Newsday from New York, New York • 44

"26-UCTr ROBERT JOHNSON Publisher and CEO ANTHONY MARRO Editor DONALD FORST New YaA Editor JAMES TOEDTMAN New 'York Managing Editor ROBERT BRANDT Managing Editor HOWARD SCHNEIDER Managing Editor STEVEN ISENBERG Deputy Publisher JAMES KLURFELD Editor of Editorial Fhges ERNEST TOLLERSON Editor New YaA Editorial Phgee CAROL RICHARDS Deputy Editor of Editorial frgea EDITORIALS Aristide Delivers X-Rated Tactics political pornography strong advocate of the gun control laws Cuomo had pushed and Pataki opposed The McCaullff ad is a sad commentary on US politics in the 1990s and an even sadder one on the ethics of those who stoop to use them This smacks of the work of handlers Sen (R-NY) and me- dia manipulator Arthur Finkelstein But in the end it is can and his shame Think BIG Carol McCaulifTs pain la palpable Whether seen on a TV ad for Republican gubernatorial candidate George Pataki or at a press conference to promote his views on parole and the death penalty her grief and anger over the mur- Pataki I With his choice of prime minister Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide made good on his promise to fashion a democracy to represent not only the interests of poor who championed him but also those of the rich elite that opposed him Naming Smarck Michel a wealthy US-educated businessman was a visible sign of effort to display political evenhandedness as necessary a precondition of reconciliation as his repeated calls to refrain from mob violence The move should be supported in Port-au-Prince and in Washington It sends an additional and welcome signal to financial markets and potential investors of commitment to afree-market for fixture development appointment which must now be ratified by parliament is a rejection of determined efforts by left-wing' supporters to have Claudette Werleigh named prime minister She is a strong supporter of a socialist economic program centered on a rapid redistribution of wealth Michel had been dismissed from first cabinet after he raised prices for basic commodities as minister of commerce Initially he turned down the post of prime minister because he feared that Aristide was only paying lip-service to the need for a robust free-market economy Aristide was known to favor Werleigh whose political philosophy more closely reflected his own priorities But respected Haitian economists and planners were reported to have told Aristide they would not serve under her and her appointment would send negative signals to the World Bank and other lenders They were right Michel finally accepted only after Aristide convinced him he would have a free hand to direct free-market economic programs Redressing the inequities in Haitian society must be a top priority but not at the expense of crippling an economic recovery and halting investments that can create jobs Haiti cannot yet afford the luxury of unfettered idealism Tempers and rhetoric seem to have dropped from a boil to a simmer over the decision to move vendors from 125th Street in Harlem to less crowded lots along Lenox Avenue near 1 1 6th Street good Last week some peddlers and a few religious leaders protested the move which most community folks support by trying to sen this as a racial issue This controversy was never about race about the oversaturation of 125th Street only viable commercial vein For too long politicians and other turf-conscious leaders have suffered from the same myopia concentrating most of the investment along one street The benefit of such narrowsightedness? Everyone wants to shop along 125th Hie backlash is that too many street vendors want to sell there too the time for city officials and community leaders to widen their vision beyond this thoroughfare To the south 116th Street with its subway stops and La Marqueta is one possibility A revitalized Lenox Avenue could help connect the two commerical arteries La Marqueta and 125th Street Many vendors have already moved to the new lots on 116th Maybe now this temporary spot can get a chance to work Maybe now the established merchants along 125th can go back to running their businesses without the unfair competition from unlicensed vendors And maybe now the city and community can come up with a broader economic blueprint for Harlem one that includes a good permanent home for all the vendors der of her son is agonizing to watch But the exploitation of her torment by the Pataki campaign is morbidly pathetic What makes it worse is the malicious implication that Gov Mario Cuomo a Democrat is responsible for Thomas McCaulifTs death and that the alleged killer was out on parole when he committed the crime In fact the sentence of Richard Moran the drug addict accused of the crime expired before the killing True he had often violated parole before his term ended most recently by resisting arrest for fare beating on a train one thing to debate parole and the death penalty The evidence suggests that parole especially if it includes help with employment and substance abuse is more cost-effective than having inmates serve ftill sentences and be released with no supervision And the death penalty remains unproved as a deterrent likely to result in the execution of the poor the poorly defended and the innocent But the commercial with McCaulifTs cries that liberal killed her son is aimed not at promoting informed debate but at publicizing inflamed demagoguery use of McAuliff is far worse than TV ad featuring Carolyn McCarthy whose husband was killed during last Long Island Rail Road massacre McCarthy who is this Sarah Brady already was a NEW YORK FORUM ABOUTiTRANSIT station 42d StreetBth Avenue Jay Street and 50th Street-Rockefeller Center Compounding the problem is the fact that City Hall facing its own budgetary bind has already withheld $500 million from its capital contribution to the subways and buses In addition the mayor has indicated that his administration will seek a rollback in the MTA operating subsidy starting with a 113-million cutback in the latest round of budget reductions Given all that hard to understand why one of the appointees would not allow the MTA to make a smart and simple move to draw immediate revenue from that great untapped white elephant the New York Coliseum at Columbus Circle The Coliseum Could Lay A Golden Egg Nine years ago the city had a great' idea to sell the Coliseum site which was owned by the MTA and to use the cash to upgrade the mass transit system It made a lot of sense at the time The Coliseum was no longer needed due to the construction of the Javits Convention Center And the real estate market was booming Developer Mortimer Zuckerman submitted the best proposal: a $455 million project with nearly 3 million square feet of office and retail apace But things changed quickly The project ran up against powerful community opposition a number of lawsuits and repeated delays At the same time the bottom was beginning to fell out of the real estate market and commercial property values in Manhattan had begun to plummet On top of that the prqject lost its mqjor anchor tenant Salomon Brothers Over the years the original sale price waa lashaH and slashed again The prqject was scaled down A last-ditch effort crafted by Deputy Mayor for Economic Development John Dyson would have allowed half the site to be developed and re- Continued on page A48 By Peter Kalikow THE IMPACT of the budget problems is being felt in every agency and at every level of service One of the moat visible areas will soon be the transit system Citing revenue shortfalls the Metropolitan Transportation Authority has already announced the need to defer important capital improvements at six stations: the 7 2d Street station (which needs mqjor platform reconstruction) the Lexington Avenue53d Street station the Broad way-Nassau PeterSKalikowis a de- vdoper and the fanner of the New York He wa named to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority board last summer A.