Among the funding requests cut by the Council from its budget was one for the Bronx African American Chamber of Commerce, which was slated to get $10,000 at the request of City Councilman Larry Seabrook. The organization earned some attention when it came out that they never accounted for the ultimate destination of $994,488 they received last year.

After voting in favor of the budget, Seabrook told me, “I didn’t put it in -- that was a mistake on their end,” referring to the Council staff.

A spokesman for the City Council explained the mistake, saying that Seabrook had initially asked for the money but later recsinded the request.  read more »

The City Council’s budget negotiating team stayed late last night at City Hall, trying to hammer out a budget before the June 30 deadline. A handshake agreement is expected today or tomorrow.

In the meantime, it's a scene. Lobbyists have been a permanent fixture on the City Hall steps and in the City Hall rotunda for days, if not weeks, hounding lawmakers, staffers, and even reporters for any information.

Yesteday afternoon, I bumped into City Councilman Tony Avella across the street from City Hall. When I asked about the budget, he threw up his hands up--it seems he's waiting for information, just like the rest of us.  read more »

Representative Nydia Velazquez of Brooklyn warned again today that Barack Obama has a lot of work to do with Hispanic voters--a consistent notion among some concerned supporters, but one that the L.A. Times seemed to contradict today.  read more »

Helen Foster, who is contemplating a run for Bronx Borough President, said the last two people who have held that job have divided the borough’s black and Puerto Rican communities.

A story in the Riverdale Review (still not online!) this week quoted Foster’s father, the former Councilman in the area, at a February 7 meeting saying, “The last two borough presidents we've had were not and are not sympathetic to the black community.”  read more »

Gotham Gazette just released a nice analysis of individually sponsored member items from this year’s city budget.

According to the group, the king of member items is David Weprin of Queens, who got $736,500 for his district by funding 31 projects there. Councilman Leroy Comrie, also of Queens, funded 80 projects for a total of $710,857.

The district with the fewest dollars brought into it is in Brooklyn, where the Council’s newest member, Mathieu Eugene funded 10 programs for a total of $46,500. Helen Foster of the Bronx funded just one project, but it was worth $102,187.

The full report is here.  read more »

If you're a Democratic elected official in New York, it's no small thing to support a presidential candidate not named Hillary Clinton.

Ask City Council member Helen Foster of the Bronx, who was among the first local officials to support Barack Obama.

Foster chatted with me on the City Hall steps just now about what it's been like to come out -- in opposition to the local establishment -- as an Obama supporter in New York.

“It’s absolutely exciting,” she said. “I have gotten more people coming up to me because they know I have been openly--as people come up to me and say, ‘out of the closet’ with Obama--people are excited. Young, old, you are seeing a swell in New York and I think that it’s a mistake for anybody to write him off in New York City and especially in Bronx County.”

During today's floor "debate" on land-use changes for Yankee Stadium, Council Member Lew Fidler blurted out: "As a lifelong Democrat, I always found it hard to accept that the Yankees are in fact owned by a Watergate felon." When fellow councilors groaned, he added, "Facts are facts."  read more »

Charles Barron voted nay; Helen Foster will also oppose it before the full Council but she is not on Land Use.

So who will sign this thing, and when? Baez told us Yankees President Randy Levine and Borough President Adolfo Carrion along with some council members, hopefully before the final vote this afternoon. We'd be surprised: in the past, these C.B.A.'s have avoided having any officials' signatures to make clear they are outside the city's land use process.