[kearnyirish2]

Years ago there was secessionist movement where Staten Island wanted to become part of NJ; now I know why.

The interviews of people there are so sad...

[Woodman]

It passed by a large majority (70-80%) but was blocked by the then Governor Mario. There is a home rule provision in the State Constitution that would have allowed the City to determine that the impact was too high on them to allow the change. In other words, Tax revenues are huge from Staten Island.

Interesting trivia is that we would have been the 22 largest city in the US at the time.

The reason the movement started in the first place was because the City Charter was rewritten by State Supreme Court mandate to have proportional representation. Under the original City Charter (Where the city of Richmond) which joined all 5 Burroughs gave equal representation for each one. Basically we got screwed from 20% say in governing the city to less than 5% say. Things have gone down hill ever since.

[pepsionice]

Here’s the deal. When you have an event like this....you need to appoint a two-star Marine general to walk in...with 20k National Guard and active-duty personnel, and take charge for thirty days. You establish five or six tent cities and you have MPs who are armed and prepared to take down any looters in the ‘zone’. FEMA....is worthless. FEMA probably works ok if you had a tornado, or some flood....but in this case...they can’t do the job, period. Let the general report only to the President, and make this all simple.