411 on 911
City told to release data Comparison to Watergate
A JUDGE ordered the Bloomberg administration on Monday to release a controversial report on the revamp of the city’s 911 system — comparing its refusal to do so with Richard Nixon’s actions during Watergate.
Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron ruled that the mayor’s office has until April 16 to disclose all drafts of the taxpayerfunded consultant’s report on the 911 overhaul — a project that ran about $800 million over budget.
Engoron said the administration’s unwillingness to make the report public is akin to the “executive privilege” power that the thenPresident invoked to withhold potentially damning information on the Watergate scandal.
“Executive privilege is not a phrase that the city is invoking here, but I think we are talking about the much the same thing,” Engoron argued.
He said the report “belongs to the City of New York, not because the city might have paid for it, but because that is part of the process of governing a city.”
The report, which is more than 200 pages, was commissioned after the city’s disastrous emergency response to the December 2010 blizzard. Those who have seen it say it skewers the $2 billion 911 system overhaul, which the firefighter unions contend has led to longer emergency response times that endanger the public and firstresponders.
The new system has 911 operators handle most incoming emergency calls and dispatches them electronically into the police and fire response system — rather than have callers speak to multiple operators, as in the past.
City lawyers said they were weighing an appeal of Engoron’s order, which applies to data used to compile the report. Mayor Bloomberg defended keeping the current version of the report under wraps, saying it is not complete.
“You can’t do that if everything is up in the air in your mind,” he said. “I don’t know how any government would be able to function if you had to put out every single paper, even at the beginning of a study and all through the study.”
Engoron said city lawyers agreed in late February to disclose the report only to file an 11th-hour appeal.
“They could label this a draft in perpetuity. It’s a coverup . . . plain and simple,” said Joshua Zuckerberg, a lawyer for the Uniformed Fire Officers Association.
Steve Cassidy, president of the Uniformed Firefighters Association, applauded Engoron’s ruling.