Rising Costs Give New Yorkers Sticker Shock

ou can be forgiven if you had the impression yesterday that New York had suddenly turned into a city of self-taught accountants, nervously computing number after depressing number.

So it was with Frank T. Cervatini, a 77-year-old retired shoemaker who lives in the Bronx. He calculated that he would have to pay an extra $60 a month because of recent increases in subway fares and other assorted fees, taxes and surcharges, and a likely rent increase. "It's ridiculous," he said. "Everything in this city is getting expensive. How are you supposed to live? Thank God I'm nearly dead."

So it was, as well, with Gloria Thomas, 32, a single mother who lives in Manhattan. She figured that she would have $50 less a month if rents rose. But she wondered whether she could recoup that money by allowing her son's membership at the local recreation center to expire this summer, as unpleasant as that was. "You have to always calculate everything, because it's raining taxes, and there's no relief in sight," she said.

Little by little, New Yorkers are paying a lot. There is the tentative increase of up to 8.5 percent on rent-regulated apartments, which represents the biggest rise since 1989, adopted Monday night by the New York City Rent Guidelines Board. There is the 5.5 percent increase in annual water fees for homeowners adopted by the City Water Board, also on Monday, which translates into an average of $27. There is the 50-cent spike, or 33 percent increase, in the subway fare to $2, which took effect on Sunday.

There is also the recent 18.5 percent surge in property taxes, higher cigarette costs, more expensive parking tickets and higher income taxes for the wealthy. And do not forget the proposed rises in taxi fares and tuition at the City University and the State University of New York, among other items.

During moments of introspection, some New Yorkers say they truly understand that the city, not to mention the country, is going through an economic crisis, and that it is incumbent upon everyone to share the burden. They understand, too, that politicians have held fees in check for years.

Still, many New Yorkers say that they are angry, frustrated and despondent about how all the stars of bad financial tidings seem to have ominously aligned, multiplying the effect of sticker shock over and over. And it is a tale of angst that can be told by people at every stage of life, from new parents to retirees, and is directed at Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and Gov. George E. Pataki.

"You pay to live in the city, but it seems like they're turning the screws a little tighter all the time," said David Thalberg, a book publicist who lives in Manhattan. "Haven't they done this enough? You say to yourself, `They're taking more out of our checks? Why don't they just take it all?' "

Mr. Thalberg, who is 37, has been obsessed with checkbook details and local news for the last few weeks, in a sharp departure from his usual sports-page reading habits. He and his wife, who is an executive at a home furnishings company, take the bus frequently. They have a 2-year-old daughter cared for by a nanny. The nanny has to take the subway to shuttle their daughter to play with friends and go on museum trips and to classes. "You add $4 or $5 a day more over a year, it really begins to hurt," Mr. Thalberg said.

Meanwhile, the Thalbergs have not had time to digest how much more economizing they will have to take on if a proposed increase in city and state income taxes for married couples making more than $150,000 takes effect. To compensate, Mr. Thalberg sometimes rides his bicycle to work, in the best Bloomberg tradition. He gently encourages his nanny to invite his daughter's friends over to their apartment, to save on commuting costs.

Also, the family did not renew their $75 annual membership to the Wildlife Conservation Society. "It's no zoo this year," Mr. Thalberg said.

If the Thalbergs have an experience that young parents can relate to, Christopher Case has a story that resonates with aspiring college students.

Mr. Case, a 26-year-old Guyanese immigrant, left the Navy last year as a petty officer so he could go to college and become a teacher. But after struggling to find work for months, he finally landed a job in March as a security guard for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which pays $13.50 an hour.

He wants to study at Queens College but does not have enough money to cover his bills, especially with tuition costs at city colleges rising. So he has adjusted his ambitions and may settle on studying criminal justice at a two-year college. But the higher subway fares — which he estimated would cost him $5 more a month — do not help.

At 27, Rick Fine is a year older than Mr. Case, but he is at a different stage in life. He is a financial aid representative who makes a bit more than $30,000 a year, and he is preparing to marry. But an increase in the sales tax would affect the cost of an engagement ring and his everyday purchases. And because he would like to buy a home, higher property taxes worry him, too. "My girlfriend is trying to convince me to move to New Jersey," he said.

Marisa Redanty, 48, is a veteran actress who lives in the theater district and has had roles on "Law and Order" and other shows. She is, in many ways, the typical artist: work is intermittent, and she must be prudent in her financial planning. And retirement, she says, is not that far away.

Still, if she had not changed her routine of taking the subway and taxis, and buying items that were more convenient than economical, she would probably be paying an extra $150 a month. As a result, she takes her shopping cart on the subway to load up on toilet paper at Costco, where it is 40 cents a roll, versus 65 cents a roll in grocery stores. She buys her cigarettes online from American Indian reservations, saving about $4.50 a pack.

And she also walks to auditions all the time, thereby saving on her subway expenses. But this means that she probably has to buy a new pair of sneakers to take the pounding.

"I wasn't always like this, but the first thing I think about is money," she said. "I sit down with my calculator and say, `O.K., what should I do?' "

Then again, this being New York, some people say that they lead lives that have been relatively untouched by the whirlwind of surcharges and fines, as if they had managed to deftly avoid a multiple-car pileup on the highway.

Randy Schrade, 41, a music teacher on the Upper East Side, may fall into this category. While he and his wife (who had a baby three weeks ago) say that they are dining out less and plan to be more careful in their shopping, he also has the fortune of being insulated from many of the increases. He does not smoke. He does not own property. He does not make six figures. He does not own a car that could be ticketed. And he is not too happy about the proposed increase in taxi fares, even though he walks to work.

Pataki has been a disaster for New York:

PATAKI'S NEW CLOTHES

By FREDRIC U. DICKER

May 7, 2003 -- ALBANY

FEW state lawmakers doubt Gov. Pataki will veto their profligate tax-and-spend budget within days - but hardly any of them expect his vetoes to be sustained.

It's not that they think the record-high budget is so popular with the voters. Rather, the lawmakers are betting against Pataki because they believe neither the governor nor his staff possess the skills, knowledge or moxy needed to split the Legislature, and so prevent a veto override.

Take the governor's effort to lobby individual lawmakers for votes against passing the budget last week: There was no effort.

Unlike all his modern predecessors, Pataki has no functioning legislative-liaison office and thus (as even Republican legislators concede) no regular day-to-day contact with lawmakers.

Such an office provides the contact - smoothing problems, handing out jobs, approving a favored pork-barrel project - that wins a governor friends for times like these.

One joke here is that when you spend as little time at the state Capitol as Pataki has during the past 81/2 years, you won't notice your legislative-liaison office is missing.

Compounding that problem is Pataki's refusal to live in the Governor's Mansion. Just a few blocks from the Capitol, the mansion provides a social setting for a governor to develop personal relations with members of the Legislature. And wouldn't that be helpful now?

Perhaps most important: Many lawmakers (Republican as well as Democrat) say Pataki's "second floor" operation at the Capitol - his central staff - is the least impressive and most political collection of bureaucratic functionaries since Charles Poletti (one of New York's most ineffective governors ever).

* Capitol regulars describe Pataki's top staffer, secretary John Cahill, as "tightly drawn" and "unimaginative." He's known less for his personal and strategic skills than for his competence as a lawyer. It's an open secret that he lacks the schmoozing ability now needed to win over recalcitrant lawmakers.

* Pataki's little-known chief counsel, Richard Platkin, joined the administration two years out of law school. And, notes one of the Legislature's most experienced legal experts, Platkin runs "a kind of a boutique law firm and not a traditional counsel's office, which norm- ally is involved in planning strategy to get the gover- nor's agenda across."

* The director of state operations was always a key third leg of a governor's operation - but James Natoli, who held the post for most of Pataki's tenure, had his legs kicked out from under him years ago.

* The governor's budget director, Carole Stone, has helped reverse the proud tradition of distinguished New York State Budget Offices with revenue and spending estimates so outlandishly inaccurate that they make the Legislature's forecasters look good. And that's saying something.

* Pataki's "press office" has been so notoriously hostile to the media and so uninformative for so long that it's hardly worth a mention - except that successful politicians invariably have skillful and helpful public-relations operations

Longtime Albany observers also note that the administration's higher echelons contain not a single distinguished private-sector expert, accomplished academic "idea person" or truly tested hands-on administrator. Nor are there any "blue ribbon" commissions of talented and high-priced, but civic-minded, outsiders producing reports the governor could use to reform state government.

Many here believe the heart of problem is Pataki's notorious inattentiveness; others point to what's widely seen as his lack of a genuine core of philosophical beliefs.

Both assessments are widely and regularly whispered at the Capitol - but, until recently, rarely stated in public.

Now, even some of Pataki's longtime supporters describe him as a combination of political shape-shifter and social dilettante, a Democrat last year, a Republican this year, happily sunbathing - in all but an election year - with Hamptons nouveau riche or sipping martinis with Westchester County parvenus.

"It's like, if you have a good wine list he'll talk to you," said a former senior-level Pataki appointee of his onetime boss.

Pataki's interest in socializing with the wealthy mirrors the behavior of his supporter and predecessor (once removed), former Gov. Hugh Carey - who earned the moniker "Society Carey" for his penchant for socializing with the wealthy, in Manhattan and near his Shelter Island compound in the Hamptons.

But Carey entrusted the state government to a first-class collection of professional, independent-minded administrators with names like Robert Morgado, Michael DelGuidice and Meyer "Sandy" Frucher, who are remembered to this day for their outstanding political and governmental skills.

Some past Pataki aides have likened the caliber of the governor's team to a county-level government.

Pataki himself is now being compared to the fabled, self-involved emperor whose supposed cloak of finely spun gold was ignored by the citizenry until times changed - and someone stepped forward to proclaim it really wasn't there.

More and more people in state government are now proclaiming the Pataki administration to be a government that isn't really there.

Could anyone think of a better test of that provocative - and unsettling - thesis than the veto-override battle that's about to begin?

Fredric U. Dicker is The Post's state editor.

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