The Best of Times Is Now
• Mayor Bloomberg is seeking to boost his proposed property-tax cut to as much as 8.5 percent, says the Post. The goal is to roll back a bit of 2003’s infamous 18.5 percent hike, something the City Hall promised to do “in better times.” [NYP]
• Ad firm Saatchi & Saatchi got the $16 million account to overhaul the 30-year-old “I Love New York” campaign. (Spitzer says, a bit haughtily, that he won’t appear in the ads.) Let’s hope they do better than Saatchi’s recent Kurt Cobain fiasco. [Crain’s NY]
• Mistaking her for an intruder, a New Haven cop opened fire on his own daughter, who was sneaking into the house after a late date. The girl, 18, has a bullet in her thigh. [NYDN]
• Railway boozers, rejoice! The proposal to curb the oh-so-European practice of selling alcohol on Metro-North is pretty much kaput in the face of a commuter outcry. [NYT]
• That outcry, however? Could have been just drunken babbling. Almost a thousand LIRR and Metro-North passengers got so trashed on the trains last year they needed medical attention; some 287 were ticketed for booze-fueled shenanigans. [Newsday]