The May 18th Edition of City & State Magazine

May 18, 2015

CIT YANDSTATENY.COM

@CIT YANDSTATENY

The Tale of Two de Blasios MAYOR de BLASIO

LANDLORD de BLASIO

• “Rent is the number one expense for New Yorkers.”

• His tenants pay $100,000 in rent.

• Wants stricter Albany rent laws and a rent freeze that prevents landlords from paying the bills.

• He can cover his bills by raising his tenants’ rent.

“ I provide affordable housing for 8 families on the Upper West Side.”

“I provide affordable housing for dozens of families in Bed Stuy and Crown Heights.”

“I provide affordable housing for 15 families in Chelsea.”

A de Blasio rent freeze and his push for stricter Albany rent laws is not only one big contradiction, it will destroy affordable housing for the millions of New Yorkers who depend on it.

“I provide affordable housing for 8 families in Park Slope.”

“I provide affordable housing for 6 families in Bay Ridge.”

“I provide affordable housing for 5 families in Harlem.”

FROM THE EDITOR’S DESK

May 18, 2015

CONTENTS

Michael Gareth Johnson Executive Editor

T

CITY

The decriminalization push may have unintended consequences

16.......

By Sarina Trangle Animal-rights advocates enjoy quiet success amid horse carriage battle

22.......

By Seth Barron

10.......

STATE

The ripple effect of the DREAM Act debate in upcoming elections

28......

By Susan Arbetter

BUFFALO

One lawmaker’s quest for mayoral control

By Justin Sondel

May 19, 2015

cit yandstateny.com

@CIT YANDSTATENY

Cover: Photo composition

by Guillaume Federighi

SPOTLIGHT: AFFORDABLE HOUSING

Closing chapter for housing agency scandal … City Council forms task force to preserve affordable units … NYCHA may relinquish control of its community centers … the revival of Mitchell-Lama … upstate housing authority fights federal takeover … Q&As with Jumaane Williams, Vicki Been, Shola Olatoye, Catharine Young, Keith Wright and Holly Leicht

People with developmental disabilities live amid a culture of fear

CIT YANDSTATENY.COM

HEASTIE’S HELPERS

The Bronx gang behind the speaker’s ascent

By Wayne Barrett

By Jon Lentz

15.......

SUPPLANTING SKELOS

Flanagan takes over as majority leader after Skelos’ arrest

40......

PERSPECTIVES

42.......

BACK & FORTH

Daniel Dromm on police in schools …

Letitia James on universal free lunch

A Q&A with Katrina vanden Heuvel, editor of The Nation

3

city & state — May 18, 2015

8......

he extraordinary has become routine in Albany. As someone who has covered the Capitol in some form for more than a decade, the recent change in power in the state Senate felt more like a Hollywood script, with the basic plot as predictable as the change in seasons. Only the players, timing and details changed.

As we discussed how best to show the change in power on our cover we considered portraying Dean Skelos and John Flanagan as chess pieces, but the political maneuvering that took place was really not at the level of that scheming game of strategy. In truth, it seemed more like Flanagan was just the next man up—acceptable to the small majority that had supported his predecessor, who got knocked back to rank-and-filer status. We ultimately felt that the timeless board game Sorry! best illustrated the events.

Inside the issue, we recap the events that led to the removal of Skelos, look at the criminal case against him, and let the members of the GOP conference tell us about who Flanagan is—including his serious lack of skills on the basketball court.

Our focus isn’t entirely on the state Senate though.

Contributor Wayne Barrett also takes a critical look at the political players who helped Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie rise to power in the Bronx. Going back more than two decades, Barrett connects roughly a dozen power brokers to events that ultimately benefitted Heastie.

The magazine also features a series of stories on affordable housing. New Yorkers pay some of the highest rents and property taxes in the country, and political efforts to change that have stepped up from New York City to Buffalo. We have several stories looking at the challenges lawmakers face both on the local level and at the state level, where Albany lawmakers could have a dramatic impact on the future of housing in the coming weeks.

Finally, I wanted to add a personal note. Like millions of others, breast cancer has impacted the lives of those I love. This past week Sandra Lee, television cooking star and girlfriend to Gov. Cuomo, publicly announced that she had been diagnosed with breast cancer and used it as an opportunity to raise awareness about the importance of being tested.

Plenty has been written commending her for her courage, and I just wanted to add my voice to that symphony of praise.

Letters to the

Editor that simply can’t be fixed without spending on system upgrades. There is no escaping this fact.

— Allen P. Cappelli, MTA board member

61 Broadway, Suite 2235 New York, NY 10006 Editorial (212) 894-5417 General (646) 517-2740 Advertising (212) 894-5422 info@cityandstateny.com

CITY AND STATE, LLC Chairman Steve Farbman President/CEO Tom Allon tallon@cityandstateny.com

CIT YANDSTATENY.COM

PUBLISHING

@CIT YANDSTATENY

Publisher Andrew A. Holt aholt@cityandstateny.com

In the March 23 magazine, columnist Nicole Gelinas described New York City’s changing transit patterns and concluded that congestion pricing will be necessary to fund the MTA’s next capital plan.

city & state — May 18, 2015

4

Nicole Gelinas’ latest insightful piece draws attention to one of the major public policy issues facing New York today. She accurately cites Move NY’s plan as a solution that must be adopted by the city and state if the MTA and public transit are going to remain viable and affordable.

Correctly identifying the problem of a system overrun with riders and a region that is experiencing population growth in areas long underserved by mass transit, the MTA has proposed a 5-year, $32 billion capital program that barely meets the needs of our 100-year-old subway system and bus and railroad network. The plan, currently unfunded by $15 billion, prioritizes ensuring the infrastructure and rolling stock are safe and reliable, that the Second Avenue Subway and East Side Access projects continue toward completion, and, very importantly, that signal systems are replaced and upgraded to allow an increase in systemwide subway service to relieve overcrowding and shorten wait times. The plan does not contain much for increasing the transit footprint in the outer boroughs and leaves out necessary additions such as Staten Island bus rapid transit and the tri-borough “X line,” to name a worthy few. In trying to come up with a politically palatable request to secure the minimum amount to cover maintenance and upkeep of a $1 trillion asset, the MTA was forced to work on the margins and ignore expansion in the many communities not served by the agency’s two mega-projects.

The other benefits of the Move NY plan are a fair tolling system in the city’s outer regions, safer streets as drivers no longer have an incentive to race around local roads to avoid the current toll routes, and the infusion of funds to repair roads and bridges that many outerborough residents must rely on. As Gelinas points out, while this plan is inevitable—and in my view necessary— this funding only deals with some of the current shortfall.

Our transit system is one of the greatest in the world and vital to the state economy, and, like all systems its size and age, requires infrastructure investment to stay healthy and efficient. Without the regular infusion of significant capital dollars, the frustration of a region trying to become less car dependent will continue to grow as the rise in passengers overtaxes the current capacity, causing delays

Vice President of Advertising Jim Katocin jkatocin@cityandstateny.com CIT YANDSTATENY.COM

@CIT YANDSTATENY

City & State’s April 22 magazine was a special issue celebrating Earth Day. Be you a Democrat or Republican, liberal or conservative, everyone should celebrate Earth Day all year long. Besides recycling newspapers, magazines, glass, plastics, old medicines, paints and cleaning materials, there are other actions you can take which will also contribute to a cleaner environment. Leave your car at home. For local trips in the neighborhood, walk or ride a bike. For longer travels, consider many public transportation alternatives already available: Metropolitan Transportation Authority, New York City Transit, MTA Bus, Long Island Rail Road, MetroNorth Railroad, NJ Transit, PATH, Nassau Inter County Express bus or the Staten Island Ferry, along with other private transportation options, such as local and express bus, ferry, jitney, subway and commuter rail services.

Most of these systems are funded with your tax dollars. They use less fuel and move far more people than cars. In many cases, your employer can offer transit checks to help subsidize a portion of the costs. Utilize your investments and reap the benefits. You’ll be supporting a cleaner environment and be less stressed upon arrival at your final destination.

Many employers now allow employees to telecommute and work from home. Others use alternative work schedules, which afford staff the ability to avoid rushhour gridlock. This saves travel time and can improve mileage per gallon. You could join a car or van pool to share the costs of commuting.

Use a hand-powered lawn mower instead of a gasoline or electric one. Rake your leaves instead of using gasolinepowered leaf blowers. The amount of pollution created by gasoline-powered lawn mowers or leaf blowers will surprise you.

A cleaner environment starts with everyone.

—Larry Penner, Great Neck

To have your letter to the editor considered for publication, leave a comment at www.cityandstateny.com, tweet us @CityAndStateNY, email editor@cityandstateny.com or write to 61 Broadway, Suite 2825, New York, NY 10006.

Letters may be edited for clarity or length.

Events Director Jasmin Freeman jfreeman@cityandstateny.com Director of Marketing Samantha Diliberti sdiliberti@cityandstateny.com Business Development Scott Augustine saugustine@cityandstateny.com

EDITORIAL Executive Editor Michael Johnson mjohnson@cityandstateny.com Senior Correspondent Jon Lentz jlentz@cityandstateny.com Web Editor/Reporter Wilder Fleming wfleming@cityandstateny.com Albany Reporter Ashley Hupfl ahupfl@cityandstateny.com Buffalo Reporter Justin Sondel jsondel@cityandstateny.com Staff Reporter Sarina Trangle strangle@cityandstateny.com Editor-at-Large Gerson Borrero gborrero@cityandstateny.com Copy Editor Ryan Somers rsomers@cityandstateny.com

PRODUCTION Art Director Guillaume Federighi gfederighi@cityandstateny.com Senior Designer Michelle Yang myang@cityandstateny.com Marketing Graphic Designer Charles Flores cflores@cityandstateny.com Web Manager Lydia Eck leck@cityandstateny.com Illustrator Danilo Agutoli

City & State is published twice monthly. Copyright ©2015, City and State NY, LLC

cit yandstateny.com

Look Who’s Talking with

Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz, Jr.

Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz, Jr.

Letitia James, NYC Public Advocate

Andrea Stewart-Cousins, NYS Senate Democratic Conference Leader

Tom DiNapoli, NYS Comptroller

To learn more about attending our events or partnering with City & State, visit Events.CityandStateNY.com or contact Jasmin Freeman 646.442.1162

On

Queens

City & State celebrated its first Queens special issue with Borough President Melinda Katz, District Attorney Richard Brown, state Sen. Toby Ann Stavisky, Assemblywoman Nily Rozic, Councilmen Donovan Richards and Jimmy Van Bramer, Haeda Mihaltses and many others.

6

On

ARMAN DZIDZOVIC

city & state — May 18, 2015

Bronx

City & State’s Bronx issue bash featured Borough President Rubén Díaz Jr., county Democratic Party chairman Marcos Crespo, state Sens. Jeffrey Klein, José Serrano and Adriano Espaillat, Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz, City Councilman James Vacca, former Assemblyman Roberto Ramírez and many more.

cit yandstateny.com

A ROGUES’ GALLERY T

hen-Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos’ arrest earlier this month mirrors the downfall of former Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver just a few months earlier, both ousted from leadership positions after being hit with federal corruption charges.

The legal problems of the two lawmakers, of course, are just the latest in a long string of scandals in Albany. Here is a summary of the state lawmakers who have been charged or convicted of public corruption in the past decade.

ANTHONY SEMINERIO Assemblyman Pleaded guilty to bribery

WILLIAM BOYLAND Assemblyman Convicted of bribery, mail fraud and extortion

SHIRLEY HUNTLEY State Senator Pleaded guilty to mail fraud and embezzling from a nonprofit

WILLIAM SCARBOROUGH Assemblyman Pleaded guilty to campaign fund and per diem misuse

JOHN SAMPSON Senate Democratic leader Charged with embezzling and obstruction of justice

CARL KRUGER State Senator Pleaded guilty to bribery

EFRAIN GONZALEZ State Senator Pleaded guilty to mail fraud

NELSON CASTRO Assemblyman Pleaded guilty to perjury

HIRAM MONSERRATE State Senator Pleaded guilty to embezzling and a misdemeanor conviction for slashing his girlfriend

BRIAN MCLAUGHLIN Assemblyman Convicted of racketeering and embezzlement

MALCOLM SMITH State Senator Convicted of conspiracy, extortion and wire fraud in a scheme to run as a Republican for New York City mayor

VINCENT LEIBELL State Senator Pleaded guilty to bribery and tax evasion

CLARENCE NORMAN Assemblyman Convicted of illegal campaign fund solicitations, misuse of funds and extortion

ERIC STEVENSON Assemblyman Convicted of bribery and extortion

THOMAS LIBOUS Senate Deputy Majority Leader Charged with lying to the FBI in a corruption investigation

cit yandstateny.com

JOSEPH BRUNO Senate Majority Leader Acquitted of corruption

PEDRO ESPADA State Senator Convicted of embezzling money from a healthcare clinic

SHELDON SILVER Assembly Speaker Charged in a bribery and kickback scheme

GABRIELA ROSA Assemblywoman Pleaded guilty to lying about her sham marriage

DIANE GORDON Assemblywoman Convicted of bribery and official misconduct

7

city & state — May 18, 2015

DEAN SKELOS Senate Majority Leader Charged with fraud, extortion and bribe solicitation

CIT Y

TAKING OFFENSE

COULD THE CITY COUNCIL’S DECRIMINALIZATION PUSH HAVE UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES?

N

city & state — May 18, 2015

8

ew York City Council members seeking to decriminalize a host of minor offenses, such as drinking on the street and cycling on the sidewalk, argue that these violations should not result in an arrest or a case grave enough to require the expertise of an attorney.

Proposed by City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito’s office, the plan would shift such cases from the criminal and summons court systems to administrative tribunals: While offenders would still have to pay a fine, they would no longer spend time in jail. But the new strategy would also eliminate the accused’s constitutional right to an attorney, and it remains unclear whether all of the potential legal consequences about which lawyers advise their clients would be swept off the table as well.

City Councilman Rory Lancman agreed that attorneys would be unnecessary in such cases. “The consequences are so minimal,” said Lancman, chairman of the council’s Courts and Legal Services Committee.

“It is not contemplated that we would provide right to counsel any more than they get if they get a parking ticket.”

But some criminal defenders and legal analysts question whether city lawmakers should be confident that their proposal would eradicate the entire spectrum of repercussions associated with summons convictions, including the potential loss of access to federal student loans, difficulty obtaining employment and deportation or other immigration-related implications.

“The hope would be that there’s nothing we know of that could adversely affect someone—so-called collateral consequences—but that makes most lawyers who practice in criminal court very nervous because these consequences pop up in strange ways,” said Steve Zeidman, a professor at CUNY School of Law. “There are

Some council members want to decriminalize minor offenses like riding a bike on a sidewalk.

laws in the books that no one is aware of. There’s a private employer that might find something out.”

Mark-Viverito called for diminished penalties for low-level criminal offenses during her State of the City address in February. She said those who dodge subway fares and cannot afford bail should not be arrested and processed through the criminal court system because it could cost them their job, and ultimately their housing.

Police Commissioner William Bratton has said officers need to retain the ability to make arrests in these situations, but has also floated the idea of a written warning system to give offenders a chance to stave off formal penalties. Mayor Bill de Blasio has opposed efforts to decriminalize fare evasion and has said little else about other so-called quality-of-life offenses.

Last time the de Blasio administration decreased penalties for a criminal offense, advocates worried that assigned defense attorneys were not prepared to ensure the city was meeting a U.S. constitutional mandate: In November 2014, the

mayor announced that police would begin issuing tickets containing a legal summons and a violation charge for most people caught with 25 grams or less of marijuana, rather than arresting them on criminal charges. Yet even when treated as a non-criminal violation, two convictions for marijuana possession may make an immigrant eligible for deportation, according to the New York Civil Liberties Union.

The city traditionally contracts with public defender organizations to provide legal representation for those who cannot afford attorneys in criminal court. These organizations usually include units with attorneys prepared to advise clients on the implications of a drug conviction for their immigration status, as required by the U.S. Supreme Court decision Padilla vs. Kentucky. In summons court, however, the city uses a panel of lawyers screened, trained and paid by the hour through the so-called 18-B process. These 18-B attorneys do not always have a background in immigration law, which advocates say could pose a constitutional compliance issue for the city.

Five months into the new marijuana possession policy, the de Blasio administration announced a slate of reforms to the summons court system, which included training for 18-B attorneys and judicial hearing officers on the collateral consequences associated with these convictions. Aside from immigration-related complications, these could include eviction from public housing and being forced to disclose the incident when applying for private-sector jobs, according to the NYCLU. “Lawyers that are going to represent these people in summons court, the 18-B panel, are being trained to understand these consequences in a way that they hadn’t before because the concern is so many people will come in, and if they take that plea, it can wreck their lives,” said Justine Luongo, the attorney in charge of the Legal Aid Society’s criminal practice. “The corollary between the judge and the lawyer and the client is often less than a minute in summons court.”

Regardless of who is representing accused New Yorkers and in what court system, Zeidman says the current decriminalization push fails to address the crux of his concern about the so-called broken windows model of policing, the strategy long championed by Bratton. Zeidman contends the City Council’s proposal would relegate enforcement of offenses known to disproportionately impact black and Latino men to an alternate court system—one that would be relatively insulated from public defenders and other criminal justice advocates.

“Is it better? Sure. But it doesn’t get to the underlying problem,” Zeidman said. “The underlying theory is, do we need hyper-aggressive policing? This accepts that we do need hyper-aggressive policing. We’re just saying, what are we going to do with the person who is hyper-aggressively policed?” cit yandstateny.com

ARTENS/SHUTTERSTOCK

By SARINA TRANGLE

CIT Y

COUNCIL WATCH:

SLEIGH OF HAND

AMID CARRIAGE BATTLE, ANIMAL-RIGHTS ADVOCATES ARE ALREADY ENJOYING STEALTHY SUCCESS SETH BARRON

cit yandstateny.com

The horse carriage debate isn’t the only animal-rights war being waged in New York. constituency that is motivated to seek positive change, not just a bunch of cat ladies.”

Emmett Hare, a veteran elections operative who managed the ABQ field operation, added that “while paid canvassers were a major element of the campaign, there is no doubt that the energy and commitment of the volunteer base shaped and helped define it.”

Councilman Corey Johnson, who as a labor advocate opposes an outright ban of the carriage-horse industry, nevertheless concedes that the animal welfare lobby has emerged as an important player in the city’s political scene. “NYCLASS was born out of a highly visible issue and has been extraordinarily savvy in being able to parlay its organizing prowess into getting heard,” Johnson said. “They have gotten passed more legislation this session than in the previous eight years, and it is a testament to their hard work that they have done so.”

Indeed, in the year and a half since Quinn’s defeat, the animal

welfare agenda has, almost stealthily, significantly advanced through the council. Feldman acknowledged that “most of our wish list has been filled” in the last 18 months. The council passed a law requiring strict regulation of pet stores, banning the sale of pets from unlicensed breeders. Targeting so-called puppy mills, the law requires pet stores to provide detailed information on the breeders of the cats and dogs they sell.

The same law also bans the sale of rabbits in city pet stores. Bunnies are frequently given to children as Easter gifts, and then turned over to animal shelters when the rabbits mature.

Shelters currently teem with rabbits, and advocates insist that there is no reason for stores to sell them. Laws have also been enacted to mandate microchipping of pets sold in stores; to establish an animal abuse registry; and to require the spaying or neutering of any animal sold at a pet shop.

Hearings were recently held to discuss a bill, sponsored by Johnson, that would mandate the installation of

sprinkler systems in veterinary clinics and pet shops. Existing law requires sprinklers in kennels and animal hospitals, as well as in barbershops, banks and offices; the bill that would extend coverage to pet shops already has more than 40 co-sponsors, virtually ensuring passage.

Animal-welfare supporters recently won a surprise victory when Ringling Bros. announced it would no longer include elephants in its circuses.

Banning the use of bull hooks, which are the primary method of control and discipline used by elephant handlers, was a key plank for NYCLASS, which was preparing to push the issue among sympathetic legislators.

The capitulation of Ringling Bros. in advance of an actual fight indicated that the circus industry was likely looking to avoid negative publicity and an ugly and expensive public relations battle.

The voluntary ban also promoted the status of the animal welfare advocates as a group to be feared, or at least considered. Who wants an enraged constituency of committed volunteers tirelessly hammering away at your business, when an easy compromise is at hand?

The horse carriage question is still in play, and the fact that both the mayor and speaker support a ban has made it possible for the bill to come this far. Supposedly the supporters have enough votes to move the bill out of the Transportation Committee, chaired

by Councilman Ydanis Rodríguez, the legislation’s co-sponsor. Getting enough votes to win passage on the floor of the council is another question: NYCLASS won’t claim it has a majority yet, but informed insiders say many of the existing “No” votes are really just waiting for phone calls from Melissa Mark-Viverito in order to extract concessions on other matters.

9

city & state — May January 18, 20, 20152015

ANDREW F. KAZMIERSKI / SHUTTERSTOCK

T

he City Council is preparing to bring its measure banning horse carriages to a vote as early as June, and parties on both sides of the issue are expected to escalate their voluble public relations campaigns in the weeks to come. But regardless of the outcome of this lengthy and heated fight over the horses, the animalrights advocates behind the protracted legislative battle have, in the process, significantly advanced their wider agenda in New York City.

The proposal to dismantle the horse carriage industry, which employs several hundred Teamsters and is a touristic staple for thousands of visitors eager to pay $100 to clop around Central Park for 20 minutes, has struck a nerve among its proponents and detractors. Both sides have levered up their rhetoric to extreme heights, and social media spills over with rancorous, nasty commentary on the weight and sex lives of the respective opponents.

The force behind the push to ban horse carriages has been New Yorkers for Clean, Livable and Safe Streets, largely funded by property magnate and horse lover Stephen Nislick. Nislick was so angered by what he saw as former City Council Speaker Christine Quinn’s betrayal of the animal-welfare cause that he formed an independent expenditure committee during the 2013 mayoral election called New York City is Not For Sale 2013, which was behind the “Anybody But Quinn” campaign.

ABQ is credited as perhaps the first strictly negative political committee, endorsing no one, and opposing one person in particular.

ABQ galvanized the animal-rights movement into behaving as a political force rather than a fringe assortment of pet owners. “ABQ let people know that the animal rights movement has wised up and organized,” said Allie Feldman, director of NYCLASS. “This is a true

STATE

DREAM AWAY

COULD THE DREAM ACT BE THE GOP’S TICKET BACK TO STATEWIDE RELEVANCE?

By JON LENTZ

O

city & state — May 18, 2015

10

and immigrant rights advocates will try to cobble together enough support to pass the Dream Act. The legislation, a priority for downstate Democrats ever since Congress failed to pass a more sweeping measure providing a pathway to citizenship, opens up access to college financial aid for young immigrants living illegally in New York. Yet upstate and suburban Republicans remain staunchly opposed to the bill, and if the legislative battle plays out as it has in recent years, the GOP-led state Senate will block it and supporters will once again come away empty-handed.

The bill can be viewed as a litmus test dividing the state’s Democrats and Republicans, but it may be more than that. Some political observers suggest that the Republicans’ stance on the legislation is also a gauge of the party’s ability—or inability—to adapt to New York’s growing minority population and, in turn, to find a viable strategy for winning statewide elections. Along with the party’s positions on issues like abortion and perhaps climate change, the GOP’s opposition to the Dream Act is standing in the way of support among key demographic groups that may be slipping out of its grasp.

In the 2014 elections, for example, Rob Astorino, the Republican standard-bearer, lined up with much of his party in openly opposing the Dream Act. Although he speaks fluent Spanish, the gubernatorial candidate drew the ire of Latino lawmakers when he said that he supported a scaled-back measure that would offer young immigrants access to private scholarship funds—but not to public funds from the state’s Tuition Assistance Program. Meanwhile, John Cahill, a former top aide to Gov. George Pataki who won the Republican nomination for state attorney general, bucked his party and backed the Dream Act. Both men lost, but Cahill won more total votes than Astorino and came closer to knocking out his Democratic rival.

“Cahill came out for it and he led the ticket,” said Bruce Gyory, a Democratic consultant and political science professor at the University at Albany. “Would the Conservative Party have liked it? No. But would it have killed you, especially if you explain to people that it’s not the immigrant kid gets a full scholarship and you have to go get a loan, but it’s basically the immigrant kid will be entitled to the same ability to get TAP dollars as you get because they’ve been raised here? They could have framed it differently.”

Of course, such a dramatic policy shift would be difficult for any Republican candidate in New York to make, let alone the state party as a whole. The GOP

MICHAEL GARETH JOHNSON

ver the next few weeks, state lawmakers

Gubernatorial candidate Rob Astorino didn’t come close to unseating Andrew Cuomo. has been outspoken in its hostility to the Dream Act, arguing that it would take away funds from other needy students. Nationally, the party has taken a hard line against illegal immigration, and the absence of any Republican elected state officials would make it hard to take a different tack.

Nor is it clear that the benefits of passing the Dream Act would outweigh the costs, at least in the short term. A Siena College poll last spring found that 56 percent of New York voters oppose the legislation.

Eight in 10 Republicans were against the bill, while 52 percent of New York City voters, 39 percent of suburban voters and just a quarter of upstate voters supported it. In the state Senate, the one remaining bastion of Republican statewide power, the party’s stance didn’t keep them from winning an outright majority at the polls last fall.

“I was told by a lobbyist from the real estate industry that in their polling in the state Senate for Republicans before the election, supporting the Dream Act was a killer for the Democrats in these marginal seats and very helpful to Republicans,” said another political consultant, Jerry Skurnik. “So I said they’ve got be careful in how they do that. For a long-range feature, it probably makes sense. But for the short range, they have to be careful in how they handle that.”

In the long run, Republicans could be at risk. In a 22-page memo analyzing the 2014 elections in New York, Gyory notes that Astorino garnered well under

a quarter of the total minority vote, did only slightly better with Hispanics and won just a third of female voters, who typically make up slightly more than half of the electorate. The total minority vote in New York dropped a percentage point from 2010 to 28 percent, due to stunningly low turnout in New York City, but that is likely to be a blip on a generally steady upward climb. The GOP could find itself sidelined if it comes down on the wrong side of such an issue, whether it’s the Dream Act or another issue that resonates strongly with minorities.

Currently 1 in 5 New York City voters is Hispanic, as are about 5 to 7 percent of voters in the suburbs.

Those figures will rise over the next decade to a quarter of the New York City vote and then a full third in 15 years, while reaching double digits in the suburbs, Gyory predicted. As the minority population grows, Republicans will face pressure to pick up a substantial share of their vote. Past GOP candidates have done so—Rudy Giuliani won about a third of the Latino vote in 1997, Michael Bloomberg got 47 percent of in 2001, George Pataki garnered 45 percent in 2002.

The question is whether the party can do it again.

“The fact that Republicans haven’t been able to win more than a third of the female vote in five consecutive elections—wow!” Gyory said. “And as the aggregate minority vote—black plus Hispanic plus Asian plus biracial—grows towards a full third of the electorate, and if they continue to lose that by margins of 4-to-1, there’s very little room for them cit yandstateny.com

Assemblyman Francisco Moya and then-Speaker Sheldon Silver with DREAM Act supporters during a debate in the Assembly.

cit yandstateny.com

STATE

INTERNAL CONFLICT

By JON LENTZ

11

Unlikely allies: Astorino and Cuomo’s Democratic primary challenger Zephyr Teachout.

T

he Republican Party’s demographic

challenges in New York don’t mean it’s going to be smooth sailing for the state’s Democrats.

Internal divisions within the Democratic Party were on display during the 2014 elections and could also develop into a full-blown crisis if the party is not recognized and adequately addressed, argued Bruce Gyory, a political consultant.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s showdown with the more progressive Working Families Party was followed by surprisingly spirited challenges from Zephyr Teachout in the Democratic primary and from the Green Party’s Howie Hawkins in the general election.

Cuomo, a moderate, has also waged public battles with New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, who has presented himself as a champion of the left. De Blasio, in turn, notably held off on endorsing Hillary Clinton for president, and has travelled the country to push his own progressive agenda.

“The Democrats don’t have a schism yet, but if this progressive-moderate fracture that we see in de Blasio’s rhetoric with Mrs. Clinton, that we saw

in the Cuomo-Teachout primary, if that turns into a full-scale schism—defined as if the progressives win primaries, the moderates won’t support them, and if the moderates win primaries, the progressives won’t support them, which is what happened with the regular-reform divide in the 1950s and 1960s— Democrats have a problem,” Gyory said.

Nor are Democrats guaranteed to hold on to the three major statewide offices, even if seems that way.

The state has a long history of the governor’s office swinging from one major party to the other, but over cycles of three to five terms. What’s more, Gyory said, the longer the Republicans are out of power, the further they’re likely to go in bridging the gap with independent and moderate voters.

“You lose enough and you get tired of losing,” he said. “That definitely helped Bill Clinton. Bill Clinton would never have got that leeway from the liberal wing of the Democratic Party if they hadn’t have been so horribly disappointed by getting their asses kicked by Reagan and even George Bush. They thought they could beat the first George Bush with Dukakis, and they were like, ‘Losing sucks!’ ”

city & state — May 18, 2015

MICHAEL GARETH JOHNSON ASSEMBLYMAN FRANCISCO MOYA

to grow. The subset of that is, given where the black community has been since the Voting Rights struggle, that means they’re going to have to do much better with Hispanic and Asian voters.”

Astorino did win 27 percent of the Hispanic vote, up from Carl Paladino’s 12 percent share in 2010, in part by making inroads among socially conservative Latinos that the GOP has long identified as potential allies given their common ground on issues like abortion and gay marriage. Astorino also successfully avoided antagonizing Latinos, noted Larry Levy, the dean of Hofstra University’s National Center for Suburban Studies.

“The turnout was really, really low, so you could suggest that Astorino managed to leach some poison out of his and his party’s image so there was not a groundswell of Latino turnout looking to punish the standard-bearer,” Levy said. “He didn’t come across as evil and in need of being snuffed out with a groundswell of support. For Republicans, reflected in Astorino’s showing, the initial challenge is to take the anger out of the community for their candidates in the short term, race by race, contest by contest, while they come up with some longer-term strategy to gain at least a respectable share, if perhaps never a majority of minority voters.”

In the longer term, a winning strategy for Republicans may be to run a statewide candidate who takes a bold stand and breaks with the party on a key issue like the Dream Act to help the party survive in New York in the years ahead.

Gyory drew an analogy to a move Bill Clinton made during his 1991 presidential bid. Sister Souljah, a hip-hop artist, had made provocative comments about riots in Los Angeles, suggesting that since black people were killing each other every day, “why not have a week and kill white people?” Clinton publicly condemned the remarks, drawing criticism from African-American leaders like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton but setting himself apart.

“Astorino did almost nothing,” Gyory said. “He didn’t break through. What if he had taken the same pitch Cahill did on the Dream Act and had a Sister Souljah moment? The Republicans desperately need a Sister Souljah moment, where they’re willing to take some grief on their right flank to kind of bring it together.”

STATE

A CULTURE OF FEAR STATE SLOW TO FIX BROKEN SYSTEM FOR PEOPLE WITH DEVELOPMENTAL DISABILITIES

city & state — May 18, 2015

12

M

r. R says his developmentally disabled child was abused multiple times at several state-run facilities.

While the first incident of abuse took place 16 years ago, Mr. R didn’t want to provide his real name, the name of his son or the facility where he lives because of what he describes as a persistent culture of fear at state facilities.

“The first incident we were aware of, (my son) was repeatedly punched in the head and when he would make a noise the person … would kick him in the shins,” Mr. R remembers.

But the abuser wasn’t fired. Instead, he was transferred to another state facility. According to Mr. R, the same situation played out several more times with the same child at three different state facilities.

While there is no legitimate excuse for abusing “consumers,” the word used for patients at these facilities, Mr. R says he understands the cause of the abuse, including the hiring of people unsuited for the work and chronic understaffing.

“They are definitely short of staff,” says Mr. R. “I see it … all the time. (The direct care workers) say, ‘I don’t mind being mandated (to work overtime)

THE SYSTEM For years the system for dealing with people with developmental disabilities in New York was broken.

Children like Jonathan Carey, a 13-year-old who was killed by his caregivers, were casualties of a revolving door of undertrained, overworked direct care aides who were fired and rehired even after multiple allegations of abuse.

After a 2011 New York Times exposé titled “Abused and Used” revealed gaping holes in the system, Gov. Andrew Cuomo tried to tackle the issue by reforming the state

agency responsible for the system, the Office for People with Developmental Disabilities.

He promised better training, greater oversight and the creation of a Justice Center for the Protection of People with Special Needs. Later, OPWDD would create a pilot “self-determination project” to allow for greater consumer input and individualized care.

While some activists like Jonathan Carey’s father, Michael, have been critical of these changes, saying they are minor and that the agency is grossly underfunded, there is evidence that the changes are having a variety

BRITTANY PROULX, ADIRONDACK DAILY ENTERPRISE

SUSAN ARBETTER

but not as often as we are.’ They get so whacked out that they aren’t doing the job they’re supposed to be doing and their tempers get short.”

But understanding a problem and trusting the system are two different things. Over the years, Mr. R’s trust may have been irreparably harmed, which is why he doesn’t want his name used for this story. Mr. R also says his son’s situation has improved and he doesn’t want to rock the boat.

“The people are excellent now,” he says of direct care aides who now help clean, bathe and change his son. “They treat him like gold, there.”

The Sunmount facility for people with developmental disabilities in Tupper Lake.

cit yandstateny.com

ARRESTS AND STAFFING The most obvious change is that OPWDD has begun taking action.

Since January, there have been 12 staff arrests at Sunmount, most for abuse of consumers.

According to an email from OPWDD, the arrests are a direct result of changes implemented by Albany.

“Employees accused of abuse are immediately placed on administrative leave and if allegations are substantiated through the investigative process, commensurate disciplinary action is taken,” an agency spokesperson wrote.

“Any abuse of people in our care is completely unacceptable.”

In February, the Adirondack Daily Enterprise reported that Cuomo was aware of the arrests at Sunmount, telling the press, “The state is actually reviewing the operation as we speak, and that review is ongoing. As soon as I know the conclusion of the review, you’ll know it.”

While the arrests indicate action, they have also had some unintended consequences.

Because of systemic understaffing, and the time it takes to investigate allegations of abuse—up to a year—the decision to place workers on paid administrative leave has exacerbated an already bad situation.

It has left Sunmount and other DDSOs understaffed, and remaining employees facing an increase in mandated overtime.

“We’ve been very clear over the years that the likelihood of mistakes being made are increased when people are working on mandated overtime,” says Steve Madarasz, director of communications for the Civil Service Employees Association, one of the unions representing OPWDD employees. “It’s not healthy when people work under those conditions.”

At the same time, Madarasz says, people are innocent until proven guilty, so paid administrative leave is the best policy. “Nobody condones abuse,” he says. “But allegations are not necessarily proof of abuse.”

Thanks to extensive reporting on Sunmount by North Country Public cit yandstateny.com

Radio and the Adirondack Daily Enterprise, we know that several of the direct care aides who were arrested for abusing patients are indeed back on the state payroll after Justice Center investigations.

But mandated overtime has become a problem in its own right.

According to the state comptroller, overtime hours at OPWDD rose 11.4 percent from last year and more than 60 percent from 2009 to 2014, which is among the highest of any state agency.

Madarasz argued that Cuomo’s budget office “prefers overtime costs over hiring adequate personnel.”

In an email, the state Budget Division reported that since 201112, total OPWDD personnel costs, including salaries, overtime and temporary personnel, have actually decreased by $13 million, from $1.125 billion to $1.112 billion.

“Any discussion on overtime must recognize that overall personnel costs have declined, and that overtime may be used to avoid a larger, more bloated, and more expensive state bureaucracy,” wrote Morris Peters, a Budget Division spokesman.

“Overtime is used carefully and only when needed. (It averages less than 5 hours a week at OPWDD).”

Madarasz is skeptical. “They (the Cuomo administration) ought to just own up to having a serious problem with staffing in this agency,” he says. “Trying to put the best face on excessive overtime by lumping in salary costs for three years where there was a virtual wage freeze in an agency that also has significant turnover seems like misdirection.

Bottom line: The excessive use of overtime in OPWDD is fiscally and ethically irresponsible.”

NEW HIRES One change that has been lauded by both CSEA and the agency is a modest staffing increase.

The 2015-16 budget provides OPWDD with the ability to hire over 300 more staff members to be used to reduce overtime costs and hours at facilities around the state.

Madarasz is optimistic about the additions. “There have been some very productive conversations about this,” he says.

The hiring challenge is especially difficult at facilities like Sunmount, which is in a rural, isolated area of the state. Since the agency was

having trouble attracting qualified applicants, it teamed up with CSEA and another union, the Public Employees Federation, to mount a career fair the second week in May. WHAT’S NEXT? But like a battleship trying to do a 180-degree turn, change at OPWDD comes very slowly.

In order to ensure open positions are filled with people who have the temperament for the work, the administration strengthened pre-employment screening requirements designed to reduce abuse and neglect for the clients served

by OPWDD, including enhanced psychological and physical exams. Like placing people on administrative leave, this extra screening process delays hiring and can temporarily impact overtime costs.

None of this placates Mr. R.

When asked if he’s noticed positive changes at the facility where his son lives, he says, “not really.”

“I do see some things happening that weren’t occurring before,” he adds, “but I don’t know if it’s got enough bite in it.”

Until some significant progress is made, and staffing levels improve at these facilities, Mr. R and other family members will likely continue to look at OPWDD through the same untrusting lens they have for decades.

And Mr. R. won’t be using his real name in interviews.

Susan Arbetter (@sarbetter on Twitter) is the Emmy Awardwinning news director for WCNY Syracuse PBS/NPR, and producer/ host of “The Capitol Pressroom,” a syndicated radio program.

13

DEPUTY DIRECTOR OF COMMUNICATIONS CSEA, New York’s leading union, is seeking applications for a Deputy Director of Communications based at statewide Headquarters in Albany, NY. The position works with the Director of Communications and union leadership to advance strategic communication objectives with various audiences.

A wide range of skills and responsibilities are required including ability to effectively articulate positions involving labor relations and public policy; communicate through various media and help supervise a statewide staff.

MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS: A Bachelor’s Degree in journalism, communications, marketing or a related field AND five years of professional experience which regularly involved writing, editing, media relations and public contact responsibilities; Supervisory experience preferred. OR a satisfactory combination of the foregoing education, training and experience.

NOTE: Candidates must possess a New York State driver’s license and a car for business use in order to be appointed.

Email cseajobs@cseainc.org or send resume to Director of Human Resources, PO Box 7125, Capitol Station, Albany, NY 12224.

Please note DDC-CS on all correspondence. Equal Opportunity Employer.

NEW YORK’S LEADING UNION DANNY DONOHUE, PRESIDENT

9147_RecruitAd 4.875x6 CS.indd 1

5/13/15 4:05 PM

city & state — May 18, 2015

of effects—not all positive—at the state’s large hub facilities, known as developmental disabilities service organizations, or DDSOs, including the Broome center in Binghamton and Sunmount in Tupper Lake.

Let

Plan Your Next Event

Whether you’re planning a half-day conference, cocktail reception, awards ceremony or industry panel discussion, City & State can offer all the services you’re looking for-- and all within reasonably priced packages to fit your budget.

City & State Event Packages come with unique collateral advertising opportunities in City & State Newsmagazine, our First Read and Last Read e-newsletters and at www.cityandstateny.com

We Specialize In: • • • •

Promotion to our Engaged Audience Strategic Speaker Selection Securing Venues and Caterers On-Site Logistics

• • • •

Moderating Panel Discussions Photography and Videography Entertainment Packaged Event Takeaways & Much More!

For more information on our unique and customizable packages, please call Jasmin Freeman at 646.442.1662 or email jfreeman@cityandstateny.com

BUFFALO

QUEST FOR CONTROL LAWMAKER DETERMINED TO HAND STRUGGLING SCHOOL DISTRICT OVER TO MAYOR

By JUSTIN SONDEL

cit yandstateny.com

Buffalo public schools’ graduation rates have hovered around 50 percent for years. agreed that something needs to be done to address the state of Buffalo schools— graduation rates have hovered around 50 percent for years, and the district and the teachers union have been working on an expired contract for more than a decade—and that mayoral control could be the right option to turn the district around, they were noncommittal when it came to getting the assemblywoman’s bill passed before the end of the session.

In particular, Ranzenhofer, who said he feels such a drastic change should be accompanied with a significant community outreach campaign, does not view mayoral intervention as a realistic goal for this session.

“Without having even started the process of having that discussion in the communities I just don’t see good prospects for mayoral control becoming law this year,” he said.

In addition, Peoples-Stokes would have to convince at least one member of her own party to vote for her bill.

Sen. Marc Panepinto, a freshman Democrat also from Buffalo, has

introduced his own legislation that would allow for what he calls mayoral input. The bill would give the mayor the power to appoint two additional board members, so as not to remove any elected school board members while still giving the mayor a voice in the district.

He, like Ranzenhofer, feels that more community input would need to be collected before moving forward with changes as substantial as the ones in Peoples-Stokes’ proposal. With the bill still in draft form and only days left in the session, the assemblywoman has a heavy lift in front of her to get the support she needs to push the bill through this year, he said.

“Right now I think that’s too radical of a change to make without there being some public hearings on the issue,” he said.

Still, Peoples-Stokes says she feels she must push to get this done this session, as children and parents in the city have waited too long for their schools to improve. And with the current school board structure often

resulting in infighting, battles between the board and the teachers unions, and a carousel of superintendents coming and going, it’s time to try a new model, she says.

“Many of the issues that impact the Buffalo district in a negative way are internal to the structure of the district,” Peoples-Stokes said. “And all of those need to be changed.”

Her plan would see the mayor take control of the entire nine-member school board and the superintendent’s position for two years, when the Legislature would either have to renew the legislation, move toward another plan or revert to the old system.

The bill would also establish a community school advisory council and require the superintendent and staff to present quarterly reports to the Legislature, the governor’s office and the Board of Education.

The Buffalo News reported on a version of the draft legislation Sunday, but Peoples-Stokes’ Chief of Staff Mark Boyd told City & State that the version detailed in the report was outdated. The final version of the bill, he said, would be put out by the office “extremely soon.”

Some observers who support Peoples-Stokes’ proposal fear that if low graduation rates persist, the school system could fall into state receivership, stripping the community of its ability to control the direction of the district.

Peoples-Stokes said her bill would bring the drastic change the state is looking for while maintaining local control of the school system.

She remains hopeful that the legislation, which has found a potential sponsor in the Senate with Sen. Tim Kennedy, also a Buffalo Democrat, will find the support it needs from fellow Western New Yorkers in the Republican Conference.

“I think that things can be worked out,” Peoples-Stokes said. “I think we can get this done.”

15

city & state — May 18, 2015

JUSTIN SONDEL

A

ssemblywoman Crystal Peoples-Stokes wants to see the Buffalo school system under the control of Mayor Byron Brown, if only for a short time, to give him a chance to bring stability and direction to the long-troubled district.

But as the legislative session winds down—even with the chaos surrounding the arrest of former Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos and the election of his successor Sen. John Flanagan beginning to subside—it appears the Buffalo Democrat will have trouble finding the support she needs to move her mayoral intervention bill before the clock runs out.

Flanagan has included mayoral control as a priority for the end of the session in comments to the press.

The problem for Peoples-Stokes is that it’s in the wrong city. The new majority leader has said that renewing legislation that gives the mayor of New York City control of that school district is something his conference will be working toward to prevent it from sunsetting, but he has made no indication that the assemblywoman’s bill, which is still in draft form, is on his radar.

Peoples-Stokes said she feels confident she will be able to convince Senate Republicans from the Western New York Delegation to act with urgency on the matter. The assemblywoman has had conversations with Republican Sens. Michael Ranzenhofer and Patrick Gallivan, both of Western New York, and found them receptive to the idea of mayoral intervention.

“I think that, at the end of the day, while there are no members of the majority that represent Buffalo, there are members of the majority who care about Buffalo,” Peoples-Stokes said. “I know they care about Buffalo because I know them.”

City & State spoke with the senators in recent weeks and, while they both

GOVERNOR’S OFFICE

city & state — May 18, 2015

16

cit yandstateny.com

STRIKE TWO

SKELOS IS THE NEXT CASUALTY IN BHARARA’S WAR AGAINST CORRUPTION

By ASHLEY HUPFL

cit yandstateny.com

Senate majority leader to be arrested on corruption charges. Five of the last six majority leaders have been arrested after being accused of corruption.

Former state Senate Majority Leader John Sampson, now a rank-and-file member, will be tried next month on federal corruption charges. Last year, Joseph Bruno was acquitted on corruption charges after serving as state Senate majority leader for almost 13 years until 2009.

Skelos was unable to maintain his grip on the leadership position, but his Long Island colleague, state Sen. John Flanagan, was quickly elected after beating upstate Sen. John DeFrancisco for the position on May 11, exactly one week after Skelos was arrested.

Undoubtedly aware of the growing scrutiny of the outside income that contributed to Skelos’ and Silver’s downfall, Flanagan immediately announced he had quit his outside job at a Long Island-based law firm.

Like Skelos and Silver, Flanagan was employed as “of counsel” at Forchelli, Curto, Deegan, Schwartz, Mineo & Terrana.

Following Skelos’ arrest, Bharara once again told the state to “stay tuned” for more arrests. Several lawmakers and political insiders have said there is a sense of Bharara’s gaze looming over the state Capitol, and any private meeting has lawmakers concerned someone may be wearing a wire.

It remains unclear what, if any, long-term impact the recent arrests will have on New York politics, but it’s safe to say New York politicians will be on alert as long as Bharara has his eye on Albany.

17

city & state — May 18, 2015

U

nlike his former Assembly counterpart, state Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos had not held his leadership position for decades, but his arrest on federal corruption charges weeks before the end of the session once again threw the state Legislature into chaos.

On May 4, Skelos and his son Adam were arrested on charges of extortion, fraud and bribery, outlined in a damning 42-page complaint. Those charges allege that the then- majority leader repeatedly used his power and influence to “illegally enrich his son, Adam, and indirectly himself.”

Initially the state Senate Republicans voiced their support for him to continue in his leadership position, but as the week went on they were faced with growing pressure from donors, other state Republicans and constituents for Skelos to step down—and Skelos’ support began to unravel.

The series of events was similar to the fallout after former Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver was arrested on corruption charges by U.S. Attorney for the Southern District Preet Bharara in January. Immediately following Silver’s arrest, Assembly Democrats continued to support him, but changed their tune in the face of mounting criticism. Silver resigned as speaker on Jan. 30.

After arresting Silver, Bharara promised New Yorkers that they should “stay tuned” for more arrests.

Now that his actions have led to the removal of the leaders of both houses in the state Legislature, the oft-cited “corruption culture” of Albany is in the spotlight for all to see.

Skelos is far from the first state

THE CHARGES

By WILDER FLEMING

city & state — May 18, 2015

why state lawmakers should not be allowed to hold private-sector jobs, the nature of the Skelos case is a lot harder to pin down.

“Reformers have proposed restrictions or an outright ban on outside income in the wake of the recent scandals,” Rodgers said. “But the interesting thing is that Skelos is not an outside income case in the traditional sense, because he is alleged to have traded influence for income for his son, not himself. So outside income reform wouldn’t have helped here.

In order to catch the Skelos conduct, the laws would have to require full disclosure of income for a lawmaker’s adult, non-dependent child, which goes beyond even the broadest proposed reforms.”

The complaint against Skelos alleges that the then-Senate majority leader sought to pressure companies to give business to his son in exchange for favorable treatment from the state.

Rodgers notes that though the complaint also contains a reference to over $2 million the elder Skelos

MAY

APRIL

FRIDAY, JAN. 30 WNBC reports state Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos is being investigated by U.S. Attorney for the Southern District Preet Bharara for his outside income and ties to the real estate industry. “Last night’s thinly sourced report by WNBC is irresponsible and does not meet the standards of serious journalism,” a Skelos spokeswoman says.

MARCH

JANUARY

18

whole idea that you would use a public office like this. It’s sleazy political scheming that gets them convicted, rather than criminality—and they’re not necessarily the same things.”

According to Jennifer Rodgers, executive director of the Center for the Advancement of Public Integrity at Columbia Law School, if prosecutors in the Skelos case “prove what they say they’re going to prove, it looks pretty solid.”

“The conduct as alleged in the complaint appears to fall squarely within the legal language of the statutes charged,” Rodgers said. “So if the government proves what it currently says it is going to prove, the case looks pretty solid,” she said.

But the similarities of the cases only go so far, according to Rodgers. The Silver indictment involves an alleged case of quid pro quo for personal enrichment, while the complaint against Skelos depicts a father abusing his position of power in order to support a deadbeat son. And while good-government groups may see the Silver case as a textbook example of

FEBUARY

A

t first glance, the separate criminal cases against former Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and former state Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos and his son, Adam, have many similarities. Both involve federal corruption charges against top public officials—alleging they used their power for profit. And both cases appear to be strong, according to legal analysts.

“The totality of the case is what really makes it a nightmare for Skelos,” said Eugene O’Donnell, a lecturer at John Jay College of Criminal Justice.

“If you break it down into pieces then you have a better chance of showing some innocent motive or some misunderstanding. But the sum total is damning.”

And back in January, O’Donnell told City & State that the chances of the case against Silver collapsing are “unlikely.”

“It’s very hard to pick these cases apart because they are in their totality,” O’Donnell said. “And beyond the criminal stuff, fairly or unfairly, there is a stench about the

FRIDAY, MAY 1 The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal report that Skelos and his son are expected to be arrested on federal corruption charges in the coming days.

received from a law firm for which he did little to no work, the case against him is not built upon allegations of using a public office for personal enrichment.

“They clearly were looking at outside income in the Skelos investigation,” Rodgers said. “But that’s a very tough case to make. The government would have to show, per the (U.S.) Supreme Court’s rulings, that there was a quid pro quo—that is, that Skelos took specific action in exchange for the money he received.

The government has alleged this in the Silver case but did not do so here, which I suspect means that they weren’t able to make the required link between the money and Skelos’s actions.

Yet if both cases are as solid as people seem to think they are, the outcome for Silver and Skelos could be similar.

Both Silver and Skelos have maintained their innocence, but Rodgers’ “back-of-the-envelope” calculation predicts Skelos facing 97 to 121 months in prison if convicted, and Silver facing 70 to 87 months.

MONDAY, MAY 4 Federal authorities arrest Skelos and his son on extortion, fraud and bribery charges outlined in a 42-page criminal complaint.

Dean Skelos declares his innocence. Sen. John Bonacic becomes the first Republican senator to call on Skelos to step down as leader. State Sen. John DeFrancisco says he would be interested in leading should Skelos step aside.

TUESDAY, MAY 5 Senate Republicans exit a three-hour conference just after midnight to announce continued support for Skelos as majority leader. Sen. Ken LaValle says there is “strong consensus” for Skelos to stay on.

cit yandstateny.com

MEET JOHN FLANAGAN THE NEW MAJORITY LEADER, IN HIS COLLEAGUES’ WORDS

GOVERNOR’S OFFICE

GREAT LISTENER I think he’ll definitely listen to all people, no matter what side of the aisle or no matter what region of the state.

He’s got the ability to deal with people, he’s a people person. If there’s a disagreement among the conference I think he’ll be able to get people— maybe not happy, but get them together so we can go forward in a positive way.

– State Sen. John DeFrancisco

WEDNESDAY, MAY 6 Senate Democrats walk out of the Senate Chamber in protest after Republicans refuse to allow a motion to suspend the chamber’s rules and allow a vote to remove Skelos as majority leader. Gov. Andrew Cuomo calls the charges “deeply disturbing,” but refuses to back growing calls for Skelos to step down.

cit yandstateny.com

We were both young Assembly people together and he’s an impressive man and an exceptional listener, which is one of his greatest qualities and that’s one of the reasons why when he ran for majority leader he had the support of Long Island, New York City and upstate because so many people were impressed with his listening skills and his ability to relate to people from all walks of life and all geographical parts of the state.

– State Sen. Phil Boyle ON EDUCATION “I know he really helped do a lot of things by trying to make sure that we struck a right balance in education funding. In 2010, 2011 when much of upstate took a cut and other areas were held harmless, there was a huge gap.

Senator Flanagan has been very helpful in that regard of trying to fight it as we move forward, as well as traveling the state and listening to people and what’s important to them.”

– State Sen. Joseph Robach

THURSDAY, MAY 7 Skelos releases a statement of support from 16 conference members, while at least seven Senate Republicans and several Republican county executives publicly call on Skelos to resign his leadership post.

THE TRAVELER “The strengths that John brings is that he has traveled the state as the chair of education and I think he understands regional differences in this state. We look at how much money we spend statewide on education as one of the larger chunks of our budget and he has a good understanding of the issues that are facing education. As a matter of fact we are trying to deal with some of the governor’s so-called criminal justice reforms through an omnibus bill to try to deal with the things that constituents, teachers, educators, parents have talked about as problematic.”

– State Sen. Patrick Gallivan “He’s been very active and involved in upstate issues for many years as chair of the education committee. He has agreed to look at modifications to the SAFE Act, which is very important to people who are engaged in Second Amendment rights.”

– State Sen. Cathy Young

FRIDAY, MAY 8 NY1 reports that Skelos is threatening to resign his seat—and risk the Senate Democrats gaining control of the chamber—if his fellow Republicans continue to call for him to step down. GOP Sens.

John Flanagan and DeFrancisco emerge as the two most likely successors.

NO NONSENSE “Almost every day I borrow a tie from his office. Today included.”

– Sen. Phil Boyle, on May 12 “Flanagan is a little bit of a fitness buff. He’s a big runner, he’s a pretty athletic guy—however he cannot make a layup in basketball!”

– Sen. Joseph Robach

19 New Majority Leader John Flanagan

SATURDAY, MAY 9 The Daily News reports Skelos might step down as leader if Flanagan, a fellow Long Islander, succeeds him, after GOP donors threaten to pull support for Senate Republicans.

Skelos faces a choice of voluntarily removing himself or being publicly voted out.

MONDAY, MAY 11 After a closed-door conference, Skelos resigns his leadership post and Flanagan is elected as his successor, beating out DeFrancisco. Skelos, like ex-Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, keeps his seat.

city & state — May 18, 2015

O

n May 11, John Flanagan was elected majority leader by his conference in a closed-door meeting. It’s been widely reported and confirmed by City & State that the vote was 1815 in his favor—though publicly the conference has simply stated that they are united behind him.

We spoke to several conference members about the new leader, and here’s what they had to say:

AN HONEST DAY’S WORK DESERVES AN HONEST DAY’S PAY. DEVELOPERS GETTING A BILLION DOLLARS IN TAX BREAKS SHOULD PAY A MIDDLE CLASS WAGE.

BUT DEVELOPERS LIKE L+M ARE USING RECKLESS CONTRACTORS WHO STEAL WORKERS’ WAGES.

TELL ALBANY TO

FIX 421A VISIT: UP4NYC.COM

/UP4NYC

PAID FOR BY UP4NYC

@UP4NYC

r CARL HE ASTIE fo es im T d o o G e th G that Ushered in N A G X N O R B e h T

22

city & state — May 18, 2015

W

e are just getting to know Carl Heastie, the new speaker of the state Assembly, and there’s been no better introduction than the one that appeared in The New York Times recently.

The Times reporters, Russ Buettner and David Chen, had earlier taught us some dark lessons about Sheldon Silver, the now-indicted speaker that Heastie succeeded in February. This time, they wrote a very late obit about Heastie’s mother Helene, who died in 1999, three weeks after she was sentenced for stealing $197,000 from a Bronx nonprofit where she worked.

The Times discovered that Carl Heastie then ignored a January 1999 court order that he sell the apartment his mother bought with some of the “moneys that were stolen,” as the sentencing judge put it. A co-owner of the property with his mother, Heastie had agreed to sell it as part of a plea bargain deal that would keep his mother out of jail. The Heasties were to transfer the proceeds of the sale, plus another $40,000 from a separate judgment, to the city and the looted

nonprofit.

Instead, Carl Heastie kept the apartment plus $5,877 in furniture purchased with the fleeced proceeds, took $80,000 in mortgage and line of credit loans against it, lived there for another six years, ultimately sold it for $200,000 more than his mother paid for it, and kept the proceeds. Other than $10,000 Heastie came up with at the time of the sentencing, the $40,000 in restitution was similarly never paid.

After the Times story appeared, a Heastie spokesman told New York magazine that Heastie had only netted $80,000 from the apartment, claiming that the mortgages he added to the purchase cost reduced his ultimate gain, without acknowledging that Heastie benefited for years from the money he borrowed against the house.

The Times said the apartment sale “appears to be the only financial windfall” of Heastie’s life.

How Heastie was able to sidestep the apartment and restitution court orders is described in the story—with Bronx District Attorney Rob Johnson, who was running for re-election in 1999, and Bronx County Clerk Héctor

Díaz, playing the lead roles. The judge required Johnson’s office to “monitor and determine the good-faith sale of the house,” but the district attorney didn’t get Heastie to sign a forfeiture agreement and never pursued any action to force a sale.

The same was true of the $40,000 judgment. Though the judge ordered “that the Bronx District Attorney’s Office file a certified copy of this Order in the Bronx County Clerk’s office” and that the clerk “shall docket the entered Orders as a money judgment,” neither did, despite the year and a half they had to comply.

The failure of this duo to take actions that were explicitly ordered (and faithfully executed against two other defendants in the same case) was attributed by the Times to either “carelessness” or “something more unsettling.” Buettner and Chen speculate that the more unsettling explanation for the “unusual series of legal lapses” could have been the

clandestine machinations of the Bronx Democratic Party, whose “influence on the court system” and “long history of back-room deal-making” may have prompted the repeated breakdowns that gave Heastie such a big break.

Actually, seen through the lens of Bronx politics in 1999 and subsequent events, there is every reason to believe that the Heastie bonanza was a conscious blessing from the party leaders who jumpstarted his political career around the same time, picking him to run for Assembly and sending him off on the road to the pinnacle of power he occupies today, where he is still in their grasp. It is far more likely that the second most powerful Democrat in Albany benefitted from crackerjack maneuvers than a fall through the cracks.

The chances that both Johnson and Díaz’s offices independently and accidentally failed to file routine court papers, mandated by a judge, seem slim. When City & State described this cit yandstateny.com

SHANNON DECELLE

By WAYNE BARRETT

cit yandstateny.com

The Real Bronx Bombers MEET THE CAST OF CHARACTERS:

CARL HEASTIE new Assembly speaker, Democratic county leader since 2008, was elected around the same time the court orders were dropped

JOEY JACKSON product, like Heastie, of the Seabrook club; was forced out of the race against Heastie in 2000 by Ramírez and Schlein

ROBERT JOHNSON black-hole district attorney for decades, his office has long been where judgments and cases go to die

DIANNE RENWICK appellate division judge married to Johnson, was backed by Ramírez and Heastie up the judicial career ladder

HÉCTOR DÍAZ now president of a social services empire, county clerk when the Heastie judgment disappeared

JOSÉ RIVERA county leader installed by Ramírez as successor, was ousted six years later by Heastie with the quiet support of Ramírez, was pushed to elevate Renwick by Schlein

ROBERTO RAMÍREZ Democratic leader who anointed Heastie in 1999-2000, backed him to lead the party in 2008, indicated he could influence Johnson on tape

LARRY SEABROOK launched Heastie’s political career, was taped saying that Johnson’s investigation of him was killed by a top pol, was convicted by feds in 2012, is now doing five years

STANLEY SCHLEIN scandal-scarred longtime lawyer for the Bronx machine, engineered the withdrawal of Heastie’s opponent in 2000, represented Johnson at the same time

DARCEL CLARK another appellate division judge, worked for Johnson at the time of Heastie’s mother’s case, was backed by Heastie for two court positions

AL SHARPTON was recorded at a meeting where fixing Johnson was the main topic, chimed in about other matters

GUY VELELLA longtime GOP boss and state senator, was taped discussing how Johnson could be fixed in 1998, was successfully prosecuted later in Manhattan

FERNANDO FERRER former borough president and mayoral candidate, was named by Ramírez, Velella and Seabrook on tape as a person who could reach Johnson

PEDRO ESPADA ex-state senator who in 1998 taped meetings with pols who indicated the Johnson probe would go away if he withdrew from the Senate race

23

DAVID ROSADO incumbent state senator that Espada ran against in 1998; said Johnson would “chill out” if Espada pulled out DICK GIDRON Cadillac dealer, held a top party post in 1998, offered to get to Johnson on tape and cited examples of when he had fixed him, was convicted later by the Manhattan district attorney ARMANDO MONTANO JR. Heastie lawyer in his mother’s case, counsel to Seabrook, losing candidate for Assembly and council, was installed on civil court by Heastie city & state — May 18, 2015

story and asked Heastie’s spokesman Michael Whyland for an interview with the speaker, Whyland emailed: “Not interested in discussing old insider politics or theories anyone might have.”

The saga starts with a man unnamed in the Times account—Roberto Ramírez, who was an assemblyman and the Bronx County Democratic leader when the court orders were issued in 1999. In early 2000, with the orders still hanging over Heastie’s head, Ramírez announced that Heastie was the party’s candidate for an open Assembly seat.

Part of a musical-chair package of party selections for several legislative and other positions, Heastie’s designation had been in the works going back to 1998.

Ramírez was so committed that when his ally, attorney Joey Jackson, indicated he would run against Heastie, Ramírez stuck with Heastie, promising to back Jackson in a future city council or other race. Jackson, meanwhile, was so close to Ramírez that Ramírez had given him a top countywide party office and offered to make him the state committeeman from the Assembly district Heastie would represent.

But Jackson filed petitions to oppose Heastie anyway. He changed his mind, he told reporters, when he was “approached from behind on the street by two men who told him to drop out” and threatened to harm his wife and young child if he didn’t. Jackson said many of his friends and supporters thought the Bronx party “might be tied to the threats,” though he didn’t hold the organization responsible.

When Jackson decided to withdraw, Heastie and Ramírez’s attorney, Stanley Schlein, a fixture of the Bronx machine for four decades, brought a declination form to Jackson’s house, got his signature and rushed to the Board of Elections to file it. Two hours later, Jackson changed his mind again and dashed to the board, canceling his declination 15 minutes before a midnight deadline. Ramírez’s lawyers opposed Jackson’s attempt to rescind the declination and the board rejected it, paving the way for Heastie to win the Democratic primary without opposition.

Jackson went to District Attorney Johnson’s office about the threats to his family, but they did nothing.

Jackson told City & State that he now believes “the people made an excellent choice” in 2000, apparently forgetting that the people actually had no choice

city & state — May 18, 2015

24

but Heastie. He emailed that his “dispute back then was with the Party Leadership,” not Heastie.

Johnson and Díaz also benefitted from Ramírez’s actions around the same time. County leader since 1994, Ramírez shepherded Johnson through his 1995 re-election for district attorney, helping to deliver all party lines to him, and virtually repeated that performance in 1999, when Johnson ran with only token rivals. Schlein was representing Johnson at the same time that he was representing Heastie, rebuffing a 1999 court challenge to Johnson’s Bronx residency. A committee controlled by Ramírez donated $3,000 to Johnson’s 1999 campaign, all while the Heastie court orders were still a live issue.

There’s nothing surprising about the Bronx party’s embrace of Johnson in 1999. He was first elected in a hotly contested special election in 1988, handpicked by Ramírez’s predecessor as county leader, George Friedman.

The Bronx was aflame with scandal at the time—party boss Stanley Friedman had just received a 12-year sentence in 1987, with the borough president and two congressmen also going to prison.

Mayor Ed Koch said his administration would not deal with George Friedman because Stanley Friedman (no relation) had installed him. After backing and dropping two other candidates, George Friedman seemed to pull Johnson’s

name out of a hat. Ramírez was not yet an assemblyman (he was elected in 1990), but Ramírez ally Fernando Ferrer, the new borough president and the county’s most powerful minority leader, was instrumental in Johnson’s sudden rise from obscurity.

Johnson’s machine ties, lambasted by his opponents in the 1988 race, only grew after taking office. In 1997, Ramírez, three years after he became the Bronx’s first minority county leader, made Johnson’s wife, Dianne Renwick, a civil court judge. In 2001, after the judgments against Heastie were submarined, Ramírez handpicked Renwick for the Supreme Court.

It was Ramírez who installed his Assembly colleague Héctor Díaz, a lifelong soldier in the Bronx machine, as county clerk in 1996. When Díaz left the Assembly for the lucrative new job, it was Ramírez himself who replaced him as chair of the Assembly’s Puerto Rican/Hispanic Task Force. DÍaz remained county clerk until 2008, when Ramírez’s chosen successor as county leader, José Rivera, got Council Speaker Christine Quinn to make Díaz city clerk, a primetime patronage plum.

These alliances continue to this day.

In the fall of 2008, Heastie toppled Rivera and, recruiting a strong majority of the party’s district leaders, took control of the party. It was a bloody public battle, with Ramírez

quietly backing Heastie’s rebel faction.

In the middle of the war, Rívera, who gave Ramírez his first political job in the ’80s, went to dinner at the home of an assemblywoman who was supporting him in the battle with Heastie. He thought Ramírez and Ferrer were his allies. Instead, Ramírez urged him to surrender, according to a source with direct knowledge of the conversation. Asked if either he or Ramírez mentioned the need for an exit strategy with Rivera, Ferrer told City & State: “I didn’t say it. I don’t remember if Roberto did.” Ferrer said the conversation was about “how are you going to do this,” asking Rivera how he could prevail in an increasingly desperate situation.

Ramírez didn’t publicly endorse Heastie. But a year after Heastie took over the party, his top aide and former college roommate Patrick Jenkins formed a lobbying firm with Marisol Rodríguez, Ramírez’s former sisterin-law and a close confidant. Seven years later, Rivera is an outcast in Bronx politics, and some of those who stuck with him too long are still paying for it.

Schlein, who declined to answer questions when reached by City & State, played a pivotal role in the Heastie coup and his law partner became a Heastie consultant on the Assembly and party payrolls despite a shady record as a court-appointed

cit yandstateny.com

JOSÉ ROSARIO

Bronx Borough President Fernando Ferrer, left, with ally Roberto Ramírez.

receiver. Heastie says he still talks every day to the scandal-scarred Schlein, whose neglect of aging clients prompted administrators to bar him from collecting any more lucrative, court-appointed receiverships in 2006. (He was also fined $15,000 and forced out of the chairmanship of the city’s Civil Service Commission for using its offices to run his legal practice.)

Despite these findings against him, Heastie named Schlein to chair the Bronx’s 2009 judicial nominating convention, where Supreme Court judges are selected. When Heastie backed Johnson for re-election in 2011, the unopposed district attorney paid Schlein a $7,500 consulting fee.

Schlein has represented Johnson in virtually all of his elections.

An insider says Schlein urged Rivera in 2008—months before the coup—to support Johnson’s wife Renwick for an appointment to the First Judicial Department of the Appellate Division, the most prestigious appellate court in the state.

Gov. David Paterson appointed her that April, though a spokesman for Paterson said she was part of a group of judges selected by his predecessor, Eliot Spitzer, who resigned in March as a result of a prostitution scandal.

Sources involved in the Bronx process say that Ramírez, who shared an office with Spitzer and Paterson’s top political advisers at Global Strategy Group, pushed Renwick’s selection.

Díaz is the president of a booming, publicly funded, mostly nonprofit empire called Acacia and Ramírez’s firm, MirRam, is its lobbyist. Ramírez is so tied to Acacia that his MirRam partner, Luis Miranda, was chair of the Audubon Partnership, which merged with Acacia in 2013, and their firm represented Promesa, which was absorbed

by Acacia a couple of years earlier.

Like Schlein, Ramírez remains so close to Heastie that the Daily News reporteda few days after Heastie’s selection that he was playing an “active role” with Heastie, “assisting Carl in getting things running.” MirRam’s lobbying clients, including the teachers union, have major matters before the Assembly.

Completing the circle, Heastie, at the peak of his pre-speaker power in 2013, helped get Johnson’s wife Renwick on the list of finalists for a Court of Appeals appointment, though she was not selected. And Heastie delivered a 2013 civil court spot to Armando Montano Jr., the lawyer who represented the Heasties

cit yandstateny.com

despite an abysmal record beyond his best-known disaster, the failure to convict the four cops that killed Amadou Diallo. He only wins 46 percent of Bronx jury trials, down from the 67 percent rate when he took office and far below the lowest in the other four counties, 71 percent. More Bronx cases drag on for years than in the four other boroughs combined.

The Times did conclude in that 2013 story, however, that Heastie was “one of the few who other Democratic officials” thought had a read on “Johnson’s intentions.” That’s a far cry from Johnson’s recent statement, issued to Buettner and Chen, that “other than seeing Mrs. Heastie’s name on an indictment,” he knew nothing about the Heasties until years after the 1999 case. Johnson’s office repeated that contention to City & State, but declined a request for an interview about the issues raised in this story.

Johnson’s know-nothing defense is dubious. Joey Jackson, then the chair of the Democratic county committee, went to Johnson’s office in 2000, before the statute of limitations on the Heastie restitution orders had run, and told investigators about the threat to his family, tying it to his race against Heastie. The Times reported that he went to Johnson that July.

In 1999, Heastie was a leader in Seabrook’s club, the most powerful black club in the county, and Johnson was running for re-election. Heastie’s run was one of several joined races that were the hottest elections in the city in 2000, drawing extensive citywide coverage. The Bronx party ticket had been in the works since 1998, when Ramírez convinced Seabrook not to run for Congress. But Seabrook did run against longtime incumbent Eliot Engel in 2000 with Ramírez’s vigorous support, creating a black-on-white contest widely acknowledged to have been all about race.

Seabrook was then a state senator, abandoning his seat to make the congressional run. That led the incumbent assemblyman, Sam Bea, also from Seabrook’s club, to run for Seabrook’s seat, creating the opening for Heastie. Seabrook and Bea lost badly; Heastie was the only one to get a free ride, thanks to Jackson’s political demise. Since Johnson was the highest-ranking black elected official in the Bronx, it’s hard to imagine that the politically astute Johnson, whose wife would run for Supreme Court the next year, was unaware of all these dominos.

Ex-state Sen. Pedro Espada revealed taped conversations with elected officials.

THE TALE OF THE TAPE: THE D.A. BRONX POLS THOUGHT THEY OWNED In 1998, a few months before Helene Heastie pleaded guilty to grand larceny charges, Ramírez was surreptitiously taped boasting about his ability to fix Johnson. The taper was Pedro Espada, a former state senator planning to run for his old seat in the September primary, but threatened by a wide-ranging criminal investigation orchestrated by Johnson. Ramírez had cost Espada the seat in 1996, when he supported David Rosado against him.

Espada was knocked off the ballot, the favored party method for aborting unwanted candidacies.

But now, the flamboyant Espada, fueled by a vast health care patronage empire, was a threat to win. Ramírez publicly claimed that he’d opposed Espada in 1996 because Espada had reneged on unspecified promises. This time any promises made by either would be verifiable, thanks to Espada’s audio and videotapes.

Ramírez was hardly the only one recorded by Espada. In fact, a halfdozen pols chimed in, a mantra of taped tributes to the flexible district attorney. Rosado, caught by a miniature camera planted in a painting, told Espada’s son that if the senior Espada would simply not file nominating petitions by the July deadline, the Johnson probe would “chill out.”

“It’s all politics,” said Rosado. “It goes away July 15 at midnight.” Espada released the tape in June, a couple of weeks after it was recorded, announcing he was defying the threats and running. Rosado had no choice but to admit he’d connected the proposed withdrawal and the probe, but said he

was merely “lying to a liar.”

Espada also revealed a taped talk he had with Heastie patron Seabrook.

Seabrook spoke of Johnson’s investigations of him that he said were driven by party leaders. He was preparing to run for Congress that year, but decided to pull out after a meeting with Ramírez. Unlike Seabrook, who was never indicted by Johnson and acquiesced to Ramírez’s demand that he postpone his congressional race against Engel for two years, Espada was charged a few days after he announced he was running.

Hampered by an indictment that accused him of diverting $221,000 in Medicaid funding to covering the costs of his 1996 campaign, Espada lost the 1998 race, but came back to beat Rosado in 2000. He was acquitted a few weeks after he regained his Senate seat that November, on the same day Heastie won his first Assembly race.

Shortly before the trial ended, Tom Robbins published the tape transcripts in the Village Voice. The tapes are not about Heastie, but they describe the political landscape at the time that Johnson’s office repeatedly failed to follow court orders, a boon to Heastie.

Reached by City & State, Ferrer said the references to him in the tapes, with Seabrook, Ramírez and state Sen. Guy Velella signaling that he was a conduit to Johnson, were “completely untrue.”

Before the tapes of Ramírez’s meetings with Espada surfaced, the Times asked Ramírez if the organization offered any deal to persuade Espada to stay out of the race. “Absolutely not,” insisted Ramírez, a denial refuted by the tapes.

Ramírez denounced Espada at that time, demanding that he release the tapes he publicly declared he possessed

25

city & state — May 18, 2015

JOSÉ ROSARIO

in the criminal case and, after Helene Heastie died, told Carl Heastie he wasn’t obligated to sell the house or pay the restitution, according to the Times report. Weeks earlier, he had reassured the sentencing judge that the Heasties would do both. “A deal is a deal,” he said, before it wasn’t.

Heastie also engineered the appointment of another Bronx judge, Darcel Clark, to the Appellate Division in 2012. The only Bronx judge elevated

by Gov. Andrew Cuomo so far, Clark had worked for Johnson for more than a decade and was a deputy chief in 1999 when the Heastie court orders were issued. Johnson’s spokesperson said she “had nothing to do” with Helene Heastie’s case.

In 2006, when party leader Rivera picked Clark for Supreme Court, it was a Heastie “ask,” also pushed by Heastie’s mentor Larry Seabrook (who had moved from the state Senate to the City Council), according to a source involved in Bronx judicial selections.

Heastie had by then become chair of the county committee, selected by Rivera for the second highest position in the party hierarchy.

In 2013, after Johnson was battered by a Times series that assailed his office’s mishandling of the muchdelayed docket of ordinary criminal cases, the paperran a story predicting that Johnson would resign that fall and be replaced by Heastie favorite Clark. Though Heastie wasn’t quoted in the piece, the Times said that it was Heastie’s “brainchild” that Johnson would be nominated for state Supreme Court at the September judicial convention Heastie controlled and step down as district attorney, and that the county Democratic committee would then have the power to anoint Johnson’s successor. Just like Heastie’s uncontested Assembly ascension, Clark would take over the District Attorney’s Office without a primary. In the machine mindset, lifetime sinecures like district attorney are best delivered without a whiff of democracy.

The problem with this plan, however, was that, under state law, the governor has the power to fill district attorney vacancies temporarily, and he wasn’t even mentioned in the Times’ account of Heastie’s plan.

It obviously never happened, so Heastie and his Bronx cohorts are now faced with the decision of what to do with Johnson, since his seventh phantom term is about to end and his spokesperson told City & State that he is “definitely seeking re-election.”

Heastie backed him four years ago

city & state — May 18, 2015

From top, Fernando Ferrer and Al Sharpton; Pedro Espada; Roberto Ramírez

and pronouncing Espada guilty of the charges leveled against him. But when Espada did make the transcripts public, just as the judge at his trial rejected a defense motion to make the tapes part of the court record, Ramírez was muted. He issued a statement

Ramírez ran him on the Democratic Senate line as well. Espada’s February exchange with Velella was another testimonial to Johnson’s malleability.

“How you holding up?” Velella greeted his former Senate colleague. “I thought you would’ve been indicted by now.”

“Why do you say that?” Espada asked.

“Roberto and I talk about you a lot.

He says either the feds or Johnson … maybe both.”

When Espada asked “how come they don’t mess with you?” Velella acknowledged that “Johnson had complaints” against him, citing “the school board stuff,” but said the district attorney “never got on my case.”

“With Johnson,” said Velella, who was later convicted on charges brought by the Manhattan district attorney, “you’ve got to go through Ramírez.”

“Ramírez has juice?”

“He doesn’t want trouble with you.

With me, I’m friends with Dick Gidron (a Cadillac dealer who was then chair of the county committee, the same post Heastie assumed in 2008) and even Freddy (Ferrer). I’m a county leader. It helps with Johnson.”

Velella had delivered the Republican ballot line to Johnson in the initial 1988 race and in subsequent ones.

Velella closed with this advice: “Listen, with the Bronx stuff, meet with Ramírez. He and Freddy can deal with Johnson … especially Freddy, he can.”

After these exchanges, Espada met in May with the black leaders he apparently thought could best get to Johnson, including Gidron, Seabrook and none other than Al Sharpton, at Gidron’s auto dealership.

Congressman José Serrano was also there. Sharpton reported on a lunch he just had with Ramírez: “He said Espada has problems, legal problems.

If he runs, he has more problems.”

When Espada complained about the recurrent “harassment” he was getting from Johnson, Gidron offered to step in: “This is bullshit. I can resolve this shit easily. Bob is my friend. He helped me with Velella.

He helped me with my son (who was busted on federal tax charges). He helped me with you, Seabrook. I’ll call right now.”

“That’s true,” added Seabrook, “they had Velella with the school board mess and they haven’t touched him. But it’s Freddy. Freddy calls the shots. He’s the one that did me,” suggesting that it was Ferrer who got to Johnson on his behalf.

Sharpton said he’d just told Ramírez at lunch that Seabrook “should be a

congressman,” adding that Ramírez agreed but said “not this time,” presaging the 2000 run that would lead to Heastie’s Assembly candidacy.

Gidron actually did dial Johnson, Ramírez and Ferrer during the meeting, but said none were there.

Serrano and Sharpton sat through an extended discussion of how the district attorney was being used to keep a candidate out of a race and never questioned it or objected.

Sharpton threw fuel on the fire, saying that Ramírez told him “if Espada runs, Serrano gets a primary.” It’s “war,” Sharpton claimed Ramírez warned, adding to the pressure on Espada to drop his candidacy. Serrano echoed Sharpton, declaring that he just wanted “to be left alone.”

Building on that unanimity, Gidron closed the discussion promising to set up a meeting with Johnson, Ferrer and Ramírez, declaring: “Espada will not run and the bullshit will stop and they have to keep their word with Seabrook.”

Espada issued a press release after this May get-together, noting that a series of consultations with “high level, local and national Democratic Party leaders” convinced him not to run for the Senate. A Ramírez confidant told the Daily News that the two shook hands on a deal but Ramírez was “still reported wary.”

On June 4, 1998, Espada had a final meeting with Ramírez at the Villa Barone Restaurant. Espada said he was “very pissed,” complaining that Johnson was “harassing my goddaughter,” calling him “worse than Ken Starr.”

“I was told everything was OK,” Ramírez replied. “The only condition was your withdrawal. Freddy knew it.

Johnson was told. The powers that be are on board.”

Espada accused Ramírez of “fucking with me.”

“No, no. I’ve spoke to the powers that be. Maybe they’re fucking me too.

If I can’t get support, I’ll retire too.”

“I’m running,” Espada suddenly announced.

“With an indictment?” Ramírez questioned.

“With 10 indictments. We’re running.”

Ramírez’s closing comment was: “This is bad for business.”

THE PARTY PROGENY INHERITS AN ALBANY KINGDOM Of course, Ramírez’s business ultimately became lobbying and a 2004 memo from his two-man company, cit yandstateny.com

JOSÉ ROSARIO

26

calling the release he’d earlier demanded a “cynical” move.

Johnson’s spokesman called the tapes “nonsense.”

Actually, the tapes paint a vivid portrait of what many in Bronx politics believed at the time of the unfiled Heastie judgments: namely, that party leaders could influence an ineffective and colorless district attorney that they put in place and protected for years, re-electing him almost automatically.

Johnson’s effortless reign was in sharp simultaneous contrast with the political situation in Brooklyn, where a district attorney who prosecuted the party boss got one primary after another.

In one tape transcript, of an April 23, 1998, meeting at the East Tremont diner, Espada got straight to the point: Is it still important that I retire from politics?” he asked Ramírez, picking up where prior conversations between the two had clearly ended.

“That would alleviate some tensions,” Ramírez replied. “If you sit it out, there’s peace in the valley.”

When Espada said he’d decided to retire, Ramírez did a Clint Eastwood: “You’ve made my day.

This is the best news. All the meetings have paid off.”

“How’s our friend Johnson?”

Espada asked.

“The powers that be and they have spoken,” Ramírez replied.

“What you’ve shared with this decision is very important.”

“Important? You said it would bring peace. The harassment would stop.”

“Yes, and it will. Issue the press release, OK? Because I’m sure this whole Johnson thing is just a waste of a lot of time and money.”

“You’ve spoken to Johnson about our talks?”

“Yes, but I’ve just got my lawyer’s license. He will get spoken to and I expect that, unless people get stupid, everything’s going to be OK. It’s going to work out for everybody. When will you release the statement?” Ramírez closed the conversation by saying how much he “looked forward” to reading news stories about Espada’s pullout.

Espada had already met with Ramírez’s ostensible counterpart, Velella, a senator and the Bronx County Republican leader. Velella was so aligned with Ramírez that in 1996

cit yandstateny.com

In his 26 years in office, Bronx District Attorney Robert Johnson, seen here in 1996, has convicted exactly one Bronx elected official: a school board member.

gone.

MirRam Global, the onetime lobbying partnership of the two firms, was retained by the Yankees and the YES Network, which used to be chaired

by Hindery. The three companies had to pay a $275,000 fine levied by the state lobbying commission for giving free Yankees tickets to dozens of state officials. As one more sign of the continuing intertwine between Heastie and Ramírez, Hindery gave $8,250 to Heastie since 2003, maxing out twice, almost exactly what MirRam gave to the Bronx party under Heastie’s rule, more than they gave in the Rivera era.

While the Yankees contributed to the party under Rivera, they quadrupled that, kicking in $125,000, after Heastie took over.

The ubiquitous Schlein wound up representing most of the participants in the Espada meetings, including Espada himself. He negotiated deals that allowed Espada to take a top Senate leadership position in 2008 and 2009, when Espada made the biggest headlines of his life swinging from one side of the aisle to the other and changing the majority. Like Ramírez, Schlein represented the Yankees, as well as Sharpton’s presidential campaign. He testified at Seabrook’s trial about Seabrook’s successful efforts to get a Yankee Stadium boiler contract for a black-owned Bronx company that alleged to have paid a $50,000 bribe to Seabrook. Schlein facilitated the deal even though the contractor,

who was so tied to Seabrook he was one of Heastie’s biggest 2000 donors, hadn’t submitted the low bid.

Everyone involved in the Espada exchanges, occurring concurrently with the burying of the Heastie forfeiture papers, accepted the premise that Bob Johnson could be reached on political cases. That was virtually an axiom in 1999, when Heastie, a product of the most powerful black club in the Bronx and closely tied to both Ramírez and Seabrook, was allowed by Johnson’s office to keep his mother’s criminal profit.

This is a case of inference atop inference. It hard to imagine that the only thing the inferences add up to is coincidence. Everyone involved in Albany politics knew for years that Shelly Silver was making millions at an asbestos law firm without actually practicing law. Nonetheless, the most progressive and thoughtful collection of Democrats in the state looked the other way, without ever questioning the appearance or the reality of it. It’s as if blinders are handed out when Assembly Democrats conference.

This same caucus, finally confronted with the criminality of Silver’s all-too-familiar facade, rushed to reach into the cesspool of Bronx politics to make its leader their speaker. They had to understand that Heastie might well be one witness away from potential trouble, with his former mentor Seabrook, who’s doing five years in prison, just a

phone call away from Preet Bharara.

They had to be troubled by Heastie’s response to the Times piece, with his spokesman saying the core question was not whether Heastie should have honored the pledge he made to a judge to make the city and a struggling nonprofit whole, but whether it was “the child’s responsibility to pay the debt of the parent.” The spokesman also evidenced a bumper-sticker sense of irony, saying that Heastie had “conducted himself with the integrity we expect from anyone in his position.”

Heastie is actually a son of the machine, having surfaced in 19992000 when, after seven years in a patronage job in the city Comptroller’s Office, he secured his Assembly district without having to actually run to win it. He earned his Assembly seat by doing Seabrook’s books for years, a nightmare of numbers that prepared him for Albany. Similarly, he became speaker 15 years later, when his fellow county leaders came together to force possible opponents out of the race. He ran against a cleared field. He is the first county leader to be named speaker since Brooklyn’s Stanley Steingut in the ’60s, a retreat to the days when the club was more important than any cause.

Wayne Barrett covered New York politics for 35 years and co-authored “City for Sale,” a chronicle of the great municipal scandal of the ’80s.

27

city & state — May 18, 2015

KATHY WILLENS / ASSOCIATED PRESS

MirRam, to a prospective client echoed his 1998 claims about his ability to reach public officials. “Elected officials have entrusted their careers to us and we have delivered,” wrote Ramírez and Miranda. “In turn, we are now able to provide our clients with access and opportunity to an often impenetrable world.”

Many of the participants in the Espada conversations were subsequently convicted, none by Johnson. Seabrook, Gidron, Velella and eventually Espada himself went to jail for crimes that could have been prosecuted by Johnson. After 26 years in office, Johnson has not convicted a Bronx elected official, other than a 1991 case against a school board member.

Johnson did indict a candidate for Assembly in 2008, Nelson Castro, who later became an assemblyman.

Castro’s eventual conviction was highlighted in a response City & State got from Johnson’s spokesperson about his public corruption record.

Castro, however, was aligned with Rivera in the then-ongoing war with Heastie. He was accused of lying to the Board of Elections. His transgression, lying about residence-related issues in a county where machine candidates flaunted their real Westchester lives, might have attracted Johnson’s attention because the attorney who filed the suit against Castro was none other than Stanley Schlein.

The perjury charges against Castro, who won the Assembly seat, were sealed and he wound up wearing a wire for the feds for his four years in the Assembly. Wisely ostracized by Heastie and party insiders, the only fish Castro caught was another assemblyman as obscure and unconnected as Castro was, Eric Stevenson. Castro pleaded guilty in federal and state court in 2014, but did not get a day in jail.

Ramírez has never been prosecuted

by Johnson or anyone else, but Andrew Cuomo investigated him when he was attorney general as part of the farreaching pension scandal. Ramírez’s onetime partners at Global Strategies paid a $2 million fine for acting as unlicensed brokers in securing pension funds for two equity firms, one of which was owned by Leo Hindery, a Ramírez ally who’d served as the finance chair of Ferrer’s 2005 mayoral campaign.

Separately, Ramírez himself set up a meeting with state Comptroller Tom DiNapoli that resulted in a $15 million pension fund investment with Hindery, but that was after the key officials involved in the scandal were

SPOTLIGHT: AFFORDABLE HOUSING

SPOTLIGHT: AFFORDABLE HOUSING A HOUSING

sk any New Yorker—housing is their largest expense. It doesn’t matter if you live in a rural upstate village or rent a flat in the East Village. How much you pay for your home affects every other aspect of your life. So the decisions politicians make regarding housing likely have a more direct impact on voters than almost anything else they do.

This year in Albany, rent regulations and key tax abatements are up for renewal. Tied to them, the 2 percent property tax cap.

While conventional wisdom is that lawmakers will likely renew all these measures with few changes, the recent turmoil in both the Assembly and the Senate have changed the dynamic.

Tenants advocates are optimistic that rent regulations can be strengthened with further measures to ensure landlords aren’t removing controlled apartments from the books. They also think the negative press surrounding the 421-a tax abatement program has provided an opening to call for an outright appeal. But the real estate industry says the tax break is necessary for development, and lawmakers in Albany tend to agree. A third option, to reform the measure to guarantee the development of more affordable housing and the hiring of workers who are paid a living wage, has also been pushed—and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio’s plan echoes many of those points.

All of this will play out in the next few weeks, and City & State will be covering it extensively in coming issues. But there is much more going on when it comes to the discussion of affordable housing. In this issue, we look at the future of NYCHA, the potential federal takeover of the Buffalo Municipal Housing Authority, and some of the state’s efforts to make housing more affordable for the middle class. We also speak with a handful of the most influential New York City and state housing leaders to hear their priorities in their own words.

28 36... The Mitchell-Lama program could be a boon for middle-income families

By Ashley Hupfl 38... Buffalo’s housing authority may have one last chance to fend off a federal takeover

By Justin Sondel

RYAN SOMERS

city & state — May 18, 2015

CONTENTS:

30... Closing chapter nears in New York City housing agency scandal

By Jarrett Murphy 34... NYCHA may have to relinquish control of its community centers

By Sarina Trangle

The Promenade in Marble Hill, far left, is in the process of transitioning from the Mitchell-Lama housing program to rent-regulated units. cit yandstateny.com

70 years of rent control has not solved New York City’s housing shortage.

Let’s Rethink Housing Affordable Housing means fairness for ALL tenants and owners.

For too long, New Yorkers have lived with a broken housing system. It’s time for stakeholders to come together and reframe the conversation. A clear, workable, and ethical plan is needed to restore an adequate supply of housing so that New Yorkers of all income levels can find and afford quality homes. Contact info@chipnyc.org for more information.

LESSONS OF ‘THE TALL GUY’ CLOSING CHAPTER NEARS FOR HOUSING AGENCY SCANDAL

By JARRETT MURPHY FROM CITY LIMITS

F

or the building at 440 E. 139th St. to stand out on its solidlooking block of Mott Haven, one must notice the elegant sign shaped in concrete above the entryway. It dubs the five-story, 16-unit structure “The Daytona,” a token from earlier decades when housing for the urban working class was designed with aspirational formality. The building, however, is part of more recent history as well.

It was one of the properties caught up in a scandal at the New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development that broke into the open when the FBI arrested 12 people in 2011 and 2012.

The man at the center of that scandal, former HPD Assistant Commissioner Wendell Walters, is due to be sentenced July 14. That will bring to a close an investigation that has sent five people—including two former HPD officials—to federal prison, and resulted in a city statute, Local Law 44, compelling HPD to divulge more about the contractors involved in producing subsidized apartments.

One year into Mayor Bill de Blasio’s ambitious plan to build or preserve 200,000 units of affordable housing, the echoes of the Bloomberg-era HPD scandal raise the question of whether the housing agency has reformed its practices to avoid any repeats of the corruption that put one of its top officials—Walters, sometimes referred to in court documents as “the tall guy” or the “big man”—in handcuffs.

WEED, WAGES AND WALTERS According to a memo released under the Freedom of Information Act by the city’s Department of Investigation, the Walters probe grew out of an earlier joint federal and city investigation into marijuana trafficking. In 2010, that effort— dubbed by the Drug Enforcement Agency as “Operation Green Venom”—led the U.S. attorney for

New York’s Southern District to make at least 40 arrests related to a pipeline that for 20 years had delivered “ton quantities” of weed from California and Florida to street dealers in New York City.

The DOI memo says that during that investigation “information was developed regarding corrupt activities

by Walters and various HPD developers and contractors.” Meanwhile, an HPD contractor facing charges of wage fraud told prosecutors in the Eastern District of New York that Walters “had solicited and accepted over $500,000 in bribes from him,” the DOI memo reveals. That developer “implicated himself and at least four other development companies in kickback and delivery schemes.” DOI and the Eastern District prosecutors teamed up to go after Walters, using his own emails among other pieces of evidence.

In October 2011, Walters and six developers were arrested. The federal indictment said that over a period of 11 years Walters “solicited and received undisclosed and illegal payments, bribes and kickbacks from individuals and entities ... in return for the award of a series of multimillion-dollar contracts with HPD.” It alleged that Walters met with a developer, referred to as John Doe No. 1, “at various locations throughout New York City, including a golf driving range and a parking lot, to receive the illegal cash payments” and “used a variety of means to conceal the true nature of such payments.” There was also a John Doe No. 2.

While Walters received bribes directly, the government alleged that the businessmen arrested with him employed a more complicated scheme: To get their payoffs for hooking John Does 1 and 2 up with HPD contracts,

they sent fake or inflated invoices to the John Does, who then passed them on to HPD for payment as part of the housing project.

The Tall Guy pleaded not guilty at first but by March 2012 had changed his mind and owned up to accepting $2.5 million in bribes. He faced 30 years in prison and massive financial penalties and was supposed to be sentenced in the summer of 2012.

But he had begun cooperating, so sentencing was delayed.

After Walters’ plea, other dominoes began to fall. June 2012 saw five more arrests, including Michael Provenzano, HPD’s director of construction services, Luis Adorno, a former inspector for the agency, and Placido Rodriguez, a developer.

Provenzano ultimately copped to accepting $30,000 in bribes for helping a contractor doctor his payroll to conceal wage violations. Adorno

ARMAN DZIDZOVIC

SPOTLIGHT: AFFORDABLE HOUSING city & state — May 18, 2015

30

HOUSING

The ornate inscription over the entryway at 440 E. 139th St. reads “Daytona.”

cit yandstateny.com

CALLS FOR REFORM Shortly after the 2011 arrests, the City Council began considering Intro 730, a bill to require transparency from HPD on the terms, subsidies and contractors involved in building affordable housing. The Walters case wasn’t the sole impetus for the bill—sponsors said they were also responding to complaints about construction quality and possible wage violations—but it was part of the rationale.

The Bloomberg administration resisted the push for more transparency.

Then-HPD Commissioner Mathew Wambua came out in support of disclosing “basic details” about the entity sponsoring each affordable project and what the subsidies were, but said the amount of information Intro 730 required would pose administrative burdens, open the city up to lawsuits and discourage developers from participating.

The council passed an amended bill, but Mayor Michael Bloomberg vetoed it, complaining that the bill created an “unnecessary layer of red tape” that would discourage the creation of affordable housing and allow organized labor to pressure housing developers to hire unionized workers.

Council members overrode the veto and the measure became Local Law 44 of 2012. The public data came online a year after the law took effect, and the data now available runs through April.

As valuable as transparency is, it cit yandstateny.com

MEANWHILE, AT THE DAYTONA The scandal involved six clusters of HPD sites—three in Brooklyn, two in the Bronx and one in Queens— encompassing 91 apartments. The Alexander Avenue Cluster that linked Villalona, Rodriguez and Walters was the smallest, with only four buildings.

All four looked tidy and sound during a recent tour, and with only 13 open housing-code violations on the cluster’s 40 apartments, city records suggest the interiors are in decent shape, too.

Sandra Erickson, who manages all four buildings, says she was brought in after the arrests when Enterprise, the tax-credit syndicator on the deal, “encouraged there to be a replacement of the management.” There have been no issues with the construction of the building, she says. Every year Enterprise and HPD do separate physical inspections and a check on the incomes of every tenant to make sure the building still qualifies for subsidies.

“With that type of oversight by HPD and the tax-credit syndicator, it’d be hard for the building to go downhill,” Erickson said. “It’s kind of hard for anything to slip by.”

EXPLORING EVERY OPTION

CITY COUNCIL FORMS TASK FORCE TO PRESERVE EXPIRING AFFORDABLE HOUSING

By SARINA TRANGLE

N

ew York City Council Speaker Melissa MarkViverito announced Wednesday she and 13 colleagues had formed an Affordable Housing Preservation Task Force, with the goal of identifying and wielding every mechanism available to protect the regulated housing stock.

Mayor Bill de Blasio’s administration is working to rezone neighborhoods and facilitate affordable housing construction. But the number of affordable units created has been dwarfed by the number leaving the market, according to City Councilman Mark Levine. The task force would explore how the city might use financing for capital repairs, building violations or outstanding taxes as leverage to goad landlords into new regulatory agreements, Levine said.

“Any time a building expires out of affordability, that owner knows they can go market rate. And unless it’s a mission-driven nonprofit, that’s going to be a big temptation,” Levine said. “But there often are many other complicating circumstances—maybe this is a building with big backlogs of repairs and the city can come in with some very favorable financing to help with that in exchange for affordability; maybe this building has a lot of violations and we can use enforcement leverage; maybe they want to do upgrades. … We just need to make sure that we have the resources to pull every one of those levers.”

The task force’s members were selected because they represent districts where longtime constituents struggle to keep up with rising rents. The task force will cull from

members’ experience in their districts, advice from housing advocacy groups and the knowledge of the city Department of Housing Preservation and Development to compile policy recommendations.

Mark-Viverito said she does not have a timeline for when the task force will put forth suggestions. “We want to give this the thought that it merits and that it needs, but we’re understanding that there is a sense of urgency,” she said. “We don’t even have a database that lists like, OK, these Section 202 buildings will expire, the contracts will expire on such and such a date, what can we do to preserve those affordable units for seniors?”

The group will examine what regulatory programs cover which buildings, their expiration dates and what strategies the government can take to generate new housing agreements or extend existing ones.

Buildings deemed to be in physical or financial distress and those in HPD’s asset and property management portfolio will also be studied, MarkViverito said.

When asked whether legislation to guarantee attorneys to low-income residents facing eviction in Housing Court would play into the plan, MarkViverito said the task force would look at “every possibility.” She said she did not have an answer as to when there would be a hearing on the so-called Right to Counsel bill, which was introduced last year.

“Last year we almost doubled the amount of resources we put toward our legal organizations,” Mark-Viverito said. “There’s a lot of attention being put to legal services for residents.”

THE AFFORDABLE HOUSING PRESERVATION TASK FORCE INCLUDES: City Council members Melissa Mark-Viverito, Mark Levine (co-chair), Jumaane Williams (co-chair), Ydanis Rodriguez, Andrew Cohen, Ritchie Torres, Costa Constantinides, Antonio Reynoso, Robert Cornegy, Rafael Espinal, Carlos Menchaca, Darlene Mealy, David Greenfield (ex officio) and Julissa Ferreras (ex officio).

SPOTLIGHT: AFFORDABLE HOUSING

largely depends on the public to notice when a deal—a done deal by the time they see the data—smells fishy.

Internal controls are important for preventing dirty doings in the first place.

Asked about the fallout from the Walters case, HPD told City & State that it looked carefully at its practices after the scandal. The agency, however, wouldn’t detail what changes were made because that could “diminish the effectiveness of those controls by educating potential wrongdoers on how to minimize their chances of being detected.”

“As appropriate, properties involved were subject to additional scrutiny,” an HPD spokesperson wrote.

A spokeswoman for DOI says its recommendations to HPD “included concrete measures that would monitor all construction project managers’ activities and strengthen oversight of their record keeping, such as HPD conducting an independent review of inspection report data, project managers filing their arrival and departure times for every inspection site, and attending mandatory DOI corruption prevention lectures.”

DOI says HPD has implemented some—but not all—of its recommendations. “It’s still a work in progress,” the spokeswoman said.

31

city & state — May 18, 2015

admitted to getting $100,000 to steer a contract to a developer. Rodriguez admitted to a scheme to get $300,000 in kickbacks from a contractor for his help securing an HPD contract, and then getting HPD to pay for the kickbacks by inflating subsidies to that project—the building of the Alexander Avenue Cluster, a four-site HPD deal.

Both Provenzano and Adorno were sentenced to 18 months in prison.

Rodriguez got six months. Three of the developers arrested back in 2011 with Walters—Sergio Benitez, Robert Morales and Angel Villalona—also pleaded guilty; Morales was sentenced to probation, Villalona to six months and Benitez to a 22-month term.

Charges were dismissed against two of the developers arrested in 2012.

And three developers busted back in 2011 with Walters—the only defendants to go to trial—were acquitted on all charges last year. But the six men convicted in the scheme so far have been ordered to pay a combined $2 million in forfeiture and fines.

WORK The WORK AND SAVE SAVE Plan: Plan: A Turnkey Turnkey Solution Solution for for New York’s York’s Small Businesses.

Businesses.

Areyou youaabusiness businessowner ownerwho whowould would like like to to offer offer your your employees employees Are waytotosave savefor fortheir theirfuture futurebut butfear fear doing doing so so would would be be too too costly costly aaway toocomplicated complicatedto toadminister? administer?AARP AARP New New York York has has aa solution, solution, orortoo andwants wantstotowork workwith withyou youto tomake make itit aa reality. reality. and “Workand andSave” Save”plan planisisaastate-facilitated state-facilitated retirement retirement savings savings AA“Work optionthat thatwould wouldprovide providebusinesses businesseswith with aa turnkey turnkey solution solution to to offer offer option their employees. It would give your business a competitive edge in their employees. It would give your business a competitive edge in the marketplace and help with employee recruitment and retention. the marketplace and help with employee recruitment and retention.

Small businesses are the backbone of New York’s economy, and we Small businesses are the backbone of New York’s economy, and we would love to hear from you. Your voice will be critical to our efforts. would love to hear from you. Your voice will be critical to our efforts.

Please take a moment to visit the link below to Please take a moment to visit the link below to answer a few questions about retirement savings: answer a few questions about retirement savings: action.aarp.org/NYWorkandSave action.aarp.org/NYWorkandSave Paid for by AARP

Paid for by AARP

Chairman, New York City Council Housing and Buildings Committee

Q: Developers have said the 421a tax-exemption program for developers is critical to spurring affordable housing construction.

You have opposed continuing it.

Why? JW: To me, it doesn’t matter what it’s called—it’s more what it’s doing.

And so 421-a has not been used for that purpose. The way it currently is, it has not worked to develop affordable housing. Whether we call it 421-a, whether we call it 1190, it just needs to spur affordable housing. We can look at the program now and adjust it to make sure that’s what happens or we can just start a new program. We need to make sure that we get maximum affordability for as long as possible.

Q: What do you think of the mayor’s recently released 421-a proposal?

JW: It was good. At the same time, we need to be pushing for more. We should be asking for even more of a percentage of affordable units. We should be asking to go even lower in the income bands more often than this might allow. And we should definitely be getting longer affordability. So that’s kind of the theme that we want to look for.

Q: Do you have an affordability percentage or income band goal in mind?

JW: We should be looking toward 40 (percent affordable units)-60 (percent market rate units), as close as we can get to that. And we have to make sure that 40 percent of (area median income) is more common than not common, and that you can go even lower than that.

I know it’s difficult, which is why we have to subsidize getting the affordable housing built, whether it’s abatement or a direct subsidy. We have to get lower in the income band because that’s where the need is. If you look at the vacancy rate, the lower down that you go on the price scale for rent, the lower the vacancy rate is.

cit yandstateny.com

Q: What other tactics should the administration pursue to achieve its affordable housing goals?

JW: The mayor’s right on the money when he talks about preservation. That is the No. 1 thing that we have to do, is preserve the affordable units that we already have. Rent regulation is a big one. We should be fighting to reserve all of those units. Units and buildings that could be coming out of regulatory programs, we want to make sure that they enter into stabilization and ask that they keep that stabilization as long as we possibly can. And we should be enticing other landlords who have buildings to enter regulatory agreements whenever they can.

Whenever they need something from the city, we should exact from them agreements that get those apartments into some sort of regulatory agreement, particularly rent regulations.

Q: The Building and Construction Trades Council has offered up a less expensive labor force for affordable housing projects. How do you see them playing into this?

JW: That’s a good thing. Everybody has to give up a little bit to make this work, and that’s their offer.

Then you have to discuss how that’s going to play out, and make sure that everybody’s going to have access to the jobs. But, of course, they’re going to have a major part of the conversation because they’ve been doing this for so long. Minorities and women-owned businesses have a large portion of this.

They’ve always been left out, and I want to make sure they’re no longer left out as the boom is coming.

VICKI BEEN Commissioner, New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development Q: The Department of Housing Preservation and Development is largely responsible for designing Mayor Bill de Blasio’s 10-year affordable housing plan. How will the mayor’s new sustainability blueprint, OneNYC, mesh with HPD’s work in this area?

VB: The mayor’s affordable housing plan and the drive to create a sustainable and resilient city share a common goal that is rooted in equity and livability. For instance, utility costs account for roughly 25 percent of the average operating budget of a rentstabilized building—costs that have played a significant role in exacerbating the crisis of affordability threatening our city. Green retrofits can conserve energy, which helps owners control costs and maintain affordability while also achieving broader sustainability and resiliency goals.

Unfortunately, energy-efficiency upgrades can be out of reach for many small building owners. This month we launched our Green Housing Preservation Program to remove these barriers by offering owners the financial resources and technical expertise needed to make their properties more sustainable and energy efficient. We’re anticipating that buildings in the program could reduce utility costs by about 10 percent or more annually.

Q: Can you give an update on the mayor’s housing plan? How many affordable units have been preserved to date, how many are being constructed to date, and what does “affordable” mean in these instances?

VB: We’ve made big strides in aligning our programs with Mayor de Blasio’s priorities since the housing plan was launched last May. To date we’ve financed more than 18,390 units across all five boroughs, with more than 6,600 new construction units and 11,790 preservation units. We’re also on pace to exceed our fiscal year 2015 goal of 16,000 units. Creating a more equitable city means reaching

the populations that are most in need.

Approximately 85 percent of our production has been targeted to lowincome New Yorkers with more than 2,430 units for households at the very lowest incomes and for people with special needs.

“Affordable” means having a rent that is appropriate for a specific income. When we set rents for our housing we’re taking into account household size and household income, and the rent is set so that it doesn’t exceed about a third of that annual income.

Q: What mechanisms has HPD been using or is considering using to preserve affordable units?

VB: Protecting and improving the existing stock of affordable housing is a major component of the mayor’s plan, and it’s a critical tool in safeguarding affordability in our neighborhoods.

The majority of preservation projects are occupied buildings where families have been living for years. Our mission is to ensure that those families can stay in their homes, and that those homes remain affordable and in good condition. We provide the resources to ensure the buildings receive the repairs and solid financial footing that will keep them affordable for the long term.

We have a robust toolbox of finance programs aimed at preserving buildings that are already in affordability programs that may be thinking of exiting, and programs to bring privately owned buildings into new affordability programs. The most common way to do this is by providing low-cost financing or other benefits to assist owners with capital repairs and refinancing, and in exchange the owners enter into a regulatory agreement that locks in affordability.

Q: What other initiatives are you focused on?

VB: With our partners in the administration and other stakeholders, we are working hard to advance the mayor’s legislative agenda, which includes a slate of reforms to strengthen the rent stabilization laws, make the 421-a program more efficient, and secure additional resources for our affordable housing plan. Closer to home, in an effort to do more for small buildings, in the last few weeks we piloted a help desk to offer small building owners physical, financial and technical assistance in exchange for extended affordability. Nearly 50 percent of units citywide are in buildings with fewer than 20 units, and small buildings represent the majority of units in some neighborhoods, so we are looking at ways to tailor existing programs to meet their needs to help preserve affordability.

33

city & state — May 18, 2015

JUMAANE WILLIAMS

Q: Given the administration’s focus on using mandatory inclusionary zoning to increase the city’s affordable housing stock, how do you think this tactic can be optimized?

JW: It’s kind of the same thing. You want to make sure that you have to build affordable housing, that you have to build it on site, that it’s not an 80 (percent market rate units)-20 (percent affordable units) because that’s not enough. You want to make sure the affordability lasts as long as it can. You want to make sure that the income bands go as low as it possibly can.

SAVINGS VS. CENTERS

DE BLASIO CLAIMS HE CAN RECOUP MILLIONS FOR NYCHA—IF THE AUTHORITY RELINQUISHES CONTROL OF ITS COMMUNITY CENTERS

By SARINA TRANGLE

I

n his executive budget presentation, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said he freed up nearly half a billion dollars for the city’s public housing system over the next four years by waiving its property tax payments and transferring administration of its senior and community centers to city agencies.

But shortly after de Blasio unveiled the plan May 7, City Councilman Ritchie Torres, chairman of the Public Housing Committee, questioned his accounting.

De Blasio touted the $33 million the New York City Housing Authority will retain annually once it is exempt from making payments in lieu of taxes.

The mayor also claimed NYCHA will recoup $22.4 million annually by handing over senior and community centers to the city departments for the Aging, and of Youth and Community Development, respectively. But Torres says NYCHA’s budget hasn’t been shoring up these community centers for at least four years—and the City Council has had to step in and direct discretionary funding to the NYCHA hubs.

“The council, obviously, has a pot of money of its own, and salvaging the NYCHA-run community centers is part of the budget dance,” Torres said, noting that there does not seem to be any consensus about charging outside agencies with running NYCHA’s community centers.

Based on constituent feedback, however, Torres said he would prefer to see them remain under NYCHA’s domain.

“The tenant experience might change with private management of those centers—whether the tenants will feel the same sense of ownership over those centers,” he said.

Nearly a week after the budget

announcement, Torres, a handful of his colleagues and dozens from Local 371 of the Social Services Employees Union and from DC 37 held a rally urging the administration to preserve union jobs at the NYCHA centers. The transition threatens up to 100 union jobs, according to Local 371 President Anthony Wells.

“We know what works,” Wells said in a statement. “The current plan would create a complicated bidding process that will result in worse service at higher cost and the loss of good union jobs.”

In his budget presentation, the mayor declined to provide details on how NYCHA will distribute the savings. Instead, he stressed the

authority’s fiscal pitfalls, contending that the city scrapes to invest in developments that have received minimal federal assistance and “effectively no meaningful state” aid—an assessment he repeated throughout his speech.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo, however, budgeted $100 million in capital funds for the city’s public housing stock.

Cuomo directed the earmark to the state Division of Housing and Community Renewal to administer, citing concerns about management at NYCHA. Some city officials publicly questioned whether political favors will play into how the $100 million will be spent.

De Blasio matched the $100 million

capital investment and announced it would be used to repair roofs in projects where mold problems are most pervasive.

But while the address lacked specifics on NYCHA’s future, the mayor did say the administration would unveil a long-term financial plan called NextGeneration NYCHA in the coming days.

“There’s not enough revenue to cover basic operations, so what we’re trying to do, obviously, is take burdens off of NYCHA,” de Blasio said. “That being said, a lot has to be done to improve the operations to save money because we see the structural reality.

So that’s what we’ll address in the upcoming plan.”

DEMETRIUS FREEMAN/MAYORAL PHOTOGRAPHY OFFICE

SPOTLIGHT: AFFORDABLE HOUSING city & state — May 19, 2015

34

HOUSING

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio unveils the fiscal year 2016 executive budget May 7.

cit yandstateny.com

The savings will likely go directly toward paying NYCHA’s operating budget, according to Torres. The councilman says the authority’s operating deficit is expected to reach $300 million within four years and $400 million within a decade, coupled with at least $16 billion in capital shortcomings.

“Even though the magnitude of the challenge could be greater than our ability to solve it, I admire the mayor’s commitment of resources to preserving public housing,” Torres said, noting that the waiving of the property tax payments came on the heels of the administration’s decision to stop billing NYCHA more than $70 million annually for police to patrol developments. “It is historically unprecedented in recent memory. The mayor deserves enormous credit.”

Sunia Zaterman, executive director of the Council of Large Public Housing Authorities, a national nonprofit focused on preserving public housing, called the mayor’s decision to waive property tax payments important, but not uncommon. In other respects, Zaterman said NYCHA’s size and portfolio of high-rises make it a virtual anomaly. cit yandstateny.com

“We’re seeing cities get much more involved, particularly high-cost cities seeing that this is really an irreplaceable public asset and that the cost of developing public housing from scratch is prohibitive,” Zaterman said, noting that NYCHA’s proposal to lease some of its land to private firms may prove profitable. “As many housing authorities have proven across the country, you can use a mix of ownership structures and financing tools to have the same outcomes outside of the traditional public housing silos and still have the tenant protections and the long-term affordability.”

De Blasio’s $78.3 billion budget proposal also came with $132 million over the next two years for mental health services in struggling schools, shelters and on Rikers Island; $100 million for homelessness prevention and assistance programs; $36.4 million for an anti-violence initiative at Rikers; $12.8 million to support businesses; and $7.5 billion for building or preserving affordable homes and capital projects across several agencies.

It did not include funding for 1,000 additional NYPD officers or financing for a public bail fund, both of which the City Council had sought.

Q: The Building and Construction Trades Council added local hiring mandates in the PLA with NYCHA. What is the impact of this?

SO: It allows us to better coordinate work across our capital and trade functions and then more importantly it reserves 10 percent of the apprenticeship class for the next five years for NYCHA residents. About 120 residents will complete those programs and will receive union card paying jobs at the end of that process.

35

The Must-Read Morning Roundup of New York Politics and Government Our morning email delivers daily exclusives from City & State, as well as a curated summary of the day’s most pertinent headlines, editorials, news tidbits, schedules and milestones from across the political landscape in New York—all before 7 a.m.

Be the the first first to to know. know.

Be

www.cityandstateny.com/subscribe for more information.

city & state — May 19, 2015

NYCHA CEO Shola Olatoye meets with housing authority residents.

Q: NYCHA has been dealing with a public relations problem stemming from numerous reports of mismanagement. How are you trying to change that perception?

SO: The administration has emphasized from the beginning that transparency and communication and engagement are not only results that we expect but are values that we hold dear. We’ve already created a more transparent organization by putting information online with our NYCHA metrics— our finances, the state of our portfolio.

We also continue to update our social platforms to engage not only with our residents, but with New York as a

SIGN UP FOR

NYCHA

SHOLA OLATOYE Chairwoman and CEO, New York City Housing Authority

Q: What is the impact of the state’s investment of an additional $100 million into NYCHA this year?

SO: While we are encouraged by the state’s recent re-entry into public housing, that is a capital expense, not an operating source, and we hope the governor and the Legislature will continue to focus that on buildings, where we can see actual improvements in residents’ way of life as opposed to other things.

SPOTLIGHT: AFFORDABLE HOUSING

whole. NYCHA residents contribute nearly $6 billion to the city’s economy each year so the centrality of NYCHA is a healthy New York. It is important that New Yorkers know that a healthy NYCHA is important to them.

THE MITCHELL-LAMA REVIVAL

HISTORIC PROGRAM COULD BE A BOON FOR MIDDLE-INCOME FAMILIES

By ASHLEY HUPFL

W

hile housing affordability for lower-income families and “fixing” the beleaguered New York City Housing Authority have dominated much of the political debate, state legislators secured key funding for new housing opportunities for the middle class in this year’s enacted budget.

It’s commonly believed that middle-class households are stuck between the opportunities available to lower-income households—such as Section 8 and public housing programs—and the increasing number of housing developments that target the rich.

The state’s original Mitchell-Lama housing program, enacted in 1955, set out to tackle this problem. Until 1981, when developments stopped, the program created 66,000 subsidized rental apartments and 69,000 coop apartments in New York City and throughout the state, a report found.

However, the fatal flaw of the Mitchell-Lama program was that those units were eventually pushed to market-rate prices, and many middleincome households were priced out of the housing developments. Today half the rentals and 7 percent of the co-ops in New York City no longer qualify as affordable housing.

“The Mitchell-Lama program, I believe, was probably the greatest housing program we ever created in New York State because it was based on a very simple premise: that various income levels can live under one roof,” state Sen. and Independent Democratic Conference Leader Jeff Klein said. “I wanted to sort of recreate the program and we called it Mitchell-Lama 2020 because we wanted to build in the success of the original program, but realize now it’s hard to do the program as it was in the past.”

The original Mitchell-Lama

SARINA TRANGLE

SPOTLIGHT: AFFORDABLE HOUSING city & state — May 18, 2015

36

HOUSING

Inwood Terrace at 99 Hillside Ave. in Manhattan is among a shrinking number of Mitchell-Lama buildings in New York City. program incentivized developers with cheap land and low interest rates. The difference between 1955 and now is that the state is short on cheap land and interest rates are already low.

To incentivize development, the 2014-15 state budget included $25 million to be used primarily to finance the construction of new units for households that make up to 130 percent of the area median income.

For example, the AMI in New York City for 2015 is $86,300 for a family of four, which means the MitchellLama 2020 units would be available to families making under roughly $112,000 a year.

The state budget also included an additional $25 million to be used to finance the rehabilitation of existing Mitchell-Lama units and $100 million to NYCHA for a modernization program focused on capital repairs and

improvements.

Klein and Assembly Housing Chair Keith Wright both stressed to City & State that housing affordability is not just an issue that impacts the poor.

“This housing crisis is not only hitting our low-income, it’s hitting our middle-income and quite frankly, not everyone is upper-income and we have a real crisis on our hand—it’s affecting multitudes,” Wright said. “Rent regulations not only affects the lower class, but also the middle class.”

Wright, who also supports the Mitchell-Lama program, said the best way to combat the housing affordability crisis is to renew and strengthen the rent regulation laws set to expire in June, include anti-harassment provisions and get rid of vacancy decontrol—which allows landlords to charge market rate for previously rent-regulated apartments when

tenants move out.

Republicans, who hold the majority in the state Senate, have historically opposed strengthening rent regulations, but did vote to increase protections slightly four years ago as part of a larger deal.

Still, Wright said the state Senate Republicans have no incentive to pass rent regulations because they only have two members whose districts in Staten Island are actually impacted by the law. In contrast, his district in Harlem saw 50,000 applicants for 200 units at a recently built development.

“It’s crazy right now and for middle-income, it’s the same problem,” he said. “I’m all for (the Mitchell-Lama 2020 housing program). I think it really gave middleclass people of New York a homestead, gave them a place to go and it gave them a reason and a stake in our communities.” cit yandstateny.com

KEITH WRIGHT Chairman, Assembly Housing Committee

Q: What do you believe is the best way to fix the housing affordability crisis in New York City?

CY: The proposal included within the Senate’s one-house budget resolution, introduced last month, to establish a Tenant Rent Increase Exemption Program would be an effective way to address affordability by freezing struggling tenants’ rent.

The bill will target assistance to those families making less than $50,000 per year living within rent-stabilized apartments who spend more than half of their income for rent. The program is crafted similarly to the popular existing Senior Citizen Rent Increase Exemption and Disabled Rent Increase Exemption programs.

A version of the 421-a program should be put in place to continue construction of affordable units.

Whatever is developed should ensure that affordable construction is encouraged, rather than stifled. When we receive the mayor’s proposal we will be looking at it very closely to see if it in fact does this.

Q: What do you believe is the best way to fix the housing affordability crisis in New York City?

KW: Since I live in my same old rentstabilized apartment, I take this issue very personally. The best way to keep housing affordable is to put in some real anti-harassment provisions. We have some unscrupulous landlords that will take advantage and take some of our most vulnerable tenants to court for frivolous actions. So I think it’s important that we put some real antiharassment provisions in and rent regulations and, in addition, we need to get rid of vacancy decontrol. Along with that, we have to get rid of what they call preferential rent, as well.

Q: The expiring rent regulations and 421-a tax break tends to dominate the housing conversation.

Are there any other housing issues you’d like to confront before the end of session?

CY: Housing had a good year in the 2015-16 state budget. We increased funding for the Rural and Urban Communities fund by over $10 million, to $17 million. The program helps finance mixed-use development projects that incorporate affordable housing with a commercial operation.

This program is beneficial in restoring downtowns and other areas by ensuring that people actually live in these areas and support the businesses in these areas. We need to renew the 421-m local tax exemption program, which is expiring this year. It allows a municipality to target an area for redevelopment and provide a real property tax exemption to help finance the project to make it feasible.

cit yandstateny.com

Q: There are several rent regulation laws and a key developer tax credit, 421-a, set to expire in June. How do you believe these negotiations will play out in the state Legislature?

KW: With the new situation that’s going on in the (state) Senate now, (Senate Republicans) really don’t have an incentive to negotiate. People say that 421-a is important to them, but you’ve got to remember there are only two members in their conference that actually are affected by rent regulations and they’re both from Staten Island, which doesn’t have a lot of rentregulated apartments. So with the upheaval going on in the Senate and having gone through an upheaval (in the Assembly) it remains to be seen.

Q: The expiring rent regulations and 421-a tax break tend to dominate the housing conversation.

Are there other issues you’d like to confront before the end of session?

KW: As the song goes, ‘ain’t nothing going on but the rent.’ I would say easily about 90 percent of the constituent complaints that come into my office concern housing. Until we can come to some agreement, some sort of decent legislation evening up the scales of justice, you really can’t discuss those other things until we get rent stabilization and 421-a done.

The 421-a Tax Abatement gives away $1.1 BILLION in property taxes annually to NYC Real Estate Developers, inflating property values and fueling gentrification and displacement throughout the five boroughs.

Who pays for this giveaway to the greedy developers?

The middle class workers who pay through their wage deductions week after week and the unlucky property owners without the exemption who pay through relentless increases in property tax assessments year after year.

Hold the NYC Real Estate Developers accountable for real, meaningful investment in the community!

Demand that any attempt to renew or extend 421-a include: 1) A city-wide affordable housing commitment that protects low and middle income residents from being priced out of their community; and 2) Prevailing wages for the construction workers building the housing to ensure that those workers have a middleclass career path and not just another dead-end job earning subsistence wages.

TMT Local 7 PAC 45-34 Court Sq., Long Island City, NY 11101 www.baclocal7.com

37

city & state — May 18, 2015

CATHARINE YOUNG Chairwoman, Senate Committee on Housing, Construction and Community Development

421-a Giveaway!

SPOTLIGHT: AFFORDABLE HOUSING

HOUSING

EGGS IN ONE BASKET ONE LAST CHANCE TO FEND OFF A FEDERAL TAKEOVER IN BUFFALO

Senator Jeff Klein

By JUSTIN SONDEL

T 38

Joan McDonald, NYS Department of Transportation

ADVERTISE WITH CITY & STATE TO:

Andrea Stewart Cousins

Commisioner Ken Adams

city & state — May 18, 2015

Reach elected officials Educate NY’s most engaged leaders Raise awareness and shape legislation

For advertising information, please contact Andrew Holt at 212.894.5422 or AHolt@CityandStateNY.com

he authority that manages Buffalo’s public housing system has formed a plan to deal with continually subpar occupancy rates and financial issues, but it isn’t out of the woods yet.

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development had requested that the Buffalo Municipal Housing Authority submit a plan by the end of April to address the issues, hinting that a federal takeover could be imminent if the occupancy rates—about 84 percent, a full 9 percentage points below the rate deemed acceptable by HUD—do not improve. Last month, the authority’s board of directors submitted a plan to HUD. Joan Spilman, HUD’s Buffalo field office director, said the federal department has started to review the plan and met late last week to discuss what improvements it still requires.

He said the submitted plan will need to be amended with timelines and more specificity in certain areas, and that HUD will work with the authority to get it into shape.

“It’s a very comprehensive, bigpicture plan,” Spilman said. “We’re hoping to put some details together with them.”

But if the agency is unable to effectively implement their plan and improve their occupancy rates and financial stability they could end up on the list of housing authorities under the care of HUD. There are currently only six housing authorities— including those in Detroit and East St. Louis—under the care of the federal department.

“Receivership is certainly not someplace we want to go,” Spilman said. “But it’s a possibility if they don’t

improve.”

This is not the first time in recent years the authority has attempted to put together a plan to address these issues.

About a year before the latest turnaround plan, the housing authority, along with a long list of partners including the University at Buffalo and SUNY Buffalo State, learned that it would not receive a $30 million grant it was seeking as part of HUD’s Choice Neighborhood program—a big disappointment to the authority, which saw the program as an opportunity to seriously address long-standing issues.

“They put all their eggs in one basket about getting the funding to implement the plan,” Spilman said.

“That didn’t come through and now they’re looking for a plan B to deal with the situation.”

With the competitive landscape for funding, the housing authority will likely have to cobble together multiple funding sources to make their new plan a reality, Spilman said.

“You can’t depend upon one source to solve the problem,” Spilman said.

“It’s very complex.”

Under the new plan, 342 units at the largely vacant A.D. Price Courts and Commodore Perry homes would be removed from the authority’s portfolio, to be replaced with 475 renovated apartments at the Commodore Perry homes and Shaffer Village through HUD’s rental assistance demonstration program, which would allow the authority to partner with private companies to build and operate new units.

In addition, the plan calls for the sale of housing authority property, better coordination between authority cit yandstateny.com

The Buffalo housing authority plans to open new units at the Commodore Perry complex.

cit yandstateny.com

improvements at 89 developments and reinvest a large portion of the resulting savings. Another promising avenue is HUD’s Rental Assistance Demonstration program, which allows a housing authority to leverage a longterm Section 8 contract to access private equity for capital needs.

HOLLY M. LEICHT Region 2 Administrator, U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Q: What does HUD do to combat homelessness in New York City and why has the population of homeless war veterans diminished, even as general homelessness is as high as it has ever been in the city?

HL: The steep decline in the number of homeless veterans in New York City is a great example of how coordinated government attention to an urgent issue can produce real results. The Obama administration launched an ambitious initiative in 2010 to eradicate homelessness in the U.S., starting with veterans. Targeted federal investments like HUD-VASH vouchers, which fund housing and social services for veterans, undergird an unprecedented collaboration among all levels of government and the nonprofit sector, resulting in improved data collection, better outreach and referral processes, and quicker rehousing for the chronically homeless. Thanks to these combined efforts, even as overall homelessness rates have gone up in New York City—largely driven by an increase in family homelessness— veteran homelessness has decreased by 65 percent since 2011.

Q: The New York City Housing Authority is in a state of crisis. Other than administering diminished federal funding to the authority, is there anything HUD can do to aid NYCHA? HL: Like many public housing authorities around the country, NYCHA is caught in the “perfect storm” of reduced congressional funding and an aging housing stock—a challenge made all the greater because of NYCHA’s vast scale, with over 178,000 units. HUD views itself as NYCHA’s partner, not just its regulator, and we are working together to identify untapped funding sources. One example is the Energy Performance Contract that Mayor Bill de Blasio and HUD Secretary Julian Castro announced in April. This multi-phased EPC—the largest HUD has ever done—will enable NYCHA to make energy-saving capital

Q: The Buffalo Municipal Housing Authority is in an arguably worse state than NYCHA is. Can you say anything about the authority’s recent plan to reverse the high rates of vacancy in its buildings?

HL: Like NYCHA, the Buffalo Municipal Housing Authority must pursue a long-term, diversified plan to systematically address its aging buildings. For BMHA, this will likely entail a combination of major rehabilitation, demolition and redevelopment. BMHA’s leadership recognizes the need for a comprehensive approach to its portfolio and received a HUD Choice Neighborhoods grant in 2010 to develop a plan. The major barrier, however, is funding the plan’s implementation—when one competitive source didn’t pan out, BMHA didn’t have a plan B, and as a result, the authority continues to have an occupancy rate of only 84 percent, with no immediate path to rehab or replace more than 500 vacant units. After receiving a “substandard” performance rating from HUD, BMHA responded with a revised plan that includes multiple funding strategies, and we’re working with them to drill down on specific milestones and timeframes.

Q: How is HUD involved in efforts to make New York more resilient in the wake of Superstorm Sandy and in the face of future extreme weather events?

HL: President Obama’s Hurricane Sandy Rebuilding Task Force directed that recovery funds should make the region less vulnerable in future storms and more resilient in the face of rising sea levels. To this end, HUD sponsored the Rebuild by Design competition and is funding implementation of seven winning concepts, ranging from a “living breakwater” of oysters off Staten Island to an integrated system of green and grey infrastructure along the Mill River on Long Island. We’re working closely with the state and city to ensure that recovery dollars are not used to put people or infrastructure back in harm’s way. In some places, this means buying and demolishing damaged homes that are below sea level. But in most places, it means smarter rebuilding, which can be as straightforward as elevating structures or as complex as developing individualized protective measures for every subway entrance in the flood zone.

39

city & state — May 18, 2015

the agency administration, all selected

by Mayor Byron Brown.

“It’s a shell game as far as I’m concerned,” he said.

HUD’s residential assistance demonstration program is also troubling, Mascia said, since residents will have to live with the authority putting up property as equity and risk seeing it taken away if the deal doesn’t work out.

“I’m not a big fan of it because you’re mortgaging your assets,” Mascia said. “If you can’t fill those apartments like the way you say you should and if there’s crime running rampant, I don’t care how nice you make it look.”

But Sanders-Garrett remains confident that the plan will work and the housing authority will remain under local control.

“I can guarantee that the BMHA’s plan will be accepted and that we can move forward with dealing with our occupancy and our financial issues,” she said.

JUSTIN SONDEL

teams, writing off bad debt, lease enforcement and the completion of new units already under construction.

Executive Director Dawn SandersGarrett described the plan as an opportunity for the housing authority to reinvent itself during the crowded meeting where it was approved by the board of directors.

“The BMHA is in the midst of its overall transformation plan,” SandersGarrett said to a boardroom packed with housing authority employees and residents. “The BMHA is continuously evolving by adapting and redefining itself to meet the current and future needs of our residents and the people of the city of Buffalo.”

Joe Mascia, one of the two commissioners elected by housing authority residents, said the plan is only a shuffling of numbers and units designed to shed HUD’s “substandard” label without addressing any root problems. A self-proclaimed potstirrer, Mascia often butts heads with the five appointed commissioners and

DANIEL DROMM

O

40

n March 26, NYPD school safety agents confronted a high school senior at the John Jay Educational Campus for using a safety pin to hold his broken glasses together. When the student refused to remove the pin, he was tackled to the floor by school safety agents, pinned down and handcuffed. Later, when the principal brought the student to her office and asked him to write down what had happened, the agents returned, handcuffing the student again and placing him under arrest.

The student was then held in a room without a parent or staff member present. Before releasing him, officers

SUCH A THING AS FREE LUNCH

LETITIA JAMES

city & state — May 18, 2015

U

niversal free lunch in New York City middle schools is working, so why are there no plans to expand this vital program in this year’s city budget?

We know the facts: Well-fed children are more focused and do better academically. But it is estimated that nearly 250,000 income-eligible New York City students do not participate in free school lunch programs—with participation rates dipping below 40 percent by high school. And it’s not because they are not hungry, but because they are ashamed of being

issued the student a summons.

Sadly, incidents of inappropriate school discipline happen every day in New York City, a result of prioritizing the policing of our youth over creating a nurturing and supportive environment for them to grow in.

Giving control to the NYPD in these situations effectively supplants the judgment of educators, who are the most appropriate individuals to manage school discipline.

The New York City Council is considering legislation, known as Intro 65, that would require the NYPD to assign at least one school safety agent to any school, public or private, that requests one. (Currently the NYPD School Safety Division decides where officers are sent.) Such a proposal gives me serious cause for concern.

As someone with 25 years teaching experience, I understand the importance of ensuring the safety of students and staff at all times. The successful strategies that I have seen emphasize the “restorative justice” approach to school discipline, which holds students accountable for their actions and proactively builds healthy relationships to address conflict and prevent wrongdoing.

To cultivate such an environment, more resources need to be directed toward social workers, guidance counselors and restorative justice

coordinators in public schools, not NYPD officers. Expanding the presence of school safety agents makes it more difficult to shift away from the failed paradigm of punishment and control, and toward evidence-based practices.

Police presence does not create safer schools. In fact, studies show that districts that rely heavily on policing students also disproportionately push adolescents into the school-toprison pipeline, especially those who come from communities of color, are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or questioning, or have a disability.

In Mayor Bill de Blasio’s preliminary Fiscal Year 2016 budget, the city Department of Education allocated $327 million for the NYPD School Safety Division. The education department currently employs a total 5,425 school safety agents and school police officers. If the School Safety Division were an independent department, it would be the fifthlargest police force in the country!

There are over 500 non-public schools in New York City, according to the state Education Department. The passage of Intro 65 in the City Council would force the city Department of Education to provide each of these schools with at least one school safety agent upon request, significantly increasing the city’s investment in a

stigmatized for being poor.

That’s why, last year, I led the fight for universal free lunch for all New York City public school students, regardless of family income.

The final agreement launched a pilot program for universal free lunch in stand-alone public middle schools and the results are in: According to a report by Community Food Advocates, schools participating in the pilot program are seeing an 8 percent increase in the number of students now receiving free lunch.

That’s nearly 10,000 more students each day who are eating when they are hungry without having to worry about the stigma of standing in a separate line to get free lunch. But we still have more work to do.

Five cities in New York State already offer universal free lunch throughout their public school systems: Hempstead, Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse and Poughkeepsie. It has also been implemented in Chicago and Boston—two of the country’s biggest cities.

New York City should be leading the national conversation on improving nutrition in public schools, but instead we are falling behind on this critical issue.

Making public education work better in the 21st century is about smart

reform that moves beyond the test, and holistically develops our students and communities. It’s about helping children be ready to learn and grow into healthy, happy and productive members of society.

Next year’s city budget will exceed $78 billion—and everyone wants a piece of the pie. However, few need a piece more than the hundreds of thousands of children who are hungry and struggling just to get through the school day.

The Independent Budget Office has confirmed that bringing universal free lunch to every single public school student will only require an additional $20 million per year. While this may seem like a big number, it’s less than one-tenth of 1 percent of the DOE’s annual budget. Yet the mayor’s executive budget fails to expand the universal free lunch pilot program that has already demonstrated success.

I will continue to push for expanding universal free lunch, because we know that doing so is a common-sense investment with benefits that will ripple throughout New York City.

Students will be better nourished and ready for the day. Working families will have more flexibility to make ends meet. And schools will be able to direct more time and resources toward educational enrichment, instead

broken system. Funding the proposal could easily end up exceeding a $400 million annual investment in “school safety.” In short, Intro 65 would further criminalize our young people and be a waste of scarce resources.

Creating schools where all our youth are safe to learn begins by shifting staffing priorities. Currently, there are 1,500 more school safety agents and police officers than guidance counselors and social workers in our schools. What is desperately needed is funding to hire more guidance counselors and social workers, develop LGBTQ support programs, strengthen mental health services and implement peer mediation.

At a joint hearing of the City Council’s public safety and education committees on April 14, the head of the NYPD School Safety Division expressed deep concerns that passing Intro 65 would potentially hinder its ability to deploy staffing resources effectively. The City Council should carefully consider this concern as well as the call for reform of the broader system.

Daniel Dromm is a member of the New York City Council representing Jackson Heights and Elmhurst in Queens.

MERTCAN / SHUTTERSTOCK

PERSPEC TIVES

CRIMINALIZING OUR KIDS

of time-consuming administrative duties necessary to process constant paperwork in the current free lunch program.

The City Council has rightfully included universal free lunch in their budget. Now the mayor must do the same.

Together, we can build a city where children are healthier, schools are more successful and smart progressive policies uplift all.

Letitia James is the public advocate for New York City.

cit yandstateny.com

THE CITY’S PLACE IN ‘THE NATION’ K

atrina vanden Heuvel,

city & state — May 18, 2015

City & State: How has celebrating the anniversary been?

Katrina vanden Heuvel: Well, 150 years is quite something in this fastshifting media landscape. It was a year-and-a-half project, this special issue, so it was quite an overlay on the weekly and daily pace here.

C&S: And it’s also your anniversary at the magazine. What kept you there for 20 years?

KVH: It’s an extraordinary place if you want to expose abuse, right wrongs, investigate corruption, but also propose alternatives to what is. I was here for the Clinton impeachment madness, and then the Supreme Court selection of President George W. Bush, 9/11, the bombing of Afghanistan, the run-up to Iraq, Hurricane Katrina, America’s first financial crisis since the Great Depression, and of course, Obama’s now two victories. I find this moment very interesting. It’s a progressive, populist moment, not everywhere, but I do think The Nation, in endorsing Mayor Bill de

C&S: And has there been progress in New York City under de Blasio?

KVH: Yes, and I think there’s a way to go. There’s legitimate criticism of the adherence to broken windows and the quota system that continues to discriminate against AfricanAmerican and Latino men and communities.

A Q&A WITH

KATRINA VANDEN HEUVEL Blasio when he was fourth in the polls, played a role in lifting up this voice.

C&S: Do you think The Nation’s coverage has less impact given there’s a perception its readership is liberal?

KVH: No. The Nation represents the leading progressive voice. We don’t influence what happens inside the Republican Party, for sure. But we editorialized a year ago for the need for a robust primary contest. And we also called for the Democratic National Committee to convene debates if there were a number of challengers. You saw just a few days ago the committee has set six debates.

C&S: What has been a high point during your tenure?

KVH: The Nation really led the

opposition to the war in Iraq. At that time, it wasn’t just George W. Bush or Dick Cheney, but many liberal commentators, publications believed the war was the right thing. Today, the majority of Americans, even Republicans, will say the Iraq war was a disaster.

C&S: What story stands out as a favorite?

KVH: There were two. I take pride that The Nation did endorse Mayor Bill de Blasio, and in so doing, I believe, led to a shift in the city … and an open letter to Congress on the eve of the vote regarding the authorization to go to war in Iraq. That was one of the most powerful pieces in my time here.

C&S: Given the 1966 piece by James Baldwin criticizing policing

C&S: Rolling Stone reported that you were among those de Blasio convened while planning his national, progressive agenda. What are the most important policies in it? What will be the hardest sells?

KVH: We’re at a moment where the talk of a minimum wage at $15 is not considered unreal—it’s right there in the center of this agenda, also workers’ rights to organize, opposing trade deals that really damage workers’ rights and the environment. Tax fairness will be hard—things like raising the share that millionaires pay, closing the carried interest loophole.

C&S: What do you envision for yourself after The Nation?

KVH: Lots of things, but I haven’t had time to think deeply about such things. Maybe I’ll run for office. My father has been an inspiration to me, and he was in politics for many years, and I feel that The Nation has been a bully pulpit of some kind.

To read the full interview with Katrina Vanden Heuvel go to www.cityandstateny.com

cit yandstateny.com

BALDOMERO FERNANDEZ

42

in Harlem and today’s protests, how would you assess the nation’s progress on this?

KVH: What strikes me is how relevant James Baldwin’s piece is. We made a video two years ago about stop-andfrisk abuses, which was cited by Judge Shira Scheindlin, who ruled stop and frisk racially discriminatory. There’s an arch of history between James Baldwin, Black Lives Matter, the protests and what’s going on in cities across this country.

editor of The Nation, marked two decades at the country’s oldest weekly magazine with a voluminous 150th anniversary edition that paired watershed pieces from the archives with fresh features.

The 268-page magazine opened with a reflection on The Nation’s roots in the abolition movement and its evolution through political and journalistic movements.

Vanden Heuvel said The Nation’s legacy remains pertinent, pointing to a 1966 article by James Baldwin that described the “No Knock, Stop and Frisk laws” in Harlem, as well as a video on the policing technique that was presented to the judge who deemed stop and frisk racially discriminatory.

Vanden Heuvel spoke with City & State reporter Sarina Trangle about the magazine’s history, Mayor Bill de Blasio’s national platform and whether she plans to run for office.

The following is an edited transcript.

We’ve been in the business of helping businesses since 1998 At CAN Capital, our mission is to help small businesses succeed.

We’ve helped fund businesses more than 150,000 times, providing access to over $4.8 billion in working capital. Find out how much your business could qualify for in minutes.

With a simple application, up to $150,000* in funds can be sent in as little as 2 business days.** Call us today at 866-838-5816. www.cancapital.com

*

This is an invitation to apply (applicants must satisfy certain eligibility requirements) and not an offer or commitment to provide access to capital. Restrictions apply.

** Funding time calculation reflects timing from funding approval to initiation of ACH funds transfer. Settlement of funds to customer’s bank account may take additional time.

CAN Capital makes capital available to businesses through its subsidiaries: Merchant Cash Advances by CAN Capital Merchant Services, Inc. (CCMS), and business loans through CAN Capital Asset Servicing, Inc. (CCAS). All business loans obtained through CCAS are made by WebBank, a Utah-chartered Industrial Bank, member FDIC. ©2015 CAN Capital. All rights reserved.

AN HONEST DAY’S WORK DESERVES AN HONEST DAY’S PAY. DEVELOPERS GETTING A BILLION DOLLARS IN TAX BREAKS SHOULD PAY A MIDDLE CLASS WAGE.

TELL ALBANY TO

FIX 421A

VISIT: UP4NYC.COM

PAID FOR BY UP4NYC

/UP4NYC

@UP4NYC