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Know Your Rights
Source: New York Post
Subject: Immigration
Type: Media Coverage

Bloomberg launches new site to herald own mayoral legacy

Mayor Bloomberg is going to get a high grade for his 12 years of service to the city — even if he has to award it to himself.

Hizzoner launched an offshoot of his personal Web site Monday that ticks off a startlingly long set of positive data and accomplishments made by the city under his tenure.

With two weeks to go before he leaves City Hall, Bloomberg will also embark on a five-borough victory lap starting Tuesday to emphasize key administration successes since he took office in 2002.

“He’s had an incredible positive impact on the city and it’s important to document where we were in 2001, where we are today, and what we did to get here,” said his spokesman Marc Lavorgna.

The homestretch horn-tooting marks a sharp contrast to Bloomberg’s public attitude toward defining his legacy as recently as September, when he bristled at a reporter’s question on the topic.

“I’ve never thought very much about legacy,” he said at the time. “I’m not sure what the word even means.”

But now the mayor’s schedule includes a victory ride aboard the No. 7 train extension line Friday, a ceremonial trip that comes well ahead of the new track’s expected opening in mid-2014 and a speech Wednesday.

The city is picking up the $2.4 billion tab for the line’s extension from Times Square to 11th Avenue, as part of the mammoth Hudson Yards project.

On Wednesday, Bloomberg will deliver his last major speech as mayor, outlining his vision for continuing to improve cities across the country to the Economic Club of New York.

And his new Web site touts 23 topics in detail — including parks, health and immigration — where he claims significant improvements under his watch.

An advocate for one of those issues agreed that Bloomberg deserved the acclaim.

“The mayor recognized the importance of the immigrant community, and he worked locally and nationally for immigrant integration,” Make the Road New York organizer Daniel Coates said of Bloomberg’s positive record in that area.

But when it came to another contentious issue — how to handle homelessness — critics said the mayor’s rosy portrayal is misleading.

“It obviously paints a distorted picture of the state of homelessness in New York,” Patrick Markee, of the Coalition for the Homeless, said of the Web site’s data.

“To boast about homelessness prevention when more New Yorkers than ever became homeless each year during his administration is ironic.”

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