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Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg - rules are for the serfs I rule over, not me????
OK, he didn't actually say that, but I suspect that is how he feels. Caught Violating Weekend Copter Ban, Bloomberg Will Alter Flight Plans By MICHAEL M. GRYNBAUM Published: May 23, 2012 107 Comments Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg is rich, and New Yorkers often forgive him for it. His life of weekend homes in Bermuda and private jet flights to Paris has not stopped him from earning the votes of constituents who give him credit for competence and leadership. But being a billionaire is one thing, and breaking the rules another. So it was on Wednesday that Mr. Bloomberg, an experienced pilot, found himself under fire after he was discovered flying his private helicopter where he was not supposed to. An amateur video, filmed by an annoyed Manhattanite and broadcast Tuesday on WABC-TV, showed the mayor landing and taking off several times over the weekend from the East 34th Street helipad, where trips on Saturday and Sunday have been expressly banned for more than a decade. On Wednesday, a City Hall spokesman said Mr. Bloomberg would not be flying from the helipad on weekends any longer. “While the heliport’s waiting rooms are closed on weekends and you can’t get fuel, we always thought that pilots could still take off and land — a courtesy that, it turns out, had been extended to mayors over the years,” the spokesman, Stu Loeser, wrote in an e-mailed statement. Asked whether the mayor intended to continue using the helipad on weekends, Mr. Loeser answered, simply, “No.” Previous mayors traveled on copters owned by the Police Department, and almost always on official city business. Mr. Bloomberg, however, is not like other mayors. He is the first denizen of City Hall to own a private helicopter, and he routinely uses it for his weekend getaways — he owns multiple vacation homes, including in Westchester County and the Hamptons. The mayor’s office would not say where Mr. Bloomberg had been traveling last weekend, or why his helicopter apparently took off from or landed at the 34th Street helipad eight times in two days. The mayor had no official events scheduled for the weekend, but he did attend the wedding of the City Council speaker, Christine C. Quinn, on Saturday evening in Manhattan’s meatpacking district. Mr. Bloomberg was accompanied on at least one flight by his companion, Diana L. Taylor, and the couple’s two yellow Labradors, Bonnie and Clyde. This is, for sure, a rarefied cookie jar to get one’s hand caught in. The weekend ban has been in place since 1998, prompted by years of complaints from nearby residents about noise pollution. The city, led by Mr. Bloomberg’s predecessor, Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, fought in court to reduce the disruption of earsplitting helicopter flights from the heliport, which was built before a thicket of residential buildings sprung up in the area along the East River. The weekend ban is policed by the helipad’s operator, which has a contract with the city, although there are no formal fines or penalties for violations. Officials in the city’s helicopter industry said New York mayors had long had continuous access to Manhattan’s several heliports. “All of New York’s heliports have always been open after hours for emergency or public service use,” said Jeff Smith, chairman of the Eastern Region Helicopter Council. Gale Brewer, a council member who has worked for years to reduce helicopter flights in and around Manhattan, said Mr. Bloomberg had rarely been supportive of those efforts. She said she was disappointed to hear about his weekend flights. “You have to follow the rules,” she said. “When you read that the mayor takes off at times that are restricted, I think it’s shocking.” Dr. Ron Sticco, 50, a physician whose footage of Mr. Bloomberg’s flights, taken from his high-rise apartment overlooking the helipad, led to the report on WABC, said Wednesday that the mayor did not understand the disturbances that his flights had caused. “There are times it’s so noisy I have to go in my bathroom to talk on the telephone,” Dr. Sticco said in an interview. “I don’t doubt the mayor has essential business to perform. But, going back to Fiorello La Guardia, they didn’t need the perpetual use of a heliport to govern the city.” Some critics viewed the mayor’s copter trips as evidence of his disconnect from the average New Yorker. But Kenneth Sherrill, a professor of political science at Hunter College, said something else was afoot. “This is, on a very trivial matter, about the arrogance of power,” Dr. Sherrill said. “It’s the type of thing you do when you stop thinking about the political and public consequences of what you’re doing.” Dr. Sherrill paused and laughed, saying that he had bumped into Mr. Bloomberg on a subway car on Tuesday morning. (The mayor often says he prefers mass transit for short trips.) “To think,” the professor said, “this is the guy I saw on the subway only yesterday.” |