New York City Councilmember Gifford Miller is a man of many colors. We believe he colors himself any color you want, at any time.

He says that public school education is so terrible because of Mayor Bloomberg, and when parentadvocates' editor Betsy Combier asked him why he was not helping any child with problems in the public schools of NYC, his assistant Suzanne Shapiro said that the problems were her, Betsy Combier's, fault. Who is responsible again Mr. Miller?

Then, to allocate 'appropriately' the $5.6 billion won in the Campaign For Fiscal Equity lawsuit, Mr. Miller formed a Commission, and placed Mr. Anthony "Tony" Alvarado as Executive Director. Mr. Alvarado is believed by many to be inappropriate for a position such as this.

July 16, 2005
Fierce Criticism of Miller Erupts After Mailings
By NICHOLAS CONFESSORE and DIANE CARDWELL, NY TIMES

LINK

City Council Speaker Gifford Miller faced intense criticism yesterday following reports that his office spent $1.6 million in Council funds on a series of mailings to millions of households around the city, far more than the $37,000 figure previously released.

The mailings, sent out during the heat of the mayoral campaign, raised anew concerns that Mr. Miller was using taxpayer money to promote his bid for City Hall. And the discrepancy between the $37,000 estimated cost of the mailings, and the revision that put the figure at more than 4,200 percent higher, led to questions about how such a glaring mistake could have been made.

"Gifford Miller's use of this $1.6 million, while technically legal, is clearly inappropriate because it is so out of line with franking efforts used by other incumbents," said Dick Dadey, the executive director of Citizens Union, a campaign reform group. "Something on that scale pales in comparison to any franking efforts by other incumbents," a scale he called "clearly out of the bounds of fair play."

The mailings came in five different versions, most of them customized with a picture of Mr. Miller paired with the recipient's Council member. The most expensive, a four-page flier touting Mr. Miller's work as speaker to bring down class sizes in public schools - a proposal Mr. Miller has also placed at the center of his mayoral campaign - cost $439,412.45. It was sent to 1.2 million households encompassing nearly every Council district in the city.

"The class size one, which is all that I've seen, is not appropriate," said Councilwoman Eva S. Moskowitz, a Manhattan Democrat who presides over the Council's education committee and is close to Mr. Miller. A version of the flier was sent to voters in her district, but at Ms. Moskowitz's request, her name and picture were not included on it.

"We had heard that it was going to be done, and I told them I absolutely wanted to see a copy of it. And when I saw a copy of it, I declined to participate," she said yesterday.

The other four mailings were also customized for each Council district. One described the Council's effort to restore financing for programs related to the elderly, while another attacked Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg for his proposed cuts to libraries and cultural institutions. A third focused on the Council "working to make our City cleaner and safer," and a fourth, with the theme of "building a better future," detailed financing for the city's legal and immigration services.

Both the speaker and individual members routinely send out taxpayer-financed fliers to inform their constituents of issues pending before the Council, and mailings from the speaker to households outside his own district are not unprecedented. But people familiar with the Council's mailing practices said Mr. Miller's effort was unusually large and aggressive.

"It's a use of public funds and it's no question of it promoting Miller's agenda in the middle of campaign season," said Gene Russianoff, a staff lawyer with the New York Public Interest Research Group. "There's a fine line between politics and government, so some money's going to get spent accidentally. The evil is using public funds to promote yourself more than the issue itself."

It was not the first time, Mr. Russianoff noted, that controversy has arisen over taxpayer-financed materials that veered uncomfortably close to the appearance of campaign advertising. In 1993, he said, the New York Public Interest Research Group objected to Mayor David N. Dinkins's appearance in television ads promoting the city's municipal bonds as he was running for re-election; likewise in 1997, when Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani also running for re-election, appeared in ads with the Yankees manager Joe Torre promoting recycling.

Last year, at the Campaign Finance Board's urging, Mr. Miller himself pushed to pass a law lengthening the blackout period on taxpayer-financed Council mailings from 30 days before an election to 90 days. But now, Mr. Russianoff said, he was abusing it.

"My reading of the law is that he did not break it, he just abused it," he said.

Mr. Miller's mailings first attracted notice in June, when C. Virginia Fields, the Manhattan Borough president and a Democratic candidate for mayor, filed complaints with two city watchdog groups, the Campaign Finance Board and Conflicts of Interest Board, arguing that the mailings were in essence taxpayer-financed campaign literature and a misuse of Council resources. Tanya Domi, a spokeswoman for the campaign board, said yesterday that the mailings were sent prior to the 90-day blackout period and that the issue of their financing was beyond its purview.

The Conflicts of Interest Board has declined to comment either on the complaint or whether it has opened an investigation. Yesterday , the Fields campaign sent the board a letter asking it to expedite any investigation of the mailings in light of the revised account of their cost and scope.

On Thursday, Stephen Sigmund, a spokesman for Mr. Miller, said the original figures given to reporters were wrong, and provided reporters with a detailed breakdown of which fliers were sent to which district, and how much each cost to produce.

In an interview yesterday, Mr. Sigmund explained that the discrepancy arose from a miscommunication between himself and staff members at the Council's member services division, which coordinates such mailings. "They were trying to give me a number quickly, but I shouldn't have released the information before we were able to confirm it," he said. Mr. Sigmund said there were no plans to discipline the individuals who made the error. "No one did anything wrong," he added. "It was a mistake."

Mr. Sigmund said that Mr. Miller's staff had cleared the mailings with most but not all Council members. The fliers went to city residents regardless of party, he said, and the mailing list was compiled from voter registration lists, lists of New Yorkers who had expressed interest in the budget and in specific issues by writing the Council or attending hearings, and from other sources.

Fliers were not sent to five Council districts, he said, either because the members representing those neighborhoods had specifically declined on this occasion or during past mailings by Mr. Miller.

Miller: City education policy failing
BY WIL CRUZ, NY Newsday, May 31, 2005

LINK

Eight-four percent of a fourth-graders who attended summer school failed to meet state standards on this year's state English exam.

City Council Speaker Gifford Miller seized on the findings to say Mayor Michael Bloomberg's promotion policy is failing, a suggestion the administration rejected.

According to Department of Education data, 3,179 students who were promoted after attending the city's summer school program for struggling third-graders last year failed to score higher than a Level 2 on this year's fourth-grade state test. Level 2 -- Level 4 is the highest -- is below proficient.

The findings were released less than two weeks after Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Chancellor Joel Klein touted the fourth-grade results -- the scores improved by 9.9 percentage points from last year -- as proof that their education initiatives were working.

"If their standard of success is 84 percent of students not meeting state standards," Miller said yesterday, "we have a problem."

The policy to retain third-graders who didn't meet standards became a lightning rod last year for Bloomberg, who asked to be judged on his education record. Third-graders who scored Level 1 one the English or mathematics tests were held back.

In the end, more than 3,600 third-graders were retained out of about 80,000, even after spending six weeks in the city's so-called Summer Success Academy.

Critics of the policy have said that the fourth-grade results would be a measuring stick for the policy.

But Jerry Russo, a spokesman for the department, said the overall test scores prove that the city's plans were improving the education system.

"No matter how hard it is for some politicians and special interests to accept, the fact is that our schools are finally going in the right direction and these scores prove it," he said. "Although no one suggests we don't have more work to do, we think our teachers, principals and students deserve congratulation rather self-serving and selective analysis."

Miller, who is running for mayor, recommended creating an independent institute of research and accountability "to remove politics from the equation." The independent board, which would consist of evaluators selected by the mayor, the speaker and the controller, would analyze student performance on, among other things, standardized exams.

Meanwhile, the State Education Department, in compliance with the No Child Left Behind Act, recently changed the schedule for next year's exams. Next fall, the state will require that students in grades 3-8 take state-administered tests, a change from previous years when only fourth and eighth-graders took such exams.

It was unclear what effect, if any, that would have on citywide exams, which, to date, are given to students in grades 3, 5, 6 and 7.
Copyright © 2005, Newsday, Inc.

Norman Scott on Tony Alvarado's Return to New York City, Courtesy of Gifford Miller, NYC Councilmember

Despite Too Many Questions of Improprieties, Carmen Farina is Named Deputy Chancellor For the New York City DOE

CFE v State of New York