June 6, 2003

THE EMPERORS HAVE NO CLOTHES.

By James Eugene*

[For those of you who have sensitive natures, skip this column.]

Albany, July 4, 2003.

Thousands of people from many walks of life descended on the State Capitol today demanding an end to the sales tax on clothing. What made this protest different from other Albany protests is that all of the protesters were naked.

Police at first attempted to arrest a few demonstrators but when the protesters moved towards the police with their naked bodies, the officers thought differently and simply moved away. One officer was quoted as saying, "if they had a little something on to cover their private parts, I would be happy to arrest them, but there are just too many and which ones do you choose. If I wrap the blankets around the good looking women, I am going to be accused of sexual harassment and it is very unappetizing to wrap a blanket and then your arms around some of the less savory ones."

Officials were surprised at the size of the protest. One Assemblyman, who wished to remain anonymous, stated that he expected "a few hundred crackpots, we were obviously surprised when over 50,000 people descended on the Capitol. You couldn't move anywhere without bumping into a mass of flesh. And some of those people really need to take a shower."

Ronald Lauder, noted conservative and one of the leaders of the protest, explained the rationale behind it: "Generally, tax policy says you don't place a sales tax on food, because it is a necessity to live. In that respect, the State government must believe that clothing is not a necessity to live and therefore they may tax. We decided to demonstrate to the State that if this is their attitude, we will show them the consequences of their attitude. And what better day to protest than Independence Day, when we show the State our independence from clothing."

While Lauder paid for some of the multitude of busses that traveled up from the City, it was also known that a number of other entities paid for other busses. Some of the region's major department stores chipped into sponsor busses, although a few of them said that they were not sure if they knew of the preferred attire for the day before they sponsored the busses.

A list of sponsored busses included such fashion powerhouses as Saks, Men's Wearhouse (from whose bus hung a banner saying, "we know you're going to look good, today!"), Macy's, Bloomingdale's (from whose busses hung a banner declaring, "taking off your bloomers for Bloomies"), and J.C. Penney (whose bus had a banner proclaiming, "Penney says not a penny for sales tax"). Victoria Secret's even sponsored a bus, and although they promised some models, none showed, but there was a free handout of thongs for the more modest of the protestors. Even Lord & Taylor had a bus, with its spokesman saying, "Jesus and Epstein couldn't make it, but they wanted to show their support."

Other known entities were there as well. Playboy had a scout promoting its best of the Albany Clothes Protest issue, which it has been promoting in anticipation of the march. However, not all protesters were marching against the sales tax. The Nudist Society of America (otherwise known as the NSA) argued in favor of raising the sales tax on clothing to 200%.

An NSA spokesman stated that clothes are a danger to society and that if God had meant people to have clothes they would have been born with clothes already on. The NSA spokesman continued by claiming that an oppressively high sales tax would promote people to examine the nudist option and switch to their birthday suits as full time attire or people could go naked part of the time.

However, the impact of this march has yet to be known. Sheldon Silver, the Assembly Speaker, refused to meet with any protesters and when confronted by a nude couple as he was leaving went scurrying back into his office as a throng of naked protesters then descended upon his office and demanded a meeting. When Silver tried ordering dinner later that night, some of the remaining protesters would not allow it to be delivered until Silver had paid them a tax for the food. It was believed that Silver decided to fast for the night.

State Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno stated that he sympathized with the protesters and promised to look into repealing the tax increase if the protesters agreed to put some clothes on. Some protesters then promised to put some clothes on if Bruno would take his clothes off. Thus, the protesters had participated in their own little traditional Albany deadlock.

Even Governor Pataki could not escape the wrath of the protestors. When a spokesman came out and stated that this was all the legislature's fault, and that the Governor opposed "job-killing taxes", a protestor immediately reminded the spokesman that Pataki had included the same tax increase on clothes in his proposed budget. The spokesman then scurried behind a door, locked it and has not been seen since, although some claim to have heard whimpering from behind the door.

Protestors hurried back onto their busses as the daylight began to fade. They were planning to descend back to New York City in time to protest at the Macy's Fireworks display, where they intended to accost Mayor Bloomberg and to follow him back to his mansion and serenade him during the night to songs from the Woodstock concert.

Everywhere howls could be heard, "no clothing, no peace." A second protest is being planned for Labor Day.

A government official is fond of telling me the following story. A gift of chocolate was delivered to an agency bureau. The bureau, knowing that it probably could not accept the gift, contacted the City's Department of Investigation (the wonderful "DOI"). The bureau asked if it can eat the chocolate or should it return the gift. DOI told the bureau not to eat the chocolate, but rather it was to send it over to DOI, which the bureau did. After this, the gift giver called and asked the bureau if it received the chocolate. The bureau told the gift giver that they could not accept the gift. The gift giver said fine, it did not know the rules and asked for the chocolate back. The bureau called over to DOI and told them that the gift giver wanted the chocolate back. DOI said it would get back to the bureau. The gift giver called the bureau again and said that it either wanted the chocolate back or wanted a receipt listing all the chocolate that was given and the bureau called DOI again and explained this to them. The bureau was confused because DOI for some reason was in a panic.

Now the obvious question at this point is why was DOI in a panic? The answer is simple: the gift giver was pursuing the issue and DOI had already eaten half the chocolate and could not list the chocolate that was given (however, because the gift giver ordered a special assortment from a chocolatier, it knew what it gave... it just wanted a receipt for because it knew DOI had it). DOI was stuck, it could not recreate the list of the chocolate because half of it was already in their tummies and if it gave the chocolate back, then the gift giver would know that DOI ate the chocolate that was supposedly an improper gift and DOI would like silly. In this instance, DOI was forced to eat crow and gave back the chocolate with half of it already gone.

Now the point to all of this is quite simple. DOI is the watchdog agency of City government. What happens when the watchdog needs to be watched? How do I know if DOI is doing a good job? In my years of covering City government, I found the NY Post to be a better watchdog of waste and corruption in City government than DOI. I had some experience with DOI while I was in City government, most of the time them asking me about issues with waste that my work had uncovered in City government.

Frankly, I found DOI usually was too late and too lazy to do a good job. It seemed as if too many of the investigators had come over from other agencies and viewed DOI as a vacation and were always reactive rather than pro-active. Moreover, it is an agency without oversight. The Council does not know what to do with it. Mayors tend to trust it implicitly. And agencies are supposed to fear it. And the agencies should fear it. In fact agencies should be very afraid of any enforcement agency that has a group of keystone cops operating it because that agency will not do a good job.

Currently this Mayor only focuses only a few agencies, Police, Fire, Budget and Education. All the other agencies are left to fend for themselves. When was the last time the Mayor talked about Consumer Affairs, Youth Services, Aging, Buildings, Finance, Environmental Protection, or even, surprisingly, Cultural Affairs. Even on Homeless Services, the Mayor's knowledge only extends as far as needed for litigation purposes.

A few months ago, I praised this Mayor for allowing his Commissioners to innovate, and I stand by that. But innovation isn't management. I expected to see follow-through by the Mayor, and in this instance, follow-through is another word for management. But as this Mayoralty enters its second year, I do not see the follow through. I see nice sounding initiatives, but no results. I am beginning to wonder if this Mayor simply cannot manage a wide enough range of issues. Obviously, when he was head of Bloomberg LP he could focus on managing business information services. It was one thing, and he could do it well. The Mayor is on the verge of convincing me that he is limited in what he can manage. He still has time to turn my opinion around, but that time is fading fast. The bloom is off the rose, and it is high time to show some management skill.

Oh, to have Ed Koch back!

* James Eugene is the pseudonym of a veteran of NYC government affairs. Inside The Big Apple will appear exclusively on the Empire Page. If you want to send tips or column ideas to James Eugene, email them to jameseugene@empirepage.com.