Bill Thompson

Bill Thompson Wins!!

More Pressure On Mayor On Term Limits

Pol Calls Mayor "Drunk," Thompson Enlists Churches in Term Limits War

Barrett: The Politics On Display At Bill Tatum's Funeral

Funerals can be about politics, especially when the deceased is as influential as Bill Tatum was. The longtime owner of the Amsterdam News drew a crowd of hundreds at Riverside Church last Friday, and most of the speakers were politicians, including the minister who presided, Rev. Al Sharpton.None o ... More >>

Bush's Voice of America

Pro-War Media Conglomerate Tries to Take Over New York

Pataki's Quiet Court-Packing

Long after he's gone, the governor's GOP judges will still be ruling

Yankee Lobbyists on Taxpayers' Tab

Circling the bases: Documents reveal city paid the team's lobbyists and execs—for lobbying city and state officials

Another Yankee Sweep

How city officials snoozed while the Yanks burned public money for their new stadium

His Lips Were Sealed

Thompson Failed to Warn Council of Board of Ed Overruns

Vote Yes for Nonpartisan Elections

Bloomberg's Proposal Is Better Than Our Sham System

Snapple Town

Deals in the Dark

Thompson Says DOE Overspent Madly on Ballroom Dancing, Etc.

How did a contact for leasing Xerox machines that was supposed to cost the Department of Education one million dollars end up jumping by more than 6,700 percent? How did a company that was supposed to deliver restaurant supplies to school cafeterias for $15,000 end up billing the city more than $8 ... More >>

Barrett: Al Sharpton Gets an Apology

I owe Al Sharpton an apology. He was in rare form Monday night on NY1, ranting as if he had turned the clock back to his old sweat-suit days (NY1 actually ran classic footage of him in his favorite, all-black outfit). He took several runs at me during this extended interview and did manage to get on ... More >>

Thompson: City Dumping Tons of Possibly Toxic Sludge in Parks, Elsewhere in City

The Bloomberg Administration is planning to take potentially toxic sediment dredged from New York Harbor and dump it in New York public places like the former Yankee Stadium, the Bronx terminal market, and the Brooklyn Bridge Park that runs along the East River waterfront, says Comptroller Bill Thom ... More >>

Marist Poll: Voters Want Bloomberg Out, Will Vote for Bloomberg

The latest Marist poll on the mayor's race closely follows the last one: most New Yorkers think it's time for a new mayor -- 51 percent, up from 48 percent last time -- but the overwhelming majority (73 percent) see no hope of it. Perhaps out of learned helplessness, the respondents give Bloomberg c ... More >>

Naked Cowboy to Announce for Mayor's Race Today

We have done more than most to let you know about the New York mayoral candidates from minor parties such as the Green Party (Reverend Billy), the Rent Is Too Damn High Party (Jimmy McMillan), and the Democrats (Bill Thompson, Tony Avella). We hope to provide coverage in the near future of Libertari ... More >>

Thompson Audits City School Grads, Finds Some Can't Show They Met Requirements

We expect office-holders who are challenging other office-holders to use the powers at their disposal to politick. Comptroller Bill Thompson has laid a fat shot across Mayor Bloomberg's bow by auditing the city school graduation rates which are among the Mayor's proudest achievements. He hired Erns ... More >>

Barrett on the Mayoral Race: Thompson Comes Unglued About schools, Bloomberg Tries to Paddle Him

If the latest poll numbers are to be believed, Bill Thompson is now a real candidate for mayor. So it's time for all of us in the media to start treating him like one, and for him to start sounding like one. He hardly sounded like the measured and thoughtful man we know him to be when he called fo ... More >>

Stung for His $1.5M, Thompson Wants Investigation of $1.5M (and More) Bloomberg Gave to Non-Profits

Bill Thompson, the Democratic mayoral front-runner, needed to raise a quarter mil to qualify for federal matching funds at a six-to-one ratio. He didn't make it, says the New York City Campaign Finance Board. So he missed out on around $1.5 million. (His people are confident he'll qualify at the nex ... More >>

Thompson Said to Be DC 37's Choice

Looks like Bill Thompson's getting a break in his race of mayor: Liz Benjamin says he's rumored to have the DC 37 endorsement locked up. That's the city's largest municipal workers union, whose name came up last week when the city council, like the Mayor's office, followed their example by raising ... More >>

Times: Thompson's Investments Not Paying Off

The Times finds that the city's pension fund has "consistently lagged behind many of its public pension peers" under Comptroller (and mayoral candidate) Bill Thompson. For the past seven years, four of five city pension funds earned less than the 4.5 percent median annual return for large public pe ... More >>

Thompson, Avella Debate Absent Bloomberg, Talk Weed, Frisking

​Bill Thompson's poll lead over Tony Avella in the race for the Democratic Mayoral nomination is even more forbidding than Bloomberg's lead over Thompson. But Thompson and Avella sill held a debate last night for NY1, during which Thompson admitted he had, at some unspecified time in his life, ... More >>

Thompson's Pension Pals: A Wound Waiting to be Re-Opened

In last week's Democratic mayoral debate, feisty Queens city councilman Tony Avella managed to open one small cut over the eye of his opponent, city comptroller Bill Thompson. It was hardly a bleeder. Thompson closed it quickly. But if incumbent Mike Bloomberg takes aim at the wound, it could ... More >>

Water, Water, Everywhere in Mayoral Race

This morning we learned that Bill Thompson is $1,000 delinquent on his own water bills (Post, Page four, 4"-inch deep hedline: "H2OWE trouble for Bill" ). Okay, not a huge amount of money, but such debts don't inspire confidence in a would-be mayor. Now, this afternoon, a much bigger water ball ... More >>

Thompson Blasts Plan to Eliminate Subway Agents, Claims Study Finds Them Helpful

One of the ways the MTA wants to cut costs is by taking station agents out of the subways. This doesn't go over well with community groups, nor with insecure riders who find themselves on lonely platforms in the wee hours -- nor, really, with much of anyone except bean-counters. Comptroller and ... More >>

Endorsement Fever! Thompson Gets a Paper, Aborn Gets Gay City, Skaller Gets Animal Activists

​September? How'd that happen? The local political endorsements are flying thick and fast, as are emails from operatives desiring they be publicized. Today Bill Thompson got his first newspaper endorsement -- from the Amsterdam News. Ha! Bloomberg's got two dozen of those, and the Voice is c ... More >>

Unions to Bloomy: Un-Happy Term Limits Birthday

The one-year anniversary of Mike Bloomberg's term-limits flip-flop is being celebrated today by a pair of unions who chose the date to announce their endorsement of Bill Thompson for mayor -- while throwing in some tough language about the incumbent. Electricians Local Union No. 3, one of the city' ... More >>

Tough Thompson at City Hall Rally: "Take a Hike Mike!"

Is public anger over term limits enough to beat Mike Bloomberg? Polls say no, but city comptroller Bill Thompson seems to think so. This morning an energized and upbeat-sounding Thompson led a cheering throng of some 200 union members and representatives on the City Hall steps as he sought to ... More >>

Bloomie's Batting Average Called Into Question by Thompson

​By Lucy Jordan and Grace Smith City Comptroller Bill Thompson yesterday released an audit criticizing the Department of Small Business Services for its lousy record of awarding contracts to businesses owned by women and minorities. At a press conference outside City Hall, Thompson said tha ... More >>

Nobel Peace Prize Winner Endorses Bill Thompson

Yeah, he said nice things about Bloomberg, too -- or rather Press Secretary Robert Gibbs did when he came out to do this thing, and he didn't even utter Thompson's name -- but in the end Bill Thompson gets to put "Endorsed by President Obama" on his website, and New York magazine gets to put "worst ... More >>

In Mayor's Race, Bloomberg, Press Continue to Beat Up Thompson

Both Mayor Bloomberg and his opponent, Bill Thompson, are expected to march in today's Columbus Day Parade. This weekend Bloomberg also marched in the Bronx Columbus Dsy Parade and the Hispanic Day Parade; the New York Post found a couple people to criticize Thompson for not attending ("he figures h ... More >>

Barrett: My Favorite Nugget from Last Night's Debate

​My favorite nugget from last night's mayoral debate was Mike Bloomberg's smug smile as he pronounced Joe Bruno a better majority leader of the state senate than Pedro Espada. Democrat Bill Thompson had already picked the-sometime Democrat Espada as the better of the two. By 3:12 a.m., the Po ... More >>

Barrett: My Favorite Nugget from Last Night's Debate

​My favorite nugget from last night's mayoral debate was Mike Bloomberg's smug smile as he pronounced Joe Bruno a better majority leader of the state senate than Pedro Espada. Democrat Bill Thompson had already picked the-sometime Democrat Espada as the better of the two. By 3:12 a.m., the Po ... More >>

Poll: Bloomberg Leads By 16 Points Among Likely Voters, 9 Among All Voters; "Other" Gaining

Mayor Bloomberg says that when he praised opponent Bill Thompson's record as comptroller, he was just being "polite." And, like Senator Seabright Cooley in Advise and Consent, he can afford to be charitable. The latest Marist Poll shows him up 16 points on Thompson among likely voters. The new numb ... More >>

New Poll: Mayoral Election Out of Reach, Give Up

The election is a week from tomorrow, and the final vote-discouraging polls are rolling in. Today Quinnipiac shows Mike Bloomberg up 53 to 3r percent among likely voters -- pretty much what the Marist Poll showed last week. The only question, says Quinnipiac's polling director: "Will voters see thos ... More >>

Barrett: Bill Thompson Received Millions in Loans from the "Labor Bank" He's Promoted as Comptroller

​City comptroller and Democratic mayoral candidate Bill Thompson and his wife Elsie McCabe received three loans totaling $1.4 million from Amalgamated Bank, which calls itself "the labor bank" and does a multi-billion dollar business with his office, the Voice has learned. McCabe is also the ... More >>

Barrett: Did Bill Thompson Get Ethics Clearance for His Bad Loans?

Photo credit: Marla Maritzer. (l to r): John Graham, Deputy Comptroller for Audits, Accountancy & Contracts and Bill Thompson. In 2008, 3797 city employees called the New York City Conflicts of Interest Board and asked for a legal opinion about a transaction--or other action--they were thinking ab ... More >>

Barrett: Builder Blamed In Firefighter Deaths Is Building Bill Thompson's Wife's Museum

​Bovis Lend Lease, the contractor whose admitted failings contributed to the deaths of two firefighters at the Deutsche Bank fire in 2007, is building the $180 million museum and condo project on Fifth Avenue spearheaded by Elsie McCabe, the wife of mayoral candidate and Comptroller Bill Thomp ... More >>

Cheek, in Review: 7 Days of Runnin' Scared

Twitpic by StWiltshire. The last full week of the election campaign was sorta fun -- as it should have been with Mayor Bloomberg spending $37,000 an hour on it. And it worked: the big papers endorsed him, as did another Democrat, and polls showed him way out of Bill Thompson's reach. We still su ... More >>

Barrett: Bill Thompson Responds To Our Allegations, Sort Of

​A few hours after I posted yesterday's item about Bill Thompson's mysterious ties to the contractor implicated in the Deutsche Bank fire, I got an e-mail protesting the story from Ed Castell, the campaign manager for Thompson's mayoral run. My story revealed that the $180 million museum/con ... More >>

Thompson Slammed for Failing to Note Anti-Semitic Comment; Bloomberg Visits Sailors, Praises America

We re-elect the Mayor tomorrow. (Technically it's an "election," but come on.) The late hit on Bill Thompson in today's Post is that he remained silent as a radio call-in talker passed an ethnic slur. During KISS-FM's "Open Line" show, on which Thompson was a guest, one "Carl from Harlem" opined th ... More >>

Barrett: On Eve of Election, Thompson Is Sued Over How He Obtained His Harlem Home

​On the eve of the mayoral election, Bill Thompson is suddenly facing a lawsuit that accuses him of engaging in a "blatant fraud" when he acquired his $2.1 million Harlem home in 2008. Franklyn Castro, who fought unsuccessfully to block the court-compelled sale of his restored brownstone at ... More >>

Depressing Mayoral Election Underway

​Perhaps wishing to avoid the long, long lines, Mike Bloomberg and Bill Thompson voted early this morning -- Thompson in Harlem, Bloomberg a few blocks from his East Side townhouse. Bloomberg is "expected to sail into his third-term" (Times), "all but certain to win a third term" (UK Guardian ... More >>

Barrett: Just How Strange and Pathetic was Bloomberg's Victory?

​The key question coming out of this election is whether Mike Bloomberg got the message. Can he listen to voters he'll never face again? If Bloomberg L.P took a hit like he did Tuesday, wouldn't the company take stock and make real changes? Bloomberg spent $80 million in 2005 and won by 19 p ... More >>

The Bloomberg Blowout That Wasn't

History's richest campaign wins by a nose

Polls: Kirsten Gillibrand Loses to Bill Thompson, Does Better in Split Field

This morning's Quinnipiac poll showing Senator Kirsten Gillibrand trailing former Mayoral candidate Bill Thompson, 41-28 percent in a prospective 2010 race is somewhat countered by the new Siena Poll, which shows her leading a "Democratic field" of Thompson, former Tennessee Congressman Harold Ford ... More >>

Bloomberg and Thompson: The (Really) Odd Couple

Now it can be told: The surprising ties between the billionaire mayor and the poor slob who ran against him

This Week in the Voice

​Ha ha, Mike Bloomberg and Bill Thompson as Oscar and Felix! But as it's by Wayne Barrett, you know it's not a cheap joke: It's about their day jobs as Mayor and Comptroller, the funding for the Museum for African Art led by Thompson's wife, and the propriety of a candidate challenging, with h ... More >>

Let's Do It Again: Bill Thompson Declares for Mayor in 2013

​Bill Thompson was thought to be considering a run at Kirsten Gillibrand's Senate seat, which speculation blossomed when polls showed Thompson beating her. As we've observed before, though, Gillibrand is likely to run better than she polls. Thompson seems to have figured that out, too (or h ... More >>

Barrett: It's no Mystery Why Bill Thompson Declared for 2013 So Early -- It's Our Fault!

​Bill Thompson rushed to get the word out on Tuesday that he wasn't running for senate, and that he was running for mayor four years from now. His 2013 declaration set such a record for premature expectation that NY1's Roma Torre looked confounded throughout her interview with him that night, ... More >>