Story first appeared on NYTimes.com.
ALBANY — New York, whose status as the most populous state has long been ceded, will soon fall behind Florida into fourth place, a long-anticipated drop that is rife with symbolism and that could carry potentially serious economic consequences in coming years.
When the Census Bureau releases its latest population estimates on Monday, demographers expect that Florida and New York will be narrowly separated — perhaps by as little as a few thousand people — and that if Florida does not pass New York this time, it almost certainly will do so in 2014.
The census figures underscore immigration trends, as foreign-born migrants continue to move to warm-weather states such as California and Texas — No. 1 and 2 — as well as to Florida. The newcomers also include winter-weary New Yorkers who move or retire to Florida at a rate of over 50,000 a year, twice the number of Floridians who head to New York.
But the shift also highlights the struggles in upstate New York, which has lost large-scale manufacturing jobs and large chunks of population, offsetting consistent gains in New York City. But the city’s growth has seemingly not been robust enough to stave off hubs in Florida like Jacksonville, Miami-Dade County and Tampa.
“It’s going to happen,” said Andrew A. Beveridge, a professor of sociology at Queens College and an expert on the census, on New York’s falling into fourth place. “And if Florida accidentally grew faster and New York slowed down, it could have happened already.”
Beyond a blow to New Yorkers’ collective ego, the changing population pattern could have many practical and political implications, including diminished congressional delegations, a setback New York already suffered in 2010 — the year of the last decennial census count — when the state lost two districts, while Florida gained two seats. Census data also inform how billions of dollars in federal funding and grants are divvied up among the states, for things like highway planning and construction, public aid for housing and health care and education programs.
All of which has Florida feeling good.
“Every number we see, if we don’t pass them this year, we’re going to pass them in the next few months,” Gov. Rick Scott of Florida, a Republican, said in an interview last week. “Florida’s on a roll.”
A closer look at the numbers shows that New York is not actually losing population. It has been growing at about 1 percent annually of late, but it simply cannot keep up with Florida’s rate of growth, which was about 2.7 percent between April 2010 and mid-2012, according to the Census Bureau. However, New York’s population is declining in upstate cities like Buffalo, which has lost more than 10 percent of its population since 2000, as well as places like Syracuse and Rochester, where population is largely stagnant.
Turning around upstate has been a major focus of Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, a Democrat, who has tried to revive its fortunes through a variety of economic development programs, including the legalization of more casinos and a program that allows businesses to start or relocate on or near college campuses and pay no state taxes for 10 years.
Florida has actually been creeping up on the Empire State for decades. The last census estimate, for July 2012, put the states nearly tied: New York with 19.6 million and Florida with 19.3 million. But that margin was getting narrower by the day, according to Jan K. Vink, a specialist with the Program on Applied Demographics at Cornell University, which both supplies data to the Census Bureau and reviews its estimates.
Scott Cody, a demographer at the University of Florida’s Bureau of Economic and Business Research in Gainesville, which also consults with the bureau, said that trends showed Florida passing New York “in the near future,” barring what he called “the unusual events that can occur: tsunamis, or asteroids, and total economic breakdown.”
Florida had such a meltdown — a bursting housing bubble — but is on the rebound and continues to be a magnet for new arrivals.
While demographers tend to stay neutral on the issue of population growth, they say that bigger is generally better because it tends to reflect an attractive economic climate.
“Once you have a growing economy, you tend to attract a lot of young people,” said Mark Mather, a demographer with the Population Reference Bureau, a nonprofit research group in Washington. And that, in turn, he said, means “a lot of babies.”
New York City certainly still attracts young people, Mr. Mather said, “but the city is different from the state.”
However, bigger is not always better. While politicians might welcome the larger tax bases that come with bigger populations, demographers say a need for more services increases. More populous places also have more congestion on highways and more wear-and-tear on public spaces.
“Just because one state is passing another, it’s not a good or a bad thing,” Mr. Cody said. “It doesn’t mean one state is better than another.”
But Mr. Scott said he believes that a large part of Florida’s appeal has to do with its pro-business, low tax approach. Florida also has no personal income tax.
And then there is Florida’s decided climatological edge, which attracts both retirees and those still in the work force, he said.
“When I call on companies around the country, I clearly talk to them about what the weather’s like,” Mr. Scott said. “I say, ‘Oh it’s 40-what?,’ and I joke, ‘I’ve got to turn down the air conditioning so you can hear me.’ ”
Gov. Cuomo pointed to his tax-free campus plan, known as Start-up NY, as an example of how “it’s less expensive for businesses to locate in New York State.”
And as for the weather, Mr. Cuomo said he was happy with New York’s. “Florida and the South have a warmer climate if that’s what you prefer,” he said. “I prefer to have seasons.”
Showing posts with label New York. Show all posts
Showing posts with label New York. Show all posts
Monday, December 30, 2013
Thursday, November 1, 2012
Millions are Without Power from Hurricane Sandy
story first appeared on usatoday.com
After leaving a deadly trail of devastation in New Jersey and New York, Superstorm Sandy's brute power is fading as it courses north. But the threat of heavy rains, snow and continued flooding could linger over a huge swath of the Northeast and Midwest for several days.
Now classified as an "extratropical" storm by the National Weather Service,
Sandy has caused at least 50 U.S. deaths so far — 25 in New York, including 18 in flood- and wind-ravaged New York City.
An estimated 8.2 million people were without power Tuesday across 17 states and the District of Columbia. About 2.3 million are in New Jersey alone, where Gov. Chris Christie said Sandy left "absolute devastation" and "unthinkable damage" along coastal towns ravaged by flooding and gale-force winds. More than 20,000 residents of Hoboken were reported stranded late Tuesday night as flooding conditions worsened along the Hudson River.
Some restaurant owners feared losing supply when electricity was lost to their Walk-in Coolers.
President Obama is expected to survey damage in hard-hit areas of New Jersey Wednesday. "We're going to do everything to help you get back on your feet," he said.
Although Sandy's wrath had prompted the cancelation of some 16,000 airline flights through Tuesday, some limited air travel is expected to return to the New York City metro area Wednesday .The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey says John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York and Newark International Airport in New Jersey will open at 7 a.m. with limited service.
Emergency responders continue to scramble to flooded communities still awaiting evacuation. Toms River, N.J., Police Chief Michael Mastronardy said at least 150 people were rescued on flooded Seaside Heights, a barrier
island.
The massive, pinwheel-shaped storm, nearly 900 miles wide, is expected to drub the upper Northeast and Midwest as it moves into Canada this afternoon.
Flooding remains a concern in several states, while bone-chilling temperatures and the prospect of heavy snow remains problematic in the Appalachians, where up to 3 feet has already fallen in parts of Maryland and West Virginia. Wind gusts of up to 60 mph were pummeling Lake Michigan on Chicago's lakefront. In a measure of its massive size, waves on southern Lake Michigan rose to a record-tying 20.3 feet. High winds spinning off Sandy's edges clobbered the Cleveland area Tuesday, uprooting trees, closing schools and flooding major roads along Lake Erie.
Restoring power to New York City's boroughs remains a challenge and could take a week or longer. "Recovery is a mammoth job" in the days ahead, said New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who called Sandy among the worst to ever hit the nation's most populous city.
Few weather events inflict more damage on electrical substation equipment than floods, says Nicholas Abi Samra, an expert on the effect of extreme weather on power grids. "Restoring flooded substations takes much longer than restoring a downed power line," says Abi-Samra, a manager with North Carolina-based energy consultant Quanta Technology.
More than 6,000 New York City residents are still in the city's 76 evacuation centers. Some 110 homes were destroyed or heavily damaged by wind-swept flames in the tiny Queens borough beachfront community of Breezy Point. "We're all devastated. But we're so thankful that this time no one was killed," said Marilyn Coady, a resident for 46 years who lives near the six-block area that was destroyed in the storm.
In New Jersey, Gov. Christie described devastation including seaside rail lines washed away and parts of the coast still underwater.
"It is beyond anything I thought I'd ever see," he said. "It is a devastating sight right now."
Bloomberg said New York City schools would remain closed Wednesday but city workers would return to their jobs. Evacuation orders remain in place for low-lying areas of the city.
The storm sent a surge of water over seawalls in Lower Manhattan and into streets, subway stations and electrical equipment. A large tanker ran aground on Staten Island and winds collapsed a construction crane 74 stories high atop an expensive new condo building. Bloomberg said people evacuated from around the crane cannot return until it is stabilized.
Sandy will end up causing about $20 billion in property damage and $10 billion to $30 billion more in lost business, making it one of the costliest natural disasters on record in the U.S., according to IHS Global Insight, a forecasting firm.
Bloomberg, who said he expects the city's death toll to rise as emergency workers move through neighborhoods that were among the hardest hit, gave a somber account of some of those who died.
They included two who drowned in a home and one who was in bed when a tree fell through an apartment. A 23-year-old woman died by stepping into a puddle near a live electrical wire. A man and a woman were crushed by a falling tree.
An off-duty officer on Staten Island who ushered his relatives to the attic of his home apparently became trapped in the basement.
Sandy also killed 69 people in the Caribbean before making its way up the Eastern Seaboard.
Obama declared New York and New Jersey federal disaster areas.
The disaster declaration makes federal funding available to residents and businesses in the affected areas, which bore the brunt of the sea surge from the superstorm. Speaking during a stop Tuesday at Red Cross headquarters, Obama warned that the massive storm "is not yet over."
He said there were still risks of flooding and downed power lines and called the storm "heartbreaking for the nation."
The president said he told governors in affected areas that if they get no for an answer, "they can call me personally at the White House."
Jeff Masters, meteorology director for Weather Underground, a private forecasting service, called the storm surges some of the highest ever recorded.
In New Jersey, where the storm came ashore, hundreds of people were evacuated in rising water Tuesday. Officials used boats to try to rescue about 800 people living in a trailer park in Moonachie.
A hoarse-voiced Christie gave bleak news at a morning news conference: Seaside rail lines washed away. No safe place on the state's barrier islands for him to land. Parts of the coast still under water.
"It was an extremely devastating and destructive storm, hopefully one that people will only see once in their lifetime," said Joe
Pollina, a National Weather Service meteorologist.
Con Edison spokeswoman Sara Banda said power was out for 804,000 of their customers in New York -- four times the number affected by Hurricane Irene. "This is the largest storm-related outage in history," Banda said.
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo in an interview with WCBS News radio said Tuesday that power restoration is going to be a real challenge.
A massive explosion at a power substation in Lower Manhattan on Monday evening contributed to the power outages. No one was injured, and the power company did not know whether the explosion was caused by flooding or by flying debris.
New York University's Tisch Hospital was forced to evacuate 200 patients after its backup generator failed. NYU Medical Dean Robert Grossman said patients — among them 20 babies from neonatal intensive care that were on battery-powered respirators — had to be carried down staircases and to dozens of waiting ambulances.
Stock trading was closed in the U.S. for a second day Tuesday — the first time the New York Stock Exchange will be closed for two consecutive days due to weather since 1888, when a blizzard struck the city. Trading was scheduled to resume on Wednesday.
Tonight's Halloween Parade in Greenwich Village has been postponed until some time next week, Bloomberg said. The city's famed New York City Marathon is still scheduled for Nov. 4.
Sandy is still expected to produce strong winds across the Mid-Atlantic and New England, as well as rainfall amounts of 4-8 inches over portions of the Mid-Atlantic. Additionally, snowfall totals of 2-3 feet were possible in the mountains of West Virginia, where blizzard warnings remain in effect.
After leaving a deadly trail of devastation in New Jersey and New York, Superstorm Sandy's brute power is fading as it courses north. But the threat of heavy rains, snow and continued flooding could linger over a huge swath of the Northeast and Midwest for several days.
Now classified as an "extratropical" storm by the National Weather Service,
Sandy has caused at least 50 U.S. deaths so far — 25 in New York, including 18 in flood- and wind-ravaged New York City.
An estimated 8.2 million people were without power Tuesday across 17 states and the District of Columbia. About 2.3 million are in New Jersey alone, where Gov. Chris Christie said Sandy left "absolute devastation" and "unthinkable damage" along coastal towns ravaged by flooding and gale-force winds. More than 20,000 residents of Hoboken were reported stranded late Tuesday night as flooding conditions worsened along the Hudson River.
Some restaurant owners feared losing supply when electricity was lost to their Walk-in Coolers.
President Obama is expected to survey damage in hard-hit areas of New Jersey Wednesday. "We're going to do everything to help you get back on your feet," he said.
Although Sandy's wrath had prompted the cancelation of some 16,000 airline flights through Tuesday, some limited air travel is expected to return to the New York City metro area Wednesday .The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey says John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York and Newark International Airport in New Jersey will open at 7 a.m. with limited service.
Emergency responders continue to scramble to flooded communities still awaiting evacuation. Toms River, N.J., Police Chief Michael Mastronardy said at least 150 people were rescued on flooded Seaside Heights, a barrier
island.
The massive, pinwheel-shaped storm, nearly 900 miles wide, is expected to drub the upper Northeast and Midwest as it moves into Canada this afternoon.
Flooding remains a concern in several states, while bone-chilling temperatures and the prospect of heavy snow remains problematic in the Appalachians, where up to 3 feet has already fallen in parts of Maryland and West Virginia. Wind gusts of up to 60 mph were pummeling Lake Michigan on Chicago's lakefront. In a measure of its massive size, waves on southern Lake Michigan rose to a record-tying 20.3 feet. High winds spinning off Sandy's edges clobbered the Cleveland area Tuesday, uprooting trees, closing schools and flooding major roads along Lake Erie.
Restoring power to New York City's boroughs remains a challenge and could take a week or longer. "Recovery is a mammoth job" in the days ahead, said New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who called Sandy among the worst to ever hit the nation's most populous city.
Few weather events inflict more damage on electrical substation equipment than floods, says Nicholas Abi Samra, an expert on the effect of extreme weather on power grids. "Restoring flooded substations takes much longer than restoring a downed power line," says Abi-Samra, a manager with North Carolina-based energy consultant Quanta Technology.
More than 6,000 New York City residents are still in the city's 76 evacuation centers. Some 110 homes were destroyed or heavily damaged by wind-swept flames in the tiny Queens borough beachfront community of Breezy Point. "We're all devastated. But we're so thankful that this time no one was killed," said Marilyn Coady, a resident for 46 years who lives near the six-block area that was destroyed in the storm.
In New Jersey, Gov. Christie described devastation including seaside rail lines washed away and parts of the coast still underwater.
"It is beyond anything I thought I'd ever see," he said. "It is a devastating sight right now."
Bloomberg said New York City schools would remain closed Wednesday but city workers would return to their jobs. Evacuation orders remain in place for low-lying areas of the city.
The storm sent a surge of water over seawalls in Lower Manhattan and into streets, subway stations and electrical equipment. A large tanker ran aground on Staten Island and winds collapsed a construction crane 74 stories high atop an expensive new condo building. Bloomberg said people evacuated from around the crane cannot return until it is stabilized.
Sandy will end up causing about $20 billion in property damage and $10 billion to $30 billion more in lost business, making it one of the costliest natural disasters on record in the U.S., according to IHS Global Insight, a forecasting firm.
Bloomberg, who said he expects the city's death toll to rise as emergency workers move through neighborhoods that were among the hardest hit, gave a somber account of some of those who died.
They included two who drowned in a home and one who was in bed when a tree fell through an apartment. A 23-year-old woman died by stepping into a puddle near a live electrical wire. A man and a woman were crushed by a falling tree.
An off-duty officer on Staten Island who ushered his relatives to the attic of his home apparently became trapped in the basement.
Sandy also killed 69 people in the Caribbean before making its way up the Eastern Seaboard.
Obama declared New York and New Jersey federal disaster areas.
The disaster declaration makes federal funding available to residents and businesses in the affected areas, which bore the brunt of the sea surge from the superstorm. Speaking during a stop Tuesday at Red Cross headquarters, Obama warned that the massive storm "is not yet over."
He said there were still risks of flooding and downed power lines and called the storm "heartbreaking for the nation."
The president said he told governors in affected areas that if they get no for an answer, "they can call me personally at the White House."
Jeff Masters, meteorology director for Weather Underground, a private forecasting service, called the storm surges some of the highest ever recorded.
In New Jersey, where the storm came ashore, hundreds of people were evacuated in rising water Tuesday. Officials used boats to try to rescue about 800 people living in a trailer park in Moonachie.
A hoarse-voiced Christie gave bleak news at a morning news conference: Seaside rail lines washed away. No safe place on the state's barrier islands for him to land. Parts of the coast still under water.
"It was an extremely devastating and destructive storm, hopefully one that people will only see once in their lifetime," said Joe
Pollina, a National Weather Service meteorologist.
Con Edison spokeswoman Sara Banda said power was out for 804,000 of their customers in New York -- four times the number affected by Hurricane Irene. "This is the largest storm-related outage in history," Banda said.
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo in an interview with WCBS News radio said Tuesday that power restoration is going to be a real challenge.
A massive explosion at a power substation in Lower Manhattan on Monday evening contributed to the power outages. No one was injured, and the power company did not know whether the explosion was caused by flooding or by flying debris.
New York University's Tisch Hospital was forced to evacuate 200 patients after its backup generator failed. NYU Medical Dean Robert Grossman said patients — among them 20 babies from neonatal intensive care that were on battery-powered respirators — had to be carried down staircases and to dozens of waiting ambulances.
Stock trading was closed in the U.S. for a second day Tuesday — the first time the New York Stock Exchange will be closed for two consecutive days due to weather since 1888, when a blizzard struck the city. Trading was scheduled to resume on Wednesday.
Tonight's Halloween Parade in Greenwich Village has been postponed until some time next week, Bloomberg said. The city's famed New York City Marathon is still scheduled for Nov. 4.
Sandy is still expected to produce strong winds across the Mid-Atlantic and New England, as well as rainfall amounts of 4-8 inches over portions of the Mid-Atlantic. Additionally, snowfall totals of 2-3 feet were possible in the mountains of West Virginia, where blizzard warnings remain in effect.
Monday, May 14, 2012
New York Pays Inmates for Workers' Comp Claims
Story first appeared on Business Insurance.
An audit found that New York's State Insurance Fund paid workers compensation benefits to incarcerated felons, but examiners could not conclude whether private insurers and self-insured employers also paid benefits to any inmates.
The State Insurance Fund improperly paid seven state prison inmates $36,000, according to an examination conducted by the New York State Comptroller. Inmates jailed on felony convictions are not eligible for workers comp benefits in New York.
These payments are indefensible and should have been stopped. The Workers' Compensation Board owes it to businesses and taxpayers to put stronger internal controls in place. New York state businesses can't afford to pay higher insurance premiums to cover the cost of these inappropriate payments.
The comptroller's office found the improper workers comp payments by cross-checking work comp claimant records with Department of Correction files for benefit payments made during the three-year period that ended last September.
The comptroller said another 193 inmates also may have been inappropriately paid benefits, but examiners could not say for certain because their benefits are paid by private insurers and self-insured employers.
However, the New York Workers' Compensation Insurance Board could assist both itself and the State Insurance Fund as well as the more than 1,600 private and self-insurance companies by performing a periodic match of claimant and inmate files.
For more national and worldwide related business news, visit the Peak News Room blog.
For local and Michigan business related news, visit the Michigan Business News blog.
For healthcare and medical related news, visit the Healthcare and Medical blog.
For law related news, visit the Nation of Law blog.
For real estate and home related news, visit the Commercial and Residential Real Estate blog.
For technology and electronics related news, visit the Electronics America blog.
For organic SEO and web optimization related news, visit the SEO Done Right blog.
An audit found that New York's State Insurance Fund paid workers compensation benefits to incarcerated felons, but examiners could not conclude whether private insurers and self-insured employers also paid benefits to any inmates.
The State Insurance Fund improperly paid seven state prison inmates $36,000, according to an examination conducted by the New York State Comptroller. Inmates jailed on felony convictions are not eligible for workers comp benefits in New York.
These payments are indefensible and should have been stopped. The Workers' Compensation Board owes it to businesses and taxpayers to put stronger internal controls in place. New York state businesses can't afford to pay higher insurance premiums to cover the cost of these inappropriate payments.
The comptroller's office found the improper workers comp payments by cross-checking work comp claimant records with Department of Correction files for benefit payments made during the three-year period that ended last September.
The comptroller said another 193 inmates also may have been inappropriately paid benefits, but examiners could not say for certain because their benefits are paid by private insurers and self-insured employers.
However, the New York Workers' Compensation Insurance Board could assist both itself and the State Insurance Fund as well as the more than 1,600 private and self-insurance companies by performing a periodic match of claimant and inmate files.
For more national and worldwide related business news, visit the Peak News Room blog.
For local and Michigan business related news, visit the Michigan Business News blog.
For healthcare and medical related news, visit the Healthcare and Medical blog.
For law related news, visit the Nation of Law blog.
For real estate and home related news, visit the Commercial and Residential Real Estate blog.
For technology and electronics related news, visit the Electronics America blog.
For organic SEO and web optimization related news, visit the SEO Done Right blog.
Thursday, April 19, 2012
New York Makes Way for Megaships
Story first appeared in The New York Times.
The Panama Canal was more than 2,000 miles away, but very much on the minds of the officials who stood next to a hulking machine on Staten Island on Wednesday to announce a project that involves building a water tunnel to Brooklyn and dredging New York Harbor to make room for deeper cargo ships.
The officials said all the work would be finished by 2014. That is the same year that larger locks are scheduled to go into operation on the Panama Canal, clearing the way for ships whose cargo capacity is 260 percent as large as the ones that the canal can handle now.
The officials, who included the Mayor and the executive director of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, want New York to be ready to handle them, too.
They said the $250 million, nearly two-mile-long tunnel — officially, a water transmission main known as a siphon — was an infrastructure investment with a rapid payoff for New York, the nation’s third-busiest port. If New York City's economy is to stay competetive, it needs to be able to accommodate these new megaships.
The Port Authority agency had set aside $1 billion for the dredging project, which is separate from the cost of the tunnel.
Officials said the channel would be deepened to approximately 50 feet, from the current depth of 45 feet. The Port Authority and the Army Corps of Engineers will be responsible for the dredging.
The city and the Port Authority are splitting the cost of the tunnel project, with the city’s Economic Development Corporation managing the project. The dredging necessitated the replacement of two existing tunnels, one that dates to 1917, the other to 1925. They are 56 and 60 feet below the surface, respectively, and would be too close to the channel bottom after the dredging, officials said. The new tunnel will be 100 feet below the surface.
Like the old tunnels, the new ones will provide only a backup source of drinking water for Staten Island. Staten Island — as do all of the city’s boroughs — draws water that originates in reservoirs upstate. Most of the water that ends up in the sinks and tubs of Staten Island gets there through a 42-year-old tunnel from Red Hook, Brooklyn.
If that conduit ever failed, the new tunnel would be able to pump up to 150 million gallons a day, the officials said. Under normal conditions, it would deliver five million gallons a day, or about 10 percent of Staten Islanders’ demand for drinking water.
The tunnel-boring machine that will dig the new siphon was so big that it dwarfed the officials, and they stood on a raised platform. It is 300 feet long, officials said, and weighs 110 tons.
The officials said the machine would do its work by building the new tunnel four feet at a time, crawling along on its own as crews lay train tracks for transporting workers and equipment — and hauling out the dirt that it digs up. The idea of crews working along in front or behind the machine raises safety concerns. There have been inquiries into the lowest rates on New York workers compensation insurance coverage.
The officials said crews had already begun digging a shaft on Staten Island that the tunnel-boring machine would go into, and that they would eventually build a shaft in Brooklyn where it would come out. The plans also call for a chlorination station on Staten Island for water purification, and more than 1.5 miles of new water mains in Staten Island and Brooklyn.
For more national and worldwide related business news, visit the Peak News Room blog.
For local and Michigan business related news, visit the Michigan Business News blog.
For healthcare and medical related news, visit the Healthcare and Medical blog.
For law related news, visit the Nation of Law blog.
For real estate and home related news, visit the Commercial and Residential Real Estate blog.
For technology and electronics related news, visit the Electronics America blog.
For organic SEO and web optimization related news, visit the SEO Done Right blog.
The Panama Canal was more than 2,000 miles away, but very much on the minds of the officials who stood next to a hulking machine on Staten Island on Wednesday to announce a project that involves building a water tunnel to Brooklyn and dredging New York Harbor to make room for deeper cargo ships.
The officials said all the work would be finished by 2014. That is the same year that larger locks are scheduled to go into operation on the Panama Canal, clearing the way for ships whose cargo capacity is 260 percent as large as the ones that the canal can handle now.
The officials, who included the Mayor and the executive director of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, want New York to be ready to handle them, too.
They said the $250 million, nearly two-mile-long tunnel — officially, a water transmission main known as a siphon — was an infrastructure investment with a rapid payoff for New York, the nation’s third-busiest port. If New York City's economy is to stay competetive, it needs to be able to accommodate these new megaships.
The Port Authority agency had set aside $1 billion for the dredging project, which is separate from the cost of the tunnel.
Officials said the channel would be deepened to approximately 50 feet, from the current depth of 45 feet. The Port Authority and the Army Corps of Engineers will be responsible for the dredging.
The city and the Port Authority are splitting the cost of the tunnel project, with the city’s Economic Development Corporation managing the project. The dredging necessitated the replacement of two existing tunnels, one that dates to 1917, the other to 1925. They are 56 and 60 feet below the surface, respectively, and would be too close to the channel bottom after the dredging, officials said. The new tunnel will be 100 feet below the surface.
Like the old tunnels, the new ones will provide only a backup source of drinking water for Staten Island. Staten Island — as do all of the city’s boroughs — draws water that originates in reservoirs upstate. Most of the water that ends up in the sinks and tubs of Staten Island gets there through a 42-year-old tunnel from Red Hook, Brooklyn.
If that conduit ever failed, the new tunnel would be able to pump up to 150 million gallons a day, the officials said. Under normal conditions, it would deliver five million gallons a day, or about 10 percent of Staten Islanders’ demand for drinking water.
The tunnel-boring machine that will dig the new siphon was so big that it dwarfed the officials, and they stood on a raised platform. It is 300 feet long, officials said, and weighs 110 tons.
The officials said the machine would do its work by building the new tunnel four feet at a time, crawling along on its own as crews lay train tracks for transporting workers and equipment — and hauling out the dirt that it digs up. The idea of crews working along in front or behind the machine raises safety concerns. There have been inquiries into the lowest rates on New York workers compensation insurance coverage.
The officials said crews had already begun digging a shaft on Staten Island that the tunnel-boring machine would go into, and that they would eventually build a shaft in Brooklyn where it would come out. The plans also call for a chlorination station on Staten Island for water purification, and more than 1.5 miles of new water mains in Staten Island and Brooklyn.
For more national and worldwide related business news, visit the Peak News Room blog.
For local and Michigan business related news, visit the Michigan Business News blog.
For healthcare and medical related news, visit the Healthcare and Medical blog.
For law related news, visit the Nation of Law blog.
For real estate and home related news, visit the Commercial and Residential Real Estate blog.
For technology and electronics related news, visit the Electronics America blog.
For organic SEO and web optimization related news, visit the SEO Done Right blog.
Monday, September 20, 2010
Opposition Increases On Chief Of New York Schools
Several elected New York officials called for the city school's Chancellor Joel Klein to put a hold on some of his signature accountability policies.
Longstanding opposers of the chancellor rallied around the outskirts of his Manhattan offices as part of a campaign against the Mr. Klein.
The New York's Department of Education downplayed the demands of the rallying groups.
"We will continue to hold schools accountable for performance," said Natalie Ravitz, the Mr. Klein's press secretary.
"Delaying necessary reform, even for one year, will only hurt our kids and take us backward. Now is the time for all of us to double down on our efforts."
Ms. Ravitz said that the Department of Education has making an effort to increase instruction time and encourage more teacher groups to team up and focus on the students who are performing at the lowest levels. She added that 60% of the teachers currently do participate in these meetings. The goal is now 90%.
Another motive for the DOE is to offer more NY SAT prep opportunities for students. There have been studies that show drastic improvements among students who pursue preliminary test classes, such as ACT and SAT prep courses.
Increasing the opposition against Mr. Klien was a result of a questionable decision to hike the standards to pass statewide tests. After raising the bar, student proficiencies dropped substantially in math and English.
In New York City, students scoring proficient in English dropped to 42% from 69% in 2009. In math, this year 54% scored at proficient level, down from 82%. The numbers imply a need for further SAT Prep among students.
From a different voice, the city can attribute to many other measures that display progression in student proficiencies under Mr. Klein's role. These areas include better performance on nationwide exams and in comparison with city students throughout the rest of New York.
Mr. Klein still seemed to acknowledge the issues deriving from the new proficiency standards, contradicting his motives to have the levels raised for years.
"We are really frustrated," said executive director of Advocates for Children of New York, an organization with a history of disagreements with the city Department of Education. The director as well as others described a skewed system to standardized exams emphasizing the necessity for more http://www.esctestprep.com/new-york-ny-sat-test-prep-new-york-ny.htm">New York SAT prep courses. In addition to the contributing factors is an overreliance on testing to make critical decisions regarding the educational well-being of children, schools and educators. The rallying groups chanted: "Less testing, more teaching."
The groups in opposition of the chancellor have hired a PR firm to voice their stand more aggressively.
In the recent past, the rally groups succeeded in shutting down a Department of Education meeting, stalling significant votes that were planned to take place.
Mr. Klein's foes are hammering the application of state test results to critical educational decisions, such as school's progress reports where they are assigned a letter grade. Critics of the report's label them "scarlet letters" and claim they unrighteously brand the proficiencies of students as well as teachers. Opposers say the change in proficiency standards should delay Mr. Klien in using standardized exam scores to assign school's a letter grade.
Educational experts say the progress reports, although not a perfect measure of performance, display some promise. Senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute think-tank, Marcus Winters, said "Schools that had low grades actually responded by doing better." Additionally, he said the Department of Education re-assesses the measures and improves on the reports on a yearly basis. "Abandoning a policy as we're gaining evidence that it's effective would be a very bad idea." he adds
The creator of the progress reports, James S. Liebman, noted the problem at hand comes down to accountability.
"Most people don't like to be evaluated if they can avoid it," said Mr. Liebman, who departed from the Department in 2009. "There are a group of people who have opposed reform from the start for that reason and are misinterpreting this new information as support for their old self-serving arguments. But the kids deserve to know how well their schools are working."
In the meantime, more opportunities for students to improve their standardized test scores are popping up. Taking advantage of NY SAT prep classes have shown to pay dividends for the college-bound students.
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
Jets Owner Key in Bringing Super Bowl to NYC
NY Times
The idea for the New York area hosting an outdoor Super Bowl was hatched nearly four years ago, when the Giants and the Jets agreed to build a new stadium together in the Meadowlands. The Jets’ hopes for an enclosed stadium on the Far West Side of Manhattan had fallen through, even though N.F.L. owners had awarded them a Super Bowl that was conditional on getting the stadium built. So when the teams joined forces, the Jets’ owner, Woody Johnson, brought with him the pie-in-the-sky notion that the game should come to New York, anyway.
John Mara, a Giants co-owner, was not so sure. There had been sentiment for New York hosting a Super Bowl at Giants Stadium shortly after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, but that support had withered away. Johnson, though, was relentless, Mara said. Johnson is a relative newcomer to ownership, having owned the Jets for only 10 years, and he is viewed as the less influential owner in the forced marriage between the Giants, one of the N.F.L.’s flagship franchises, and the Jets.
But as he began to ask around the league about the idea, Mara was surprised to find enthusiasm for a game in the New York-New Jersey region. And so on Tuesday, with Mara wearing his father’s 1956 championship game ring for good luck, and with his fellow owners lured by the idea of playing the sport’s biggest game on the nation’s largest stage, the N.F.L. awarded the 2014 Super Bowl to New York-New Jersey, making the New Meadowlands Stadium the host of the first outdoor cold-weather Super Bowl in history.
“Why not,” Johnson said after the vote. “We play every other game in cold weather, rain and snow. Would I want to do it every year? Probably not. But 2014 sounds good.”
Even with a new $1.6 billion stadium, the New York area’s bid needed four ballots to gain the required simple majority of 32 votes in the secret vote. It beat out a proposal from Tampa, Fla., which pointedly emphasized warm weather in its bid.
The vote also represented an embrace of the New York region’s unique entertainment, promotional and financial opportunities. The proposal called for everything from a Super Bowl float in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade to a party at Liberty State Park in Jersey City. But of more interest to a league bent on building revenue and an international audience is that the weeklong extravaganza would play out in the global news media and business capital, and in an area where 36 percent of the 20 million residents were born outside the United States.
“I do believe New York is a unique market,” Commissioner Roger Goodell said. “It’s the No. 1 market in our country and in many cases around the world. It will be a great experience for our fans and a great experience for the N.F.L.”
Those considerations clearly outweighed concerns by some owners opposed to a cold-weather game where snow could wreak havoc on a week’s worth of parties and planning, as well as on the outcome of the championship game. The New York-New Jersey bid included details about how many people with shovels could be deployed to dig the stadium out of snow and about plans to hand out seat and hand warmers to fans and have fire pits in parking lots.
During the presentation, the bid committee ran clips of cold-weather games and noted that weather did not deter millions of people from visiting New York to see the Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center or to celebrate New Year’s Eve in Times Square.
But the owners who worried that a vote for New York-New Jersey would create a precedent for other cold-weather cities were probably correct about the door having been opened. Minutes after the vote was concluded, the Redskins’ owner, Daniel Snyder, who has long wanted to host a Super Bowl, said he wanted to bring the game to the Washington area.
Washington, much like New York, would seem to be among the strongest candidates to get a cold-weather game because of its nonfootball attractions.
“I think New York will do a great job hosting it,” Snyder said. “We’re looking forward to hosting one in D.C., the nation’s capital. I think they’ll show what a big-time city like New York can do and we’ll show what a big-time city like Washington can do.”
Cold-weather Super Bowls are unlikely to become the norm, but the N.F.L. has made no promise that the New York-New Jersey game would be a one-time cold-weather event. According to the Pro Football Hall of Fame Web site, the coldest outdoor game in Super Bowl history was Super Bowl VI at Tulane Stadium in New Orleans in 1972, with a game-time temperature of 39 degrees. Super Bowl IX in 1975, also at Tulane Stadium, was 46 degrees.
And five other outdoor games had game-time temperatures in the 50s. According to the New York-New Jersey bid, the average high temperature in February is 40 degrees, with an average low of 24.1 degrees, and an average monthly precipitation of 2.7 inches.
The host committee must raise $40 million for the event. But estimates for the economic impact on the area range from $55 million to $550 million, the optimistic number proffered by the bid organizers.
The Giants and the Jets will not make any money directly off the Super Bowl, but the promise of hosting the game is likely to ratchet up interest among corporations for the multimillion-dollar naming rights for the new stadium. Interest slowed during the recession. And with four years of buildup, the floodgates for sponsorships and suite sales — which allow holders access to Super Bowl tickets — will probably increase.
But that was not on owners’ minds Tuesday. They are caretakers of the most aggressively hyped event in American sports and the bid promised more of that — a “season of events” to promote the game for a full year — than any other city could offer. The buildup to the vote alone generated more buzz than any other Super Bowl vote in history.
The Giants co-chairman Steve Tisch recalled how his father, Robert Tisch, who was a co-owner, loved attending Super Bowls and how he happy he was at his last one in Jacksonville, Fla., as his health was failing. Some of the support the bid enjoyed was a kind of homage to the Mara family, which enjoys deep respect from fellow owners for the contributions Wellington Mara, John’s father, made to the N.F.L. With a nudge from one of the newest owners, the old guard and the new have delivered a game that, in spectacle and perhaps in snow, could top anything the N.F.L. has seen before.
“We’ve come a long way since the Polo Grounds in 1925 when we used to hand out tickets,” John Mara said. “The league has come a long way and the sport has come a long way. It would have been a very proud moment for my father.”
John Mara, a Giants co-owner, was not so sure. There had been sentiment for New York hosting a Super Bowl at Giants Stadium shortly after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, but that support had withered away. Johnson, though, was relentless, Mara said. Johnson is a relative newcomer to ownership, having owned the Jets for only 10 years, and he is viewed as the less influential owner in the forced marriage between the Giants, one of the N.F.L.’s flagship franchises, and the Jets.
But as he began to ask around the league about the idea, Mara was surprised to find enthusiasm for a game in the New York-New Jersey region. And so on Tuesday, with Mara wearing his father’s 1956 championship game ring for good luck, and with his fellow owners lured by the idea of playing the sport’s biggest game on the nation’s largest stage, the N.F.L. awarded the 2014 Super Bowl to New York-New Jersey, making the New Meadowlands Stadium the host of the first outdoor cold-weather Super Bowl in history.
“Why not,” Johnson said after the vote. “We play every other game in cold weather, rain and snow. Would I want to do it every year? Probably not. But 2014 sounds good.”
Even with a new $1.6 billion stadium, the New York area’s bid needed four ballots to gain the required simple majority of 32 votes in the secret vote. It beat out a proposal from Tampa, Fla., which pointedly emphasized warm weather in its bid.
The vote also represented an embrace of the New York region’s unique entertainment, promotional and financial opportunities. The proposal called for everything from a Super Bowl float in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade to a party at Liberty State Park in Jersey City. But of more interest to a league bent on building revenue and an international audience is that the weeklong extravaganza would play out in the global news media and business capital, and in an area where 36 percent of the 20 million residents were born outside the United States.
“I do believe New York is a unique market,” Commissioner Roger Goodell said. “It’s the No. 1 market in our country and in many cases around the world. It will be a great experience for our fans and a great experience for the N.F.L.”
Those considerations clearly outweighed concerns by some owners opposed to a cold-weather game where snow could wreak havoc on a week’s worth of parties and planning, as well as on the outcome of the championship game. The New York-New Jersey bid included details about how many people with shovels could be deployed to dig the stadium out of snow and about plans to hand out seat and hand warmers to fans and have fire pits in parking lots.
During the presentation, the bid committee ran clips of cold-weather games and noted that weather did not deter millions of people from visiting New York to see the Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center or to celebrate New Year’s Eve in Times Square.
But the owners who worried that a vote for New York-New Jersey would create a precedent for other cold-weather cities were probably correct about the door having been opened. Minutes after the vote was concluded, the Redskins’ owner, Daniel Snyder, who has long wanted to host a Super Bowl, said he wanted to bring the game to the Washington area.
Washington, much like New York, would seem to be among the strongest candidates to get a cold-weather game because of its nonfootball attractions.
“I think New York will do a great job hosting it,” Snyder said. “We’re looking forward to hosting one in D.C., the nation’s capital. I think they’ll show what a big-time city like New York can do and we’ll show what a big-time city like Washington can do.”
Cold-weather Super Bowls are unlikely to become the norm, but the N.F.L. has made no promise that the New York-New Jersey game would be a one-time cold-weather event. According to the Pro Football Hall of Fame Web site, the coldest outdoor game in Super Bowl history was Super Bowl VI at Tulane Stadium in New Orleans in 1972, with a game-time temperature of 39 degrees. Super Bowl IX in 1975, also at Tulane Stadium, was 46 degrees.
And five other outdoor games had game-time temperatures in the 50s. According to the New York-New Jersey bid, the average high temperature in February is 40 degrees, with an average low of 24.1 degrees, and an average monthly precipitation of 2.7 inches.
The host committee must raise $40 million for the event. But estimates for the economic impact on the area range from $55 million to $550 million, the optimistic number proffered by the bid organizers.
The Giants and the Jets will not make any money directly off the Super Bowl, but the promise of hosting the game is likely to ratchet up interest among corporations for the multimillion-dollar naming rights for the new stadium. Interest slowed during the recession. And with four years of buildup, the floodgates for sponsorships and suite sales — which allow holders access to Super Bowl tickets — will probably increase.
But that was not on owners’ minds Tuesday. They are caretakers of the most aggressively hyped event in American sports and the bid promised more of that — a “season of events” to promote the game for a full year — than any other city could offer. The buildup to the vote alone generated more buzz than any other Super Bowl vote in history.
The Giants co-chairman Steve Tisch recalled how his father, Robert Tisch, who was a co-owner, loved attending Super Bowls and how he happy he was at his last one in Jacksonville, Fla., as his health was failing. Some of the support the bid enjoyed was a kind of homage to the Mara family, which enjoys deep respect from fellow owners for the contributions Wellington Mara, John’s father, made to the N.F.L. With a nudge from one of the newest owners, the old guard and the new have delivered a game that, in spectacle and perhaps in snow, could top anything the N.F.L. has seen before.
“We’ve come a long way since the Polo Grounds in 1925 when we used to hand out tickets,” John Mara said. “The league has come a long way and the sport has come a long way. It would have been a very proud moment for my father.”
Friday, May 14, 2010
Health Care Reform may One Day Help New Yorkers, Meanwhile Rates are Soaring
NY Daily News
Health care reform is a done deal, but there's one heart-stopping trend that no law has yet to fix for New Yorkers: Skyrocketing health insurance premiums.
Consider these stats: Since 2000, health care premiums in New York have risen an average of 97%, or six times faster than incomes, state Insurance Department data show.
Empire State families now pay upwards of $24,000 per year for insurance on the open market - the highest in the U.S. - with little sign of relief.
"New Yorkers have done the math," said Elisabeth Benjamin, vice president for health initiatives at the Community Service Society. "And they're starting to ask how come there's a disconnect between what's in my pocketbook and what I am paying for health insurance?"
It's a gap that Gov. Paterson actually hopes to close a bit with new legislation - vehemently opposed by the powerful insurance lobby - that would require insurers to submit proposed premium hikes to the state for prior approval.
The federal health overhaul encourages states to follow a similar path, but offers little immediate relief. New insurance exchanges envisioned by President Obama as a way to create competition and drive down costs aren't expected until 2014.
New York had a similar "prior approval" law in the early '90s, and nearly a quarter of proposed rate increases were rejected by the state as too high.
But since 2000, insurers have effectively set their own rates - often resulting in annual, double-digit increases - provided they can attest to devoting 75% to 80% of their premium dollars to health care, state officials say.
Paterson would push that ratio into the 80%-to-85% range, a benchmark that also takes effect next year under the federal law.
Paterson also would require insurers to once again seek "prior approval" for rate hikes and open their now-closed books for state review. Not only that, he included the measure in his budget, a maneuver clearly designed to ensure action.
Critically, the push is now backed by Senate Majority Leader John Sampson, whose support has been a matter of significant speculation.
Not lost on legislators is that in years when many health care companies were pushing through big rate hikes - including Aetna, Empire Healthcare and Oxford - they were also posting big profits.
"We are not out to hurt insurers," said Sen. Neil Breslin (D-Albany), chairman of the Senate Insurance Committee and a leader on the issue. "But at the same time, they have been making tremendous sums of money over the last decade."
The industry says that's misleading. They argue that insurance company profits come from many different sources, not just premium payers, and they insist that Albany's push will do nothing to control the biggest pressures on their bottom lines, which are rising taxes and medical costs.
"Reinstating prior approval would simply be government price-fixing, and it still won't get at the underlying factors," said Leslie Moran, a spokeswoman for the Health Plan Association, a trade association for New York's top health insurers.
For many New Yorkers struggling with New York health insurance quotes, however, almost anything is worth a shot.
Jim Shea, 62, a one-time computer analyst who is HIV-positive, has been covered by Oxford since 1998. In that time, he has watched his individual premium rise from $350 to $1,160 a month.
"They don't have to answer to anyone" under the current system, Shea said of the state's insurers. And he believes help can't arrive soon enough.
"I am at the point now," he said of his finances, "where there is just about nothing left to cut."
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