NYC must be saved, but how?
YANKEES president Randy Levine’s pitch on how to save New York: Reduce the number of employees. Focus only on core services. No more consultant contracts. Cut 25 percent nonemployee spending. Institute a hiring freeze. Refinance city debt. Sell properties the city leases. Eliminate travel conferences and per diems. Downsize government.
Can his municipal Magna Charta — published in an Empire Report — be run by a pro pol scratching to be mayor or does this city need a businessman to run it?
“It’s a nonpartisan issue. Anybody willing to move back and return us to greatness. Candidates already asked to meet me. I see what’s happening. I see the hurt. NYC needs help. I love this place.”
Former Gov. Spitzer told me it takes a year. Our Historical Society CEO told me four years. Levine: “I don’t know. I’ll guess two years.”
Reagan’s Department of Justice deputy attorney general, NYC’s deputy mayor for economic development and labor commissioner in the ’90s, Randy’s a size XXL and he’s throwing that weight around. “Look, I was born here. Took Detroit, Cleveland years to come back. New York needs its police, sanitation, emergency responders. No budget fix, and we go bankrupt. Cutting commercial rent tax is one way. New taxes are detrimental or more residents and businesses leave. We must encourage small individual opportunity.”
About the intransigence of unions it’s, “They’re in the solution not the problem. When we’ve been in trouble — the ’70s, ’90s — they came through. Realists, they get it. Also, a ‘Bring New York City back’ bond. Maybe casinos, a marijuana or sports betting shortfall. Raise issues. Start a discussion.”
Since Peter Minuit didn’t name a borough after Randy, Chirlane may award him a gold key to City Hall’s men’s room. But his scoreboard omits my urgency — rebirth of coffee shop takeout containers. He says: “I’ll come up with another set of how-tos.”
Mindy claims her husband’s genes reveal that — long before Nathan’s hot dogs — on his mother’s side he’s supposedly related to Marie Antoinette. OK, but I don’t see Levine in a tumbrel. He hasn’t the wardrobe for it.