Both houses of the 111th Congress have session today
For coverage go to CSPAN
A reminder:
the State Senate and State Assembly Opens house on January 9th
Nassau County Legislature begins their sessions on January 12th
Suffolk County Legislature have already started sessions yesterday.
In a New York Times article dated December 19th, Bruce Lambert reports on a project accomplished by The Center for Urban Research for the City University of New York Graduate Center where individuals can visit http://longislandindex.org/ and view a extremely detailed map Long Island complete with demographic breakdowns.
“The data includes lists of communities with the most population change, maps of residential density, apartment and rental constructions and housing grouped by three eras of construction: built before 1960, from 1960 to 1980 and since 1980.
Various maps show which areas are zoned for commercial, industrial, agricultural, residential and other uses. Pie charts compare these allocations in each village, town and county.”
Other various interesting statistics are also reported by the site.
A reported objective of this project was to, “help decision-making on issues like housing, the environment, transportation and taxes”.
Overall this seems like a really cool thing. I visited the index and had a fun time discovering various statistics about Long Island. It also seems not to violate the privacy of Long Islanders which is a reservation I had about this project prior to checking it out for myself. I definately implore everyone to have a look see. It will be interesting to see how local leaders use this new collection of information.
Wow… So obviously the end of the semester crunch has hit me hard. Lots of term papers this semester so I’ll try to at least make one post per day but as you can see that may not always happen. Anyways…
Newsday reports that Islip Town Supervisor Phillip Nolan is now, after investigating reported cell phone abuse by town employees, investigating 10 to 15 employees suspected of abusing their phones.
On May 1, the town will shut off 112 — or 36 percent — of the town’s 310 phones. Three others were handed in this month. Employees who keep their phones will be required to reimburse the town for all personal calls, at 40 cents per minute — something Nolan said he has done with his own cell phone account since he took office in November 2006. Town records obtained by Newsday show a haphazard collection of mobile phone accounts
I like this idea and consider it some what of a compromise. Government officials should not be using tax payer money to pay for their private phone calls. Nor should they be expected to have to phones (one for public life, the other for private life) because that can make things a bit complicated for them. I’m not sure if $.40 a minute is a fair rate so I would expect some quarreling over that but nothing that would make the headlines.
Newsday reports that the Riverhead Fire Department has banned alcohol use in its fire house.
The department’s commissioners banned alcohol from their firehouses following what police say was a drunken driving accident last month in which a Fire Department captain crashed a fire truck into a utility pole after taking part in a parade in Greenport.
I think this is a great idea. I think any person, volunteer or paid, that is a civil servant such as a fire fighter should be expected to remain sober while on duty. I think the reasons why are obvious and I’m not sure what other fire departments polices are on this issue but they should be similar.
The New York Times reports that Suffolk County government employees who have G.P.S. devices placed within their town owned vehicles are experiencing frequent difficulties getter their vehicles to function.
“Dead car batteries are a common side effect of the new G.P.S. units, say officials from the Towns of Islip and Babylon and Suffolk County, which have hundreds of G.P.S.-equipped vehicles.”
Tracking where these individuals go with vehicles paid for by the tax payers has been relatively highly praised. However if the cars with G.P.S. devices in them don’t work anyway then what is the point. Obviously better equipped G.P.S. devices need to be placed into these town owned vehicles. These employees need to be able to do their job as well as be held accountable for what they do while they are suppose to be working for the County.
The Political Gentleman
The Political Gentleman 