“Inside City Hall,” an hour-long look at New York politics, can be seen on NY1 News weekdays at 7 and 10 p.m.

On last night’s program, we started our series that looks at the city budget – and the politics behind the creation of the fiscal plan.

Watch Courtney Gross’ report above.

Tonight’s program includes: A debate about bicycles and cars in New York with Robert Sinclair of AAA New York and Paul Steely White of Transportation Alternatives; journalist Daniel Klaidman, author of "Kill or Capture: The War on Terror and the Soul of the Obama Presidency."

The New York Times

Thomas Kaplan reports: “The Republican majority in the State Senate is not satisfied with a proposal by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo to decriminalize the open possession of small amounts of marijuana and will not pass it in its current form, the chamber’s top lawmaker said Wednesday.”

Danny Hakim looks at the ethics flap surrounding the Cuomo administration, the Committee to Save New York and Genting, the company that runs the Racino at Aqueduct Racetrack.

New York Post

Antonio Antenucci writes: “Thousands of charter- school parents and supporters descended on City Hall yesterday to warn mayoral hopefuls who are tight with the teachers union not to ignore charter schools and their positive impact on kids.
The pro-charter group unveiled a platform it’s pushing — for whoever takes over when Mayor Bloomberg leaves office next year — that calls for maintaining the current administration’s policy of opening dozens of new charter schools every year and of giving the bulk of them free space in public-school buildings.”

David Seifman reports: “The city has yanked property-tax exemptions worth $38 million from more than 900 nonprofits that couldn’t prove they deserved the breaks or didn’t bother to respond to a city survey, The Post has learned.
The action by the Finance Department takes effect July 1 and comes after outreach efforts, warning letters and in-person visits by assessors trying to determine which organizations legitimately deserve the waivers, which ones are gaming the system, and which simply slipped under the radar.”

Seifman also notes: “A 28-year city employee has agreed to resign her $53,795-a-year job after running up personal chats of 19,857 minutes on her government-issued BlackBerry between August 2010 and May 2011, officials said yesterday. Shirl Mayo, of the Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications, admitted that her nearly 20,000 minutes went far beyond the boundaries of incidental personal calls.”

And Seifman writes: “First, they went after the large sodas. Now, they’re coming for the jumbo food carts. The city’s Health Department announced a crackdown yesterday against super-sized street food carts, proposing a new limit of 5 by 10 feet — including signs and extensions — for all nonmotorized carts.”

Page Six reports: “Former Gov. Mario Cuomo was so devoted to New York state, he turned down a US Supreme Court nomination, Bill Clinton revealed at the HELP USA Tribute Awards this week. ‘Mario Cuomo gave his life to New York,’ Clinton said at the Waldorf-Astoria on Tuesday. ‘He turned me down, and the Supreme Court, because he couldn’t bear to leave New York and those hallowed marble halls.’ Clinton then added that, ‘When [Mario] nominated me for president, I said, ‘I wish I could give a speech like that.’ ‘

New York Daily News

Rich Schapiro reports: “Want to report abusive cops? Yep, there’s an app for that.
The New York Civil Liberties Union rolled out a free smartphone app Wednesday that allows New Yorkers to report stop-and-frisk encounters in real time. Called ‘Stop & Frisk Watch,’ the app enables users to easily record videos of cops performing the controversial stops — and send the clips to the NYCLU.”

Monahan & Chapman write: “The city's overhaul of services for students with special needs is drawing criticism from advocates who fear crucial programs will be gutted, the Daily News has learned.”

Wall Street Journal

Eliot Brown reports: “The developers of the $4.9 billion Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn have delayed construction on a new train storage yard, one of the many public benefits that had been promised in order to win public approval for a professional basketball arena and housing development at the site.”

Lisa Fleisher notes: “New York City and its teachers union are in discussions to replace a number of arbitrators who quit over a pay dispute, in hopes of avoiding delays in teacher firing cases. Ten of the 24 arbitrators who decide whether teachers are fired for a wide range of issues have quit in recent weeks, threatening an agreement that the city and the United Federation of Teachers made two years ago to speed up the process.”

Until tomorrow.

Bob Hardt