Vallone Prevails On Lead Paint Bill; Honeymoon’s Over For Hillary

Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, who indicated his support for the Vallone-backed bill as the Council debate raged on over the past few weeks, is expected to sign the measure into law. Vallone and the mayor also agreed to increase the budget for programs to fight lead paint poisoning and prevention by about $8.6 million to almost $11 million.

Showing how tough a fight it was, Vallone had to resort to a personal letter to each Councilmember to push his case. The mayor also indicated how contentious an issue it was, holding up the appointment of Councilmember Andrew Eristoff (R-Manhattan) as Commissioner of Finance so that he could be on hand to vote for the Vallone-backed bill.

McLAUGHLIN: ‘RELEASE STAVISKY PAYCHECKS’: Assemblymember Brian McLaughlin (D-Flushing) has charged that Governor George Pataki has gone beyond "typical Albany politics to a cruel abuse of power" by refusing to release to Toby Stavisky, widow of the late state Senator Leonard Stavisky, the paychecks owed to the senator.

All state legislators have had their paychecks impounded under a law passed last year which calls for no monthly salary payments as long as no state budget has been enacted. The legislators had voted for the impoundment bill as part of a deal to get the governor to sign a legislative pay raise bill.

The budget is now 91 days late.

McLaughlin charged in a release that the 1998 law withholding legislators’ pay "was never meant to include the widow and family of a deceased lawmaker since no one can reasonably expect them to influence the passage of the budget." Besides, McLaughlin added, "the entire pay-withholding scheme is unconstitutional," it has been ruled in state Supreme Court. That decision is under appeal.

By continuing to illegally impound the paychecks owed to Toby Stavisky, McLaughlin says, the governor is "adding a political insult to the huge personal loss suffered by Stavisky’s family." The senator is also survived by a son, Evan, who is public affairs officer for McLaughlin.

"The governor has a moral and legal obligation to stop playing politics with this tragedy," McLaughlin declared. State Comptroller H. Carl McCall has also asked the governor to release Stavisky’s withheld earnings to his widow.

Meanwhile, no other candidates for Stavisky’s vacated seat have emerged, other than his wife, who has been endorsed by the Queens Democratic organization to run for the 16th District post in November.

One Flushing pol, Councilmember Julia Harrison, who defeated Toby Stavisky the one time she ran for public office, said she has no interest in the vacated seat. She defeated Mrs. Stavisky in the primary for the City Council in 1985. Harrison had previously succeeded Leonard Stavisky in the Assembly when he left to become a state Senator in 1983.

MAYOR APPOINTS CAREY’S SON: Filling another hole in his administration, the mayor recently appointed Micheal Carey, one of former Governor Hugh Carey’s sons, to be president of the city’s Economic Development Corporation (EDC). Carey served under former EDC President Charles Millard, of Forest Hills Gardens, and has been acting president since Millard left May 7th to take a job in the financial investment field.

WELCOME TO THE REAL WORLD HILLARY: First Lady Hillary Clinton, who’s seen only red carpets and kindly treatment since dipping her toe into New York’s political waters about six months ago, must be beginning to feel like a real candidate prospect these days.

When hubby President Bill Clinton announced his Medicare reform plan last week, Hillary at first begged off on commenting on the program. But after an old, dear friend, United States Senator Charles Schumer (D-New York) jostled her for her silence on a plan that hurts New York, a Hillary spokesperson hurriedly came out with a comment on the plan, albeit a fence-straddling one.

Reacting to Schumer’s statement that the president’s proposal could cost city hospitals $1.7 billion over 10 years and state hospitals $3.2 billion. Mrs. Clinton said the president’s plan was great but that New York state’s hospitals should be protected from excessive federal aid cuts. Ironically, the First Lady’s reaction was issued by Schumer’s former top aide Howard Wolfson, who joined her campaign team recently.

Earlier this month, Mrs. Clinton sidestepped making any comment on the president’s refusal to move the United States embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Meanwhile, the latest poll results show that Mrs. Clinton early lead over Mayor Rudolph Giuliani had shrunk. The mayor is still an unannounced candidate for the Senate on the Republican line.

DOMESTIC VIOLENCE FORUM: New York State’s "model domestic violence employee awareness and assistance" program recently got an airing locally when Assemblymember Catherine Nolan held a forum on domestic violence at LaGuardia Community College.

Two years ago, Nolan authorized the bill which, when enacted, created the awareness program in private industry. She said the legislation was done "in response to the increased recognition that domestic violence is also an issue in the workplace, often compromising the safety of both victims and co-workers."

Nolan, chair of the Assembly’s Labor Committee, expected the forum to give local businessmen the opportunity to have some input into the program.

WEINER PUSHES HIGHER COLAS: Citing the greater expense there is for New Yorkers as compared to residents in most other parts of the United States, Congressmember Anthony Weiner (D-Brooklyn/Queens) has introduced a bill to require "regional" COLAs (Cost of Living Adjustments) for Social Security members.

Keeping a campaign promise, Weiner said the bill would ensure that the COLA for New Yorkers would "more accurately reflect the costs of living in cities like New York" by calculating costs of living in different parts of the country.

For example, he said, last year the Consumer Price Index (CPI), which is used to calculate COLAs, rose only 1.3 percent nationally but 1.6 percent for New York City’s seniors. Thus, Weiner said, local seniors should have received a 23 percent higher COLA last year.

$ TO SOUNDPROOF SCHOOLS: Queens will be getting $2.2 million in grants from the United States Department of Transportation to soundproof schools in airport flight paths, Congressmember Joseph Crowley (D-Elmhurst) announced recently.

"These grants will help provide essential relief to the aircraft noise pollution that invades our schools and disrupts our children’s learning process," Crowley said. "The sound mitigation project will bring welcome assistance for schools, but we also need to make aircraft themselves quieter," the freshman lawmaker said.

Crowley has been advocating quieter aircraft and fewer flights from local airports since being elected to Congress last year.

SCREENING INFANTS’ HEARING: Newborns in New York State will be tested for hearing problems prior to being discharged from the hospital under legislation sponsored by state Senator Serphin Maltese (R-C-Middle Village) which has passed both houses.

Citing the benefits of early detection of hearing problems in infants, Maltese said, "Studies have shown that if special therapy is started as soon as possible, children are able to overcome their disability and achieve at the same level as their peers."

Maltese has been a longtime advocate for the hearing impaired, inspired in part by his brother, Vincent, a former court officer who has worked for many years as a volunteer signer and advocate for the hearing impaired in conjunction with the Lexington School for the Deaf in Jackson Heights.

In announcing passage of his bill, Maltese said the National Institute of Health recently determined that one out of every 1,000 babies in the United States is born with a hearing impairment, yet fewer than half that number are diagnosed as such until their problems with speech and language development become evident.