WHAT A SCOOP!

"Look! Up in the sky!"

"It's a bird!"

"It's a plane!"

"It's – PHIL X!"

"Yes, it's Phil X - strange visitor from another planet who came to Earth with powers and abilities fairly equal to those of mortal men. Phil X! Who can track the course of mighty drivel, bend truth with his bare lies, and who, disguised as Phil, mild-mannered reporter for a small metropolitan newspaper, fights a never-ending battle for Truth, Justice, and the American Way!"

…

I think it highly appropriate for that to be the new “Live Nude Blog!” opening theme. After all, it’s been almost a month at the new job, and I’m actually starting to think of myself as a professional writer/reporter/journalist. Scary.

So what have I been covering these past few weeks? For the most part, it’s been the community board meetings either in Brooklyn or Queens – once a month affairs involving the renewal of liquor licenses and other mundane topics. What’s exciting about these meetings, however, is the way an interesting story can appear out of nowhere. Let me give you a recent example:

Last Tuesday, I happened to be in Ft. Greene, Brooklyn, covering a town hall meeting featuring Finance Commissioner M. Stark, who was trying to explain our state’s very complicated property assessment and tax system. Personally, I still needed help sorting that stuff out afterward; luckily, the staff was handing out pamphlets that repeated a lot of the same info, which I took home and used for my article. That goodness for those! I gotta tell you, regurgitating pre-published facts makes up approximately 85% of my job, if not more…

But I digress. During the meeting, our very own Borough Council Member, whose face had appeared on every flyer personally “inviting” the public to spend their evening at the Brooklyn Technical High School auditorium instead of at home watching the Olympics, gave a quick shout out to an audience member named F. Anderson. She said that “Mr. Anderson crystalized the issue of property taxes,” which made him sound like a very important person, well worth getting a quote from for the subsequent article.

However, when the town meeting ended, Mr. Anderson was nowhere to be found. The next morning, I called up the respective offices of both Council Member James and Finance Commissioner M. Stark, and asked, among other routine questions, if there was any way I could get in touch with F. Anderson, the man who seemingly played a vital role in last night’s info-swap. I was expecting them to either give me his phone number, or offer to pass mine on. What I didn’t expect was for a high-ranking source in one of the aforementioned offices to say that Mr. Anderson “wasn’t necessary to speak to regarding the meeting.” Now that just seemed sort of strange.

If I didn’t know any better, I would have suspected they didn’t wanted me to talk to this F. Anderson. That only made me more committed to talking to him, so I went to the internet white pages and looked up every F. Anderson with a zip code near Brooklyn Technical High School. After half an hour of typing, question-asking, and pardon-begging, I was having a conversation with the guy. As it turns out, my instincts were correct. There was a reason the local politicians didn’t want someone from the press talking to him…

As it turned out, the Borough Council Member had promised F. Anderson, a freelance airline consultant, the chance to give a 5-10 minute Powerpoint presentation during last week’s town hall meeting. I’ve seen the presentation; it argues that the current New York property tax system discriminates against long-term homeowners. But the Council Member approved the material, so obviously she wasn’t the one afraid of a little open debate.

Then who was? As far as I can tell, it was Finance Commissioner Stark. She forced Anderson to be taken off the agenda, on the shaky explanation that their two stances on the matter were “similar.” I say the explanation is “shaky” because Anderson clearly would have talked about ways to reform the property tax system, while Stark’s entire schpiel Tuesday night involved explaining the existing system, and introducing new programs that enhance the existing system. I was there, folks. She did nothing except briefly pay lip service to the notion of reform.

The good news is, thanks to a front page article in this week’s paper eschewing the “City Politico Reaches Out to Homeowners” headline in favor of “The Tax Presentation You Weren’t Allowed to See!” the Commissioner’s strong-arm tactics will not go unjudged by the court of public opinion. Too bad the members of the court are limited to those willing to pick up a local newspaper. But maybe the Times, the Daily News, or one of the other larger outlets will pick up on it, too. Our rival locals haven’t; at least, not the Park Slope Observer, who we royally SCOOPED!

That’s right! My editor actually congratulated me on that feat yesterday. “Good job following up on that Anderson fella,” he said. “The Park Slope Observer totally ignored it. We scooped ‘em!”

“Thanks, Chief,” I said.

“Now we’ve got another town hall meeting coming up in Greenpoint next week,” he continued. “There’s supposed to be discussion about that upcoming park, but take notes on whatever interesting angles you happen to notice.”

“I’ll try, Chief,” I said. “But you know... I’m not exactly Superman.”