Razzle Dazzle: Mayor's Loss of Proportion

Razzle Dazzle

Mayor's Loss of Proportion

By RICHARD STEIER

There are times when Mayor Bloomberg sees himself as a lonely voice of clarity and intellectual honesty while others pile on bandwagons driven by emotion.

One of those times arrived last week, when he essentially accused Governor Pataki of being a big man at the city's expense by signing bills that give added financial protection to those who toiled at the World Trade Center following its destruction and their survivors.

His comment that particularly clanged off the ear was, "There's no free lunch, and Albany doesn't seem to understand that." Mr. Bloomberg probably meant it as a reminder that even noble deeds carry a price-tag, and in this case the city was being stuck with a bill. What it sounded like, however, was that he was suggesting the State Legislature and Mr. Pataki were providing a gift to those who became ill and in some cases have died following long labors at the Trade Center, rather than fulfilling government's part of the unstated contract entered into on Sept. 11 with its rescue and recovery personnel.

'Let Them Weigh In With Dollars'

MISPLACED RIGHTEOUS ANGER: While Mayor Bloomberg has criticized top Albany officials for approving 9/11-related disability and death benefits legislation and sticking the city with the tab, Detectives' Endowment Association President Michael Palladino (right) questioned why the Mayor focused his energies on defeating the bills rather than lobbying Washington to pay a share of the cost.

The following morning, after he awakened to an editorial in the Daily News that accused him of seeming "crabbed and cold-hearted," and one in this newspaper stating that his administration had been "stubborn to the point of insensitivity" on the issue, the Mayor was asked whether the new laws governing improved pensions and death benefits for the Trade Center workers weren't different from the typical union-supported pension bills that Albany approves over the city's objections about costs.

"If that's the case," he said about the concept of a special compact, "that's up to the city to decide. If Albany wants to weigh in, they should do so with dollars rather than just taking the high road" without paying any part of the financial toll.

He went on to say that he had always found it unfair that in cases where cops and firefighters died in the line of duty on days other than 9/11, the compensation their families received "is very different than if you died on that day."

"I don't think we need Albany to remind us of the sacrifices that were made," Mr. Bloomberg said. He took the position that he did, opening himself to newspaper criticism, he continued, because "leadership is about doing what's right. It's not about what the story is."

Detectives' Endowment Association President Mike Palladino acknowledged the following day that the Mayor had a point about the Federal Government and the state having an obligation to those who died during the Trade Center rescue efforts and the thousands whose health may have been jeopardized during the months of recovery work at the site.

"This wasn't an attack on New York City - this was an attack on America," Mr. Palladino noted.

But, he added, if that was the reason for staking out a position he knew was unpopular, "then Mayor Bloomberg should have championed the effort down in Washington, D.C. Instead, the city was silent."

First Definitive Link to 9/11

The bills signed by Mr. Pataki had been pushed by the DEA, one of whose members, Det. James Zadroga, was the focal point of their efforts because his death in January produced the first official medical pronouncement that a fatality was caused by the toxins breathed at the Trade Center site.

In April, Dr. Gerard Breton of the Ocean City, N.J. Medical Examiner's Office stated "with a reasonable degree of medical certainty that the cause of death in this case was directly related to the 9/11 incident."

Dr. Breton's autopsy concluded that Detective Zadroga had died at age 34 due to "respiratory failure" caused by a "history of exposure to toxic fumes and dusts." The autopsy found "the presence of innumerable foreign body granulomas that are distributed throughout the lung tissue."

There had been other, previous deaths from respiratory failure where Emergency Medical Technicians had been coughing up gravel or glass was found in their lungs, occurrences that had no other plausible explanation besides the work they had done at the Trade Center.

The city's response to the ME's finding, however, could most kindly be described as bureaucratic. The head of the Law Department's World Trade Center Unit, Kenneth A. Becker, released a statement saying that while the city had great sympathy for those who endured any suffering following their work at the site, "It should be noted that there is no scientific evidence showing an increase in cancer rates among uniformed services personnel or other persons who worked at the World Trade Center or that links cancer to work done at the site."

When articles appeared about the struggles of Rudy Washington, a Deputy Mayor under Rudy Giuliani, to receive Workers' Compensation benefits for his deteriorating health in the wake of the time he spent at the site, Mayor Bloomberg stepped in and essentially told his own lawyers, "Cut the crap and cut the check."

Other Bills More Costly

Mr. Washington's case did not have nearly the cost implications for the city that Mr. Zadroga's does. While one of the bills signed by Mr. Pataki extends the deadline for Trade Center personnel to file for Workers' Compensation, it affects none of the cops and firefighters who were there, since their guarantee of unlimited sick leave makes them ineligible for the program.

The greatest potential costs for the city stem from the other big-ticket bills. One grants those who have already retired the right to seek an upgrade to a disability pension worth 75 percent of final salary tax-free if they subsequently discover they contracted a serious illness during the Trade Center work; the other guarantees full death benefits to their families if they die because of such illnesses.

"That's exactly what I've been worried about," said one recently retired fire officer, even though a medical exam after he left the Fire Department showed that his work at The Pile - which left him with respiratory problems for a while afterward - seemed to have had no long-term effects.

Clarifies '05 Bill

A case could be made that the bill regarding upgraded pensions doesn't impose a new cost on the city, since its prime effect was to clarify some language in the 9/11 Disability Bill signed into law by Governor Pataki 14 months ago that would have given retirees the right to retroactively get a pension upgrade as the result of a Trade Center-related illness. But the new law removes the ambiguity and ensures the right of those already off the payroll to eventually collect the more-generous, tax-free pension.

The Mayor acknowledged the practical downside to opposing the new protections for the rescue and recovery workers: "If there's another disaster, who's going to clean up if people won't make them whole?"

But he also argued that every dollar the city was forced to pay as a result of the legislation took money away from municipal services. It also, he contended, diminished what would be available to future workers who wind up in similar circumstances.

Responding to a question about the News editorial's characterization of him, Mr. Bloomberg said, "I don't think we're being cold-hearted at all. We're trying to make sure that all city employees are taken care of if they make a similar sacrifice. We have a responsibility to them to make sure that resources are available."

Detective Palladino wasn't buying it. "I think his position is a little unreasonable," he said of the Mayor. "If we left it to the city, we wouldn't have what we have today."

Unrealistic Estimate

He said administration estimates of the potential cost falling somewhere between $500 million and $1 billion were wildly exaggerated. For one thing, the DEA leader said, those estimates are based on an assumption that "everyone in the [Trade Center] universe is going to get a 75-percent pension and a death benefit. And they're going from zero to 75 or 100 when you're really starting at 50, because all these people would be entitled to a pension worth half their salary. It's grossly overstated, the fiscal notes the city put in."

The fiscal note prepared for the death benefit bill pegged its annual cost at about $3.5 million, according to Detective Palladino.

The City Actuary, Bob North, according to one person familiar with the legislative process, never did a cost estimate because of some fuzziness in the bill's language (it is likely, in fact, to require an amendment by the Legislature later this year to ensure that Detective Zadroga is covered).

An OMB Production?

This means that someone else in the Bloomberg administration, presumably from the Office of Management and Budget, came up with the estimate used by the Mayor. As the agency which each year has the task of predicting multi-billion-dollar holes in the budget which magically turn into surpluses by the end of the fiscal year, OMB's defining characteristic is its ability to present worst-case scenarios as imminent without the hint of a blush.

The Mayor has a legitimate point about who should pay the tab, particularly in light of the statement shortly after Sept. 11 by then-U.S. Environmental Protection Administrator Christine Todd Whitman that the air around Ground Zero was safe to breathe. Her pronouncement was hastily endorsed by Mr. Giuliani, even though it was unsupported by any hard information.

Neither one was acting out of venality, but rather from a desire to allow the city's financial district to reopen and reap both the monetary and symbolic dividends of showing the world that the target of the worst terrorist attack in history was not only still standing but open for business.

Collateral Damage

One casualty of their desire, however, was the health of many of those involved in the recovery effort, who in numerous cases either shunned protective masks or didn't question how flimsy they were. Why be excessively worried, when the nation's ranking environmental official had said there wasn't a serious health hazard cooking in the ruins?

We now know that Ms. Whitman's reassurances were worth even less than the masks. And so it could be said that she incurred liability, on behalf of the Federal Government, for the lack of precautions that may well have been a contributing factor to the respiratory problems experienced by so many who spent time at Ground Zero.

But that has not been the thrust of the public statements of Mr. Bloomberg and his administration, and even last week he was focusing his anger much more on Albany than on Washington, D.C.

In a peculiar way, it was reminiscent of another public official who sometimes lets his self-righteousness overwhelm his sense of proportion, Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman, whom the Mayor endorsed for re-election the day after he lost the Aug. 8 Democratic primary.

Selective Outrage

Mr. Lieberman and his defenders seemed to feel that he had been victimized by the angry wing of the Democratic Party, seeking vengeance for the Senator's support for the war with Iraq and his defense of President Bush against criticism on the war.

They appeared oblivious to what was more likely the reason a majority of Democratic voters rejected their three-term Senator: that a man who, after Bill Clinton admitted to his affair with Monica Lewinsky, said his lying helped "to blur some of the most important bright lines of right and wrong left in our society," had never mustered similar outrage over President Bush's deceptions on far graver matters.

The Mayor himself has always had difficulty criticizing this President, preferring to register generic complaints about Washington or Congress or the Department of Homeland Security for not giving the city its rightful share of financial help. Intellectual honesty apparently does have its limits if engaging in it would put him in the gun sights of Mr. Bush's spin machine.

Perspective Lacking

But as a man who is justly renowned for understanding the bottom line, Mr. Bloomberg ought to have realized that he couldn't do himself much good whacking away at bills that even he says are a reasonable response to a problem that only now is becoming fully apparent.

Mr. Pataki and Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver - who was a prime mover on the bills - got something worthwhile done for people who earned it and more five years ago. There's not much logic in castigating them while giving a free pass to a President who basked in the company of those working at Ground Zero for political advantage but then forgot that they might need his help someday.

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