City forced to reassess after terror fund cuts

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It would buy New York City surveillance cameras that hover over Wall Street and midtown. It would back heavily armored patrol units in busy streets and subways. And it would pay for machines that detect what experts say is the next frontier in terror: biological and radioactive assaults. New York City, the site of the deadliest terrorist attacks on United States soil, had looked to 2006 to accomplish all these things with federal anti-terrorism funds. But the city may have to scuttle all or some of the planned defense improvements in the wake of controversial 40 percent cuts made in its Homeland Security allowance.

"It didn't seem to make any sense to me," Mayor Michael Bloomberg said at City Hall Thursday, responding to Wednesday's announcement that the city would receive $124.5 million from the federal agency, down from $207.5 in 2005. Nassau and Suffolk counties had been hoping to purchase new satellite phones needed by emergency responders. They also planned for more preparedness training and hoped to install emergency alert systems in schools. Officials said they had not been informed yet how much they would get this year. But one thing was clear.

"Whatever money we lose, it's one less thing we'll be buying," said Joseph Williams, commissioner of Suffolk County's Fire, Rescue and Emergency Services. Of course, New York City received the bulk of the Urban Areas Securities Initiative Grant, the largest of five Homeland Security checks doled out annually to cities and states across the country. The reason, experts said, is New York's prominence as a terrorist target. In 1993, eight years before 2,749 people perished in the Sept. 11 attacks on the Twin Towers, terrorists tried to bomb the same buildings. Subways are on constant alert for terrorist plots, and the city is home to the United Nations, several high-capacity car and subway tunnels, and federal office buildings.

Some experts suggested that the millions taken away from New York City and showered on middle America and California were a result of the city's good job in armoring itself against terror. "To a certain extent, New York is being punished for being very honest about how it spends money on anti-terrorism," said New York University Professor Paul Light, who studies catastrophe preparedness. Bloomberg said the city has been forced to spend its own money on anti-terror defenses, much of which federal homeland security grants will not reimburse. Looking ahead, the mayor warned, the city may have to rely more on the state for its terror funding.

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