Dale Hemmerdinger

It was a rough two hours for MTA board commissioners this morning: tears and tongue lashings in public testimony followed a budget presentation that confirmed all of their worst fears.

“I think I speak for all the board members when I say, ‘Wow,’” said Chairman Dale Hemmerdinger after hearing the full slate of proposed cuts.

Without specifying the amount of a fare hike for New York City transit—besides a jump in express bus fare from $5 to $7.50—the 500-odd-page budget proposal includes a raise in “yield” of 23 percent, factoring in resulting reductions in ridership. Significant cuts include 2,269 jobs; the Z and W subway lines (with some corresponding line extensions to compensate); the entire station customer assistant program; and weekend service on 37 bus routes.

The board won’t take a final vote on its proposed budget for 2009 until its next meeting in December. But the proposal’s fare hikes and route cuts, leaked a few days ago by the Daily News, already had people hopping mad.  read more »

Back in April, as I was trying to figure out how the hell to get out to Glendale for my interview with the Cash Giveaway King of Queens, Damon Hemmerdinger, development director for the Shops at Atlas Park, I asked his rep:

"Think ol' Dale [Hemmerdinger, M.T.A. chairman and also Damon's father] can hook me up with a closer subway stop?"

"Funny!" she said. "But the bus stop right in front is relatively new so consider yourself lucky!"

Luck is one way to put it. Some city officials call it fishy.  read more »

According to Friday's Metro, City Council members are upset about the new bus service,

Roger Stone doesn’t think much of the suggestion (based on my reading of a Weekly Standard story) that he had any role in drumming up a controversy over the fact that Eliot Spitzer’s father and MTA nominee Dale Hemmerdinger were members of the racially un-diverse Harmonie Club. Hemmerdinger's membership became a contentious political issue after an angry letter from Democratic Assemblyman Hakeem Jeffries.

Stone emails:

Azi
Just for the record, I never spoke to Hakim Jeffries, never spoke to his people and never asked anyone to speak to him. In fact, until I read the story I never heard of him.

He also said, “I admire what Jeffries did.”

In another email, Stone wrote:  read more »

A new Weekly Standard profile of Roger Stone has a suggestive nugget implying that he is still playing a quietly active role in a broad-based anti-Spitzer coalition.

From the story:  read more »

Heres a letter from Democratic Assemblyman Adam Clayton Powell urging state Senators not to confirm Eliot Spitzer’s nominee to lead the MTA, Dale Hemmerdinger, because of Hemmerdigner’s association with a private club supposedly lacking in diversity.

From the October 22 letter:

“In fact, the Harmonie Club had no minority members at the time Mr. Hemmerdinger was President, has no minority members today, and has never had any minority members. It would be virtually impossible for Mr. Hemmerdinger not to know this.

More after the jump.  read more »

Attached is the actual letter from Roger Stone apologizing to Dale Hemmerdinger, Chairman of the MTA, Democratic fund-raiser, and owner of the building where Stone lives, for saying Hemmerdinger, in essence, framed Stone for the prank phone call to Eliot Spitzer's father.

After the call was traced to a telephone number registered to Stone's apartment at 40 Central Park South, Stone suggested that since Hermmerdinger owned the building, he had keys to the apartment, and therefore, could have let anyone enter the apartment to make the call.

"It was inappropriate for me to suggest that just because you are a major Democratic Party fundraiser, major Spitzer fundraiser and the Governor's appointee to the MTA, that you would wrongly enter my apartment or have someone do so on your behalf even though management has access and keys to every apartment."