Sorry kids, out-of-town guests means a quickie news roundup

But these stories are about very important things your day would be bereft without.

*David Donnelly, former city council member will work for Mayor Fulop as a project manager to the tune of $80K. There, was that so damned hard to say? Why did it take repeated inquiries as to what Donnelly was going to do and be paid? Other administration officials pay can be found at that handy link above and a little left.

*A NYPD officer may have been talking on her phone when she ran down teacher Felix Coss killing him Saturday. Witnesses said Paula Medrano was on her phone when she hit Coss and investigators asked her for her phone which she refused to provide to police. NYPD will now subpoena her phone records or the NSA could just save time and fax them over.

*West Nile Virus carrying mosquitos have been hunted down, confirmed and executed on Staten Island and over in Queens. Still, more could be out there looking to ruin your summer.

*Finally, we have another winner of our Red Forman 'Dumbass' award. Do follow the link, mmmmmkay?

The Mayor of Manhattan gets roundly (and rightly) booed in the Rockaways St. Patrick's parade

Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who long ago gave up even pretending he represents the parts of the city not named Manhattan was roundly booed at the Rockaways St. Patrick's parade yesterday. Bloomberg tried to mitigate the cascade of boos aimed directly at him by hiding in and among the sanitation workers who were front and center trying to help the locals. That's just cowardly. THOSE guys were heroes to these folks Mayor Mike. You get right out front of the parade and every St. Patrick's parade hereafter, you get out front with your police detail and see what the people really think of your third term.

Know what was even more embarrassing for his highness? Mayor wannabe Countess Chocula (Christine Quinn) dropping back way away from Mayor Michael Bloomberg after the boos started. Of course she said that was the plan all along said spokesvampire Eric Northman.

The best part of this? The comments at the New York Daily News:

ITSALLINPERCEPTION6 hours ago
He's leaving office why does he even bother to leave the borders of Manhattan and show up in any of the other boroughs?

JENNYONTHEBLOCK4 hours ago

Our boos were for Quinn too!

ALFONSEC7 hours ago

michael will not be happy with this booing----he may unleash the police to crack some heads in rockaway to show who is boss

Plenty more, follow the link!

So what if a guy in Queens had 3 million bees in his back yard?

That's not the point. So what if he was cutting the honey he was selling with corn syrup, that's not the point. So what if he had another six unregistered bee hives behind his Astoria sushi restaurant? That's not the point.

Oh, we'll get to the point alright, in a minute.

Yi Gin Chen had built himself quite an apiary in his Queens backyard. 45 hives, that's roughly 3 million bees. His neighbors weren't as enthused as Chen, and neither were some local businesses. Chen is seems had tried to pass off diluted honey to a local bakery:

"He gave them a sample, and it was just fine," Andrew Cote, of the New York City Beekeeper’s Association, tells the Post. "Then they bought the honey from him, and it turned out he had cut it severely with corn syrup. We tasted it, and you could tell right away. It was the old bait and switch."

Chen disagreed about diluting his honey but not about the fact the bees were out of control:

Chen, however, calls that "an absolute baldface lie," but did say of the bees "I don’t have the time or resources to do this."

The point, yes the point, lets get to it. Chen's neighbor, one Ted Kouris said this about the propensity of bees:

"I’ve been bitten three times already. It’s to the point where it’s ridiculous."

You do not get bitten by bees. No one has ever been bitten by a bee. You get stung by bees, not bitten. Mr. Kouris, if you're gonna hate on this guy's honeybees please learn to hate correctly.

We had no idea MLS was doing so well

Could it be that the New York Red Bulls will have some cross-Hudson rivals in the near future? It would seem so as Major League Soccer is planning to plop a new team in Queens and the move has the support of Governor Cuomo and Mayor Mike. Flushing Meadows in the place they want to build the 25,000 seat stadium. MLS wants to add some land to the haul to build (on their dime) 9 soccer fields in addition to the big stadium (Did MLS do this for the Red Bulls out in Harrison?). We'll see how this plays out but it does raise some interesting questions.

Can the Red Bulls continue to be the New York Red Bulls playing in Harrison New Jersey with a team actually from New York City proper playing nearby? The Jets/Giants case isn't quite comparable as there is no Brooklyn Ogres or such team. Seriously, they may have to become the New Jersey Red Bulls or risk some backlash. And back to a previous question, why NOW and why NYC for the MLS cash drop?

Ah well, all things that'll be worked out in time. We do know this, send us your NYC-proper teams and we'll send them back tenderized.

Is Fresh Direct looking to deliver a new HQ to Jersey City?

Grocery delivery's big name, Fresh Direct is perhaps looking to see if the west side of the Hudson River holds more expansion promise than Long Island City, Queens. Fresh Direct applied for, and got, assistance in November as a part of the Urban Transit Hub tax credit program. Jersey City is offering up $100 million dollars in tax breaks as well should Fresh Direct look to relocate. Jersey City spokesperson Jennifer Morrill said "If the company moves here, it would bring new tax dollars to the city as well 1,500 jobs to Jersey City, with the expectation of eventually adding two to three thousand additional jobs."

So, the whining in New York City Hall has begun, with Mayor Michael Bloomberg sniveling (all that guy does anymore is whine) about New Jersey trying to lure Fresh Direct; "I don't like the idea of one state bribing a business to come." We're certain that there are no tax benefits being offered by Mr. Bloomberg over at the Atlantic Yards where the New Jersey Nets are set to be, well, lured over the Brooklyn to play basketball. Cuts both ways doesn't it Bloomie?

The new HQ, should one be built is proposed to be out where the Goya Foods is planning their new HQ on County Road.

Anybody with any first hand accounts or pics and video of yesterday's storms you'd like to share?

So many videos and pictures yesterday of the tornadoes and brilliant lightning and thunder on the internets so we were wondering if any of you Jersey City Desk readers had any to share.

We have to go all Fast Times at Ridgemont High on a Queens man

Paul Franco is a no brain little prick.

Now, first of all we realize there could be more than one Paul Franco in Queens so let's be clear, THIS Paul Franco.

Paul hits women. What a class act. There is no lower life form than a guy who hits women. Not only does he hit women, he threatens to release sexy videos online of his ex-girlfriend if she doesn't give him money for his car. It gets worse. Paul also changed the password to his ex-girlfriend's Facebook page, changed her status to gay and started hitting on women online.

Paul seems to know a lot of how this online thing works so no doubt he will Google his own name and when he does he'll find this:

Paul Franco is a no brain little prick.


Back to the sledding hill.

Dear New Yorkers, who the hell is driving your MTA trains anymore?

A few weeks ago a story broke that an MTA train operator with between 200-400 passengers on a LIRR (Long Island Railroad) double decker train from Port Jefferson L.I. to Hunter Point in Queens let a passenger take control of said train and the passenger was commandeering it at speeds up to 80 mph. Ronald Cabrera was the MTA operator identified as having let a friend drive the train. MTA officials say Carbera was questioned and relieved of his duties pending the outcome of an investigation.

Today we come to find out in comparison Cabrera showed excellent judgement since another MTA operator was allowing her EIGHT YEAR OLD child to run a subway train, a Lexington Avenue Express train on Sunday. Jules Cattie was a passenger who thought he overheard an operator passing along tips to a new driver until he actually saw, and snapped camera phone images of an eight year old driving the train.

"The kid was standing there with a female conductor behind him. A little, little kid standing there" Cattie said.

Simply amazing. Know what this latest event SOUNDS like to us? A mom who didn't have child care lined up on a Sunday and decided to bring the kid to work. Cheaper to bring the kid to work than do the right thing and leave him or her with the babysitter, a relative or a child care facility. It's not enough parents more and more often bring their kids into the workplace for a myriad of unacceptable reasons, snow day at school, kid too sick to be in day care, babysitter fell through etc. Look, you made the CHOICE to have the kid and now you want to put people's very lives in danger in letting your precious little choice run an MTA train because YOU are inconvenienced? Nice priorities.

According to the Current.com article:
Investigators confirmed on Tuesday that an unauthorized person was in the operator's cab as the subway traveled through Manhattan on Sunday

Throw the book at 'em.

Second arrow attack in New York, this one in Queens, and it sure wasn't an accident

Thank god for bad aim because there was a second bow and arrow attack in the Big Appletini Tuesday night, this time in Queens.

Eric Weinberger was taking out the trash when he said he saw an arrow whiz right by him. He ran back inside and told his wife and daughter to "get down". The arrow stuck in the side of his home. He of course called police and they showed up along with news cameras and it's then police say they found a second arrow on the ground.

Yikes, so we have a bow and arrow attempted murder and this one, unlike the one in the Bronx was very intentional. Hopefully this is the last copycat incident of this kind. At least in this case the shooter couldn't hit water if they fell out of a boat. For that we are thankful.