MANHATTAN

NINE INJURED IN MANHATTAN BLAZE

Nine people, including five firefighters, suffered minor injuries when a two-alarm blaze broke out yesterday morning in the lobby of a dental office on the Upper West Side, fire officials said. After the fire started around 8:30 a.m., flames shot out of the ground floor windows of 400 West End Ave. Twelve units and 60 firefighters responded to the blaze, which took an hour to put out, a Fire Department spokesman said. The fire remains under investigation, and a cause is not yet known, the spokesman said.

– Special to the Sun

LAWSUIT OVER DISPUTED $241,000 BILL AT TOPLESS CLUB

American Express has sued the CEO of a communications company for payment of $241,000 worth of disputed credit card charges at the Manhattan topless club Scores. American Express says in papers filed in state Supreme Court in Manhattan that Savvis Incorporated’s chief executive officer, Robert McCormick, was in the strip club in October 2003 with at least three other men. After Mr. McCormick got the $241,000 corporate credit card bill, Savvis called American Express and complained that some of the charges were fraudulent, the lawsuit says. The communications company said its chief disputed all but about $20,000, according to the lawsuit.

– Associated Press

STATEWIDE

STUDY: NEW YORK’S ECONOMY GROWING AT STEADY CLIP

New York’s economy is growing steadily, the most recent state Department of Labor job study has found. The state’s private sector gained 80,700 jobs in the last year, an increase of 1.2%. The city claimed more than half of those additional jobs, an increase of 1.5%, and Long Island and city suburbs also reported gains of more than 1%.The data showed that the city appears to be accelerating its recovery from job losses suffered after the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. Several major development projects helped boost building construction jobs by 8% since September 2004, with employment services, securities firms, and scientific research and development services also showing significant job increases.

– Special to the Sun

BRONX

FDNY PROBES THIRD FIRE IN FOUR MONTHS AT STRIP OF STORES

The Fire Department is investigating the third major fire to erupt within four months at a one-story strip of stores in the Bronx. The six-alarm blaze broke out just before 8 a.m. yesterday and destroyed six of the building’s 12 businesses before firefighters brought it under control an hour and a half later, a department spokesman said. Five of the more than 200 firefighters who responded suffered minor injuries, the spokesman, Charles Markey, said. The fire occurred at Jerome Avenue and 170th Street in Mount Eden. Subway service on the no. 4 line was stopped for 30 minutes, and resumed at reduced speeds until 9:27 a.m., a spokesman for New York City Transit said. The fire threatened a nearby apartment building, but did not inflict major damage, and no civilians in either building were injured. Two other recent fires at the same location are under investigation, raising suspicion about yesterday’s fire. The causes of the fires are not known, the department said.

– Special to the Sun

ALBANY

STATE BOARD PUSHES AHEAD WITH SELECTING VOTE MACHINES

The state Board of Elections formally began the process yesterday of settling on new voting machine standards for New York, but a spokesman said it may take a miracle to get them in place for next year’s elections. The state board’s advisory committee on voting machine standards held its first meeting yesterday. The board’s spokesman, Lee Daghlian, said the goal is for the state board to approve machine standards by January. Once that is done, voting machine companies will have to submit machines for certification by the board before counties can start buying the machines that are supposed to be in operation for the 2006 elections. The first test of the new machines in New York was supposed to come in the September 2006 primary elections.

– Associated Press

CITYWIDE

REPORT: ‘AFFORDABLE’ HOUSING PRODUCTION NOT MEETING DEMAND

Affordable housing production in New York is failing to meet demand, according to a report that will be released today by the city’s public advocate, Betsy Gotbaum. The study blames a reduction in city and state funding and a restructuring of programs to address very specific objectives, localities, and demographics. Without current revenue to create new affordable housing, the report recommends low-interest loans and tax breaks to jump-start construction.

– Staff Reporter of the Sun

COMMUNITY LEADERS: MAYOR MUST DO MORE TO COMBAT INEQUALITY

Community leaders, immigrant organizers, and a City Council member, Bill Perkins, demanded yesterday that the mayor do more to prevent inequality in the city. At a rally at City Hall, more than a dozen leaders cited rising poverty rates, economic disparity, and police abuse as reasons for a need for a proactive stance to prevent disparities in city employment and services. “The city is shortchanged because of the reactive way we address discrimination,” Mr. Perkins said. Instead, he advocated for City Council legislation, intro 512-A, which would require city agencies to conduct periodic reviews of their programs to ensure that they are not discriminatory.

– Staff Reporter of the Sun

CITY, POLICE SERGEANTS’ UNION AGREE TO CONTRACT

The city and the Police Sergeants’ Union have agreed to a new contract that includes a 10% pay raise over two years, Mayor Bloomberg said yesterday. If ratified by the Sergeants’ Benevolent Association, the contract would rework the current salary scale for newly promoted sergeants. The new system is retroactive to 2003 and would involve five pay levels, starting at about $67,000 a year for current sergeants and $61,000 for officers upon promotion, and culminating at about $76,000 for all sergeants. The mayor said the salary increases would be paid for by productivity improvements.

– Special to the Sun