Subject: Local Politics

• Bloomberg's Golden Republican

  The mayor's best—and only—GOP pal is a pork- and patronage-loving conservative

  March 4, 2009

• Bloomberg Maneuvers to Crown a Kennedy

  Who's Caroline's daddy?

  January 14, 2009

• Council Increases Hotel, Property Taxes, Restores Some $

  December 19, 2008

• Avella, Quinn Square Off on 80th Birthday Proclamation

  Rafael Martinez Alequin, the citizen journalist last seen here getting roughed up by Pedro Espada's buddies, has obtained some hilarious correspondence regarding councilmember and mayoral candidate Tony Avella and council speaker Christine Quinn. (If Alequin's scans are broken, you can see them here and here.) Avella wanted the council to issue a harmless proclamation honoring Doris Diether of Community Board 2 on her 80th birthday. But apparently the speaker, who'd had problems with Avella

  January 15, 2009

• Clip Job: E. E. Cummings Returns Favor By Showing Up

  February 12, 2009

• Daily News: Bloomy Liked McCain

  By all accounts, Mayor Bloomberg's ice-breaker sit-down yesterday with the city's five Republican county leaders didn't yield the deal he seeks to run on the party's ballot line this fall.  But it did produce a nugget of truth-telling that has long escaped us: In last year's presidential contest, Adam Lisberg of the Daily News reports, Bloomberg was a McCain man.When Bloomberg emerged alone from the meeting at the party's East Side headquarters, he  spoke in generalities to reporters waiting o

  February 26, 2009

• 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 of the pols was as eloquent as Elinor Tatum, Bill's daughter, who has been editing the only citywide black paper for a decade already, and will now assume total control of it. All of Bill Tatum's warmt

  March 10, 2009

• Mayor Mike and the Yanks: How Suite It Is

  City Hall gift-wraps another present for baseball's richest team

  January 7, 2009

• Bloomberg's Double Deal

  As term-limits fight raged, a hush-hush $1.2 million campaign

  March 11, 2009

• News' Juan Gonzalez: Sharpton Got a $500K Present

  The odd-ball marriage of Al Sharpton and schools chancellor Joel Klein -- who have been teaming up to tout their version of education reforms since last summer-- resulted in a sweet $500,000 wedding gift for Sharpton's National Action Network, reports the Daily News' indefatigable Juan Gonzalez this morning. The fat check came from a hedge fund run by ex-schools chancellor Harold Levy and was doled out to Sharpton's group through a separate nonprofit  -- one that is pushing hard to win renewal

  April 1, 2009

• IBO Finds NYC Budget About $1 Billion Worse Than Mayor Does (Updated)

  Mayor Bloomberg's getting really creative in his attempts in stim the city's failing economy: today he, Anna Wintour, Vera Wang and others announce that they'll hold "Fashion's Night Out" on Thursday, September 10, and call on rag traders "to keep their doors open late." They claim over 100 stores have agreed to stay in business till 11 p.m. That's good, because the Independent Budget Office has just analyzed our finances and estimates that the city's budget is on course to achieve a $1.1 bil

  May 20, 2009

• Democratic Mayoral Candidate Shouldn't Count on Chris Quinn's Backing

  City Council Speaker Christine Quinn told a Democratic Party club in her home base of Chelsea last night that she's not about to pledge to back her own party's mayoral nominee -- whoever it is. "When the Democratic primary is all said and done I will choose one candidate," she told the Chelsea Reform Democratic Club's nomination meeting. "If you're asking me to say I'm 100 percent committed to picking a Democrat, I'm not going to do that," she added.Quinn made her no-commitment pledge in re

  April 17, 2009

• Diaz Says "Billionaire-Master" Bloomberg Backs Gay Marriage As He "Humiliates" the Disabled

  Rev. Ruben Diaz, the anti-gay-marriage Democratic state senator, has released a statement denouncing Mayor Bloomberg for supporting marriage equality, and as always finds a fascinating way to make his point: Diaz links Bloomberg's tolerance of gay couples with his treatment of disabled reporter Michael Harris, whose tape recorder started playing music during Governor Paterson's gay marriage press conference and provoked the Mayor's temper. "It is a shame to see all those elected officials stand

  April 18, 2009

• City Money Made EZ: Yassky Web Site Offers Answers

  Here's an early and useful dividend from the four-way race for the Democratic nomination for city comptroller: Candidate David Yassky, the Brooklyn city councilman who's been eager for an electoral promotion for several years now, today released his own Web site of city budget info. Yassky calls his site "It's Your Money NYC" and here's his own blurb on what it is and why he did it: "I have proposed that City government puts the entire City budget online in an easy-to-use, searchable, and fully

  May 12, 2009

• Bloomberg and the Teachers' Union

  May 13, 2009

• Mayor, UFT Head Getting Cozy; Whither Education Reform?

  If you've read today Wayne Barrett story on Mayor Bloomberg's tendency to cut deals with the teacher's union, and why (if he's serious about school reform) he should cut it out, you may be interested in what PolitickerNY's Jason Horowitz reports about Bloomberg's mayoral control renewal campaign: he's "acting like a politician" to save it, playing well with legislators and councilmembers rather than being his usual prickly self. He also says Randi Weingarten's UFT has "begun to make conciliatory

  May 13, 2009

• Barrett: Dems Discuss Restricting Bloomberg's School Control

  Assembly Democrats discussed mayoral school control for about four and a half hours yesterday, and virtually none of the dozens of members who spoke during the closed party conference supported continuing Bloomberg's control of city schools in its present form.    Speaker Shelly Silver and Assemblywoman Cathy Nolan, chair of the Education Committee, outlined a loose, unwritten plan for extending the 2002 law that gave Bloomberg control. While many of the details of the plan were v

  May 27, 2009

• Endorsement Fever! Aborn, Others Clean Up

  The Times says today that Manhattan D.A. candidate Richard Aborn "Aims to Raise His Profile" in that race, and that he does so mainly via endorsements. We'll say -- his office alerts us to each one (other candidates are also encouraged to do so), and he's had plenty, most recently those of four Democratic clubs and the powerful Working Families Party, which laid out its full roster yesterday. The list contains no shockers, though we note with interest that it includes some intra-Democratic chall

  May 29, 2009

• Donny Moss Takes Aim at Christine Quinn in Short Film

  Whoa! Documentary film maker and animal rights advocate Donny Moss really lets City Council Speaker Christine Quinn have it in a short video he has posted on YouTube.In the 10 minute piece, Moss, 37, the maker of a film called "Blinders," which documents the failed effort to ban horse-drawn carriages from the city, accuses Quinn of overweening political ambition and turning her back on the city's gay and lesbian community. "Until this, I respected her and admired her," says Moss, a resident of Q

  June 8, 2009

• Bloomberg, Quinn Agree on Budget; Sales Tax Up, Luxury Taxes Out

  Mayor Bloomberg and city council speaker Christine Quinn announce that they have come to terms, and declare the $59.4 billion 2010 city budget balanced, despite an anticipated decline of nearly $5 billion in tax revenue (which tracks closely with what the IBO predicted in its report last month). The city sales tax jumps a half-a-percentage-point jump in sales tax to 8.875, and tax exemptions on clothes over $110 and energy purchased from non-utility companies are repealed. Also, "loopholes" are

  June 16, 2009

• Gotbaum Hits Cuts to Her Office As "Payback from Speaker Quinn"

  Because the Mayor talks about "belt tightening" and "sacrifice" when he cuts the budget, and you never hear from the civil servants who get those cuts in the neck, you might get the impression that they heroically and uncomplainingly shoulder their burden like good soldiers. Therefore it is both refreshing and instructive to read today's statement from public advocate Betsy Gotbaum's office which begins: "For the past 7 years, I have had to take part in a ridiculous annual budget dance with t

  June 19, 2009

• Tim Gunn Voting for Bloomberg -- Why Shouldn't You?

  Photo from Project RunwayBy Jane C. TimmTim Gunn wants Mayor Mike for a third term, don't you?Bloomberg sent out a press release this morning, listing 68 gay New Yorkers who are endorsing him for a third term, including designer Isaac Mizrahi and a few politicos like Richard Socarides, a former Special Assistant to President Bill Clinton.Getting out the gay vote is clearly a priority for Mike, who has courted major gay rights groups like Empire State Pride Agenda (ESPA), but that isn't stopping

  June 19, 2009

• Bloomberg Threatens Army of 3 a.m. Callers to Renew Mayoral Control of Schools

  While the Albany Coup are a good laugh for you and for us, Mayor Bloomberg has to worry about the fact that mayoral control expires tomorrow and the state senate has to reauthorize it. This weekend the Mayor underlined the urgency with a press conference, promising that the city would have to go to court if the school system is allowed to revert to its old school-board process. Chancellor Joel Klein added, "I don't want to spend my summer meeting with the lawyers." Bloomberg says he'll summon t

  June 29, 2009

• Bloomy Schools Doomsday: End of the World As We Know It

  School Armageddon is upon us. Or even worse, a planned economy. Today we find out if Mayor Bloomberg's doomsday predictions come true about what will happen if the state senate fails to renew legislation granting the mayor full control over city schools. Last week, Bloomberg thundered that letting the law expire -- or worse, toying with even a single word of the law -- was akin to putting Joseph Stalin in charge...

  June 30, 2009

• Board of Ed Revives But, Packed with Shills, Will Do Nothing

  We gotta admit, we thought it was a bluff. We assumed that when the Albany Coup senators let mayoral control of schools lapse at midnight, no one would step forward and say, "it is the time of the Judges!" But the Board of Education rose from the dead today and is meeting at the Tweed Courthouse to decide the fate of Schools Chancellor Joel Klein. But it doesn't look too dangerous for Klein or anyone else: earlier, Mayor Bloomberg appointed deputy mayors Patricia E. Harris and Edward Skyler to

  July 1, 2009

• Bloomberg, Avella and Thompson at WFP Mayoral Forum: Some Highlights

  Last night three candidates for Mayor of New York -- Michael Bloomberg, councilmember Tony Avella, and comptroller Bill Thompson -- attended the Working Families Party Mayoral Forum at the Hotel Trades Council on West 44th Street. (We should mention that Green Party candidate Reverend Billy wanted to be at the forum, but was excluded; "The Working Families Party have sent a cynical signal," his office tells us. "New York is not a corporation. New York is a city. A city in a democracy. Let's deb

  July 3, 2009

• School Daze: Charter Break-in at Harlem P.S.

  Back in February, Mayor Bloomberg threatened that there could be "riots in the streets" if mayoral control isn't renewed in Albany, and in today's Daily News, Juan Gonzalez reports the first mini-riot outbreak.The commotion came at P.S. 123 where yesterday workers showed up unannounced and started removing cylinder locks from classroom doors and removing desks and computers to make room for the expansion of a charter school, the Harlem Success Academy. Public school teachers rushed to block the

  July 3, 2009

• Our New Board of Ed: Seven Members, No Kids Now in School

  It may not be around much longer, but it seems worth noting that the new seven-member city Board of Education that met last week for the first time after the mayoral control law lapsed includes not a single current public school parent as a member. The closest to having a personal vested interest in the schools is Dennis Walcott, 57, the Bloomberg deputy mayor who was conveniently selected by Queens borough president Helen Marshall as her own rep to the board. Walcott's four kids graduated fr

  July 6, 2009

• Mayor Bloomberg Goes Party Shopping

  July 8, 2009

• Bloomberg Wants Troopers to Grab Senators and Make Them Pass Mayoral Control

  As you may have expected, the state senate failed to pass anything like a reauthorization of mayoral school control before going on summer vacation -- though Democrats did attempt and fail to pass an alternative bill not to the Mayor's liking. This will require the Mayor's packed Board of Ed to do the things Bloomberg and Joel Klein would prefer to do without interference until such time as Albany gets it together. The Mayor is pissed off, and has asked Governor Paterson to dispatch state troo

  July 17, 2009

• Bloomberg's Biggest Scandal—The Deutsche Bank Fire—Should Be His Downfall. Why Isn't It?

  July 22, 2009

• The Bloomberg Dilemma: Favorite? Or Just No Obvious Alternative?

  July 22, 2009

• Barrett: Deal for Mayoral Control Close after Bloomberg Gets the Scalp He Wanted

  Senate Democrats and negotiators for the mayor have apparently worked out terms to settle the recent deadlock about extending the mayoral school control bill. Sources say the mayor has agreed to an amendment that would provide $1.6 million to the City University to oversee a parent training and exchange program, which was a key change sought by Senate Democratic Conference Chair John Sampson and other senators. Sampson is now trying to get the full Democratic conference to sign off on the four c

  July 23, 2009

• Barrett: Bloomberg All Fired Up for Builder Bovis

   By Wayne Barrett and Lucy JordanThe Voice's cover story this week, "Bloomberg's Biggest Scandal--the Deutsche Bank Fire--Should Be His Downfall" -- examined the determination of top city officials, including Bloomberg's longtime top deputy Dan Doctoroff, to ignore the risk of installing Bovis Lend Lease and its prime subcontractor Galt at the demolition site of the bank building. Doctoroff brushed aside warnings from the city's investigations department about Galt in deference to Bovis' re

  July 24, 2009

• Giuliani Gets Big Coverage Based on Rare Joke

  Today at a Crain's Business Breakfast Forum, former Mayor and unsuccessful Presidential candidate Rudolph Giuliani told listeners that "the only way I could get elected governor is the way I got elected mayor -- things have to be so bad..." He got a big laugh there, but later said that, if he thought he could "make a real difference in the state," he would run, leading the New York Post, champing at the bit, to headline, "GIULIANI TO RUN FOR GOVERNOR -- ONLY IF THINGS 'GET WORSE.'" (Crain's itse

  July 30, 2009

• Times: Mayor's Office Put Felder's Name on $1.5 Million Payout -- But Felder Says He Didn't Request It

  It looks like the Mayor's been playing around with city finances. The Times reports today that Bloomberg's office forwarded $1.5 million in discretionary funds to a couple of nice-sounding non-profits -- Agudath Israel of America Community Services and Ohel Children's Home and Family Services . This would be OK, legally, if the funding had been requested by a city councilmember or a borough president. And the mayor's office had councilmember Simcha Felder's name on the ticket -- but Felder says

  August 4, 2009

• Bloomberg's D.C. Yak Gets Him Deposed in Local Firefighter Case

  Mayor Bloomberg's freewheeling testimony at the Sotomayor hearings seems to have landed him in court. Bloomberg testified, quite unnecessarily, in response to a non-question as to his interest and involvement in the case of black firefighters' group The Vulcan Society versus the city and the FDNY involving alleged discrimination in hiring. After hearing this, Judge Judge Nicholas G. Garaufis, who happens to be presiding over that case in Federal District Court in Brooklyn, decided to invite the

  August 6, 2009

• 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 next test on August 20.) Now he's focusing on another $1.5 million -- specifically the city money Mike Bloomberg paid out to non-profits under councilmember Simcha Felder's authorization, which Felder

  August 7, 2009

• 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 staff salaries. DC 37 backed Mayor Bloomberg in the last election, which revealed divisions within the union. Thompson had recently picked up the endorsements of the RWDSU (unsurprising, considering

  August 10, 2009

• Pol's Challenge Could Mean Trouble for "1st Non-Profit Election Consulting Firm"

  ​The city's campaign finance laws and matching fund program allow the public to see into a candidate's war chest as if it were made of glass. But as the unfolding story of the blurred line between the non-profit Working Families Party and the for-profit Data and Fields Services shows, those measures can be skirted. Now questions have emerged about a non-profit consulting firm called Grassroots Initiative -- "The world's first non-profit election consulting firm," they call themselves -- t

  August 26, 2009

• Tony Avella Throws High and Hard at Debate

  Listening to Queens councilman Tony Avella at last night's Democratic mayoral candidates' debate was like watching "Wild Thing" Vaughn, the rookie pitcher played by Charlie Sheen in the old movie, "Major League." Like "Wild Thing," Avella throws a torrid fast ball. Like "Wild Thing," he's also just as likely to kill a cruising seagull as find the plate. Avella's volleys of high hard-ones drew the loudest and most sustained applause from the audience. Undoubtedly, many people clapped to

  August 27, 2009

• City Council Representative Yassky's Zigzag Path to the Runoff

  September 22, 2009

• Bloomberg's Term Limits Scheme

  September 29, 2009

• Is Mayor Bloomberg Expropriating City Resources to Further His Campaign?

  ​ NY1 reports this morning that 18-20 sanitation, anti-graffiti, and steam-cleaning trucks recently descended on Inwood in preparation for a campaign appearance by Mayor Bloomberg scheduled for that afternoon. Residents seemed astonished as city personnel removed graffiti, swept up garbage, and cleaned the facades of some buildings.

  October 8, 2009

• 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 batter Mayor Bloomberg over his flip-flop on the city's term limits law a year ago this month. The Democratic mayoral wannabe used his toughest words so far, almost as if he was daring the mayor -

  October 8, 2009

• A Bloomberg Score Card: The Mayor's Hits and Misses

  October 13, 2009

• 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 Post called it Thompson's "worst moment," describing Bruno as "the steady Republican" without mentioning his current eight-count felony indictment. Espada was acquitted the only time he's been charged w

  October 14, 2009

• 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 Post called it Thompson's "worst moment," describing Bruno as "the steady Republican" without mentioning his current eight-count felony indictment. Espada was acquitted the only time he's been charged w

  October 14, 2009

• Ulrich Turns Seven Months of Incumbency to His Advantage

  By Amanda Sakuma ​City Council member Eric Ulrich of Queens' 32nd district proved he's no longer "just a kid," reclaiming not only his seat in yesterday's election, but also his title as the council's youngest member. The 24-year-old Republican won even though 60 percent of registered voters are Democrats, beating an opponent who has been a civic leader since before Ulrich was a toddler. Ulrich's challenger, 60-year-old Democrat Frank Gulluscio, ran a campaign highlighting his experience

  November 4, 2009

• With Thompson Done, Union People Consider Their Options

  Photo (cc) eliotwb. By Steve Patrick Ercolani. As a crowded elevator car ascended to the third floor of the Hilton on Sixth Avenue Tuesday night, a campaign aide informed former Democratic mayoral nominee Fernando Ferrer that WCBS wanted an interview. "It seems like just yesterday I was at the Waldorf," he whispered to his aide. "But it's Bill's night tonight." That it was. The Hilton's third-floor ballroom was packed with depot lights and television crews. Members of the press and cocktail

  November 5, 2009