City gives billions to AOC led energy resetting

 

 NY Post

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s Green New Deal agenda is now governing the future of city pension funds, Mayor Bill de Blasio and city Comptroller Scott Stringer announced Thursday.

Self-described socialist AOC was on hand at City Hall Thursday as the city politicians, each with less than three months left in office, pushed $8 billion in investments to her Green New Deal agenda — detailing their commitment of the Big Apple’s pension investments to climate-friendly companies.

The $8 billion through 2025 amounts to a down payment toward a previously stated commitment by de Blasio for $50 billion in pensions funds invested in green-minded companies.

“I want to give credit where credit is due. It took vision and it took an incredible sense of what is possible and how to push the spectrum and reset our imaginations and we got that from a great leader,” de Blasio said during his daily press briefing, before introducing AOC, who joined Hizzoner on the dais amid negotiations on President Biden’s spending bill.

“Thank you so much for changing people’s minds, and resetting the entire sense of the possible with the Green New Deal. It is extraordinary,” the far-left Bronx-Queens Democrat said.

Stringer sues the Blaz for abusing emergency powers

 

 NY Post

Comptroller Scott Stringer decried Mayor Bill de Blasio’s spending of $6.9 billion worth of fast-tracked city contracts, while announcing Tuesday he’d taken the mayor to court to put a stop to the “unacceptable” practice enacted in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The comptroller’s lawsuit, filed in Manhattan Supreme Court, is aimed at bringing back procurement laws and regulations that mandate comptroller oversight on City Hall’s spending — regulations that have been suspended since March 2020.

“This mayor does not have a great track record on transparency, [Freedom of Information Law], and good government, and I’ll be damned if we’re going to walk out on December 31 with $7 billion truly unaccounted for,” Stringer said at a press conference in Lower Manhattan.

“We can’t let this man’s hubris outlast the pandemic, or even his mayoralty,” said Stringer, who in June received just five percent of first-choice votes in his failed bid to succeed de Blasio.

On March 16, 2020 — just before the COVID-19 pandemic reached its peak in New York City — de Blasio signed an executive order that put a pause on regular procurement rules, with the aim of expediting the process with which the city buys goods and services during the emergency.

But as the Big Apple bounces back from the pandemic’s throes, Stringer wants to bring back normal checks and balances on city spending.

“The mayor has extended the procurement emergency powers more than 100 times, including as recently as last week, allowing the city to continue to spend without the oversight that my office is charter mandated to provide,” said Stringer on Tuesday. “People, this is unacceptable.”

“We’re gonna get to the bottom of this,” the city’s top bean counter vowed. 

 It's taking Stringer 14 months to get to the bottom of this, and since then the Blaz has made his job wholly irrelevant. What a wimp.

Defund the D.O.B.

 

City Comptroller's Office

  Today, New York City Comptroller Scott M. Stringer released an audit revealing the Department of Buildings (DOB) failed to adequately oversee complaint intake, inspection, and disposition processes for illegal curb cuts and driveways. The audit showed widespread deficiencies in DOB’s processing of complaints of illegal curb cuts and driveways, oversight and training of field inspectors, and inspections of curb cuts and driveways. The audit also found that based on a sample of 1,024 complaints made during the audit scope period, the City potentially failed to assess and collect as much as $430,014 in penalties due to DOB’s failure to adequately respond to 502 (49 percent) of those complaints. Based on a review of the total population of complaints received by DOB in the audit scope period, the audit showed that the City may have foregone as much as an additional $32,604 due to additional errors by DOB in its handling of re-inspections and filing of violations with the Office of Administrative Trials and Hearings’ (OATH’S) Environmental Control Board.

“New York City’s streets and sidewalks are among our greatest public resources,” said Comptroller Stringer. “Illegal curb cuts and driveways negatively impact safety and quality of life for pedestrians and drivers alike and take away much needed sidewalk space when our city most needs it. Our audit identified significant weaknesses in the Department of Buildings enforcement of the rules that apply to curb cuts and driveways, which also cost the city tens of thousands of dollars. I urge DOB to implement our recommendations immediately and ensure that our streetscapes can serve as the public amenities they are intended to be.”

For the audit scope period, Comptroller Stringer obtained from DOB a complaint listing with 7,256 entries, of which 5,783 were individual complaints associated with 3,874 properties of potentially illegal curb cuts, driveways, and carports according to DOB’s internal reporting. For the 5,783 individual complaints received during the audit scope, DOB performed 3,238 inspections for 3,020 properties. Of these 3,238 inspections, DOB issued 1,435 OATH violations related to 1,203 properties.

Comptroller Stringer’s audit found that with respect to curb cuts and driveways, DOB did not adequately oversee its processes for responding to complaints and for issuing permits for their installation as well as deficiencies in all aspects of DOB’s complaint intake, inspection, and disposition processes. DOB lacked training for its field inspectors regarding curb cuts and driveways and did not provide sufficient supervisory oversight of their inspections. Additionally, DOB lacked controls over the issuance of violations for illegal curb cuts and driveways and DOB field inspectors did not appropriately refer all complaints that fall under other agencies’ jurisdictions to those agencies.

Woman accusing Scott Stringer of sexual harassment petitioned for Andrew Yang's nomination

 

 CBS New York

 There’s another bombshell in the New York City mayoral race.

The woman accusing Scott Stringer of sexually assaulting her circulated nominating petitions for one of Stringer’s top opponents, CBS2’s Marcia Kramer reported Friday.  

 Stringer, New York City’s comptroller and a Democratic candidate for mayor, campaigned in Flatbush, Brooklyn to ask New Yorkers to give him a fair hearing as he continues to forcefully deny startling accusations he groped campaign volunteer Jean Kim twenty years ago.

“We also have to make sure that we investigate, we listen, we look at the facts and follow the facts,” Stringer said.

There are now new facts to consider.

First, Kim collected signatures on nominating petitions to get several candidates – including Democratic primary front-runner Andrew Yang – on the ballot.

Kim, a standup comedian, also wrote a thesis for a master’s degree at CUNY about women and their struggles to be considered funny.

“Fortunately, I have no stories about comics flashing themselves in front of me, or of sexual groping episodes,” she wrote in 2002.

Kim says Stringer sexually assaulted her in 2001.

“Scott Stringer repeatedly groped me, put his hands on my thighs and between my legs and demanded to know why I wouldn’t have sex with him. He kept saying, ‘Why won’t you f*** me, why won’t you f*** me?'” Kim said.

Stringer says it never happened. Kramer asked him how he felt about Kim carrying petitions for Yang.

“I don’t really want to speculate on those motivations,” Stringer said. “But people should take a look at, you know she has a lot of commonality with people who oppose me politically.”

If this story gets more legs, it will show that even nice guy Yang couldn't resist resorting to sleazy politics. At least it'll show he's a true New Yorker.

Stringer accused of groping an intern

 

PIX News

 A former intern for New York City comptroller and mayoral candidate Scott Stringer accused the politician of sexual abuse and harassment on Tuesday. 

The woman, who was not named in a press release from attorney Patricia Pastor, said Stringer repeatedly groped her when he was a member of the New York Assembly and running for Public Advocate of NYC. He’d allegedly offered to get the woman a role as district leader. The woman, then an unpaid intern, accused him of telling her to keep the alleged sexual misconduct a secret.

“It’s unfortunately all too common that women report having been touched sexually without consent, and often men who engage this way are in a position of power and influence over the woman,” Pastor said. “I have great respect for women who choose to say, ‘enough is enough.’”

A spokesperson for Stringer’s mayoral campaign declined to comment on the accusations against him.

Impunity City

It took a while, considering how low he’s polling in the mayor’s race, but Comptroller Scott Stringer finally got the dough to put out his first campaign ad.

At a cost of one million dollars, which is derived from taxpayers dollars because of the very bad matching funds law, Stringer’s ad touts his past accomplishments in big font letters as he dramatically walks in an apartment hallway and on the street. It climaxes with the candidate doing an aw shucks shrug.

As with Stringer’s struggling campaign and platform which looks to continue de Blasio’s horrendous policies (and which also is not distinguishable from the other 6 or 7 candidates), the ad contains a very obvious and hilarious flaw...

de Blasio's Buildings Department is as absent minded as him.

 

NY Post

Mayor Bill de Blasio’s Buildings Department blew deadlines or failed to reinspect structures with dangerous conditions that threatened public safety more than 5,400 times, according to a blistering new audit from City Comptroller Scott Stringer.

Stringer’s investigation revealed that the DOB failed to conduct 2,986 of the nearly 6,381 required reinspections within the 60-day timeline required under the administrative code — and that it never scheduled another 596 reviews.

Additionally, the Comptroller’s office discovered that the DOB busted its 60-day deadline with another 1,819 subsequent followups.

“No one should have to live or work in fear of debris or unstable scaffolding crashing down on them in a home, place of work, or at any other site in this city,” said Stringer.

“Our audit of DOB’s internal procedures uncovered multiple failures that pose a direct risk to public safety,” he added. “DOB has a responsibility to protect the public – and it absolutely must live up to that promise.”

The probe focused on the violations that have been “identified as posing a threat of imminent danger to public safety or property.”

Stringer’s office also uncovered that the Buildings Department frequently misses its internal goals when it comes to reviewing paperwork to ensure repairs are properly completed, hitting the 21-day self-imposed deadline just 42 percent of the time.

City officials said in a formal reply to Stringer that they agree with the recommendations to redouble their efforts on the 60-day reinspections and to formalize the 21-day goal for processing certifications of repairs. In a statement, they broadly defended the agency’s performance.

“We’re improving our service levels across the agency to meet our other legally required timelines, all while handling a significantly expanded workload,” said DOB spokesman Andrew Rudansky. “New York City deserves safe communities, and we’ll do our part by holding our inspection work to the highest standards in the country.”

Comptroller Stringer rejects federal seawall plan for city

The Forum

 City Comptroller Scott Stringer on Friday fired off a four-page letter to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers condemning their plan to construct offshore storm surge barriers in New York Harbor.

In the letter, Stringer castigated the corps’ proposal for not adequately protecting coastal communities from the threat of sea level rise and associated flooding. The Comptroller’s letter also highlighted the long construction timeline associated with the storm barriers and their high cost estimate — noting that the largest of the options outlined in the proposal would take a quarter of a century to build out, cost six times that of shorefront resiliency options, and endanger the delicate ecosystem of the harbor including the region’s network of marshes and wetlands that are critical to mitigating storm surge.

Stringer said he is calling on the agency to implement an integrated and environmentally-conscious approach that’s focused on onshore resiliency measures including localized floodwalls, dune and wetland restoration, living shorelines, reefs, and levees. Stringer’s missive noted that this approach was the only way to protect the city from rising sea levels, storm surge from non-catastrophic weather events, and increasingly catastrophic storms in the future.
 
The letter follows a May 2019 report published by the comptroller, “The Costs of Climate Change: New York City’s Economic Exposure to Rising Seas,” which exposed substantial underspending of federally-appropriated Superstorm Sandy recovery funding that the City had not yet allocated to protect vulnerable coastline communities including only 57 percent of a combined $14.5 billion in federal funds. The report concluded that lagging spending posed a threat to the 520 miles of coastline citywide, which is estimated at a combined property value of $101.5 billion within the city’s current 100-year floodplain map — marking a more than 50 percent increase in value since 2010.

“There’s no question about it — a future Superstorm Sandy will come and New York Harbor will bear the brunt of it. Too many of our waterfront communities are all too vulnerable to the next storm, or even the next high tide,” Stringer said Friday. “I am urging the Army Corps of Engineers to get shovels in the ground on shorefront resiliency options like floodwalls, dune systems, wetlands, and levees that can protect New Yorkers and their livelihoods. Lives are at stake, homes and businesses are on the line, and futures hang in the balance. We need to act with urgency, plan strategically, and build out resiliency efficiently in the era of climate change, because time is not on our side.”

South Ozone Park sewage claims clinic hearing tommorow

Skipper de Blasio drops anchor on Stringer and spends 43 million for five more ferries

NY Post

The de Blasio administration plans to ram through another $43 million in ferry purchases for its money-pit fleet — in the face of objections from the city’s fiscal watchdog, The Post has learned.

The push comes just months after City Hall forged full speed ahead with another $84.5 million purchase over the worries of City Comptroller Scott Stringer.

It swells the total amount sunk into the program to $637 million.

The decision “to deem another City tax-payer funded vessel purchase registered without providing exhaustive data, metrics, reports, etc. to demonstrate the success of the citywide ferry program and justify the ballooning costs of this initiative is disappointing,” Stringer wrote in a letter Friday to the Economic Development Corp., a copy of which was obtained by The Post.

The $43 million covers the purchase of five new boats, according to purchase documents submitted to the Comptroller’s Office.

It marks the second time this year that City Hall has exercised veto power to torpedo Stringer’s attempts at oversight of the ferry system.

The East River system is among Mayor de Blasio’s biggest transit initiatives, despite carrying only a fraction of the New Yorkers who use the subways, buses or CitiBike.

Just 18,000 people rode the ferries on an average weekday during the spring, with those trips subsidized at a rate of $10.73 per ticket.

Here's an obnoxious example of those people who use the gilded commute.

NY Post


On Friday nights, revelers are turning a commuter ferry into a DJ-helmed dance party.
Helicopters buzz overhead as the East River churn bumps riders — businessmen and women just off work and metallic jacket-clad partiers alike — while beats blast from the boat’s stern.

“You see guys with suits on, chugging a beer and just dancing,” says NYC Ferry captain Ben Nedrick, as he steers the boat along the Lower East Side route.
From his booth on the boat’s upper deck, he watches as DJ Sheri Barclay mixes music for the weekly Rooftop Sounds Pop-Up.

The other week, Nedrick, 23, handed the wheel to his co-captain so he could join in the fun, breakdancing in his uniform as a soca jam played, to his passengers’ delight. There’s an almost palpable sense of cutting loose, especially on a hot summer night.

“It’s got that kind of lawlessness to it,” concedes Barclay, 36, the manager of online radio station KPISS.FM, which streams from an RV in Bushwick.

The dance parties did, in fact, begin illicitly.

“Last year, I threw my birthday on the ferry without their permission,” says creative director Franz Aliquo, 43. He and his guests rode for one round and finished all the booze on the boat before getting kicked off. This spring, he says, the ferry company reached out to him.

“They hit me up to be like, ‘You did it last year, and it was pretty dope,’ ” says Franz, who picks the DJs, and organized the events as a labor of love.
Now, the happy hours have the blessing of the ferry — and that of its concession stand, which sells a rotating variety of beer ($7), wine ($8) and snacks on-board all boats. (Passengers aren’t allowed to BYOB.)

“It gives a good vibe,” marketing coordinator Tiffani Samaroo tells The Post. She says the transit service is planning a host of other events it hopes will increase ridership, though only the Friday night 6:30 to 8 p.m. “happy hour” will have a DJ.

There’s no cover charge, just the price of passage: $2.75, the same as a subway ride — but you can’t use a MetroCard. NYC Ferry currently operates six routes and a summer shuttle to Governors Island.

 Remember, the city and you the taxpayer do not get a dime from the booze sold on these ferries. All monies go to the contractor, Hornblower.

U.S. Open are deadbeat renters

THE CITY
 

Visitors are already starting to descend on Queens to attend the U.S. Open tennis tournament, which holds court in Flushing Meadows Corona Park next week.

Last year, a record of nearly 830,000 spectators passed through the United States Tennis Association’s Billie Jean King National Tennis Center.

But according to a new audit by city Comptroller Scott Stringer, the USTA has not been playing fair with the city.

The comptroller’s probe found that from 2014 to 2017, the USTA failed to report $31 million in revenue, which would mean it owes more than $311,000 in additional rent to the city. In 2016 and 2017, USTA paid $6.6 million each year in rent to the city.

The audit finds USTA underreported benefits received from other companies and fees and took inappropriate deductions.

The USTA may also owe an additional $82,000 because of discrepancies in financial reports, Stringer’s office found.

The comptroller’s review also determined the lease’s restrictions on access to records hinders closer city oversight of the USTA’s finances.

“Any corporate entity leasing land from the city must pay its fair share of rent – no ifs, ands, or buts about it. The Tennis Center collects more than $300 million annually, and yet, it shortchanges city taxpayers,” Stringer said in a statement. “This arrangement should be a win-win, not just ‘advantage’ USTA.”

Some Queens residents said that the park doesn’t feel like theirs during the U S. Open, calling the Grand Slam tournament a complete takeover of the 1,255-acre park.

David Pastor, 29, a member of grassroots group Queens Neighborhoods United, said that the park is usually a safe haven for immigrant families and contended that this community character gets “overridden” around tournament time.

“I’ve lived here my whole life and I’ve never even thought to go. It’s super expensive,” Pastor said. “You have to question who it’s for.”

City is still sitting on billions of dollars of federal Hurricane Sandy recovery money for housing damaged by storm

NY Post


The de Blasio administration still hasn’t spent $8.1 billion in federal funds for Hurricane Sandy recovery six years after the storm — including $1.8 billion for NYCHA, according to a new report by city Comptroller Scott Stringer.

The city has used up just 54 percent of a total $14.7 billion allocated for infrastructure, homeowner recovery and resiliency projects.

Only 41 percent targeted for the New York City Housing Authority has been spent.

“All the talk of a monitor, all the NYCHA investigations from lead to boilers, there’s a pot of money, $3 billion, and NYCHA and City Hall could only allocate 41 percent! This is the tragedy of this moment,” Stringer said.

NYC Ferry subsidy costs are INSANE

NY Post

 

The city’s ferry system is taking taxpayers for a ride, with each individual trip costing $10.73 more than passengers pay, according to a government watchdog.
 
In a report titled “Swimming in Subsidies,” the Citizens Budget Commission said the $2.75 fare covered just about one-fifth of the cost of the waterborne-transit system.
 
The $10.73 subsidy is 10 times the $1.05 that the government kicks in for each subway trip, which costs the same $2.75.
 
And it’s nearly twice the $5.46 paid to subsidize each trip on the free Staten Island Ferry.
It was only a few months ago that city officials pegged the ferry subsidy at $7 to $8 a ride.
 
A planned expansion of the ferry system will hit taxpayers even harder.
 
A Coney Island line due in 2021 will need an eye-popping $24.75 per passenger from the city to stay afloat, the CBC estimated.
 
“They have created a ferry network that serves a small number of New Yorkers, is expensive to operate and requires a high subsidy that will only grow higher,” said CBC researcher Sean Campion.
The ferries carried 4.1 million passengers last year, less than the subways did in on an average day.
 

 Also:

City Comptroller Scott Stringer’s recent warnings about massive waste at NYC Ferry were alarming enough. But a Citizens Budget Commission report out Thursday truly, uh, rocks the boat.
 
For every ferry ride, the CBC found, the city kicks in an average of $10.73 of its own funds to meet costs. Every ride!
 
And, to be clear, that $10-plus is on top of the $2.75 fare.
 
That’s 10 times the average subsidy for the New York City Transit system. And double the one for the Staten Island Ferry.

And get this: A new route Mayor Bill de Blasio recently announced will run from Coney Island to Wall Street — and cost the taxpayers a mind-numbing $24.75 in subsidies for every ride.
 
That’s $247.50 for five round trips a week — or $12,375 a year. Is the mayor nuts?
 
Based on Kelly Blue Book figures, de Blasio could buy each regular commuter a late-model Jaguar XE and save more than $2,000 a year on each one. Or put three riders in an Uber: The cost of that trip at 1:30 p.m. Tuesday was $35. Even with a $10 tip, the city could save $5,000 a pop each year. What in the blue seas is he thinking?

We all know damn well this mayor has no modicum of fiscal sense or is even capable of thinking. But there is something that wasn't mentioned in the CBC report and that is the free shuttle bus service that acts as a transfer to and from the ferries that traverses east and west Rockaway...

...which are also operated by Hornblower

Stringer subpoenas NYCHA

From CBS 2:

New York City Comptroller Scott Stringer is putting NYCHA’s feet to the fire, alleging the city housing agency is stonewalling efforts to investigate why so many residents have been left without heat or hot water.

Stringer’s office announced that a second subpoena was issued to NYCHA on Friday, demanding they turn over information about multiple outages last winter. On Saturday, the comptroller said the city housing authority had “purposely done everything they can” to delay a year-long audit into the embattled agency.

City lost an awful lot of affordable housing

From The Real Deal:

More than 1 million affordable apartments have vanished from New York City since 2005, according to a new report from Comptroller Scott Stringer’s office.

The study found that the city has lost more than 1 million units that rented for $900 or less since 2005, while the number of apartments that rent for $2,700 or more has quadrupled over that same time period. Apartments going for $900 or less made up 20 percent of all rentals in 2017, down from 74 percent in 2005, while apartments going for more than $2,700 increased from 2.7 to 13.9 percent of the total market.

Property taxes go up but salaries don't

From the NY Post:

The city’s property-tax rate has grown at triple the rate of New Yorkers’ incomes over the past decade, making it tough for residents at the lower end of the economic scale to make ends meet, Comptroller Scott Stringer’s office said Wednesday.

Property taxes are eating up ever larger portions of homeowners’ income — particularly for households making less than $50,000 a year, Stringer’s office found.

That group saw its average property-tax burden nearly double between 2005 and 2016, growing from 6.6 percent to 12.7 percent of income.

“Property taxes are rising too fast and incomes are rising too slow — and it’s becoming harder than ever for already struggling New Yorkers to get ahead,” said Stringer.

In 2005, homeowners making less than $50,000 paid an average property tax of $1,940. By 2016, they were shelling out $3,849 — while median salaries for the group stayed relatively flat at just under $33,000 per year.

Higher-earning families also had nothing to cheer about.

Those making between $50,000 and $100,000 annually devoted 3.4 percent of their earnings to property taxes in 2005 and 5.4 percent by 2016.

The tax burden on households in the $100,000- to $250,000-a-year bracket had less to complain about, with the portion of their paychecks that went to property taxes rising from 2.4 percent to 3.7 percent.

Whitestone sidewalk & car damage resolved

From CBS 2:

It was a beyond welcoming sight in front of the Maddalena-Vigliotti home in Whitestone, Queens — city crews finally repairing the damaged sidewalk.

“If it wasn’t for you and your covering this story, nothing would’ve gotten done,” Queens resident Anna Maddalena told CBS2’s Andrea Grymes.

Two weeks ago, CBS2 reported multiple locations across Queens, where city-owned trees uprooted during storms back in March. The city had cleared the trees, but months later still hadn’t fixed the sidewalks.

This week, after CBS2’s reports, repairs are finally being made.

For this family, the sidewalk was not the only thing destroyed when the tree came down. They’re still looking for answers from the city about one of their cars.

The 2008 red Mazda had been parked on the street in front of the house, but when the tree collapsed, the car was totaled under the weight of the limbs.

Maddalena says they had collision insurance but not comprehensive coverage, which would’ve covered the damage.

So she filed a claim with the city comptroller’s office in May. She got a letter back saying if the office is unable to resolve the claim, “any lawsuit against the city must be started within one year and 90 from the date of occurrence.”

Maddalena says she then called numerous times, trying to figure out what she’s supposed to do with the car, as it sits in the driveway.

So on Friday, CBS2 reached out to the comptroller’s office and they quickly responded.

Maddalena says she got a call from the division chief, who apologized several times and promised someone would come out and assess the car by Monday. After that, they can finally get rid of it.

Shocking news: Parks Dept lacks oversight of contractors

From the Queens Tribune:

A lack of sufficient oversight of construction managers has cost the city millions of dollars and led to long-delayed projects—including several in Queens, according to an audit by the city comptroller’s office.

Comptroller Scott Stringer’s audit found that inadequate oversight by the Parks Department cost the city nearly $5 million and that approximately 40 percent of construction projects managed by private firms were completed late, resulting in delays of up to three years.

Additionally, the city paid an extra 35 percent in management fees for late projects.

Lots of dough thrown down the homeless hole

From the Daily News:

It costs a lot of money to keep the homeless shelter system's population flat.

Both the City Council and Controller Scott Stringer questioned the precipitously rising budget for the Department of Homeless Services Tuesday, even as the homeless population of about 61,000 New Yorkers has yet to drop.

Councilman Steve Levin said that actual spending for the Department of Homeless Services was $1.4 billion in fiscal year 2016 — and had grown to $2.14 billion in the current fiscal year, after the city twice modified the budget mid-year, twice, to add cash. That's a $700 million jump.

"But we have not seen a significant decrease in the shelter census despite that increase in spending — 50% over what it was in fiscal year 2016," Levin said during a City Council budget hearing on the budgets of the city's welfare agencies.

Levin said the spending was worthy — and that the city had underfunded the system in the past. But he questioned what results the money was getting if the city had the same shelter population — and if those in shelter were still unhappy with conditions.

Simple: hotel rates went up.

Audit reveals that BOE is a mess

From the Times Ledger:

A report from city Comptroller Scott Stringer exposed massive dysfunction within the Board of Elections in a report which audited its performance over the course of three elections in 2016.

The city, which has one of the lowest voter turnouts in the nation, has disenfranchised the public through dumped voter rolls and widespread inefficiency at over 53 percent of the poll sites reviewed where state and federal election laws were broken, according to the audit promised by Stringer in April 2016.

The report revealed that out of 156 polling sites, 14 percent had mishandled affidavit ballots for people eligible to vote but who may not on the rolls. One site failed to inform voters of the option to vote via affidavit, a violation of federal law, and thus “disenfranc­hising” individuals.

Up to 10 percent of poll sites showed many voters went unassisted when issues arose. One example given by the report said a scanner had rejected a ballot and the distracted poll site worker did not notice until the person had already left. Staff at the site were forced to void the ballot and the person’s vote was not counted.

Comptroller notices that 7 train runs poorly

From Jackson Heights Post:

The 7 train is one of four trains deemed the “worst offenders” for subway delays, with delays on this line costing the city between $13.7 million and $29 million annually, according to a recent report from the NYC Comptroller.

The Oct. 1 report breaks down subway lines based on weekday ridership, train schedules, and wait assessments, coming up with a cost analysis based on “best-case”, “mid-range”, and “worst-case” delay scenarios.

The annual economic cost of the 7 train in terms of “best-case” major delays is $13,685,550, based on the more than 117,000 weekday 7 line riders. “Mid-range” major delays on this line result in an annual cost of $18,793,342. The “worst-case” delays on the 7 line cost the city’s economy $29,009,935.