Carrion in the news

This may not rise to the story the Daily News editors killed a few years ago, around 2003, exposing Dan Doctoroff just when the Olympics effort was mounting steam. That led to a reporter to leave the Daily News (if he wasn't ushered out). And this may not rise to the crimes of Christine Quinn or Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer.

But it sure seems so...

We all saw the recent story by Tom Robbins in the Village Voice explaining why Bronx Borough President Adolfo Carrion would make a horrible HUD Secretary should President-Elect Barack Obama tap him for the position. See that story at

http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/archives/2008/12/five_reasons_wh.php

Then AM New York reported that Bronx Community residents (including some who had been kicked off the local Community Board for opposing Carrion on the Yankee Stadium project) were organizing efforts to press Obama to not pick Carrion for the HUD job. See that article at

http://ny.metro.us/metro/local/article/Bronx_battle_is_on/14478.html

Although it may not be the best way to do this, one of the Bronx activist told us you can go to the Obama transition team's website (www.change.gov) and use the contact form. Or you can email them at info@obamabidentransitionproject.org. He also suggested send a note to Governor Paterson using
his website's "Your Voice" page

http://www.patersonforny.com/main.cfms=dap&actionId=globalShowStaticContent&screenKey=cmpContact&htmlKey=cmpShare

Then someone has created a new web site

http://adolfocarrion.com

critical of Carrion, including many cartoons worthy of Tek Jansen and http://virginiafields.com. Who would do such a thing?

So last night we were alerted that the Daily News had pulled a story critical of BP Carrion. Sure enough, while the story showed up on the Daily News search results, we got a "Page Not Found" when trying to get the actual story. But a resourceful Bronx resident had copied it before it was pulled. See it below. (read the lame excuse of how it was supposed to run next week)

Also, the Village Voice now has a new Blog Entry, "The News' Amazing Disappearing Carrion Story" See it below. If this keeps up, you can expect Charlie Rangel to put out a contract on Politico's Glenn Thrush.

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Adolfo Carrion under fire
BY BOB KAPPSTATTER
DAILY NEWS BRONX BUREAU CHIEF
Thursday, December 11th 2008, 2:16 AM

'If he runs for dog catcher, we will ... support the dogs.'
-- Carrión Web critic

Bronx Borough President Adolfo Carrión is not enjoying what should be a career high. He has come under attack from those opposed to him getting a top-level job with the Obama administration. They argue his two terms in local office have been less than stellar.

And Carrión, 47, got in hot water last week after comments he believed to be off the record became public. He has told those close to him that he was seriously misquoted.

In a speech at Yale University last Friday, Carrión supposedly said he'd already been picked for one of five possible jobs - secretary of Housing and Urban Development, Transportation or Education, administrator of the Small Business Administration, or running a new White House Office of Urban Policy.

He also supposedly reported receiving congratulations from Obama's choice for secretary of state, Sen. Hillary Clinton. But the Obama and Clinton camps responded to his political no-no with dead silence.

Meanwhile, some of his detractors have been pushing an anti-Adolfo e-mail campaign to Obama's www.change.gov Web site. One Carrión critic wrote: "If he runs for a dog catcher, we will campaign against him and support the dogs."

Investigative reporter Tom Robbins wrote a piece on the Village Voice blog site this week sarcastically titled: "Five Reasons Why Bronx Beep Adolfo Carrión Will Be a Great HUD Secretary."

It listed Carrión firing local community board members for opposing the Yankee Stadium deal that tore up and will scatter local parks; signing off on a community benefits agreement on stadium construction jobs with no oversight; raking in two-thirds of his $2.3 million campaign warchest for city controller from developers and real estate interests, and letting the city scatter Bronx Terminal Market merchants to make way for a shopping mall in a city land giveaway.

Andy Wolf, a longtime Carrión gadfly who publishes the weekly Riverdale Review, bought Internet domain rights to the site adolfocarrion.com, using it to attack Carrión's record on housing and economic development over seven years in office, suggesting most of the local growth has been thanks more to City Hall.

He notes the Bronx continues to have the state's highest jobless rate, with one of the highest poverty rates in the nation.

Wolf also posted a series of funny but critical political cartoons of Carrión's involvement in controversial issues, including his lawyer wife blocking zoning against local "hot sheet" hotels he was trying to close down.

==================================================================
The News' Amazing Disappearing Carrion Story
http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/archives/2008/12/the_news_amazin.php
Posted by Neil deMause at 5:12 PM, December 11, 2008

Bronx Borough President Adolfo Carrion is "in hot water" after blurting out to Yale students that he'd already been picked for a top job in the Obama administration, as well as the target of "an anti-Adolfo e-mail campaign" to Obama's change.gov by Bronx residents upset by his role in the Yankee Stadium controversy, according to a story by Daily News Bronx editor Bob Kappstatter. Wrote one angry Bronxite: "If he runs for a dog catcher, we will campaign against him and support the dogs."

At least, that's what you would have read on the Daily News website at 2:16 am, when it was posted. By this afternoon, the story, headlined "Adolfo Carrion under fire," had disappeared from the Daily News site. (The Google cache, however, lives on.)

Had the long arm of the borough president -- or the Yankees -- reached out and told the News to can it, as Nets owner Bruce Ratner is charged with having done to ex-Voicer Deborah Kolben's coverage of Atlantic Yards?

Not at all, says Kappstatter. The story, he says, was always meant to be held to run in a future edition of the News; unfortunately, he says, "it had already been typeset, and the software automatically put it onto the website." Daily News spokesperson Jennifer Mauer says the item is now scheduled to run in the News' Bronx edition's gossip column next week, but adds, "I don't know the circumstances" of how it ended up appearing then disappearing from the paper's website.

This isn't the first article to mysteriously go missing at the News: In October, a story on parent outrage over high administrative salaries at the Department of Education similarly played now-you-see-it, now-you-don't, amid allegations of pressure from city officials.

While nobody's accusing the News staffers of knowing how to use those newfangled computer thingies, it's certainly convenient that this only seems to happen with stories critical of city officials, and not, say, Jennifer Connelly's figure.