Bloomberg
Plans
to Double City Gym Fees Despite Health Ad Campaigns
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
NEW
YORK
CITY, March 13 -- The Bloomberg
administration is trying to
double fees at NYC Parks Department gyms by June, despite its loud
campaigns against obesity and for public health, Inner City Press has
learned.
City
gym staff
told Inner City Press that the annual usage fee will rise from $75 to
$150 in June. Similarly, the annual fee to use City tennis courts
will double from $100 to $200.
While
both are
for now relatively affordable, a 100% increase would drive future
usage down. Meanwhile the MTA subways are full of ads with graphic
depiction of heart disease caused by, among other things, sugared
soda and lack of exercise.
Another
public
health campaign, to require grocery stores which sell cigarettes to
feature graphic posters of rotten teeth, has reportedly been put on
hold by litigation.
A bodegera told Inner City Press on
March 13 that
a District Court injunction now posted on her Plexiglass replaces the
rotting tooth posters. Asked who was behind the lawsuit, she said
“the people from Newport.” Watch this site.
* * *
As
Bloomberg's
Treasurer
Opposes Rating Banks, Chase & Goldman Slammed
By
Matthew
R.
Lee
LOWER
MANHATTAN,
March
7 -- Even after the financial industry meltdown
based on predatory lending, the Bloomberg administration in New York
City on March 7 publicly opposed a proposal local law that would rate
banks on community service before the City does business with them.
Bloomberg's
City
Treasurer
protested that “banks are heavily regulated,” despite
the finding that lack of regulation allowed banks, many based in New
York, to engage in Ponzi scheme like trading of predatory mortgages.
Next,
Bloomberg's
Treasurer
said that it would be hard to replace a bank if it were
disqualified. First, given Community Reinvestment Act grade inflation
at the federal and state level, disqualification of any large bank
would seem sadly unlikely.
Second,
it
emerged
that the City has qualified 35 banks, ranging from small banks like
Ridgewood Saving Bank up to Deutsche Bank, HSBC, Citibank, JPMorgan
Chase and “Goldman Sachs Bank,” of which Council member Leroy G.
Comrie asked, “I wonder why we are still doing business with them?
I don't understand, I would use stronger language but it's Monday
morning.”
HSBC,
it
has been
noted by Inner City Press, sold a stake to Liby's
Gaddafi; Deutsche
Bank is among the larger foreclosers, with little accountability.
Citigroup's predatory lending arm CitiFinancial is so disgraced it
has been renamed One Main and still can't be sold off.
The
Treasurer
devolved into claiming that only two or three banks can do the City's
business, although she didn't name them.
In hearing room, Al Vann et al listen to Bloomberg's
Treasurer (c) MRLee
There was talk of
layoffs in
the Department of Finance, and of DoF's Commissioner being required
to answer more questions on Thursday in “Emigrant Savings Bank, the
Council's temporary chambers.”
The bill was
not slated for a vote
at the hearing; there will be more on this, especially the national
implications, represented on Monday by NCRC.
Council
member
Gale
Brewer asked if the DoF's lobbyist would engage with national
groups around the federal Community Reinvestment Act. “I don't know
when CRA is up for renewal,” he replied.
As
the hearing
stretched on, more and more Council members came in, perhaps sensing
Bloomberg's weakness, ranging from Joel Rivera and Helen Foster of
The Bronx through Brad Lander to Lewis A. Fidler.
Member
Fernando
Cabrera
said that last night he went to a “nice Mexican
restaurant,” and found the Bloomberg administration's health
ratings useful. “But it would confuse consumers” when applied to
banks, Bloomberg's Treasurer said.
Al
Vann and
Domenic Recchia introduced the law, and Ricchia specifically
denounced JPMorgan Chase as not being willing to modify loans in New
York City. As Inner City Press came in to the drab hearing room, in
250 Broadway's 16th floor, another
attendee asked, “Is this the hearing about Chase Bank?”
Maybe.
* * *
As
JPM
Chase
Cuts
Off
UN Missions, US Says Bailed Out Banks
Are Free
By
Matthew
Russell
Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
January
13,
updated
-- When JPMorgan Chase wrote to countries'
Missions to the UN and told them accounts would be closed in March
2011, several countries complained, to the UN and to the “host
country,” the United States.
Thursday
US
Under
Secretary
of
State Patrick Kennedy came to the UN in New York to
speak to countries' Ambassadors about Chase's move. Afterwards, Inner
City Press asked Kennedy if he -- or Hillary Clinton or Treasury
Secretary Timothy Geithner, both of whom Kennedy said were involved
-- had spoke with JPMorgan Chase.
"We
have had discussions with the major banks," Kennedy answered, later
confirming that yes, this
included Chase. But what was the response of Chase, whose CEO Jaime
Dimon is often rumored to be a line for an appointment by the Obama
administration?
Kennedy
told
the
press
that
“we cannot tell a bank what to do.” Inner City Press
immediately asked, What about the banks which took bailouts and still
owe TARP money to the US and its taxpayers? "Could the government use
its leverage?"
Kennedy said
he was not
“technically competent to get into that level of detail," and told
Inner
City Press to ask the Treasury Department official who had also come
to the UN. Video on Inner City Press YouTube channel here.
While
the
US
Mission
later
said this Treasury Deparment official was Mark Poncy of
the Office of Strategic Policy, Poncy never came to speak to the
Press.
Inner
City
Press
asked
Kennedy
if he thought the UN should go forward and re-rent
space inside the UN under its Capital Master Plan to JPMorgan Chase,
when this bank was turning its back on Missions of the countries
which make up the UN.
“Ask the UN,”
said Kennedy, who has responsibility at the State Department for
Management, including at the UN. At the US Mission to the UN in New
York, the Management position has remained with only an interim
person, the genial but part time Professor Joseph Melrose.
At
the UN's noon
briefing, Inner City Press did ask Ban Ki-moon's spokesman Martin
Nesirky if the UN would give space to JPMorgan Chase in the
Secretariat building when it re-opens.
“Ask Chase,”
Nesirky said. But Chase is already in talks with the UN as to which
space to get in the repaired building -- not, apparently, the fourth
floor space it previously had, but some other location.
Nesirky
now
said
that
he
would not comment on negotiations. But is Chase's closing of
UN Mission's accounts, Inner City Press asked, even part of the
negotiations? Nesirky seemed to say he would look into this.
JPMorgan
Chase
is
not
only
interested in re-entering the Secretariat building when it
re-opens: Chase also has a branch on the first floor of the DC-1
building which houses the UN Development Program. Many countries'
Missions to the UN opened accounts at Chase because they were thus
inside the UN. Will the UN allow this to continue?
At UN, Patrick Kennedy, spokesman Mark
Kornblau & Joseph Melrose: where's Chase?
After
the
meeting
with
Kennedy,
Inner City Press asked Iran's Permanent Representative
as he came out if he thought Chase should continue to remain in UN
buildings. No, the Ambassador said, UN space should go to banks
which will deal with UN Missions.
He spoke of
the UN Federal Credit
Union -- currently embroiled in a dispute about the account of the UN
Staff Union -- and was asked if the UN should withdraw its own funds
from a bank which in effect redlines Missions, like Chase.
Egypt's
Permanent
Representative
told
the
Press about “transfer fees” while
Turkey's Deputy Permanent Representative shrugged that “there are
Turkish banks in New York.”
Russian
Permanent Representative Vitaly Churkin, asked in front of the Security
Council about JPMorgan Chase's move, laughed and said "the ruble is a
very strong currency," when you have the ruble you don't need anything
else. But the others? Watch this site.
Update
of
January
14,
2011: the following arrived:
From:
UN
Spokesperson
-
Do Not Reply [at] un.org
Date: Fri, Jan 14, 2011
at 8:05 AM
Subject: Your questions on Chase Bank
To: Inner City
Press
We
can
say
the
following in reply to your questions at the noon
briefing:
Some
ambassadors
emerging
from
the US briefing about their accounts being
shuttered think the UN should withdraw all its accounts with Chase.
Has this been broached with the administration? Being weighed at all?
We
understand
that
this
was raised by one Member State delegate in the
briefing with Ambassador Kennedy. The UN Secretariat has not been
approached in this matter.
Will
Chase
open
an
office in the UN building after the CMP?
Under
the
CMP,
the
new UN building design includes space provision for
banks. No agreements have been entered into with any banks for this
space.
, 
