz, N.Y., and Sandoval County, N.M. Effective immediately, the agency will accept legally issued marriage documents from Multnomah County, Ore., and New Paltz, N.Y. None of the same-sex couples in New Paltz had a marriage license because the town clerk’s office refused to issue one. The Social Security agency said “notarized affidavits” such as those issued to same-sex couples are not valid forms of identification.


– Associated Press


POLICE BLOTTER


OFFICER SHOT


A housing police officer, 33-year-old Michael McLaughlin, was shot last night at a Brooklyn apartment complex, according to police sources. At about 8 p.m. while on patrol inside the Ocean Hill Apartments in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn, a housing officer was shot in the hand, police officials said. Police said the suspect, a 6-foot-tall black male dressed in all black and wearing a black ski mask fired a shot at the officer, hitting him in the right index finger. Police say he then fled the scene. No arrests have been made in the case.


– Special to the Sun

NY Sun
NEW YORK SUN CONTRIBUTOR

This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.


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