MANHATTAN

SILLS RESIGNS MET OPERA POST FOR HEALTH REASONS

Beverly Sills resigned as Metropolitan Opera chairwoman after more than two years in the volunteer post to take care of family health problems, the organization announced. The announcement, which takes effect immediately, follows close on the heels of the resignation of Lincoln Center’s chairman, Bruce Crawford, earlier this month.

Joseph Volpe, the opera’s general manager, said in a statement today that the poor health of Ms. Sills’s husband, Peter Greenough, and her own recent fall that resulted in a fractured knee “made this decision necessary,” according to Bloomberg News.

Ms. Sills, 75, retired from performing in 1980 to become general director of the New York City Opera Company.

She later served as chairwoman of Lincoln Center, a position she resigned from in 2002. In each of her positions, she showed an unmatched skill at fund-raising – which is why the Met asked her to become its chairman just a few months later.

One of the biggest challenges Ms. Sills faced during her tenure was the need to replace the Metropolitan’s president, Joseph Volpe, who announced his resignation earlier this year. Peter Gelb, the former president of the Sony Classics music label, will assume that role in 2006.

Ms. Sills said she was “delighted” to have played a role in finding Mr. Gelb, according to Bloomberg.

The other major task was dealing with paying for the opera’s Saturday afternoon broadcasts after ChevronTexaco withdrew its longtime funding. After raising the $7 million necessary to continue broadcasting this year, last March Ms. Sills set about pursuing the estimated $150 million needed to put it on a permanent footing. As of September, however, only $10.1 million had been raised, according to the New York Times.

“I know that I have achieved what I set out to do, having raised millions which were designated not only for new productions but also to save the Saturday afternoon broadcasts for the foreseeable future,” Ms. Sills said in the press release.

– Staff Reporter of the Sun

STATEWIDE

N.Y. TO RECEIVE $140M FOR HOMELESS SERVICES

New York State will receive $140 million for homeless services as part of a record $1.4 billion national allotment, House and Urban Development Secretary Alfonso Jackson announced yesterday. The funding will support continuum of care grants for permanent and transitional housing and emergency shelters grants. New York City and the surrounding suburbs will receive $107 million.

Some local advocates for the homeless said they were disappointed by the choice of allotment.

“That $140 million could be put to much better use to build actual affordable housing for poor people,” said a volunteer at Picture the Homeless, Mike Slater. “It basically does nothing at all for your basic poor person who doesn’t need transitional or supportive housing. We’d like to see the money used to create actual housing, not shelters.”

– Staff Reporter of the Sun

CITYWIDE

CITY COLLECTED MORE TAX REVENUE THAN PROJECTED

The City Council’s finance division says the city has collected $567 million more in tax revenue than it projected it would in October.

Most of the surplus, it says, comes from income taxes, but some of the windfall comes from real estate property transfers and mortgage record taxes, an analysis shows. The analysis found a broad post-recession recovery across several industries that has resulted in more private sector jobs, driven up income, and increased real estate prices.

In December, for example, the city gained 38,600 private sector jobs compared to the 42,800 it lost in the same month a year before.

– Staff Reporter of the Sun