DeliciousThis site is dedicated to collecting and exploring information about incumbent New York City Comptroller John C. Liu, and the changes he and officials like him are bringing to New York’s government.
I’m a fan of Mr. Liu. Let’s get that out of the way.
He does his job. That might not sound amazing, but recent evidence is increasingly showing that decades of comptrollers before him didn’t have a clue. In his short time in office, Mr. Liu has shaken things up considerably. Instead of “business as usual”, he’s pushed for an unheard-of level of accountability and transparency in the city government. To date, he’s saved the taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars (that’s a lot, even for NYC) that his predecessors had somehow been unable to keep track of.
More importantly, I think and hope that John Liu becomes a model for a whole new generation of city officials: more transparent, more honest, more principled and more efficient.
Yeah, I like Mr. Liu.
But I’m not a blind follower. I believe in judging a person by what he does rather than what he says. I believe in examining all sides of an issue -- good and bad, for and against --, weighing them against each other and then making a decision based on that. With the internet, this is easier than ever.
That’s how I became aware of the media bias against Mr. Liu. Though he’s one of the most active and efficient city comptrollers we’ve had in a while, none of the mainstream media seems to have a single good word about him (this charge is lead by the NY Post, The New York Times and the NY Daily News).
That baffles me. I don’t know if it’s simply the media groping around for bad news instead of good news because “bad news” sells, or if it’s something more sinister, like a hidden racism against Mr. Liu’s Taiwan roots, or a politically-motivated smear campaign. I don’t know, but I don’t like it. This was the motivation behind creating this website.
If you are here because you are interested in knowing more about him, I welcome you, and hope you learn something interesting. If you know something and want to add something -- especially if you disagree -- I welcome you all the more.
- Andrew Kaminski, Esq.
