Blog: Penner’s Pen

Penner’s Pen

Larry Penner is a concerned self described taxpayer and citizens’ civic activist who will be blogging about government, budgets, politics, economic and civil liberties issues of interest to local residents. He has been an avid letters to the editor contributor for over twelve years. His works have been periodically featured on the pages of The Queens Courier along with many other daily and weekly newspapers in Queens, the Metropolitan New York area and various magazines around the nation.

Speaker Quinn’s transportation plans
Penner's Pen Larry Penner 5/12/2013 at 4:32PM

NYC Council Speaker and 2013 Democratic Primary Mayoral candidate Christine Quinn may not need the assistance of Governor Andrew Cuomo, State Senate majority leader Dean Skelos and State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver to regain control of municipal public transportation currently run by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. The answer may be found filed away in the [...]

New York Press Association newspaper awards
Penner's Pen Larry Penner 5/06/2013 at 8:51AM

There is still more to the recent New York Press Association newspaper awards. In New York City, most major daily newspapers miss significant news and political stories from local neighborhoods in the five boroughs of Queens, Brooklyn, Bronx, Manhattan and Staten Island. Weekly newspapers based in Queens such as our own Queens Courier and Courier [...]

Air traffic controller furloughs
Penner's Pen Larry Penner 4/26/2013 at 11:44AM

It is not the fault of air traffic controllers along with millions of hard working career federal civil servants including thousands based in the Metropolitan New York area face furloughs.  As part of last year’s budget negotiations, the threat of sequestering or an automatic 8% cut was supposed to bring all parties to the table. There would be [...]

Pataki & Catsimatidis – perfect together?
Penner's Pen Larry Penner 4/23/2013 at 10:36AM

The recent endorsement by former Republican Gov. George Pataki of 2013 GOP Mayoral candidate John Catsimatidis is meaningless. It may motivate intelligent Republican Party primary voters to look elsewhere. Pataki’s lavish spending of taxpayer dollars to special interest groups would have made the late liberal GOP Gov. Rockefeller roll over in his grave! His record [...]

Queens Republicans – Rest in peace (RIP)
Penner's Pen Larry Penner 4/15/2013 at 2:18PM

With the recent potential indictments of both GOP Councilmember Dan Halloran and Queens County Republican Party Vice Chairperson Vincent Tabone, NYC Councilmember Eric Ulrich may be the last Republican Party elected official still standing in November assuming he can survive the General Election. One way of judging the health of any political party is looking at the [...]

The race for Queens Borough President
Penner's Pen Larry Penner 4/09/2013 at 5:32PM

You need a score card to keep track of all the Democrats running to replace Queens Borough President Helen Marshall when she retires at the end of 2013 due to term limits.  Rosedale resident Everly Brown is a developer for the 501 Manhattan Corporation has joined this ever growing list which also includes State Senators [...]

The race for NYC Pubilc Advocate
Penner's Pen Larry Penner 4/02/2013 at 11:38AM

While everyone is focused on NYC Mayor Bloomberg s successor, little attention has been paid to who will succeed NYC Public Advocate Bill de Blasio.  To date, Noah Gotbaum (son of former Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum and well known municipal labor union leader Victor Gotbaum); Cathy Guerriero (teacher); Brooklyn NYC Councilmember Letitia James; Brooklyn/Manhattan State Senator Daniel Squadron and [...]

Reinstitution of a NYC non-resident commuter tax in 2013 makes no $ense
Penner's Pen Larry Penner 3/25/2013 at 11:50AM

How disappointing that the most potentially credible 2013 Republican primary mayoral candidate former Metropolitan Transportation Authority Chairman Joe Lhota who also served as budget director and deputy mayor under former Mayor Rudy Giuliani (serving from 1994 to 2001) has recently joined 2013 Democratic primary candidates NYC Council Speaker Christine Quinn, NYC Public Advocate Bill de Blasio, [...]

NYC Council Speaker Christine Quinn for mayor?
Penner's Pen Larry Penner 3/15/2013 at 4:47PM

The worst kept secret in City Hall was NYC Council Speaker Christine Quinn’s mayoral ambitions. The lines are clearly blurred between her day job and the new job she seeks. Quinn has been engaged in a non stop series of daily press conferences, news releases, issuance of various reports, letters to the editor, guest columns [...]

The next NYC comptroller
Penner's Pen Larry Penner 3/08/2013 at 5:06PM

While everyone is focused on who will succeed NYC Mayor Bloomberg, little attention has been paid to who will succeed NYC Comptroller John Liu. Notice that there is no potential declared Republican candidate to succeed Liu. The last effective GOP challenger for NYC Comptroller was businessperson Richard Bernstein, who ran with former Mayor Ed Koch [...]