Eldridge & Co.; Vincent Montalbano (Part 2 Of 2)

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I'm Ronnie Eldridge. Welcome to Eldridge and Company. Last week I had this long discussion with my friend Vinny Montebono, and I wanted to cover the city and the state as well as talking about national politics and the election, but we got so carried away by our hopes and promises of Barack Obama's presidency that we didn't even talk about it. So I asked him to come back again this week and to talk with me about what's happening in the city. What do you think, Kavanagh? I think just for the audience, you are a lobbyist. I consider you the prize lobbyists because you lobby for very good organizations, mostly unions and some not-for-profits,

not-for-profits, and you fully disclose and there's nothing funny going on. But you've also worked with unions. Isn't that your background basically? Sure. I started out with DC-37. You didn't support me the first time I ran for election. But I think you would love to fight. Anyway, and you're at City Hall all the time. And I love to talk about City Hall with you because I used to, when I was in the council, I always find a sympathetic ear and a agreement on issues and positions. So what do you think is happening in the city now? Well I think both the city and state politics are incredibly up in the air. We can start with the city and work our way up to the state. Clearly the elimination of term limits or the potential elimination of term limits, we'll see what happens with the court cases. Changes the dynamic, we're running in the opposite direction of the countries we're running in.

You know, it's interesting. I've said this to a number of people over the last couple of weeks. The country finally, after so many years, confronted the power of the oligarchy and handed over to presidency to a populist and here in New York City, we've got a member of the oligarchy who's our mayor who now wants to continue to run the city. And you know, that's going to be problematic for a lot of folks who have not necessarily benefited as much from his philosophy and his administration. Is it enough to defeat him in an election? You know, I don't predict anything anymore because the last time I predicted that Michael Bloomberg wasn't going to be elected mayor, he clearly was. But I have to say this, and I think it is serious in terms of what we just said. Michael Bloomberg has said, to his credit at least, he says he's going to spend as much as it takes to get elected. It's probably going to be $80 million or more. That's a lot of money. I think a lot of people feel that that's not something they could be overcome. I feel a little differently about

this for a variety of reasons. I mean, I think as simple as people trying to make these things, they're a little more complicated. You know, we are going to be in for some very tough times in New York City. As the country is, as a result of this economic downturn. But we're two people and there are lots of other viewers out there who lived through the fiscal crisis in the 1970s. And that was pretty bad. This could be as bad as that. If Michael Bloomberg truly believed- Let me just say something. Since the 1970s, we've spent the rest of the time trying to make up what we lost. And we're not even there yet. Clearly we're not there yet. And I don't know whether we're ever going to get there because the philosophy has changed. There's a workforce that's not the same capacity as that. But if Michael Bloomberg truly believes that he is the only person that can protect us from this downturn, I think he's going to be in for a rude awakening. Because I'm not sure anyone can. I don't think anyone can. I think what a leader can do, which is what we talked about with our new

president-elect Barack Obama, what a leader can do is to put together policies that are very progressive, very different, very bold to try and as much as possible ameliorate the situation. But nobody is going to get away with not suffering something. However, Michael Bloomberg is not saying any of that. I mean, he's still going to pursue the same kinds of policies that he's pursued. He is, well, I don't know what he is, but he started out as a republicans. What is he pursued? Well, you know, it seems to me that if he was to cite accomplishments, they would all be in the realm of development, some of which I thought was good, a lot of which I thought was not necessarily good, was not necessarily beneficial to the largest segment of the population. That is going to slow down enormously, significantly in this downturn. It's not no longer going to be the engine that produces the type of income or job base. So that's going to be

a problem. Clearly, the problem is on Wall Street. We all know, we've been saying for years since the fiscal crisis, Wall Street is the engine, the economic engine, because it provides a tax base. That is going to slow down. It's known as fire, right? Yes, finance, insurance, and real estate. And look at what's happening. AIG is just asking for needs more money. Right. Incredible. So it's interesting. I think he's brought management to a degree, at least we think he has. Not sure what he's done with the Department of Education. Yeah. Because you hear very vocal things on both sides. I shudder a little bit when I see that the President, the Obama that it's mentioned that our chancellor will go to Washington. I'm not sure that's such a good idea, but anyway. I think what he brought was civility, following the Giuliani tape. I agree with that. And good spirit. I agree with that. And that is true. I agree with that. But there is also this, the arrogance of wealth that is there

as well. And I think the voting population in New York City is getting tired of it has kind of seen that and certainly in the context of the election last week, two weeks ago, is something that the question of corporate salaries and bonuses. I mean, we've all talked about that for years. When we give incentives to companies and everything, we've always talked about what do you do with these high salaries and everything. That became a major issue in this financial crisis. Right. Right. So, but the big salaries, again, are what produces the income for the city. See, I don't think Michael Bloomberg, nor the mayor before him, has done what needs to be done to expand this city's economic base. This is a working-class city. I mean, I know that New York is gilded and everybody thinks of it as a place of wealth and there is great wealth here clearly. But again, that's concentrated in a specific geographic area, a specific strata of the

population. There's a lot of working folks here. And our economic base has narrowed to this fire sector that we just talked about and to development. And probably that probably the greatest blue collar sector of the city is in building and development. That's fine. I think that's great. But it has these upturns and dampens it are very, very severe. And the workers don't even really live here, do they? How many of them do? More do now, I think that might have 20 or 30 years ago. But here's what we haven't done. And what he doesn't necessarily think of as important is we haven't looked creatively at how to develop a substitute for the old industrial base we have. Now, we're not going to bring the old industrial base back. But in Washington, Mr. Obama is talking about green jobs. He's talking about rebuilding and infrastructure that needs to turn green. Those are the kinds of things that we can do in New York too. Now, the mayor has talked about it in his 2030 plan. But I don't know what the evidence has been as of yet. And certainly in

terms of this economic downturn, I'm not sure that he has put that to the front of the scale. I've been too big and not little enough in different neighborhoods. No, I'm not sure that the ideas have been big. I think that the development has been big. A lot of building is going on. And with all of it, it's changing. It's pushing more and more, it's pushing poor people out because we're the highest center in our neighborhood where my used to neighbor advised residents starting at five million dollars, right? Five million dollars, they're flipping those apartments, 12, 50, 55 million dollars. So people who lived around there then moved and they're moving to Brooklyn, Long Island City, other places. And the people who lived there have to move further out. And so you get, you know, workers who are living in the polka knows. And that is not a healthy city. Yeah, we've not, you know, unfortunately, we've not, we talk about it, but we've not done the kinds of structural things we need to do,

both in terms of the economic base, but also in terms of the revenue base in tax base. I mean, we are still not talking about perhaps increasing taxes on people that can afford it and decreasing taxes on people that can afford it. The property tax is always in the front of the discussion. But that's because the city doesn't have the ability to do any other tax. That's the problem. Well, the city doesn't have an ability to do that. And so that's the state, which has always been not very responsive to the city's needs. But let's talk a little bit about property tax, which I'm an expert. $400 rebate to homeowners was, I always believed, a ridiculous thing. It paid no attention to an obsolete structure that wasn't, that wasn't really working. And it's unfair. And $400 may mean a lot to some families, but it, it's not enough, but collectively, it's a lot. Right. Exactly. So now they're going to take back the $400 refund. And it was just, so we're not longsighted in any of their thinking, which is what you're saying, because we're so dependent. That's correct. And the other thing about the property tax, I mean, besides the fact

that that theoretically, it's not progressive, because it's not based on income, in this completely insane run up of value and prices that that is now coming down. Okay. People of modest means had their property taxes increased tremendously because of the value of their house. If they could buy what the rich people could buy. Right. And as if they could pay more for things when it's not based on their income. So it's just what I'm saying is that I don't look, I don't, I'm not an economist, I don't have all the solutions to these problems. But I think where this mayor can take an example from our incoming president is in, you know, you broaden the places where you get your advice from and you look at all kinds of interesting solutions to things that you don't take anything off the table. Do you think he necessarily got to let advice from everybody about changing term limits and running again? I'm not so sure. But let me term limits has nothing to do with a lack of long range planning, right? Well, I'm not sure that I agree with that. We never had that much long term planning, even when

we didn't have term limits. That's true. But I think we know we would have. Well, but I think term limits exacerbate. Look, again, full disclosure, I'm not a supporter of term limits. I never supported term limits. I didn't vote for it either time, okay? And I think that term limits, I'm not I think, I know, and I think other people agree that term limits made the city council the legislative body. Even weaker than it is under our system of government, which is a strong mayor system of government, because while everybody was term limited to two terms, executives have this enormous power under our charter system. And the legislature does not have that kind of power. Now, instead of allowing people to grow and develop, and we have good people in the council that could do that. Now we throw them out. If the term thinking that the council didn't have term limits, but the mayor had term limits, that might be an even bow. You know what? Even though philosophically, I support term limits, I would rather see that. And I think that the unfortunate circumstance that we've gotten ourselves into here is that the council, it's the timing is all wrong. Not the concept,

the timing is all wrong. And doing it for the mayor and with the mayor, I think, has produced this backlash and this cynicism. I wish that the council didn't have term limits. I wish that that by law, which I do believe they have the authority to do, that they did this when they first came in and said, look, it's just not a good idea. We're not going to do it. They didn't do it, and that's what's created the problem. You're not a fan of referendum. No, I'm not a fan of referendum at all. I think, though, that they shouldn't have overturned it themselves, and having gotten into this with two referendums, they should have had a referendum. And I think if properly presented to the public, that it would have been supported, but I don't think it's ever been properly presented to the public. But let's assume that they did go ahead and do it themselves. Right. They didn't, as you said, do it at the right time. I mean, they did it, and it were ridiculous. Well, there's no right time at the point, because we're, they're at the end of their, they're at the end of their term, so there's no right time. I know, I'm wondering where they're

going to run. And so why didn't, as you said, that they had done it at the beginning? And if they had really done the outreach that they should do and had hearings and boroughs and had public hearings and stuff, and so people really had the idea that they could discuss this, that might have made it more acceptable. But I think this is... I'm going to posit another theory. And that is, again, you know, in terms of what we've just experienced in this election, which is, which we've said before, it's just so wonderful. The mayor, particularly, it was really the mayor's responsibility, because he put this on the table. The council was not moving. Well, they took it off the table at one point. But he put it on the table to push. But if he had taken the responsibility to say, along with the council look, this is what we want to do. But we are going to convince the public that we should do this. And, and maybe, you know, took a longer period of time. Maybe he used some of, some of his credit, so to speak, some of his currency. Well, they did use it all. Well, he used it all, but he used it. But if he had used it in a good way, then perhaps, especially at this time, when people are so enthusiastic about government running, right,

it might have run better. He wasn't ready to do that. I mean, he, using the economy as an excuse, shows that he didn't, never occurred to him. As a certain degree of... Well, you know, again, I mean, he has to get by watching. I don't want to put you into the position. It's very hard. So what do you think is going to happen? Is somebody going to run against him? Oh, I think somebody's going to run against him. The question is whether the whether the Democrats have a primary before that. That's what he meant. He's certainly certainly weener in Thompson of both said they're going to run. Oh, I, right. He's not a, he's not a Democrat. Well, he's not a Democrat. And he's not a Republican. He's not a Republican. He's not a Republican. But he's supported Republicans in the state Senate. So that's really going to improve the relationship, isn't it, between this mayor and Albany? He's not had a real good relationship with Albany. It's hard for me to blame Albany when we've got a mayor who basically, you know, has looked down on that process. And certainly, you know, there's a lot of things that it dysfunction about Albany, but he's not, he's not helped out that process. I just feel the city, our city and state is so far behind other states when you watch this presidential election with some of the talent

that they have in those states. Why, why is it so bad? Do we not pay enough attention to it? I, I just don't understand why it's very mediocre. And people get away with murder. Well, not quite murder. I guess we wouldn't go that far. You know, I, I think we witness an extraordinary thing on a national level. And we can't, we can't necessarily relate that to every other level of government. Look, government, voters need to pay attention over the course of time. Government is the way it is. And, and, and competencies protected the way it is because that's basically the way it functions over the course of elections. That, but, but there's been a change, there's been several changes in Albany and, and the ideas to take advantage of those changes. And for the, and for the people, and the leaders up there to see that and, and we don't have the judgment, it seems to me as voters under your local issues. I don't know. You know, I mean, you look at some of the women who run who are in the Senate

from other states. We had to import our woman. I'm not saying she wasn't, she isn't a good senator. She's fine. And I think, I've liked her since she's been campaigning for Obama. But we had to import her. We didn't have a woman that we could, well, you know, that, that, why aren't we developing more talent in our political system is what I'm asking. Well, I think it, this goes back to something. I think we also talk about it. Well, it's, again, it, I believe it has to do with the fact that politics and public services is viewed more as, as a career than a vocation. And I think we talked about it at one time. And term limits certainly displayed it. Because term limits looking for the next job. Well, yeah, I see, I think term limits exacerbated it. That's what I meant. I mean, because I think that if it's a vocation, if people go into it as a vocation, then the idea is to be there for as long as the voters will allow you to be there. That's the real term limits is people voting people in and out and developing your expertise

and developing. But they look down on the city council. The city council is the lowest run. City council's big. Well, as a most exciting run, I agree with you. And the city council may be viewed that way. But the city council doesn't, doesn't have to be viewed that way. Because the people who've been in the council and they were in the council for 100 years until you got term limits to empty them. But then the minute you got the term limits in, people started to decide what they're going to do next. But that's what the problem with term limits is. Yeah, I know. Is that it, it really exacerbates this. I think you've just a career. Look, the, you know, I do interact with these people all the time. I know, so, and I don't want to. I can do it again. No, I can do it again. But, but, but I will tell you honestly, what I, what I feel about it, when in the, in the first term and into this term, the people that I interacted with, who are city council members, where people who understood the issues, and I bring, you know, I bring very complex issues to government. They understood these issues. They sympathize with them, you know, they always agree with what I was asking them to do. But we engaged in dialogue

and sometimes, you know, we modified it, but we came up with a solution. That's the type of thing that you want at a government. So, the people in the institution are, are fine. They really are fine. But the institution created the, the, the term limits created the situation in the institution, where if you're, if you're in your second term and you're getting to the end of it and you're looking for something else to do, as with anything, it naturally then. I, you know, I don't think everybody was fine. I have to tell you that. I really don't. I think, I think people ran for the city council because they could have another job. They had this wonderful parking permit, where you could park any place in the city. I mean, I, I don't think they took the city council seriously enough. I have, uh, there was a lot of conflict of interest with committee chairs and what was going on. So, I don't think that. I think you represented unions and they all want union support. And so they were able to do that. And they can't go against children because, I mean, how can you go against children? But I don't think they were a high caliber. And that's the fault

of the voters because they don't participate in local elections that much. I mean, you have people in the council who elected with 5,000 votes, right? Or won a primary with 3,000 votes. We don't even get 5,000 votes. So that's a basic problem. And it, it sort of keeps reacting because if they don't make themselves important, then nobody's going to think that. Look, legislatures, no matter what legislation they're, they're composed of people, some of whom are better than others. I'm not saying that everybody. I don't mean to put it all down. Because there were some terrific people there, but they were usually in the minority. But, but the, the biggest problem is that is that the council under our system, city system of government is not as powerful as the mayor. And when, in post-term limits on top, super in post-term limits on top of that, you made that, you exacerbated it. So now we have an election, which the mayor says gives everybody and the speaker, you have an election. That's when the people can make that. And that's also cynical, because when you have an incumbent and you have an incumbent with a lot of money,

and a lot of exposure, it's very hard to defeat an incumbent. Well, what you do is, but, but what, what I'm saying is that I'm saying the basic responsibility is the voter. Well, the basic responsibility is always going to be a voter. And, and I, and I do strongly believe, and maybe I'll be proven completely wrong in, in this, when we get the next year, but I really do strongly believe that, that what's happened initially, coupled with what I believe the mayor did to himself in this, is going to create a competitive election. So he can't, and he's going to run? Well, he definitely will run, because he's not up for reelection. Well, I think if you're, if you're asking, he's going to be a Democrat and a politician at the technical person. Certainly, Wiener doesn't have to give up his office and career versus vocation notwithstanding, he can run with that fear that. I think for Bill Thompson, that's different, but Thompson has said pretty categorically several times that he's running. Uh, they have a primary, we see that primaries don't necessarily have to be hurtful. In fact, they can strengthen candidates. Somebody comes out of that next year, um, and depending on where the economy is at and what

this mayor has done with it, I think we can have a competitive election next year. Interesting. What about the state? We have a new governor seems to be doing very well. We have a new governor and we have a new majority in the Senate. All right. Everything is controlled by the Democrats. I know that might give some people some pause, but it doesn't do so for me. I think that, um, I think I think again that this is an opportunity for our political leaders who are now all Democrats, okay, to use the power they have to do some very good and very interesting things. Um, the economic situation, the distress that we're experiencing is going to make that more difficult, but it can also present opportunities. Again, look to Washington. Look, you know, we knew you were so egotistical. Like, it's the greatest state. It's the greatest city we know everything. And the fact of the matter is that we're kind of traditional uh, and hide battle. Very traditional. And we're conservative in many ways, you know. So,

uh, so look to Washington, take some example from Washington and let's see what we can do here. There's some, there are clearly a lot of things that the state has the power to do, even within this economic situation. When AIG was experiencing their early distress, they're continuing to do that, it was actually amazing to me that Governor Patterson took the action he took to protect the assets that he had the power to protect the assets of a company that does business in New York State. Well, hey, yeah, we could have done that sooner. And we can certainly do that more. I'm not familiar with all the technical aspects of what can be done, but I know that the state has enormous power in that regard. We have the engine of the economy of the United States and the world within our state. Well, let's look to see how we can how we can use that to try and and and diminish the distress. Who appointed this commission or whatever that we're having, just chairing on. You know, I've heard of it. I'm not familiar with it. So I can't I can't remember that they were going to recommend the tolls on the bridges, but I didn't I'm unsure as to

who this is about the financing of the MTA. Yeah, it sounds like it was gubernatorial. I'm taking a guess. But again, those are the kinds of things. If this is so shortsighted, we're worried about the account. That's right. What you're saying about Obama. It's an environmental question as well as anything else. I want to cut down on the congestion and then you want to improve public transportation. But let's, but if you if you are going to do it, do it right, if you're going to toll the bridges, obviously, you can't stick pull boots up there because you'll have you'll have backups, you know, through the through the five boroughs and out at the Long Island. I mean, a lot of these things can be done where we have technology available. We let's use our wisdom. Let's try and marry all of these things. Energy, the environment and the economy. Let's marry these things together and have some really good solutions. And when have we really ever had long-term planning statewide with looking at things that like tax structure and stuff, we never have. Well, I can't remember my life. I certainly can't remember it on my lifetime. And that could be something that you could really do in times when it's very hard. This is the time

to do it because people are open to all kinds. When people are personally suffering the stress that they're suffering and are going to continue to suffer, then they want government, they do want government to be the intervene, they do want government to be part of their lives. And that's the time when leadership really counts. And when people can display intelligent leadership as opposed to just kind of common pandering to poles or to surveys or to trends. Now is the time for that kind of leadership. I think we're capable of doing it. I'm not as distressed as you are about the potential quality of the leadership. But I think they're going to have to show that. All three of the leaders in the state and the mayor and the city council in the city. It was too bad that we had this little ruckus in the state Senate about the leadership the other day. Yeah, I'm really. It's always this personal politics. There's the theatrical aspect. The politics is theater. This is a little common sense. That's what bothers me. When you think about it,

there is a little common sense. Look, I did not think, and I'm not sure it's settled yet, but maybe I should say I don't think that this group of four people is going to caucus with the Republicans. It's just not going to. I'm sure it's not going to happen. And so if they have some stated goals and they use their political power to get those stated goals, you know what? That's politics. That's politics is part of the game. That doesn't bother me when it's in the context of doing the other sense. Then he would come to the end of this half hour. So what we say it's a politics, but let's get some really different kind of politics. And some leadership. Right. Thank you very much. Thank you. If there are any people you'd like to hear and topics you'd like us to explore, please let me know. You can write to me at CUNY TV 365 Fifth Avenue,

New York, New York 10016, or you can go to the website at CUNY.tv and click on Contact Us. I look forward to hearing from you.