In N.Y., Anti-Terrorism Cuts Called 'Knife in the Back'

By Ellen Barry

June 2, 2006 12 AM PT

Times Staff Writer

NEW YORK —

New Yorkers had a few choice words Thursday for the Department of Homeland Security, following news that the city’s anti-terrorism funding was being sharply reduced. “A knife in the back” and “declaring war on New York,” politicians here called it. A congressman said the department “doesn’t know its rear end from its elbow.”

Using a new risk-based allotment, Homeland Security officials increased the number of cities eligible for anti-terrorism grants this year and bolstered funding for cities such as Charlotte, N.C.; Omaha; and Louisville, Ky. In the process, the grants to New York and Washington -- the targets of the Sept. 11 attacks -- will be cut by 40%, to $124.5 million and $46.5 million respectively.

The announcement this week angered residents in both cities, but emotions were particularly raw in New York, where the losses from Sept. 11 remain a daily preoccupation. The New York Daily News summed up the situation with the headline “Feds to City: Drop Dead,” and an editorial demanded the resignation of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff.

The distribution formula, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said Thursday, appeared to be politically motivated.

“What they’ve really done is taken what was supposed to be threat-based and just started to distribute it as normal pork,” he said. “In many of the places where they got money -- but arguably there’s no threat -- there are close elections, either at the Senate level or at the House level.” In response to the complaints, the Homeland Security Department released a statement, titled “Setting the Record Straight,” that said New York had received a substantial share of the anti-terrorism funds -- 19% -- since the program was created. That is more than twice the share given to the second-place recipient, Los Angeles. The statement also said the agency was forced to reduce its overall 2006 anti-terrorism funding by $125 million because of smaller congressional appropriations.

And White House Press Secretary Tony Snow said that New York already had received $650 million in federal funds, much of which was for one-time capital expenditures that did not require further funding.

“The idea that somehow you’re being unfair to New York by still giving it more money than any city in the United States of America

But those arguments did not seem to satisfy New Yorkers.

Carole Abramovitz, a lawyer who works in a building next to the World Trade Center site, said: “Anyone who is aware of [the reallocation of funds] is absolutely infuriated.”

She says she can’t forget the sight of people streaming from the trade center, or the burning smell that lingered in the neighborhood for six months. But for non-New Yorkers, Abramovitz said, it might be too easy to forget. “You can’t imagine what really happened here,” she said.

Anna Petersen, who also works near the site, said she felt certain that another terrorist attack would target the same area.

“He’s not done yet. He’s not done,” she said, referring to Osama bin Laden. “Whatever he’s got planned for us, it’s going to happen in New York.”

New York Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said the funding cut probably would block development of a security system involving camera surveillance of potential targets in Lower Manhattan.

“We’re a city that has been attacked ... twice,” Kelly said in an interview on NY1, a cable news channel. “We’re over twice the population of any other city in America. [Chertoff] is going to be very hard-pressed to explain this decision.”

An eight-page document detailing the funding reallocation describes Homeland Security’s new methodology as “the most accurate estimation to date of the relative risk faced by our nation’s communities.”

Panels of peer reviewers, including residents of 48 states, analyzed potential targets, it said. In New York, the count included 4,048 “commercial assets,” but listed the number of “national icons and monuments” as zero.

Gov. George E. Pataki called the assessment “ridiculous,” adding: “We’ve been attacked not once, but twice, because we are a symbol of America.”

Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.), who represents Queens and Brooklyn, responded to the federal government’s calculations with a caustic comparison of New York’s cultural treasures with landmarks in other cities: New York has Times Square, whereas Portland, Ore., has the Glazed Terra Cotta National Historic District; New York has Wall Street, whereas Toledo, Ohio, has the Obsolete Computer Museum; New York has the Brooklyn Bridge, whereas Anaheim has “filming for the Fox drama, ‘The O.C.’ ”

The Homeland Security statement released Thursday said that New York’s famous structures had all been counted in categories other than national icons and monuments -- the Brooklyn Bridge was counted as a bridge, the Empire State Building as a “tall office building.”

That explanation, however, did not stop Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) and Rep. Peter T. King (R-N.Y.) from urging constituents to send postcards to Chertoff. Their sample postcards, illustrating the Empire State Building and the Brooklyn Bridge, carried the message: “Dear Secretary Chertoff, Just a note from one of New York’s many national monuments and icons. Wish you were here! Hillary and Pete.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

Security funding

New York will see a 40% cut in counter-terrorism funding, but will receive 18% of total program funding this year. Allocations to selected areas:

New York

2005 funds*: $207.6

2006 funds*: $124.5

L.A./Long Beach

2005 funds*: $69.2

2006 funds*: $80.6

Chicago

2005 funds*: $45.0

2006 funds*: $52.3