WHEN GOTHAM GOES DARK
Editorial
New York Post
June 23, 2003

The decades-long decline of a great city has resumed, gradual but steady, after a brief respite under Rudy Giuliani.

The downward trajectory is not readily noticeable; it manifests itself in many ways, but usually on the margins:

• One company leaves town.
• Another, which might have been founded here, starts up in South Carolina.
• A third, once on the cusp of significant expansion, opts for the status quo.
• Jobs are lost, or not created, and only the statisticians notice.
• Soon comes a minor recovery - but measured against national growth, it is small comfort indeed.
• Mayor Bloomberg insists that New York is the center of the civilized world, and that may be true - for now.

Certainly, the economy is in the tank.

And Bloomberg and Gov. Pataki are conspiring to keep it there.

Never mind the latest round of crippling tax hikes - and those to come, all for lack of spending discipline.

Just consider the city's energy needs.

Every public official knows that New York - both the state and the city - are in desperate need of more electricity.

The local economy is now driven by information processing - an energy-intensive industry.

Since 1999, the state has skated by - narrowly avoiding massive power outages.

This summer, state officials again predict no major disasters - unless, that is, the weather's as hot as in . . . 2002.

So far, so good.

But what about next year?

That's when all eyes will be on the GOP's presidential convention here.

Wouldn't that be a fine time for the lights to go out?

Long-term, the picture's darker yet.

The experts say that New York needs an additional 7,000 megawatts of generating capacity by 2008 - but only half that is planned.

Heightened post-9/11 fears of terrorist strikes only hasten the drive by Wall Street-like firms to decentralize and "disaggregate" - that is, move operations away each other, away from New York.

So you'd think Pataki, Bloomberg and other leaders would be racing to encourage new plants. No such luck.

Hizzoner actually opposes a plan for a widely hailed 1,100-megawatt plant on the East River in Brooklyn.

And Pataki has been all too happy to let foes of the Indian Point generators in Westchester forge ahead in their drive to shutter that plant.

The rest of Albany, meanwhile, couldn't even get its act together this year to merely renew the law that speeds public approvals for power plants.

To help ensure the Brooklyn plan's failure, Hizzoner wants to re-zone the site - and he even cited a sudden need to use it for the 2012 Olympic Games, if the city gets tapped to host them.

Now, everyone knows how important the games are to Bloomberg and especially to Deputy Mayor Dan Doctoroff, who's heading the city's Olympics bid.

But if they truly want the support they'll need to get the games, they'd better stop playing politics with the issue.

Specifically, they'd be wise not use the games to block necessary, albeit politically unpopular, economic development.

Industrial sites pepper the city, including power plants.

As it happens, the East River's shoreline is virtually the only place in town to put a power plant, given that that's where transmission and other lines are.

(Forget non-city sites: It's both imprudent and illegal to rely on out-of-town sources for too much energy.)

But worst of all about the mayor's opposition is the seemingly disingenuous manner in which the re-zoning and Olympics plan were suddenly floated.

What else to conclude but that these out-of-the-blue proposals were proffered in a bad-faith effort to scuttle the plant?

Meanwhile, a shutdown of Indian Point would trigger the loss of 2,000 megawatts of electricity - overnight.

As noted, Pataki stands silent.

What rational, energy-dependent firm would base operations anywhere near this place, given its shaky energy future?

No, the sky won't fall tomorrow.

Not for lack of electricity, anyway.

But, again, it's what doesn't happen that's most worrisome.

Insufficient new investment.

No expansion of existing commerce.

Presently the lights go out.

With nobody here to notice.

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