Funding cuts a threat to city terror security
BY LUIS PEREZ AND BRYAN VIRASAMI
Newsday Staff Writers
June 2, 2006
It would buy New York City surveillance cameras that hover over Wall Street and midtown. It would back heavily armored patrol units in busy streets and subways. And it would pay for machines that detect what experts say is the next frontier in terror: biological and radioactive assaults.
New York City, the site of the deadliest terrorist attacks on United States soil, had looked to 2006 to accomplish all these things with federal anti-terrorism funds. But the city may have to scuttle all or some of the planned defense improvements in the wake of controversial 40 percent cuts made in its Homeland Security allowance.
"It didn't seem to make any sense to me," Mayor Michael Bloomberg said yesterday, responding to Wednesday's announcement that the city would receive $124.5 million from the federal agency, down from $207.5 in 2005.
Nassau and Suffolk counties had been hoping to purchase new satellite phones needed by emergency responders. They also planned for more preparedness training and hoped to install emergency alert systems in schools. Officials said they had not been informed yet how much they would get this year. But one thing was clear.
"Whatever money we lose, it's one less thing we'll be buying," said Joseph Williams, commissioner of Suffolk's Fire, Rescue and Emergency Services.
Of course, New York City received the bulk of the Urban Areas Securities Initiative Grant, the largest of five Homeland Security checks doled out annually to cities and states across the country.
Some experts suggested that the millions taken away from New York City and showered on middle America and California were a result of the city's good job in armoring itself against terror.
"To a certain extent, New York is being punished for being very honest about how it spends money on anti-terrorism," said New York University Professor Paul Light, who studies catastrophe preparedness.
Bloomberg said the city has been forced to spend its own money on anti-terror defenses, much of which federal homeland security grants will not reimburse. Looking ahead, the mayor warned, the city may have to rely more on the state for its terror funding.
In 2005, according to the mayor's office, the city spent some of the anti-terror monies this way: $16.6 million went to police overtime; $9 million went into equipment for the police Counter Terrorism Bureau; $7 million went to backup generators for hospitals; and $9.1 million went into purchasing a batch of surveillance cameras.
In Nassau, officials said they divvied up last year's $3 million pot among various agencies, towns and villages.
Suffolk officials said they spent a large chunk of their allotment on a $300,000 emergency alert system.
Staff writer Chau Lam contributed to this story.
NOTHING to SEE !
{I Love visiting DC & the national Museums and the Mall etc}
I live near a zoo
