MANHATTAN

PLAZA HOTEL OWNERS FIGHT COUNCIL BILL ON CONDO CONVERSIONS

The owners of the Plaza Hotel have gone on the offensive against a City Council bill introduced yesterday that would limit to 20% the number of hotel rooms that could be converted into condominiums. The bill, introduced by Joseph Addabbo, a Democrat of Queens, would require that if the landmark hotel converts into condominiums after it closes next month, it must keep 644 hotel rooms rather than the 150 it had planned.

The purpose of the bill is to save middle-class hotel jobs, Mr. Addabbo told The New York Sun. “As chair of the civil service and labor committee, I know the importance of these jobs. The idea is to raise awareness so that this trend of hotel conversions into condominiums is examined,” he said.

According to the bill, hotel owners would have to go before the City Council for permission to convert more than 20% of the hotel into condominiums.

“I have been advised by counsel that its provisions are probably unconstitutional,” the president of ElAd properties, Miki Naftali, said in a statement. ElAd bought the Plaza last summer for $675 million and has faced an uphill battle in its effort to renovate the building. In addition to a breakdown in negotiations with the hotel union over the loss of 800 jobs when the hotel closes at the end of April, ElAd officials also face a Landmarks Preservation Commission hearing on the renovations next week, and hundreds of preservationists are expected to attend.

“This bill is clearly special-interest legislation intended to curry favor with the union. It will not only hurt The Plaza Hotel’s renovation plans, but will also harm New York’s booming real estate industry,” Mr. Naftali said.

– Staff Reporter of the Sun

CITYWIDE

KLEIN: UFT CONTRACT PREVENTS PROMPT FIRING OF FRAUDULENT TEACHER

Schools Chancellor Joel Klein yesterday blamed the teachers union contract for keeping the Department of Education from firing Wayne Brightly, a teacher who couldn’t pass the certification test and then manipulated a homeless man into taking and passing it for him. At a news conference, Mr. Klein called the actions of Mr. Brightly, a Bronx middle-school teacher, “deplorable” and said, “everyone should be what I am – outraged about it.” He also said the department wants to fire Mr. Brightly as soon as possible, but under the teachers contract, the department must go through “legal processes.”

“What I would like to see is changes in the contract so that somebody like this could be terminated immediately,” he said.

The union president, Randi Weingarten, shot back that the blame lies with Mr. Klein, not the contract.

“If the facts are true, Joel Klein’s Department of Education has failed to put into place the proper safeguards to assure that teachers … are indeed certified,” she said in a statement. “Instead of saying, ‘oops,’ they are lashing out at the contract, which they apparently don’t understand. The 2002 contract, which the mayor negotiated, gives them the right to proceed with a hearing immediately and complete it within three months. During that time, they potentially could take Mr. Brightly off the payroll.”

– Staff Reporter of the Sun

PORT AUTHORITY DRAFTS PRESERVATION PLAN FOR WTC REMNANTS

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey has drafted a plan for conserving column bases and other remnants of the World Trade Center at a new transit hub at the site.

The plan, issued Tuesday, would preserve “to the maximum extent possible” 84 column bases from the north tower and 39 from the south tower. It also calls for construction of a glass wall to afford views of the bases, which might otherwise have been obscured by a proposed platform at the hub. Other artifacts, including steel beams, would be removed and put in storage, and features from a former subway platform at the site – including handrails and travertine flooring – would be included in the new train station.

– Associated Press

BARRON INTRODUCES CAMPAIGN AGAINST DAILY NEWS

City Council member Charles Barron, a Democrat of Brooklyn, formally unveiled his “Meet Your Match” campaign against the Daily News on the steps of City Hall yesterday.

Standing with irate readers of the tabloid who thought they’d become instantly wealthy from its “Scratch-‘n’-Match” lottery-style promotion when the Daily News printed the wrong “winning” numbers, Mr. Barron denounced the paper’s error and subsequent behavior as “outrageous.”

Pledging civil disobedience and boycotts if the Daily News didn’t distribute the prize money, Mr. Barron said he “may be looking at City Council hearings to look into the gaming industry and why it’s affecting low-income people of color.” He also announced the “organizing meeting” of the coalition, to be held this evening at the House of the Lord Church at Brooklyn. Some Daily News readers at City Hall yesterday will file lawsuits against the paper, they said, given that no prize money could compensate for their “emotional distress” and other unquantifiable suffering. There was no suffering, meanwhile, for the Daily News’s rival tabloid, the New York Post, which dumped 500 pounds of peanuts outside the Daily News building yesterday. The Post’s extensive coverage of the ordeal has argued that the Daily News’s offer to run a million-dollar consolation drawing is offering wronged readers only “peanuts.”

– Staff Reporter of the Sun

QUEENS

ATTEMPTED-MURDER CHARGE FOR MAN ACCUSED OF SLASHING POLICEMAN

A Queens man who slashed a police officer’s throat with a carpet knife, narrowly missing a critical artery, faces charges of attempted murder, aggravated assault on a police officer, and first-degree assault, prosecutors said yesterday.

The man, Radcliffe Meeks, 33, was shot in the elbow by the wounded officer’s partner, authorities said. Mr. Meeks remained hospitalized yesterday and hadn’t been arraigned, said a spokeswoman for Queens District Attorney Richard Brown. Prosecutors would not know whether he had a lawyer until his arraignment, spokeswoman Meris Campbell said. There was no phone number listed for Mr. Meeks at the address provided by prosecutors.

The slashing took place at about 8 p.m. Tuesday, when the officers were responding to a call of a man with a gun. When the officers approached the man, a struggle ensued, and the man slashed Officer Robert Burns, 36, on the left side of his face, from his throat to his ear, and on his hand, authorities said. Mr. Meeks was disarmed when Mr. Burns’s partner, Shannon Pearl, 32, opened fire, striking him in the right elbow, prosecutors said. Mr. Burns, was taken to Jamaica Hospital Medical Center in stable condition. He was expected to be released late yesterday, a hospital spokesman said.

Mr. Meeks, who was in stable condition at Mary Immaculate Hospital, would face up to 25 years to life in prison if convicted of all the charges against him.

– Associated Press