City Officials Develop Emergency Alert System

Posted on September 24, 2004 by New York News Network

By Maurice Pinzon
Yesterday, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg announced the implementation of an emergency broadcast system, the Cityís first.

Perhaps with memories of the haphazard communications of City officials during the attack on the World Trade Center, or incidents such the 2003 summer blackout and the shooting of Council member James E. Davis in City Hall, Mayor Bloomberg asked his communications staff to figure out a way for the mayor to “get a message out,” during a crisis.

In an emergency, amidst “chaos, when everyone is yelling and screaming and the sirens are going off, establishing what is really going on is very difficult,”  said Mayor Bloomberg yesterday. But precisely because of these difficulties the mayor suggested, “getting clear, accurate, and timely information is really central to any successful management of an emergency.”

Part of the Cityís new emergency alert system is modeled after the federal governmentís warning system, regularly tested on television and radio. However, the system has never been used, not even on September 11, 2001. In addition, the president of the United States has sole authority to require broadcasters to transmit emergency messages.

New York City’s communications system, officially called the Emergency Alert System (EAS), consists of a communications protocol that would allow the mayor, “using special equipment,” to transmit an emergency message to the four largest New York City radio stations, WABC-AM, WINS-AM, WCBS-AM and WFAN-AM. These radio stations have voluntarily agreed to transmit the mayor’s emergency messages, should the need arise. All broadcasters are already required to monitor these radio stations for emergency transmissions.

The new program also includes six emergency broadcast locations in New York City. Mayor Bloomberg said that from any of these locations, City officials could “produce and instantly disseminate live radio and television feeds to all the city’s electronic news media.” This would be important, he said, “when we can’t get to the media or the media can’t get to us.” The emergency studios would allow City officials to give more detailed news conferences to supplement the shorter emergency messages transmitted to the four major radio stations.

The City spent $1 million to setup the new initiative and the program will have an annual operating budget of $100,000.

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Mayor Bloomberg: Republican Convention a Great Success for City

Posted on September 4, 2004 by New York News Network

By Maurice Pinzon
Less than 12 hours after President George W. Bush delivered his acceptance speech, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg proclaimed the Republican National Convention a major success for the City.

Yesterday, Mayor Bloomberg in reviewing the week’s events cited a number of benefits to the City in hosting the Republican National Convention. Most immediately the mayor reported a $255 million economic infusion for New York City, although he cautioned the figures were still preliminary. The mayor also cited intangible benefits. “We received free advertising that reached potential tourists across the nation and around the world,” he said. The mayor said surveys indicated delegates were so satisfied with their stay that they would recommend the City to others.

Mayor Bloomberg described the convention as a sort of coming out party. It showed the world that New York was back, three years after the attacks of 9/11. And even with that memory, New York was safe and still an exciting tourist destination. In addition, the mayor said the City had proved it is able to hold a huge and complex event without a major incident.

Mayor Bloomberg was so positive in his remarks on Friday that he almost took credit for the protests. The mayor said, “This has also been a very good week for free expression, due process, and democracy.” Mayor Bloomberg said his administration had “rolled out the red carpet for political activists.” His evidence: the discount buttons given to 25,000 protestors. The mayor added, “We couldn’t produce them fast enough.”

Mayor Bloomberg suggested the discount buttons had generated good behavior. “The vast majority of protestors said their piece, peacefully,” Mayor Bloomberg said. And as for the “relatively few people who used this event as an excuse to break the law,” he said they had been “arrested quickly, processed as expeditiously as possible, and treated humanely.”

However, protest organizers and those arrested might disagree.

Just a half hour before the mayor spoke, members of New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU) held their own assessment of the week’s events. NYCLU’s executive director, Donna Lieberman said, “The pre-emptive arrests, preventive detentions and dangerous conditions at Pier 57, and massive surveillance of lawful protest activity, undermined the right to dissent.” Pier 57 was the temporary holding location set up by the City for those arrested during demonstrators.

Ms. Lieberman contrasted the permitted demonstrations, where she said, “The police generally did a fine job” to the more spontaneous protests. Ms. Lieberman said with the latter, there were too many instances of “preventive arrests”, with innocent people being caught up in the “new Spiderman net techniques.” Ms. Lieberman was referring to the orange netting used by the Police Department to encircle protestors.

Ms. Lieberman also questioned the City mishandled booking process at pier 57, especially since the City had a year to plan. “They told us they were ready to process 1,000 people a day,” she said.

But Ms. Lieberman appeared to focus her most vigorous criticism on Mayor Bloomberg. “We’re quite disappointed with the mayor’s posture this week,” she said. And Lieberman went further, criticizing Mayor Bloomberg for taking “a page out of the book of George Bush and John Ashcroft. ” She added, “The mayor has a lot of learning to do about the first amendment. ”

In reply to a question from a reporter on the use of the orange netting, Mayor Bloomberg said, “They [the police] certainly don’t use these indiscriminately.”

Overall, Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly, who also attended the mayor’s news conference, attributed success to large numbers of police, rapid mobility, new technologies and the experience of the New York Police Department.

Nevertheless, with almost 1,000 arrests on Tuesday, the City was not able to process people quickly enough. Earlier in the week New York Criminal Court Judge John Cataldo ordered the City to release those detained at Pier 57 who were being held for more than 24 hours without being charged. This is the legal limit.

But Mayor Bloomberg denied there was any strategy to delay the processing of people. The mayor said there had been an unexpected surge in arrests because anarchists had sent messages through the internet to disrupt the City.

If Mayor Bloomberg was troubled by any criticism, he did not show it. The mayor said, “The convention was a major test of New York’s post 9/11 security and I’m proud to say, by any standard, we passed this one with flying colors.”

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Appearances and Disappearance in City Hall

Posted on June 27, 2004 by New York News Network

By Maurice Pinzon
This summer’s fifth annual New York International Latino Film Festival (NYILFF) begins on July 27 with “Imagining Argentina,” directed by Christopher Hampton and starring Antonio Banderas, Emma Thompson and Ruben Blades.

According to the Latino Film Festival’s website, the film is about how “the people of Argentina are forced to live under a corrupt military dictatorship.” It goes on to say, “Those who oppose it risk their lives, and the lives of their families, a fate eventually suffered by 3,000 ‘desaparecidos’ (the disappeared).”

The Latino Film Festival also includes “A Day Without a Mexican,” which was directed by Sergio Arau. The story speculates about what would happen in California if 14 million Latinos in the state were to disappear each day.

Last week, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and his Latin Media and Entertainment Commission invited actor and director John Leguizamo to City Hall to help promote the Latino Film festival, which will feature these two films and about 60 others, from July 27 to August 1.

At the news conference, Mr. Leguizamo thanked Mayor Bloomberg for his support, adding that he believed New York City needed to have a film industry as vibrant as Hollywood’s.

In a brief interview with New York News Network after the news conference, Mr. Leguizamo said the Latino Film Festival represented “a nurturing environment and a marketplace for Latin films to be bought, to be seen.”

He said the Latino Film Festival would help to “create an environment so the best talent comes – writers, directors, actors.”

Mr. Leguizamo said this type of film festival was critical “to the development of Latin culture and film.”

Mayor Bloomberg’s baile Latino – in this instance, support for the festival – appears to be another example of the Bloomberg administration’s unrelenting courtship of Latinos by tapping into their very varied cultures.

By comparison, African-Americans might feel a little left out, although recently, former New York City mayor, David Dinkins, told New York News Network that shortly after Mayor Bloomberg was elected, they both sat down for a lengthy talk on a number of issues. Mayor Dinkins has also advised the Bloomberg administration on homeless issues.

Novelist Toni Morrison once called Bill Clinton America’s first black president.

Is it possible that Mayor Bloomberg is shooting to be New York City’s first Latino mayor?

The NYILFF’s executive director, Calixto Chinchilla, said many of the entries to the festival were filmmakers from New York City working on their first feature film.

For more information about the Latino Film Festivals’ films, events and tickets, visit NYLatinoFilm or call the festival hotline at 212-726-2358.

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