BAILEY LIFTS YOU RIGHT OUT OF YOUR DRIVER’S SEAT TUESDAYS 7:35 A.M. on WVOX WITH HIS WHITE PLAINS REPORT.

Here is just part of this morning’s commentary aired on WVOX on the TJ McCormack Good Morning Westchester Show:

The Mayor addresses the Council of Neighorhood associations in White Plains tonight at the Board of Education 5 Homeside Lane at 7:30 P.M…and it will be interesting to see the rosy message he gives the neighborhood associations who love his aw-shucks boyish charm.

Maybe he will tell the council about the new projects about to be proposed for White Plains as he mentioned last week in the televised Common Council meeting…without mentioning what they were—why didn’t he? The media dumbness this administration exhibits month after month is amazing to me…say what the projects are, please?Give people in White Plains some hope.

Well if I were the Mayor at the Council of Neighborhood Associations  tonight, I would propose the following for the next four years in White Plains…

1.     A true marketing plan for the City of White Plains...   

2.  A crusade against overcrowded, illegal housing in White Plains and the slumlords the city has been protecting for years.

3.     A welcome center for new residents and a registry of rental housing available in town – this way all sublets, multi-family homes could be licensed and monitored

4.     A Housing Registry and Advisory Commission Clearing House for all apartments in the city that would regulate and inspect all  tenant housing and residential housing in the city…

5.     A realistic parking policy that would encourage shopping in White Plains, not keep persons from coming.

6.     A 24-hour homless policy –not turning the homeless out on the street at 6 A.M. but sheparding them into jobs, educational programs, etc. so they do not wander aimlessly and get into mischief.

7.     Negotiating contracts based on the inflation rate instead of long term contracts that have fixed settlements. This might bring labor peace.

8.     Sharing sales tax revenues with school district to lower school taxes.

And for the School District— 

1.     Conduct a management efficiency survey to trim administration.

2.     Eliminate school busing to save some $10 Million in costs.—returning to neighborhood schools.

3.     Establish a district academy for learning disabled as Superintendent Connors recommended 10 years ago. It would cost about a million dollars but would save the costs of enrolling the disabled at district expense in private schools

4.     Start a Teaching Fellows Program for new teachers that would hire them for two years and allowing them to achieve a masters in two years simultaneously… similar to the New York Teaching Fellows program— the new teachers could be teaching assistants first and move smoothly into fulltime teaching positions.  

5.     District should prepare their own assessment tests for Common Core Standards  to assess where their students are and where they should be.

WPCNR NEWS & COMMENT. By John F. Bailey. January 11, 2014:

Come on.

The Associated Press report criticizing New York City Mayor William Di Blasio for eating pizza with a knife and fork, crosses the line.

It is uncalled-for. Amateurism in news judgment. I mean is there any news judgment today anywhere?

It is time the media started reporting news based on the facts again instead of gossip and their own personal opinion.

Of course, if the organizations and individuals being reported on told the truth and stated the facts as they know it in a timely fashion, this would help get out the real story. But they don’t.

It is time for the media to dig out and find news, source it, and interviewees go on the record, instead of reporters critiquing the handling of incidents and the behavior of officials in what purports to be news stories based on twits, tweeters, and rumor-mongers.

I mean how Mayor di Blasio eats his pizza – this is a matter to report on in a national wire service?

I am referring to the report on Mayor di Blasio eating pizza at Goodfellas in Staten Island with a knife and fork. Wow. I am shocked.

Everyone who eats pizza makes the call on how they eat based on the infrastructure of the pizza. The slightest miscalculation can ruin a shirt, dump hot cheese in most uncomfortable places, and ruin a date, night out, and put you on YouTube.

A thin crust pizza laden with toppings can be limp and tends, if you pick it up, to droop and not stay erectly and stoutly structured–with an avalanche of toppings gathering momentum in an unstoppable slide of mayhem.

The pizza eater is faced with the call – have tomato sauce, pepperoni, sausage, onions, peppers and mushrooms slide like an avalanche onto your tie white shirt and lap – or worse…if you are Senator Gillebrand – your bodice—or you can  take care of the first third of pizza slice with a knife and fork.

Contrary to being criticized, the fact that Mayor di Blasio demonstrated discretion, keen analysis of the pizza situation and its consequences if he made the wrong decision and attempted to bring it by hand to his mouth precipitating a pizza spill which could have gone viral – bodes a great mayoral term ahead if he makes all decisions with the clear-headedness, and sure-handedness in the Goodfellas pizza situation.

The Mayor also showed concern for the owners of the restaurant, sparing any possible lawsuits against the city of New York for  damages by reckless pizza management by a public official damaging to the restaurant reputation. The Mayor showed intelligent, superior legal knowledge of how every act of the big guy is scrutinized by the jackals of the press for the scraps of sensationalism that the Mayor appears well aware of that can color the tenor and shade of his Mayoralty before it is a week old.

The guide to eating pizza…whether to go for hands-on is the crust. A thick crust like Magnotta’s Pizza in White Plains – The Official Pizza of the White Plains CitizeNetReporter – much like a Bud Nicoletti parking lot provides the support the consumer needs – any caliber of pizza ordinance in any combination can be handled by the crust. It is stand-up crust.

Mayor di Blasio, obviously knows his way around a pizza.

Back  off, media and focus on what politicians do in conduct of their duties – not how they eat.