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On last night’s program, former City Council Speaker Peter Vallone said Albany lawmakers are getting away with too much. Watch the video above.

Tonight’s program includes: Our political rundown with Gerson Borrero and Curtis Sliwa.

Programming note: We will be taking Gov. Paterson’s address live at 5 p.m.

Danny Hakim notes: “Local governments in New York State face an unprecedented increase in pension costs that will force them to triple their contributions to the state pension system over the next six years, according to an analysis prepared by the comptroller’s office.”

Javier Hernandez writes: “In May, the New York City Department of Education stirred rage among middle-class parents when it put hundreds of children on waiting lists to attend kindergarten at their neighborhood schools. Now, school officials say, they have made some progress in resolving the situation. Fewer schools will be forced to turn away kindergartners in the fall, officials said on Tuesday, and in neighborhoods like the Upper East Side, waiting lists have been cut in half. Still, 474 pupils across the city remain on waiting lists and will have to attend other nearby schools if spots do not open up, an outcome parents said was unacceptable.”

New York Post

Scott & Dicker report: “After a provocative breakfast meeting yesterday, the state Senate's ‘Four Amigos’ declared tomorrow the deadline to end the feud that has paralyzed the chamber for a month…Gov. Paterson has kept the Senate in Albany every day since June 23. Aides to Paterson confirmed last night that he had requested time on TV stations at 5 p.m. today to make a brief address regarding the stalemate. The thrust of the remarks was unclear, but it was widely speculated that Paterson might make an announcement about the potential appointment of a lieutenant governor.”

David Seifman notes: “Despite the economic slump, the city intends to retain its title as "media capital of the world" by aggressively courting start-up entrepreneurs and bolstering existing media companies, which account for 10 percent of the private workforce here, Mayor Bloomberg announced yesterday.”

New York Daily News

Lovett & Blain write: “Thirty-one days into their stalemate, do-nothing warring state senators are having their salaries withheld Wednesday - for the first time since the infamous June 8 Republican-led coup.”

The edit-heads note: “The race to succeed Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau has become an unseemly competition over meting out justice in New York's most well-known child disappearance - that of 6-year-old Etan Patz 30 years ago.”

In a guest op-ed column, FDNY Commissioner Nick Scoppetta writes about the New Haven court case over racial quotas in its fire department: “A testing system that favors one group at the expense of another does not create a positive work environment for anyone. How is it fair to minority firefighters when they're brought in under a cloud of resentment?”

New York Observer

Jason Horowitz notes: “Dispensing with any elaborate pretense about being in a competitive re-election contest, Mr. Bloomberg’s handlers have begun to use the mayor’s public appearances to address what happens after 2009. Their political task: to figure out a way of avoiding the historic curse of the complacent, unfocused and regrettable third term.”

Eliot Brown looks at Joe Sitt’s Coney Island battle with Team Bloomberg.

Village Voice

Tom Robbins writes about Mayor Bloomberg’s courtship of the Working Families Party and says that if Hizzoner gets the party’s backing, “it will be a consumer fraud on par with Bernie Madoff’s investment earnings reports.”

Until tomorrow.

Bob Hardt