While the mayor announced at the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens today that the city enjoyed (read:loathed) a record number of tourists in 2010, a group of local pols gathered in Red Hook to protest this foreign invasion.

It turns out, ever since the Red Hook cruise terminal opened five years ago, the moored ships have been spewing diesel fumes into the sepia-toned neighborhood. The city has been at work on a solution, to essentially plug the ships into a giant outlet so they can shut off their engines. But like many things on the docks, it is caught in a bureaucratic riptide as the city's Economic Development Corporation, which operates the terminal, and the Port Authority fight over who will pay for the new power supply.

"We've had two years of idling ships and idling negotiations," Councilman Brad Lander told the Daily News.

And you thought dealing with gapers and gawkers in Times Square was bad.

mchaban [at] observer.com | @mc_nyo