CITYWIDE

FERRER ATTACKS MAYOR FOR TAKING CREDIT FOR FISH MARKET MOVE

Fernando Ferrer’s mayoral campaign attacked Mayor Bloomberg yesterday for claiming credit for moving the Fulton Fish Market to Hunts Point. In a scathing e-mail that a campaign spokeswoman, Christy Setzer, sent to reporters, the campaign says Mr. Ferrer deserves more credit for the upcoming move of the historic fish market than the mayor. “The truth is that the project began under Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and was catalyzed by then-borough president Fernando Ferrer, who joined the mayor to unveil the plan, involved himself in the facility’s planning, and exchanged kudos with Giuliani at a symbolic groundbreaking in 2001,” it said. A spokesman for the Bloomberg campaign, Stuart Loeser, said, “Freddy Ferrer has a long record of taking credit for projects in which he played only a small supporting role. I think we all remember him trying to take credit for Mayor Koch’s housing program in the Bronx.” The fish market was scheduled to move to the Bronx on Monday, but the move was delayed by a lawsuit filed late last week by a former deputy mayor to Mr. Giuliani, Randy Mastro.

– Staff Reporter of the Sun

PRINCIPALS’ UNION VOTES ON CONTRACT

In an emergency closed-door meeting, the union representing city principals voted last night to allow their negotiating team to take “whatever actions deemed necessary” to obtain a fair contract. The union, the Council of School Supervisors and Administrators, is trying to negotiate a contract for its 5,500 members. The executive board also voted to support the city teachers’ union, which is in the midst of heated negotiations with the mayor.

– Staff Reporter of the Sun

COUNCIL INTRODUCES BILL TO AID BUSINESSES OWNED BY WOMEN, MINORITIES

In a bid to aid businesses owned by women and minorities, more than 20 City Council members yesterday introduced a bill that would require city agencies to meet strict goals for including those businesses in city contracts. They cited a council study that showed that women- and minority-owned businesses were underrepresented in the awarding of city contracts. The measure comes three weeks after Mayor Bloomberg signed an executive order to assist women-and minority-owned businesses – a move the City Council members said did not go far enough.

– Special to the Sun

ALBANY

LAWMAKERS DIRECTING SCHOOLS TO EXPAND HISTORY CURRICULUMS

State legislators across the country are increasingly directing their schools to teach students more about the struggles and triumphs of different races and ethnic groups, a move critics say amounts to politically correct meddling. In the latest such example, a new commission in New York will examine whether the “physical and psychological terrorism” against Africans in the slave trade is being adequately taught in schools.

– Associated Press

SPITZER CLAIMS NURSING HOME OVERBILLED MEDICAID ALMOST $1M

The state attorney general, Eliot Spitzer, is suing a nursing home, claiming it over billed the Medicaid system by nearly $1 million. Mr. Spitzer accuses the Rosa Coplon Jewish Home and Infirmary in Getzville, Erie County, of inflating hourly rates, including non-reimbursable costs and administrative costs and salaries. Mr. Spitzer said the 180-bed home received $969,958 in reimbursements from the health care program for the poor and disabled that is paid for by federal, state, and county taxes.

– Associated Press

POLICE BLOTTER

PHYSICAL EDUCATION TEACHER CHARGED WITH RAPE

A physical education teacher in a Brooklyn high school was arrested and charged with the ongoing rape of a young teenager, police said. At 2:30 p.m. yesterday, police arrested the teacher, Lawrence Major, 45, after questioning him in the South Jamaica precinct near his home. Mr. Major, a teacher at Paul Robeson High School at 150 Albany Ave. in Brooklyn, allegedly abused a then-student from the school starting in 2002, when she was 14. It was not immediately clear if the girl was a student of Mr. Major’s. The investigation continues, although police said no other victim has come forward at this time.

– Staff Reporter of the Sun