City & State New York 030419

Who’s shortchanging New York’s students?

Jumaane won Now he needs to keep it

SLUMMING IT

LYNNE PATTON’S PATH FROM TRUMP TOWER TO A NYCHA S**THOLE

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@CIT YANDSTATENY

March 4, 2019

H IG H E R E D U C AT ION

T H E B E S T I N V E S T M E N T F OR N E W YOR K’S F U T U R E

FORDHAM UNIVERSITY is proud to partner with New York state in providing educational opportunities that transform lives and strengthen our economy. Keeping our compact with New York state to advance the educational and economic well-being of the students we serve is important. As such, Fordham provides institutional financial aid to 90 percent of our students. However, the success of our students is dependent upon New York state maintaining its role in this vital partnership. We urge the state Legislature to restore proposed cuts to higher education so that all of New York’s colleges and universities can keep serving New York and its most valuable investment: our students.

RAISE MAX AWARD TO $6,000

THE TUITION ASSISTANCE PROGRAM

Ensures the existence of continued educational opportunities for our students and their families by assisting eligible residents to pay tuition at approved colleges and universities located in the State of New York.

RAISE TO $42.7 MILLION

HIGHER EDUCATION OPPORTUNITY PROGRAM

RAISE TO $14.4 MILLION

COLLEGIATE SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY ENTRY PROGRAM

Provides socioeconomically disadvantaged students attending independent colleges with academic and financial support.

Boosts the number of underrepresented or economically disadvantaged students earning degrees in the sciences.

RAISE TO $19 MILLION

SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY ENTRY PROGRAM

RAISE TO $22 MILLION

LIBERTY PARTNERSHIPS

RESTORE $35 MILLION

HIGHER EDUCATION CAPITAL MATCHING GRANT PROGRAM

Advances New York’s STEM pipeline by preparing underrepresented or economically disadvantaged youth for college and science-related careers.

Colleges and universities provide comprehensive academic and support services to reduce high school dropout rates.

Awards matching grants to independent colleges and universities for capital projects that would enhance the programmatic offerings and student life at the institution and provide economic development benefits to the community.

For every state dollar invested, colleges and universities match the state investment by a 3-to-1 ratio or more.

March 4, 2019

City & State New York

EDITOR’S NOTE

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THE

AT THE END OF THE MONTH, lawmakers will face a deadline to pass a state budget. And despite a Democratic sweep last fall that gave the party control of Albany, some major disagreements must be ironed out before the multibillion-dollar spending plan can be finalized.

One of the biggest showdowns between Gov. Andrew Cuomo and state lawmakers is school aid. This year, the debate has centered on the governor’s contention that the solution isn’t just sending more money to poorer districts, but that more has to be done to ensure additional funding gets to poorer schools within those districts.

As that fight heats up, another government funding showdown is dying down.

Thanks to a settlement among the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, the New York City Housing Authority and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, a federal monitor will oversee the city’s troubled public housing system. While the city pledged to kick in at least $2.2 billion over a decade, NYCHA still needs a whopping $32 billion to fix up its apartments, and experts say more federal dollars is the answer.

In this week’s cover story, City & State’s Jeff Coltin profiles Lynne Patton, the Trump loyalist and HUD appointee who oversees NYCHA, and explores whether her efforts to draw attention to the dilapidated conditions in the city’s public housing will actually make a difference.

EDUCATI ION ISSUE JON LENTZ Editor-in-chief

CONTENTS

PUBLIC ADVOCATE … 6

Can Jumaane Williams hold on to the title?

LYNNE PATTON … 8

The Trump lieutenant’s plan to fix NYCHA with the power of showbiz SCHOOL FUNDING … 14

The state’s poorest schools still don’t get enough aid

CHARTER SCHOOLS … 20 CELESTE SLOMAN; SARAH BLESENER

Where have all the movement’s leaders gone?

STUDENT DEBT … 22

Is Cuomo’s “free tuition” plan helping?

WINNERS & LOSERS … 30 Who was up and who was down last week

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The

March 4, 2019

Latest THE ODD COUPLE Just weeks after their deal with Amazon fell apart, Gov. Andrew Cuomo and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio became unlikely allies again when they issued a joint 10-point plan to revamp the MTA. Most notably, the plan identifies congestion pricing as a means to fund repairs, even though de Blasio had previously pushed instead for a tax on millionaires.

Long Island state Senate Democrats criticized the plan, saying it focused too much on using new revenue to fix the subways and not enough on the Long Island Rail Road.

JUMAANE WILLIAMS, PUBLIC ADVOCATE

The

Back & Forth

A Q&A with New York City Administration for Children’s Services Commissioner

David Hansell

The

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority voted to increase fares and tolls for the New York City subway system, commuter rail lines and bridges. Although the MTA board decided to keep the base fare the same, weekly and 30-day unlimited MetroCards will increase to $33 and $127, respectively, in April. The MTA also decided to eliminate the 5 percent bonus for putting multiple rides on pay-per-ride cards, which are commonly used by lower-income New Yorkers.

What progress has been made during your tenure in overhauling the agency?

I’ve been commissioner now for about two years and came in at a difficult time for ACS. We had just been challenged by two very, very serious, very high-profile tragic child deaths in the city that had definitely shaken public confidence in ACS and its ability to do its job of protecting children. So I started out with a top-to-bottom review of the agency to examine every aspect of our child protective work.

We’ve hired more caseworkers. We’ve reduced caseloads. We’ve improved the tools and technology that we give our caseworkers.

We’ve enhanced our training and our quality and oversight. Now that we offer so many supportive services to parents, we want to make sure that they understand that ACS is fundamentally there to help them.

Kicker

A group of Assembly members have urged that the state increase its share of child welfare funding. What difference would that make at ACS? Over the last three years, New York City specifically has lost significant amounts of state funding for both child welfare and juvenile justice. The law says that the state is to provide 65 percent of that funding and localities, New York City or other localities, provide 45 percent.

But for the past number of years, the Legislature has overridden that and reduced the state funding from 65 percent to 62 percent. So one of the things we have suggested is that if the state were to return to that level of 65 percent, which is actually what is written into the law, that would provide $19 million in additional funding, which we could use for a number of things.

“I’ll be honest, I’m not 100 percent sure what he’s doing here.”

– Brooklyn native and Sioux City, Iowa, resident VLADIMIR LANDMAN, on New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio’s visit to the city as he mulls a presidential run, via The New York Times Get the kicker every morning in CITY & STATE’S FIRST READ email. Sign up at cityandstateny.com.

JOHN MCCARTEN/NEW YORK CITY COUNCIL; KEVIN P. COUGHLIN/OFFICE OF THE GOVERNOR; RYAN DEBERARDINIS, LEV RADIN/SHUTTERSTOCK; ACS

MTA RAISES FARES

After a short but contentious special election, New York City has picked a new public advocate: Jumaane Williams. Despite a large field – 17 candidates were on the ballot – Williams won decisively, with a third of the vote. His closest Democratic rival was Melissa Mark-Viverito, the former council speaker who came in third with about 11 percent of the vote. Despite initial speculation that the crowded ballot could lead to a close election that would’ve encouraged a competitive primary in June – or even elect a Republican – Williams’ margin of victory makes it likely that he will coast to re-election.

March 4, 2019

City & State New York

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HEIR THRONE to the

WHO WILL BE THE NEXT KING – OR QUEEN – OF QUEENS?

SASHA MASLOV; U.S. HOUSE; LEV RADIN/SHUTTERSTOCK; STATE SENATE; ASSEMBLY

BY REBECCA C. LEWIS

Last month, former Rep. Joseph Crowley stepped down from his role as chairman of the Queens Democratic Party, a post he had held for over a decade. With the King of Queens’ reign coming to an end, the county party will need to crown a new monarch. Here are some of the possible top contenders and names that have been floated since Crowley’s resignation.

REP. GRACE MENG

REP. GREGORY MEEKS

Although Rep. Grace Meng’s name has appeared in a few stories about Crowley’s abdication, she is not currently a district leader and is therefore not eligible to run for party chair.

While it is possible that the female district leader for her Assembly district could step down, creating a vacancy the party could fill with Meng, the process would be convoluted and might give a bad impression of the party through the manipulation of rules to avoid voters.

For the time being, Rep. Gregory Meeks appears to be the most likely to succeed Crowley as the Queens Democratic Party chairman. When the district leaders re-elected Crowley in September, the four dissenting members voted for Meeks instead. One Queens insider noted that Meeks, who is African-American, has attended several local political events since Crowley stepped down and that he is well-liked and has few enemies.

STATE SEN. JOHN LIU

STATE SEN. MICHAEL GIANARIS

ASSEMBLYWOMAN VIVIAN COOK

Newly elected state Sen. John Liu has been suggested as a possible successor. With his long history in multiple elected positions – New York City councilman, city comptroller, state senator – he would bring broad experience to the position.

However, he told The Wall Street Journal that he does not want the chairmanship. Although initially expressing disinterest in a position has not stopped politicians from running anyway, the process to replace Crowley could take months, giving Liu plenty of time to change his mind.

State Sen. Michael Gianaris was a close Crowley ally and may once have been a logical successor.

However, since Crowley’s loss to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez last year, Gianaris has veered left and aligned with the insurgent faction of the party. His outspoken opposition to Amazon’s deal to build a campus in Long Island City, Queens, was the most noteworthy example of Gianaris’ break from establishment politics. Although he could usher in an intriguing new era for the party, taking charge of a powerful party machine apparently is not high on his priority list.

Assemblywoman Vivian Cook already holds a leadership position within the party as county committee chairwoman. Unlike the party chair, her position is voted on by the county committee as a whole, rather than by the much smaller executive committee. However, Cook’s name has not once been mentioned as a possibility, nor is the 81-year-old lawmaker generally viewed as political force within the county.

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March 4, 2019

HIS TO KEEP

by R E B E C C A C . L E W I S

W

ITH THE DEMOCRATIC primary for New York City public advocate set for June, does the newly elected public advocate, Jumaane Williams, risk losing the office almost as quickly as he won it? The short answer: probably not.

Williams won fairly decisively with more than 33 percent of the vote in a 17way race. His closest Democratic challenger, former New York City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito, only received about 11 percent of the vote. Although some pre-election analysis suggested the possibility of a tight race given the large number of candidates, and even a win by Councilman Eric Ulrich, the only Republican elected official in the race, Williams pulled well ahead of his competition. Ulrich came in second with 19 percent.

Political consultant Jerry Skurnik told

IF JUMAANE WANTS TO REMAIN PUBLIC ADVOCATE, HE’LL NEED TO WIN:

City & State that Williams seems to have successfully leveraged his name recognition following his failed run for lieutenant governor. Although Williams lost that race, he came surprisingly close to unseating incumbent Lt. Gov. Kathy Hochul in the Democratic primary last year, including actually beating her in New York City. He said that given Williams’ election night numbers, he does not see a viable path to victory for any of the other Democrats in June. “It would be pretty hard for me to honestly tell one of the 14 other Democrats, ‘here’s a path for you to beat him,’ if it’s just a two- or three-person race,” Skurnik said. “His victory was pretty strong – in a 17-person race, getting a third of the vote is pretty impressive.”

When broken down by borough, Williams handily won his home borough of Brooklyn as well as Manhattan,

The primary

Mark-Viverito’s home turf. According to a further breakdown by Steven Romalewski at the CUNY Center for Urban Research, Williams outperformed Mark-Viverito in all but one Assembly district in Manhattan, which was the East Harlem area she represented during her time in the City Council. Skurnik suggested that she suffered more from a split vote, with two other Latino candidates – Councilmen Ydanis Rodriguez and Rafael Espinal Jr. – on the ballot, than Williams did. But adding Rodriguez and Espinal’s vote totals to Mark-Viverito’s still leaves her far short of Williams’ share of the vote. And Williams also faced competition for black and Caribbean-American voters from Assemblyman Michael Blake, who came in fourth with 8 percent.

Additionally, in the three boroughs Williams did not win – Staten Island,

STEFAN JEREMIAH FOR THE NEW YORK POST/POOL PHOTO

New York City will vote for public advocate again later this year. Is there any way Jumaane Williams could lose Round 2?

March 4, 2019

City & State New York

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33.2% 7.78% JUMAANE’S SHARE OF THE SPECIAL ELECTION VOTE

PERCENT OF REGISTERED NYC VOTERS WHO CAST A BALLOT IN THE SPECIAL ELECTION

The runoff (if he doesn’t get 40% of the vote in the primary) Queens and the Bronx – he finished second in each one, behind Blake in the Bronx and Ulrich in Queens and Staten Island.

Fordham University political science professor Christina Greer said that his performance in each borough suggests that he won a broad coalition of voters despite the low turnout, which was under 8 percent.

“It’s not like he only got, say, Caribbean voters in a particular part of Brooklyn,” Greer said. “He sort of knocked it out of the park when you look at class, race, gender, ethnicity and borough.” She agreed with Skurnik that a primary run by any of the other major candidates would seem unlikely and would be hard to justify to donors given Williams’ margin of victory in the special election.

Mark-Viverito may have a slim chance to win if she ran one-on-one against Williams and continued to emphasize the im-

The general

portance of having a woman and Latina in a citywide position, Greer suggested. But she said that the potential damage of another loss would likely be too great a risk for Mark-Viverito to take. “If she does come back, and she loses, I really think that that would say a lot about her future prospects for anything,” Greer said.

“Sometimes people get branded as losers, whether it’s fair or not fair, but that’s why you need to be strategic about the races you run.” On Thursday, Mark-Viverito said on Twitter that she was not going to run for public advocate again and looked forward to supporting Williams.

In a city like New York, which is predominantly Democratic, most elections are largely decided through primaries, which is why some, like the editorial board of the Daily News, advocated for results that would lead to a competitive primary. But

“His victory was pretty strong – in a 17-person race, getting a third of the vote is pretty impressive.”

– Pol i t ica l c onsu lta n t Je r ry Sk u r n i k

New York has notoriously low voter turnout during general elections, and even more so during primaries. If one were to compare this special election to the 2013 public advocate primary, the last time the seat was open, Williams actually won by more votes than Letitia James did that year. Although she received 191,347 votes in the initial primary, the results led to a runoff election, when she got only 119,604 votes. While an open special election may not be directly comparable to a runoff during a normal election year, Williams, with his 133,809 votes, received more votes. The turnout for this year’s election was also greater than the 2017 public advocate primary, when there were just 393,869 votes counted. So, it’s unlikely that a competitor could see a path to unseating Williams through drawing on voters who stayed home this time but will come out in June.

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March 4, 2019

READY FOR HE CLOSE-U Trump family confidante Lynne Patton is running HUD in New York. She thinks her media blitz will #fixNYCHA.

by J E F F C O L T I N

NE OF PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP’S most loyal foot soldiers stood in front of the door to apartment 2E. “Hi there!” she said as a woman opened the door to her. “I’m Lynne.”

Lynne Patton, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s regional administrator for New York and New Jersey, strode into the apartment, leading a dozen reporters, TV cameras and photographers through the door. In the middle of the pack was a HUD aide holding an iPhone aloft to livestream the whole thing on Patton’s HUD Facebook page.

The reporters – plus the hundreds of people who have watched it on Facebook Live – were on a tour of the Patterson Houses, a typical cluster of South Bronx high-rises beset by problems typical of the New York City Housing Authority: mold, leaks, poor heating, lead paint, rats. But in apartment 2E, the home of Judith Maldonado, leaking water was the day’s main attraction. Photographers jostled for position as Patton looked at a wall in Maldonado’s bathroom, paint peeling and plaster soggy. “Do you have your work order number?” Patton asked, promising to pass it along to NYCHA management and get the problem, which has plagued Maldonado since 2017, resolved once and for all.

That effort, getting long-delayed capital repairs finally completed, is the most straightforward goal of Patton’s experiment in radical empathy. She, the well-compensated, upper-class Trump family personal-aide-turned-administrator, plans to spend a month’s

Lynne Patton, HUD’s Region II administrator, is trying to call attention to NYCHA’s woes by staying in public housing apartments.

CREDIT

photography by S A R A H B L E S E N E R

March 4, 2019

ER UP

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worth of weeknights in NYCHA apartments, crashing on an air mattress on her hosts’ floors in order to get an up-close and personal look at life in the housing projects her agency oversees. It’s a bold plan, and one without precedent among HUD appointees.

It has put a human face to the federal agency, which is exerting growing influence over NYCHA, including the appointment of a federal monitor agreed to as part of a major legal settlement in January. Her stays have put public pressure on the housing authority to fix myriad issues, particularly in the apartments and complexes that Patton visits. It’s earned her both high-profile praise and criticism. And it has put Patton back in the spotlight, which she loves.

After Maldonado’s soggy walls were sufficiently scrutinized, Patton headed toward the door while thanking her host. A photographer stopped her on the way out, urging her back into the bathroom to pose under the peeling paint. “I’m disgusted … it’s very emotional,” she said, holding back tears near the sink while the camera clicked. “Not only is this the United States of America, but this is the greatest city in the world.”

March 4, 2019

Patton leads reporters on a tour of the Patterson Houses, a complex suffering from mold, leaks, poor heating, lead paint and vermin.

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YNNE PATTON knows how to put on a show. That does not mean, despite what you may have read, that she is a wedding planner. She was eager to correct the record as she sat down with City & State right after the tour. She sat in the same Patterson Houses apartment living room where she had spent the previous two nights. Monday night, on the air mattress. Tuesday night, on the sofa, after falling asleep watching “The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.”

Patton is comfortable around the multimillionaire set, thanks to her former occupation as a personal aide to the Trump family. She was hired in 2009 on the recommendation of Michael Cohen, Donald Trump’s then-personal lawyer who pleaded guilty in August to arranging illegal hush money payments during Trump’s presidential campaign. She started as a personal aide to Eric Trump, the president’s second-oldest son, and rose through the ranks to become vice president of the since-shuttered Eric Trump Foundation and chief of staff for the entire family, serving as an all-purpose scheduler and gatekeeper for the younger generation of Trumps: Don Jr., Ivanka, Eric and his wife Lara, and Tiffany. But when it came to Eric and Lara’s November 2014 nuptials at Mar-a-Lago, Patton insists she was just a friend pitching in. “If helping Lara pick out a wedding dress makes me a wedding planner,” she said, “then I guess every woman in America is a wedding planner!” Sure enough, reporting at the time had New York-based Jennifer Zabinski Events as the planner,

“If helping Lara pick out a wedding dress makes me a wedding planner, then I guess every woman in America is a wedding planner!” with help from floral and event designer Preston Bailey. Neither Zabinski nor Bailey responded to a request for comment.

But that didn’t stop the Daily News from deeming her the Trump family wedding planner in a June 2017 story on her appointment as regional administrator. Headline: THE WEDDING SCAMMER. The moniker got picked up widely, in The New York Times, The New Yorker and even Brides, a magazine that usually features stories like 31 Fresh Flower Table Runners for Every Wedding Style.

And even though she quickly tried to dispel it to the Times, the description has

stuck – the Daily News called her “Eric Trump’s wedding planner” as recently as January. As of last month, Wikipedia still called her “an event planner.” Patton said she tried to edit her own page to fix it, but the online encyclopedia sent her a notice back telling her she was wrong. “And I was like, ‘but I am Lynne Patton,’” she said, breaking out into laughter.

The persistence of the error fuels her theory that the “#FakeFuckingNews” is full of “glorified bloggers,” but Patton seems to take it all in stride. She refused to denigrate the original reporter, Greg B. Smith, who she said has done great inves-

March 4, 2019

tigative work, and the News’ “Wedding Scammer” cover now hangs on her office wall. After all, Patton clearly doesn’t mind the association with the Trump name. She name drops the Trumps constantly, emphasizing her friendship with America’s most famous family. On at least one occasion, Patton invoked Eric’s name in an official email. That was in the early days of the Trump administration, and she said she’s learned her lesson – even if her taking a government job has made it harder to be a friend. “Eric’s even scared to text me back!” she jokes, since Eric has to keep some professional distance while run-

City & State New York

ning the family business. “Does that mean we’re not friends? Of course not. We just had dinner the other night. But it’s just, we don’t talk about anything that has to do with government.”

H

OURS AFTER OUR INTERVIEW, Patton was insisting that she understood residents’ pain. On Patton’s Facebook livestream of a community center town hall that night, a middle-aged man who lived at Patterson Houses could be heard yelling at her for just dropping in for a few days.

“You don’t understand! I’ve been here be-

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fore! This is not new to me!” Patton shouts back into the microphone, noting that she had visited Patterson Houses twice before.

“Go on my page. We went to a ton of shithole apartments, as my boss would say. We went to a ton of them. They are horrible.”

The provocative comment earned some press scrutiny thanks to her reference to President Donald Trump’s notorious Oval Office aside about not wanting to admit more immigrants from “shithole countries” like Haiti and El Salvador. The phrase would’ve been shocking coming from any other president. And the term “shithole apartments” would’ve been shocking coming from a typical government appointee.

But Patton isn’t a typical appointee, and her social media feeds – Twitter, Facebook and Instagram – are constant streams of pro-Trump ephemera.

Patton jumped right on the Trump campaign’s golden escalator as a senior adviser when he first announced his candidacy in June 2015. As a black woman, Patton served as an important validator with two of the identity groups where the Trump campaign struggled. It was Patton who – allegedly without asking permission – published a heartfelt video in May 2016 defending “The Trump Family that I Know” against claims of racism. In it, Patton speaks over a montage of black and white photos of her with the family while somber piano music plays. “There is no amount of money in the world that could buy my loyalty to a family that subscribed to such intolerant and bigoted ideologies,” she says. Patton was subsequently given a primetime slot at the Republican National Convention to make the same point again. Her video played before she spoke.

When Trump took office, Patton was rewarded with a job as senior adviser to HUD Secretary Ben Carson. Five months later, she was appointed regional administrator, despite her lack of experience in housing policy or urban development.

But Patton still prioritizes her role as a black Trump ally over her role at HUD. The City reported that Patton skipped a conference for all HUD regional administrators in order to attend Cohen’s riveting testimony before the House Oversight and Reform Committee. She was a guest of North Carolina Rep. Mark Meadows, a Trump ally who was once considered for White House chief of staff. “Do you know Lynne Patton? …

You made some very demeaning comments about the president that Ms. Patton doesn’t agree with!” Meadows told Cohen, who had sought to portray the president as a racist to the committee. “She says that as the daughter of a man born in Birmingham, Alabama, that there is no way that she would work for an individual who is racist.”

“And neither should I, as the son of a Holocaust survivor,” Cohen responded. The

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sentiment left unspoken: But I did it anyway.

During the exchange, Patton stood behind Meadows, wordlessly, in a performance that New York Times reporter Nick Confessore called “the ‘some of my best friends are black’ defense, in human form.” Michigan Rep. Rashida Tlaib accused Meadows of using Patton as “a prop.” Patton’s response: “Today was not about the color of my skin.

Today was about two people who know the president equally and who disagree about the way he is being characterized.”

T

HE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT is the primary funder of NYCHA, which expects to get some $1.8 billion in operating and capital funds for public housing from Washington this year. The federal government, in the form of HUD, also oversees NYCHA – and HUD is tightening the leash. Carson, as HUD secretary, and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, at the top of the NYCHA leadership chain, signed a court-ordered agreement on Jan. 31 mandating the placement of a federal monitor to keep the housing authority on track to meet tangible goals like eliminating lead paint and maintaining consistent heating in apartments. By its own accounting, NYCHA needs $32 billion to get every apartment in all 325 complexes into a state of good repair. The agreement requires New York City to spend some $2.2 billion over the next 10 years on capital repairs, but there’s no mention on federal funding commitments, which will continue to be negotiated on a yearly basis.

Patton has taken it upon herself to sell the deal to residents. In her eyes, HUD is the savior that will finally bring order to NYCHA and better living conditions for its more than 400,000 residents – #ChangeIsComing. In speeches and statements and on TV, she mentions how much money the federal government already sends NYCHA. She takes credit for a rare increase in federal funding last year – even though it was Congress that approved a funding increase after Trump first proposed a cut. Now she’s promising the press that the president is personally paying attention to NYCHA. Could more funding be on the way?

Patton’s role in the NYCHA agreement appears to have been limited. One former HUD regional administrator, who spoke anonymously to City & State in order to speak frankly, said it’s more of a management role than a policy role, and even at that, most New York employees report to higher-ups in HUD’s Washington office rather than to Patton. Most of the previous holders of the office had backgrounds in housing or economic development, but not all – most notably de Blasio, who served under then-HUD Secretary Andrew Cuomo. Patton has built

March 4, 2019

Judith Maldonado’s Patterson Houses apartment, left, and the complex’s Community Center, right, both have visible water damage.

“I grew up with more money than God in Connecticut.” a higher profile than any of them. De Blasio earned half a dozen mentions in the Times during his roughly two years as regional administrator. Patton already has 15 mentions, and countless more in the tabloids.

For the record, a NYCHA spokesperson said employees were not instructed to change their normal maintenance routine for Patton, but tabloid stories – and residents’ testimony – suggested otherwise, as Patterson Houses seemed cleaned up during her stay. NYCHA declined comment any further on Patton.

Patton’s high-profile role is “wacky,” the

former administrator said, because she is acting like an advocate, rather than somebody who works for the agency that recommends how much funding to give NYCHA. Patton is taking a gamble with all these public appearances and sleepovers, making promises to NYCHA residents who have learned not to trust NYCHA after being promised a bill of goods time and time again that never seems to come.

“If this works, and there’s money or changes at NYCHA that are for the better, that is great,” the former HUD administra-

March 4, 2019

“We went to a ton of shithole apartments, as my boss would say. We went to a ton of them. They are horrible.”

tor said. “If this becomes a huge public media extravaganza that results in nothing, we’ve just dug ourselves deeper into this ongoing cycle of promises and distrust.”

P

ATTON’S LOYALTY to the Trumps is unquestioned, but she has managed to cultivate relationships and earn respect across the aisle. Those that have worked with Patton all credit her with studying up on housing policy when she got the job. While she’ll defend HUD to the death on Twitter,

City & State New York

she has been known in private to push back on official policies, like Carson’s scuttled proposal to raise NYCHA tenants’ rent to 35 percent of their gross income, up from 30 percent. She has been accessible and eager to work with New York’s fiercely anti-Trump elected officials, including New York City Councilman Ritchie Torres, a progressive Bronx Democrat who used to chair the council’s public housing committee. “I find (Patton) to be far better than the administration for which she works,” Torres told City & State. “Because I’ve come to know her on a personal level.” New York City Councilwoman Alicka Ampry-Samuel, the current public housing chairwoman, meets with Patton regularly and agreed that Trump and presidential politics have never been on the table.

“When I talk to Lynne, we talk sister to sister,” Ampry-Samuel told City & State.

“One woman of color to the other. We relate on that level, two women trying to make a difference in the world.”

Many who have worked with her agree that she has a genuine ability to connect with people – even those that find her politics abhorrent. “I’ve toured NYCHA developments with people. And you can tell the difference when somebody cares or they don’t care,” Ampry-Samuel said. “She seems like she cares.”

That empathy has been the glue that has kept Patton’s NYCHA sleepovers from becoming a total punchline. Unlike Carson, her boss at HUD, Patton’s story didn’t start with her growing up in government-subsidized housing. Patton is the daughter of Curtis Patton, a legendary Yale University epidemiologist, and grew up in Connecticut “with more money than God,” as she put it in one of her tweets. She attended Tabor Academy, an elite boarding school in Massachusetts, and graduated from the University of Miami in 1996. She briefly went to law school at Quinnipiac University but dropped out and joined the legal world anyway, working as a paralegal for more than a decade while also, occasionally, acting. She was getting ready for job at a Stamford, Connecticut, law firm one morning in 2005 when she caught video on the “Today” show of people struggling after Hurricane Katrina. Patton said she was so moved by the suffering that she called out of work and went straight to the local offices of the American Red Cross to see how she could help. She ended up managing temporary shelters in Louisiana for a couple months in the hurricane’s aftermath. She wasn’t a storm victim, but she took their pain to heart – just like she’s doing now, with public housing residents.

It’s what spurred this sleepover plan, her own idea after seeing a New York Post headline – “Cold Hearted: Thousands in NYCHA complex left without heat, hot

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water.” So she announced a plan to spend weeknights away from her apartment at Trump Plaza in New Rochelle, away from her live-in boyfriend of a decade, Andrew Hayduk, who works for real estate developer the Cappelli Organization, and away from her Shih Tzu, Winston, to move into into some of the most maligned housing in the city.

The entire experiment often feels like an awkward publicity stunt. Here’s Patton dancing for the cameras. There’s Patton tweeting photos of rats. Here’s Patton, waving and winking at the camera while stuck – literally stuck, for 20 minutes – in an elevator overloaded with journalists. The spectacle has led Brooklyn state Sen. Zellnor Myrie to dub it “poverty voyeurism” on Twitter – and that’s among the lesser insults she’s received on social media.

Before our interview, Patton posed for photos for this story, first in the living room where she was staying, then out in the hallway among the graffitti, where she offered a suggestion. “I think this is what people want to see. It’s a little more gritty,” she said. “Inside, that could be anyone’s living room.”

Patton asked to keep her sunglasses on top of her her head for the shoot, an idiosyncratic style choice that she maintained in an on-set TV interview with NY1, at the U.S. Capitol during Cohen’s testimony, and in countless photos on social media.

“It’s kind of become an inside joke at this point,” she explained when asked about it.

“There’s no rhyme or reason behind it.”

Then Patton posed by an apartment door that somebody had glammed up, outlining 5B in rhinestones. “To me it’s like, even in the worst situation, people can find a way to make things personal and pretty.”

A

FTER SHE MENTIONED NYCHA’s “shithole apartments” during the Patterson Houses town hall, Patton got more personal with the crowd. Withhold your judgement about me, she exhorted, even though “I obviously work for a president that some of you may not have voted for.”

At best, that was an understatement.

According to the Times’ precinct vote reports, 1,420 residents of the Patterson Houses voted in the 2016 presidential election. Forty of them voted for Trump, earning him 2.8 percent of the Patterson Houses vote.

But there in front of the cameras, journalists and viewers on Facebook, Patton promised that she and HUD would finally fix up their homes. “This is not about politics. This is about the people. And quite frankly, shame on anybody who does make it about politics, because that’s not why we’re here. We are here to effectuate real change.”

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SHORTCHANG STUDENTS 14

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March 4, 2019

Cuomo blames the school districts. Lawmakers blame Cuomo. Either way, poorer schools aren’t getting the funding they need.

by Z A C H W I L L I A M S

clude state Sen. Robert Jackson, who was the lead plaintiff in the landmark 2006 Campaign for Fiscal Equity ruling, and state Sen. Shelley Mayer, who represents a nearby Westchester County district, chairs the Education Committee. “The Assembly Democratic conference always fought tooth and nail to get more money for school funding,” Mayer said in December. “We just couldn’t always get all that was deserved. So I’m hopeful that

this is a great moment to move forward on this very basic priority for every district.

That’s the No. 1 issue.”

But with just a month until the April 1 state budget deadline, significant disagreements on school funding remain between Cuomo – with his proposed $27.7 billion education budget – and key Democratic lawmakers who want to push that number higher. At the heart of the dispute is the Campaign for Fiscal Equity

OFFICE OF THE GOVERNOR

O

N A TREE-LINED ROAD in the heart of Westchester County, it is easy to assume that Brookside Elementary School in Ossining is a stereotypical well-funded suburban school. Property taxes in the county are higher than anywhere else in the country, and the population is still increasing, just like it was in the 1960s when the fictional Sally Draper of “Mad Men” fame attended Brookside.

Things are very different now though, according to Ray Sanchez, superintendent of the Ossining Union Free School District. Rising enrollment meant the school library was split in two in order to create a new classroom. Students learning English as a second language study in a space behind a curtain as cafeteria workers prepare lunch on the other side. A combination of increasing enrollment, rising poverty and more special-needs students mean that the district needs more state funding to keep up, Sanchez said. “Those three things in my opinion should be driving dollars to help address the various needs that exist,” he said. The $85,000 funding increase in Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s proposed state budget is not enough for the district’s six schools, according to Sanchez, who has joined with other superintendents to form a group called the Harmed Suburban Five.

There are reasons for Sanchez and other educators to be optimistic about their funding prospects in the upcoming year.

Democrats won big majorities in the state Senate and Assembly last year in part on a platform of increasing funding for public schools. Newly elected legislators in-

GING March 4, 2019

City & State New York

“It was a scam. You gave money to the poorer district, but they didn’t give it to the poorer schools.”

– G ov. A n dr ew Cuomo

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March 4, 2019

SHELLEY MAYER FIGHTING FOR MORE FOUNDATION AID WHAT DO YOU MAKE OF GOV. ANDREW CUOMO’S PROPOSAL TO INCREASE EDUCATION SPENDING BY ABOUT $1 BILLION? No. 1, I believe for all of us, is getting more Foundation Aid, particularly focused on schools and districts with the greatest need. There are unique circumstances that we must address, but we need to get more money on the table, and we are going to continue to press for that.

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF HIS PROPOSAL THAT SCHOOL DISTRICTS DEVELOP EQUITY PLANS TO STEER NEW FUNDING TO HIGH-NEED SCHOOLS? I do not think that is a well-designed proposal to target funds to schools in need. The data on which the decisions are made, in my opinion, is not analyzed correctly. In other words, a school may be in a higher-income community within a community but it may have more expensive costs. I think the proposal is punitive in insisting that if the money does not go to those schools, the district should lose that funding. So I am not in favor of that and I hope that my colleagues reject it.

HOW ABOUT CUOMO’S PLAN TO CONSOLIDATE MULTIPLE AID PROGRAMS INTO ONE TO SAVE COSTS? I think the bundling of the reimbursement aid is a serious mistake. Districts need to have some predictability that they are going to be reimbursed for absolutely essential things. For example, one district official told me that they had to all of a sudden negotiate a new bus contract. Why are we bundling and ultimately trying to drive down the reimbursements for essential costs that are part of running a school district? I think it’s a mistake and I think it should be rejected.

WHAT CAN LEGISLATORS DO TO GET MORE FOUNDATION AID IN THE BUDGET? We are going to have the Senate one-house bill and I hope that reflects substantial additional funding for Foundation Aid. Having served in the Assembly for six years, I can only hope and anticipate that they do the same, and then we’ll negotiate.

In 2007, in the wake of the Campaign for Fiscal Equity ruling, New York agreed to increase its Foundation Aid funding to New York City schools. But the state has since fallen short.

FUNDING (IN BILLIONS)

CHAIRWOMAN, STATE SENATE EDUCATION COMMITTEE

HOW MUCH THE STATE HAS BEEN SHORTCHANGING NYC SCHOOLS

ACTUAL FOUNDATION AID FUNDING TO CITY SCHOOLS ADDITIONAL FOUNDATION AID PROMISED Source: New York City Independent Budget Office

“The governor’s plan to address the supposed ‘inequities’ within districts is a smoke-and-mirrors game intended to erase the Campaign for Fiscal Equity.� – stat e Se n. R obert Jac k son

ruling to provide a sound basic education for all students. Legislation enacted after the ruling – the State Education Budget and Reform Act – allocated $5.5 billion in funding for Foundation Aid, which was meant to help poorer school districts, but that funding dried up once the Great Recession hit in 2009. Lawmakers say the state owes more than $4 billion in retroactive Foundation Aid funding to school districts statewide and want $1.66 billion of it this year. Cuomo has disagreed – saying in December that the Foundation Aid program and CFE lawsuit were “ghosts of the past� – but proposed $338 million in additional funding nonetheless.

Teachers, school officials, activists and the state Board of Regents back the law-

makers, but Cuomo has substantial leverage over the budget process. Plus, an unexpected $2.3 billion budget shortfall makes money even tighter in Albany.

The lawmakers’ push for more education funding is also complicated by two other proposals in the executive budget.

One would increase the state’s authority over how aid reaches individual schools, and another would consolidate a variety of aid programs – measures that some key lawmakers say need to be dropped before a budget deal can be reached. “We are all talking about the same thing, education equity,� Mayer said in a recent interview. “This is the path to the middle class for these students, but they have to have the really strong basics (that) an ap-

STATE SENATE, ASSEMBLY

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March 4, 2019

propriately funded school can provide.”

In practice, Cuomo and state lawmakers have very different ideas about what “equity” means. With the highest per-pupil spending in the nation, Cuomo has argued for months that more needs to be done to ensure that districts allocate increases in education funding to the schools that need it most. Beginning with the 2017-2018 school year, New York City schools and 75 other school districts had to report how much they spent per student at each of their schools. A total of 306 districts will do the same this year, with all 674 districts that receive Foundation Aid reporting such data next year.

The data reported by the first 76 districts is at the heart of Cuomo’s argument that districts must be compelled to direct more to schools with relatively low per-pupil spending. A November report from the the Rockefeller Institute of Government found that the poorest schools in New York City get 12 percent less per student than the wealthiest schools. In Buffalo, the poorest schools received 26 percent less per student than the richest schools. Cuomo called the current school funding formula a “scam” in January. “You gave money to the poorer district, but they didn’t give it to the poorer schools,” he said.

The governor’s budget proposal would require districts to prepare “equity plans” – subject to the review and approval of the state Education Department – to detail how they will increase per-pupil spending at high-need schools, as defined by the state Division of the Budget. “The school district is responsible for coming up with a plan, and in doing so, they maintain local control,” said Morris Peters, a budget division spokesman. “Only if the school district fails in their responsibility to develop an approvable plan would (the state Education Department) intercede as a backstop, but the intent is for the local school district to tackle the important problem of school inequity with their own solution.”

Critics like Jackson insist that Cuomo’s proposal only moves the state further away from its original Foundation Aid targets. “The Governor’s plan to address the supposed ‘inequities’ within districts is a smoke-and-mirrors game intended to erase the Campaign for Fiscal Equity,” he said in a Feb. 4 statement. “But the Foundation Aid formula must be fulfilled.”

Critics say categorizing which schools count as wealthier than others is all relative. “The Buffalo schools that the Rockefeller report classifies as wealthy have student poverty rates as high as 77 percent,” the Alliance for Quality Education said in a press release. “The same pattern exists in other high need districts

City & State New York

included in the report.”

Lawmakers, activists and educators are also skeptical of a proposal to consolidate several different funding programs into a single funding source. In past years, this funding was used to reimburse districts for expenses like new school buses, computers and textbooks. But Cuomo’s plan to cut costs by streamlining the process makes some lawmakers suspicious about how a wide range of expenses would have to compete against each other. “That’s just a naked attempt to reduce the overall amount of aid for these functional budgets,” said state Sen. John Liu, chairman of the New York City Education Committee.

At a Feb. 6 legislative budget hearing, lawmakers, school administrators and activists were largely opposed to Cuomo’s changes and the amount of education aid that he proposed. State Education Commissioner MaryEllen Elia noted in her testimony that she and the Board of Regents recommended $1.3 billion more in Foundation Aid than Cuomo, and multiple advocates and experts argued that judging equity by comparing per-pupil spending can be misleading. “School spending isn’t like water,” according to testimony from the New York State Council of School Superintendents. “One glass is a bit low, so pour a little more water in that one.” Jennifer Pyle, executive director of the Conference of Big 5 School Districts – which represents Buffalo, New York City, Rochester, Syracuse and Yonkers – said that school-level reporting requirements add another layer of administrative work while providing data of questionable value. New York City schools Chancellor Richard Carranza testified that school administrators have a complex decision-making process to figure out how new school funding should divvied up among 1,600 schools – rather than basing those decisions largely on per-pupil spending.

Democrats may now have strong majorities in the state Legislature, but the dynamics of this year’s education funding battle could boil down to the same bottom line as in years past. “It’s always a difficult time trying to find money for all the good things in government,” said Assemblyman Michael Benedetto, who chairs the Education Committee. “It is not just education, you’re also talking about health and transportation too. These are all important needs that our state must somehow fund. … Certainly though, the education of our children is paramount and that has to be one of the principal things we look at. That’s what we are going to be trying to do in the next few weeks and hopefully, by the end, we will find a way to satisfy all of those needs.”

■

17

MICHAEL BENEDETTO CHAIRMAN, ASSEMBLY EDUCATION COMMITTEE

IDENTIFYING HIGH-NEED DISTRICTS THE GOVERNOR WANTS SCHOOL DISTRICTS TO DIRECT FUNDING INCREASES TOWARD SCHOOLS WITH LOWER PER-PUPIL SPENDING. WHAT DO YOU MAKE OF HIS PLAN? On the face of it, I’m not very happy about that. I want to see how he calculates highneeds districts, and I am kind of resistant to the idea of the governor possibly micromanaging the various school districts. The superintendents and the individual schools know best what their needs are. They should be able to be the ones that are planning how best to use the money. Schools can vary from area to area, community to community.

WHAT ABOUT CUOMO’S IDEA TO CONSOLIDATE FUNDING STREAMS THAT REIMBURSE SCHOOLS FOR DIFFERENT EXPENSES? That’s another thing that I don’t think we’re too happy with. I think the individual school districts would like to see that aid not put into a block grant. They might want more freedom, and I think in the long run the individual districts will be losing money if they do it the governor’s way. It always boils down to money and getting enough money for the schools and how much that money is is always going to be a contested amount of money. There is no doubt about the fact that the school districts need more money – a lot more money than what the governor has put on the table now. Our challenge is to convince him of our position.

CAN YOU WIN OVER THE GOVERNOR TO PROVIDE $4.9 BILLION MORE IN FOUNDATION AID OVER THREE YEARS? That might be a long reach, but I believe it’s a reach that we have to make because our schools need it if they are to effectively deal with their students – both educationally and socially. You can’t just throw out a formula that’s there without showing us what you plan to do. This was a formula that came about after the Campaign for Fiscal Equity case was settled. It was a formula that was designed to effectively show what is needed in the school districts around the state.

I don’t want to move on to another formula without first seeing how that formula is going to be developed.

CityAndStateNY.com

JOHN LIU CHAIRMAN, STATE SENATE NEW YORK CITY EDUCATION COMMITTEE

CUOMO’S POWER GRAB? GOV. ANDREW CUOMO’S PROPOSED BUDGET INCLUDES A $338 MILLION INCREASE IN FOUNDATION AID, FAR SHORT OF THE $1.66 BILLION INCREASE THAT ADVOCATES WANTED. WHAT HAPPENED?

March 4, 2019

The governor made it clear back in December that he didn’t think much of this long-standing court order. I believe he called it a Ghost of Christmas Past. Many of us in the Senate do not agree with that. Not only is the $338 million woefully inadequate, but the executive budget contains provisions that simply deserve to be stripped out.

To have the state Division of the Budget usurp authority over the judgement of local school districts – which actually have to run the schools – is not good public policy and I believe those stipulations should be stripped out. It’s nothing more than rhetoric to say that the executive budget directs money to the higher needs districts. Who is to say that the state Division of the Budget has any better judgment about which schools are high needs?

WHAT ABOUT THIS PROPOSED CONSOLIDATION

OF DIFFERENT TYPES OF REIMBURSEMENTS FOR SCHOOLS THAT BUY THINGS LIKE COMPUTERS AND TEXTBOOKS? That’s just a naked attempt to reduce the overall amount of aid for these functional budgets.

HOW DOES NEW YORK CITY FARE IN THIS PROPOSED BUDGET COMPARED TO OTHER AREAS OF THE STATE? This is simply not a downstate-upstate issue. We are all in it together. An increase of $1.66 billion in Foundation Aid would actually benefit upstate schools proportionally more than New York City schools, while nonetheless providing all schools with the badly needed additional funding.

THERE’S BEEN A LOT MADE OF DIVISIONS AMONG DEMOCRATIC LAWMAKERS EVER SINCE

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THE AMAZON DEAL FELL APART. COULD THOSE DIVISIONS COME UP AGAIN IN THIS FIGHT OVER EDUCATION FUNDING? So you went through all of those earlier questions before you got to your real question? The Amazon deal was a lot of things to many people and nothing to many people. People will have differences in opinions on anything as big as the Amazon issue. The failure of the Amazon deal will not distract from the needs for more Foundation Aid. That need existed long before, and in fact was validated by the courts, and that need exists today. The Amazon deal was not going to be part of this year’s budget by any stretch of the imagination. Our competitive advantage in New York state is education. That’s where our long-term sustainable investments should be made. Not in short-term, shortsighted tax breaks.

ERIC MCNATT; JOHN MCCARTEN/NEW YORK CITY COUNCIL

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March 4, 2019

City & State New York

MARK TREYGER

workers. They need more guidance counselors. That’s what our school communities are asking for.

CHAIRMAN, NEW YORK CITY COUNCIL EDUCATION COMMITTEE

NITTY-GRITTY IN THE CITY HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT NEW YORK CITY MAYOR BILL DE BLASIO’S PRELIMINARY BUDGET, WHICH MANDATED SOME EDUCATION CUTS? I am not happy that there was a cut – actually, a complete wipeout – of all the funds that we just put in place in the past year for social workers to meet the needs of students in temporary housing. We fought very hard to set an increase last year of 20 additional bridging-thegap social workers to get the number over 70 when we need actually over 150 in my

opinion, even more. And (de Blasio) took all that money out in this preliminary budget! Here we go again, this classic budget dance, which to me is outrageous. Because you cannot play politics with students – and especially our most vulnerable students.

He did say, at the same time, that they found some areas of waste in the DOE budget to the tune of $23 million in consulting contracts. OK! I think there’s room for that to be cut. But don’t play with our kids. They need social

NEW YORK CITY IS ABOUT TO HIT THE STATE-MANDATED CAP FOR OPERATING CHARTER SCHOOLS. SHOULD MORE CHARTER SCHOOLS BE ALLOWED TO OPEN? No. It cannot just be a simple conversation or debate about what the number should be. The question should be what impact have (charter schools) had. We still have great disparities and inequity in our school system. Is this the conversation we need to have at the eleventh hour of every budget deal in Albany?

I am not in favor of raising the cap. I am in favor of getting every school 100 percent of what they’re entitled to.

THE MAYOR UNVEILED A PLAN LAST SUMMER TO GET RID OF THE SPE-

CIALIZED HIGH SCHOOL ADMISSIONS TEST – THE ENTRANCE EXAM FOR THE CITY’S ELITE HIGH SCHOOLS – BUT THINGS HAVE BEEN QUIET SINCE THEN. WOULD THE CITY COUNCIL DO ANYTHING HERE? I was very disappointed in how the mayor rolled this out.

Not one person from DOE or the mayor’s office met with me to say, “Councilman Treyger, we need to work on the specialized high school issue.” This was all thrown out at the eleventh hour right before Albany session ended in June. One test does not fully capture the abilities of a student. At the same time, abolishing one test is not going to be the game-changer that some folks are talking about. I think if they’re very serious with dealing with the foundational issues here, then we need to start at the elementary school level and work our way up.

IT’S TIME FOR CORPORATE GREED TO STOP JEOPARDIZING THE FUTURE OF NY’S MINORITY AND IMMIGRANT STUDENTS I want to share a secret with you. Something you’ll never hear on cable news or in the halls of Congress: Tax cuts are government spending.

I know, I was shocked when I read it too. For decades the Republican Party has told us tax cuts to corporations and the top tax brackets pay for themselves. The idea is if a giant corporation has more money on hand they will hire more people and give raises to their workers. Rich people, we’re told, will create jobs if they give less of their fortune to the government. It’ll “trickle down” to the rest of us.

But we already know what actually happens when the Republicans cut taxes. The wealthy have more money, corporations buy back stock, repatriate cash from tax havens, outsource jobs, and give massive payouts to shareholders.

Meanwhile, our infrastructure, healthcare, and public schools are left to rot. And we have teachers buying school supplies with their own wages because all our money goes to support corporations and the investment class. We should all be horrified and embarrassed by this.

Thankfully the Republican Party isn’t in control of the House anymore. If trickle down propagator,

former Speaker Paul Ryan had his way, we’d be back in a medieval feudal system where the poor toil daily to support the monarchs and “landed gentry”.

The truth is that a series of detailed studies by the organization, the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP), show that the biggest and most profitable corporations have, as a group, been able to shelter nearly half of their profits from taxation. Not only were these latest tax cuts a lie, (many middle class and working people got a tax hike for example), what was cut was money for schools. Remember, tax cuts are another term for government spending, the Republicans chose corporate welfare over child welfare. The money they gleefully handed over to billionaires is money we’re not spending on public education; not spending on minority or immigrant children or those with special needs; not spending on training for the jobs of today—let alone the jobs of tomorrow.

Right now we underfund our schools and then chastise teachers for not doing more with less.

We’re setting up our teachers, schools and future for failure. Equal rights and equal opportunity start with equal education. “The excellence gap,

the disparity in achievement levels between low-income and higher-income children with equal abilities, appears in elementary school and continues as students move through middle school, high school, college and beyond,” said Crystal Bonds president of CLASS Coalition, an organization dedicated to closing that gap in opportunity for all students.

What I learned in school is the vital importance of sharing, especially with those less fortunate than I. I learned about a country that valued upward mobility and hard work and not solely people whose money works for them. I learned about generosity. Leadership in its best form is generosity, as the saying goes.

It’s time to start demanding corporations support the communities they will depend on for future employees and for strong, collaborative leadership both in our community structures as well as across schools.

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March 4, 2019

WANTED T

HIS MONTH, New York City is on track to hit the limit on charter schools allowed in the five boroughs. The dwindling number of slots to create such schools poses a threat to the charter school movement, which has been buffeted by shifting political winds in recent months and is unlikely to have the clout to raise the state cap on charter schools.

“This is the definition of crisis,” James Merriman, the CEO of the New York City Charter School Center, said in January.

“As of today, no principal, no teacher, no leader, no matter how driven, talented or proven, will be able to start a new independent public school in our city. We are leaving great ideas and untold opportunity on the table while tens of thousands of children languish in schools that city leaders themselves admit are not currently up to

A CHARTER SCHOOL CHAMPION

As NYC approaches its cap, the movement lacks the firepower it once had. the task of educating them.”

It wasn’t so long ago that Merriman and other charter school operators and advocates had powerful backers in both parties in Albany, where laws overseeing charter schools are crafted. But a number of proponents have fallen out of power, while others have shifted focus to other issues.

GOV. ANDREW CUOMO

The governor famously stood with charter school advocates at an Albany rally in 2014, but he has since shifted to the left and embraced teachers unions, which are generally against charters. But he did propose an increase of $37 million in funding for charters this year.

JEFF KLEIN

One of the most powerful Democrats in Albany after forming the Independent Democratic Conference, Jeff Klein was a staunch charter school

supporter. But he was ousted in a primary last year and his conference is now defunct.

STATE SEN. JOHN FLANAGAN

State Senate Republicans were reliable allies of charter schools, but state Sen. John Flanagan, the conference leader, lost his majority and has much less clout as minority leader.

NEW YORK CITY COUNCILMAN RUBÉN DÍAZ SR.

The elder Rubén Díaz has had less of a say over charters since he left the state Senate to serve closer to home. His controversial remarks about gay members of the City Council also resulted in him being stripped of his committee chairmanship.

EVA MOSKOWITZ

The leader of Success Academy Charter Schools has taken a few political hits. One was when

then-Success Academy board Chairman Daniel Loeb accused state Sen. Andrea Stewart-Cousins, who is black, of doing “more damage to people of color than anyone who has ever donned a hood.” And another was for her flirtation with joining the Trump administration.

WHO’S LEFT?

But perhaps there’s a glimmer of hope for charters. At least three state lawmakers who support charters have moved up the ranks in recent years. Bronx Assemblyman Marcos Crespo has long been a supporter of charter schools in his district, and is arguably the most powerful Democratic county leader in the city now that Joseph Crowley of Queens has resigned.

Assemblywoman Crystal Peoples-Stokes, another supporter, was recently promoted to majority leader. Luis Sepúlveda moved up from the Assembly to the state Senate last year.

■

DARREN MCGEE/OFFICE OF THE GOVERNOR

Cuomo spoke at a pro-charter rally in 2014 with thenAssemblymen Mark Gjonaj and Karim Camara, Klein, Sepúlveda, then-state Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos, Díaz and Flanagan.

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EDUCATIONAL RESCUE Cuomo promised to help students drowning in debt.

Has New York delivered?

T

WO YEARS AGO, Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s free college tuition proposal enticed support from all corners of the Democratic Party. U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont joined Cuomo for the announcement of the Excelsior Scholarship, the state’s ambitious financial aid program for low- and middle-income SUNY and CUNY students, in January 2017. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton sat next to Cuomo as he signed the bill into law in April 2017 that created the program.

It was an idea that attracted so much attention because the rising cost of college has burdened more students with more debt.

Total student loan debt more than doubled in New York between 2006 and 2015, increasing from $38.8 billion to $82 billion,

according to the most recent report from the state comptroller’s office. The number of students taking out loans also sharply increased during that time frame, going up 41 percent to 2.8 million borrowers in the state.

Now that the free tuition program is well underway, how is New York doing at mitigating the rise in student debt?

“There are more New Yorkers in debt now than ever before, and the amount that each graduate is indebted has also increased,” said Eli Dvorkin, director of editorial and policy at the Center for an Urban Future, a think tank. “It’s gone from about $20,000 a decade ago to over $30,000 per graduate today. So there’s no question that we’re a part of the national trend and that the student loan debt in New York has reached crisis levels.”

The state has long offered a number of

tuition assistance programs to defray the expense of attending its public institutions. These programs, such as the Tuition Assistance Program, Opportunity Programs and the new Excelsior Scholarship, help make New York a leader in keeping higher education costs low and expanding access to low- and middle-income families, according to a November report by the Rockefeller Institute of Government.

TAP is the largest of these programs – and the largest need-based financial aid program in the country – accounting for 95 percent of the state’s total college grant aid. It is aimed at offering direct assistance to working-class New Yorkers attending public universities. TAP awards up to $5,165 a year to qualifying students who have a maximum annual household in-

MINDMO/SHUTTERSTOCK

by A L Y S S A S I M S

March 4, 2019

City & State New York

Total student loan debt in New York (in billions)

23

Average student loan balance in New York

Source: New York state Comptroller’s Office come of $80,000, and the average award is $3,320 per student. (In 2017, the annual cost of tuition at SUNY was $6,470 and $6,330 at CUNY.) “For students who graduate out of CUNY, where a significant amount get full TAP benefits, something like 60 percent of the students graduate without tuition debt, and there is a very significant number of students who likewise come out of SUNY

with no tuition debt,� said Assemblywoman Deborah Glick, who chairs the Higher Education Committee. “Students who have a mortgage on their education can’t afford a mortgage on a house, undermining their ability to participate in the economy. This demonstrates the strength and necessity of TAP, not only as a resource for education, but also as a vehicle for social mobility.�

Glick told City & State that she wants to

focus on raising the cap for the TAP award, potentially to $6,000, and reducing the gap in coverage that schools have to fill for poorer students, a need echoed by state Sen. Toby Ann Stavisky, chairwoman of the Higher Education Committee. Stavisky, alongside state Sen. James Skoufis, introduced a bill to increase the minimum TAP award from $500 to $750 and to increase the program’s income cap from $80,000 to

CUNY ESTABLISHES A NEW SCHOOL DEDICATED TO PUBLIC SERVICE AND SOCIAL JUSTICE

25 West 43rd Street, 19th Floor

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CityAndStateNY.com

$95,000. The Senate passed the bill in January and it is now in the hands of the Assembly. “There hasn’t been an increase in the maximum award in the last five years, so we feel that we should be increasing that as well,” Stavisky said.

Filling in New York’s financial aid gaps has long been a concern among politicians and researchers, and it was one of the problems legislators tried to solve after Cuomo unleashed his idea of free tuition.

“There were some cases where people were paying for school, but they were taking on some student loan debt because it was maybe two or three thousand extra dollars that they had to take on or not finish a class, but if you could just provide an additional fiscal enhancement through tuition, you could actually make sure that they graduated on time,” said Rockefeller Institute of Government President Jim Malatras about the impetus for creating the Excelsior Scholarship. Malatras was a senior official in the Cuomo administration, serving as his chief policy adviser and director of state operations, and he helped draft the Excelsior Scholarship bill.

“We wanted to make sure that people were actually getting through the program and graduating because we had low tuition, but people were still taking on student loan debt and taking on costs, which is sort of

March 4, 2019

bizarre,” Malatras said. “But when you kind of peel the onion back a little bit, it was because people aren’t graduating, and if you could just lower the overall costs of college, you can allow people to finish.”

The Excelsior Scholarship covers tuition costs after other types of financial aid have been exhausted by students taking a full class load, set to graduate on time and from families who met the income requirements. Families making up to $110,000 in the 2018-19 school year were eligible for the scholarship, with the cap set to rise to $125,000 this fall.

The rollout of the Excelsior Scholarship was slightly rocky: two-thirds of the first round of applicants were rejected, many for not taking the required class load of 30 credits per year.

But, the program is only in its second year, and Malatras pointed to early successes like an uptick in applications to New York’s public universities and solid retention rates for scholarship recipients. “I think some of the early indications of what you see under the Excelsior program is that retention rates are up among SUNY students in the Excelsior class,” he said. “So I think the early pieces suggest that it does serve some of its intended purpose.”

More than 20,000 students were awarded the Excelsior Scholarship in its first

year, which, like TAP, is administered by the state Higher Education Services Corp.

In a January statement to the state Senate Finance Committee and the Assembly Ways and Means Committee, the Higher Education Services Corp. said that student retention was higher among Excelsior students (76 percent) compared to other students (68 percent).

The Center for an Urban Future also analyzed data for the first year of the Excelsior Scholarship and said that the low participation in the program was due, in part, to its somewhat narrow scope and what Dvorkin called “really stringent” requirements. Dvorkin highlighted the course load prerequisite as unfavorable to the lowest income students who may not be able to enroll at 30 credits per year due to other responsibilities, such as a job or taking care of a family member.

State lawmakers have been working on fixing problems that have surfaced with the Excelsior program since it launched.

“It’s a really fine program that does need some adjustments – the same way as if you buy a new car, you need a tuneup every once in a while,” Stavisky said. “That’s what we’re going to be doing with the Excelsior program. We’re going to fine tune it so that more students will be eligible and hopefully graduate with less debt.

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PUBLIC and LEGAL NOTICES / CityAndStateNY.com

March 4, 2019

SUPREME COURT COUNTY OF KINGS U.S. BANK TRUST, N.A. AS TRUSTEE FOR LSF8 MASTER PARTICIPATION TRUST, Plaintiff against JOSEPH FIORE AKA JOSEPH FRANCIS FIORE, et al Defendant(s).

March 4, 2019 For more info.

212-268-0442 Ext.2039

Email

legalnotices@cityandstateny.com Notice of Formation of MasterPlan Studio, LLC filed with SSNY on 12/17/18. Office: NY Co. SSNY des. agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served.

SSNY shall mail copy of process to LLC: 1009 Park Ave, NYC 10028. Purpose: any lawful act or activity.

NOTICE OF SALE SUPREME COURT COUNTY OF KINGS MTGLQ Investors, LP, Plaintiff AGAINST Oliver Barrett; et al., Defendant(s) Pursuant to a Judgment of Foreclosure and Sale duly dated November 28, 2018 I, the undersigned Referee will sell at public auction at the Kings County Supreme Court, 360 Adams Street, Room 224, Brooklyn, NY 11201 on February 21, 2019 at 2:30PM, premises known as 1740 East 54th Street, Brooklyn, NY 11234. All that certain plot piece or parcel of land, with the buildings and improvements erected, situate, lying and being in the Borough of Brooklyn, County of Kings, City and State of NY, Block 8493 Lot 71. Approximate amount of judgment $685,206.78 plus interest and costs. Premises will be sold subject to provisions of filed Judgment Index# 500455/2016.

Jack Segal, Esq., Referee Shapiro, DiCaro & Barak, LLC Attorney(s) for the Plaintiff 175 Mile Crossing Boulevard Rochester, New York 14624 (877) 430-4792 Dated: December 14, 2018 59942

Notice of Qualification of Copley Coffee Kitchen, LLC. Authority filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 01/17/19. Office location: NY County.

LLC formed in Delaware (DE) on 01/10/19. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served.

SSNY shall mail process to: c/o Copley Coffee Holdings, LLC, 150 Newport Ave., Ste. 3, Quincy, MA 02171. Address to be maintained in DE: c/o TRAC - The Registered Agent Company, 800 N. State St., Ste. 402, Dover, DE 19901. Arts of Org. filed with the DE Secy. of State, 401 Federal St., Ste. 4, Dover, DE 19901. Purpose: any lawful activities.

Notice of Qualification of 1 PARK ROW HOLDINGS, LLC Appl. for Auth. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 01/23/19. Office location: NY County.

LLC formed in Delaware (DE) on 01/10/19. Princ. office of LLC: 666 Fifth Ave., 20th Fl., NY, NY 10103. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to c/o Corporation Service Co. (CSC), 80 State St., Albany, NY 12207-2543. DE addr. of LLC: CSC, 251 Little Falls Dr., Wilmington, DE 19808. Cert. of Form. filed with Secy. of State, 401 Federal St., Ste. 4, Dover, DE 19901. Purpose: Any lawful activity.

Pursuant to a Judgment of Foreclosure and Sale entered on November 26, 2018.

I, the undersigned Referee will sell at public auction in Room 224 of the Kings County Courthouse, 360 Adams Street, Brooklyn, N.Y. on the 31st day of January, 2019 at 2:30 p.m. premises described as follows: All that certain plot, piece or parcel of land, with the building and improvements thereon erected, situate, lying and being in the Borough of Brooklyn, County of Kings, City and State of New York.

Said premises known as 1389 Shore Parkway, Brooklyn, N.Y. 11214.

(Block: 6468, Lot: 49).

Approximate amount of lien $ 386,141.96 plus interest and costs.

Premises will be sold subject to provisions of filed judgment and terms of sale.

Index No. 500657-17.

Charlene Brown, Esq., Referee.

Stern & Eisenberg, PC Attorney(s) for Plaintiff Woodbridge Corporate Plaza 485 B Route 1 South – Suite 330 Iselin, NJ 08830 (732) 582-6344 *For sale information, please visit www.auction.com or call 800-2802832* NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN THAT A LICENSE, SERIAL # 1313116 FOR LIQUOR, WINE, & BEER HAS BEEN APPLIED FOR BY THE UNDERSIGNED TO SELL LIQUOR, WINE, & BEER AT RETAIL UNDER THE ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGE CONTROL LAW AT 236 AVENUE U BROOKLYN, NY 11223. KINGS COUNTY, FOR ON PREMISE CONSUMPTION. 236 AVE U CAFÉ CORP.

Notice of Formation of Method and Practice LLC. Arts. of Org. filed with NY Dept. of State on 1/16/19. Office location: NY County. Sec. of State designated agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served and shall mail process to: Solomon Blum Heymann LLP, 40 Wall St., 35th Fl., NY, NY 10005, principal business address. Purpose: all lawful purposes.

Notice of Formation of Caitlin Carr LLC filed with SSNY on January 7, 2019. Office: Kings County. SSNY designated agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail copy of process to LLC: 368 Eastern Pkwy, 5C, Brooklyn, NY 11225. Purpose: any lawful act or activity.

A D TUDOR LLC. Arts. of Org. filed with the SSNY on 12/11/18. Office: New York County. SSNY designated as agent of the LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail copy of process to the LLC, c/o Agulnick & Gogel, LLC, 1129 Northern Boulevard, Suite 404, Manhasset, NY 11030.

Purpose: Any lawful purpose.

Notice of Formation of MARINA VISTA PRESERVATION CLASS B, LLC Arts. of Org. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 01/18/19. Office location: NY County.

Princ. office of LLC: 60 Columbus Circle, NY, NY 10023. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to Corporation Service Co., 80 State St., Albany, NY 12207-2543. Purpose: Any lawful activity.

DIGA UNSCRIPTED LLC, Arts. of Org. filed with the SSNY on 01/17/2019.

Office loc: NY County.

SSNY has been designated as agent upon whom process against the LLC may be served. SSNY shall mail process to: The LLC, 130 West 42nd St., Ste. 950, NY, NY 10036.

Purpose: Any Lawful Purpose.

Notice of Formation of Civic Builders Sub-CDE 17, LLC. Arts. of Org. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 01/10/19. Office location: NY County. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to: Civic Builders, Inc., 180 Varick St., Ste. 1414, NY, NY 10014. Purpose: any lawful activities.

NOTICE OF QUAL. of 1601 Bronxdale Property Owner LLC. Auth. filed Sec’y of State (SSNY) 01/17/19. Off. Loc: NY Co. LLC org. in DE 10/17/18.

SSNY desig. as agent of LLC upon whom proc. against it may be served.

SSNY shall mail copy of proc. to 111 Eighth Ave, NY, NY 10011. DE off. Addr.: 1209 Orange St., Wilmington, DE 19801. Cert of Form. on file: SSDE, Townsend Bldg., Dover, DE 19901. Purpose: any lawful activity.

Notice of Formation of EGG COLLECTIVE II, LLC. Arts. of Org. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 01/14/19. Office location: NY County. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to: EGG COLLECTIVE II, LLC, 360 Lexington Ave, Ste. 1502, NY, NY 10017. Purpose: any lawful activities.

Notice of Qualification of 1 PARK ROW DEVELOPMENT, LLC Appl. for Auth. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 01/23/19. Office location: NY County.

LLC formed in Delaware (DE) on 01/10/19. Princ. office of LLC: 666 Fifth Ave., 20th Fl., NY, NY 10103. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to c/o Corporation Service Co. (CSC), 80 State St., Albany, NY 12207-2543. DE addr. of LLC: CSC, 251 Little Falls Dr., Wilmington, DE 19808. Cert. of Form. filed with Secy. of State, 401 Federal St., Ste. 4, Dover, DE 19901. Purpose: Any lawful activity.

LEGALNOTICES@ CITYANDSTATENY.COM

25

MICHALFAM HOLDINGS, LLC. Arts. of Org. filed with the SSNY on 01/25/19.

Office: Kings County.

SSNY designated as agent of the LLC upon whom process against it may be served.

SSNY shall mail copy of process to the LLC, c/o Kagan Lubic Lepper Finkelstein & Gold, LLP, 200 Madison Avenue, 24th Floor, New York, NY 10016. Purpose: Any lawful purpose.

NOTICE OF FORMATION OF PRIME WIN MANAGEMENT, LLC. Arts. of Org. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 12/06/2018. Office location: NEW YORK County.

SSNY has been designated as agent upon whom process may be serviced and shall mail copy of process against LLC to: 400 5TH AVENUE. APT.#39F, NEW YORK, NY 10018.

Principal business address: 400 5TH AVENUEM APT.#39F, NEW YORK, NY 10018. Purpose: any lawful act.

Fragrance Pub LLC Arts. of Org. filed w/ SSNY on 7/31/18 Off. in Kings Co. SSNY desig. as agt. of LLC whom process may be served.

SSNY shall mail process to Accumera LLC, 911 Central Ave, #101, Albany, NY 12206. The reg. agt. is Accumera LLC at same address. Purpose: any lawful activity.

LEGALNOTICES@ CITYANDSTATENY.COM NOTICE OF QUALIFICATION of DIGIDAY MEDIA LLC. Authority filed with Secretary of State of NY (SSNY) on 11/14/2018.

Office location: New York.

LLC formed in Connecticut on 2/8/2011. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served.

SSNY shall mail process to: One Liberty Plaza, 9th Floor, NY, NY 10006. Principal office of LLC is One Liberty Plaza, 9th Floor, NY, NY 10006. Arts of Org filed with CT Sec of State, 30 Trinity Street, Hartford, CT 06106. Purpose: Any lawful activity. The LLC is to be managed by one or more managers.

26

CityAndStateNY.com / PUBLIC and LEGAL NOTICES

Notice of Qual. of 222 EAST BROADWAY INVESTORS, LLC, Authority filed with the SSNY on 01/23/2019. Office loc: NY County. LLC formed in DE on 12/12/2018.

SSNY is designated as agent upon whom process against the LLC may be served. SSNY shall mail process to: C/O the LLC, 147 W. 35th St., Ste 1207 , NY, NY 10011.

Address required to be maintained in DE: 160 Greentree Dr., Ste 101 Dover DE 19904. Cert of Formation filed with DE Div. of Corps, 401 Federal St., Dover, DE 19901.

Purpose: Any Lawful Purpose.

Notice of Formation of Sharpe Home Designs, LLC filed with SSNY on January 20, 2017. Office: Westchester County.

SSNY designated agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail copy of process to LLC: United States Corporation Agents, Inc., 7014 13th Avenue, Suite 202, Brooklyn, NY 11228. Purpose: any lawful act or activity.

Notice of Formation of Sublime Videos LLC filed with SSNY on January 8, 2019.

Office: NY County. SSNY designated agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail copy of process to LLC: 201 W 108th St #67, NY, NY 10025. Purpose: any lawful act or activity.

Notice of Qualification of MedAsset Recovery, LLC. Authority filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 01/18/19. Office location: NY County.

LLC formed in Delaware (DE) on 11/13/18. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served.

SSNY shall mail process to: 1370 Avenue of the Americas, NY, NY 10019.

Address to be maintained in DE: c/o Harvard Business Services, Inc., 16192 Coastal Hwy., Lewes, DE 19958. Arts of Org. filed with the Secy. of State, 401 Federal St., Ste. 4, Dover, DE 19901. Purpose: any lawful activities.

LEGALNOTICES@ CITYANDSTATENY.COM

Notice of Formation of Hairvine Salon LLC filed with SSNY on January 25, 2019. Office: Westchester County. SSNY designated agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail copy of process to LLC: 480 Main St, Armonk, NY, 10504. Purpose: any lawful act or activity.

App. for Auth. (LLC) Dear Annabelle LLC. App. for Auth. filed w/ the Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 1/17/19. LLC formed in DE on 4/27/18. Office Location: NY County. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served.

SSNY shall mail process to: c/o The LLC, 998 5th Ave., NY, NY 10028, registered agent upon whom process may be served.

Purpose: All lawful purposes.

Notice of Formation of Limited Liability Company (LLC). Name: 10101 Foster Ave Realty LLC, Articles of Organization filed with New York’s Secretary of State (NYSS) on 3/13/18. Office Location: c/o 203 Meserole Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11222.

NYSS designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. NYSS shall mail copy of process of LLC, to: J. James Carriero, Esq., 108-54 Ditmars Blvd., North Beach, NY 11369.

Purpose: any lawful act or activity.

940 Dumont Ave, LLC, Arts. of Org. filed with SSNY 02/01/2018. Office loc: Kings County. SSNY has been designated as agent upon whom process against LLC may be served. SSNY shall mail process to: 940 Dumont Ave, LLC C/O Rosa, 153 Cooper Street MB#1, Brooklyn, NY 11207. Purpose: Any Lawful Purpose.

Notice of Formation of Brasil Alta Cultura LLC filed with SSNY 10/11/17.

Office: Richmond Co. SSNY designated agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail copy of process to LLC: 110 Logan Ave, Staten Island, NY 10301. Purpose: any lawful act or activity.

March 4, 2019

Notice of Qualification of FORESIDE CONSULTING SERVICES, LLC Appl. for Auth. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 01/29/19. Office location: NY County.

LLC formed in Delaware (DE) on 07/20/10. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served.

SSNY shall mail process to c/o Corporation Service Co., 80 State St., Albany, NY 12207-2543.

DE addr. of LLC: 251 Little Falls Dr., Wilmington, DE 19808. Cert. of Form. filed with Jeffrey W. Bullock, DE Secy. of State, 401 Federal St., Dover, DE 19901. Purpose: Any lawful activity.

Notice of Qualification of BRIGHT GARVIES POINT LLC Appl. for Auth. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 02/01/19. Office location: NY County.

LLC formed in Delaware (DE) on 02/01/19. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to c/o Corporation Service Co., 80 State St., Albany, NY 12207. DE addr. of LLC: 251 Little Falls Dr., Wilmington, DE 19808. Cert. of Form. filed with Secy. of State, Div. of Corps., John G. Townsend Bldg., 401 Federal St. - Ste. 4, Dover, DE 19901. Purpose: Any lawful activity.

NOTICE OF FORMATION of 200 Eleventh 6N Owner LLC. Art. of Org. filed with the Secy of State of NY (SSNY) on 12/2/14. Off. Loc.: NY County. SSNY has been desig. as agent upon whom process against it may be served. The address to which the SSNY shall mail a copy to is: c/o Corporation Service Company, 80 State St., Albany, NY 12207-2543 .

Purpose: Any lawful act ADLER PARTNERS, LLC, Arts. of Org. filed with the SSNY on 01/25/2019. Office loc: NY County. SSNY has been designated as agent upon whom process against the LLC may be served. SSNY shall mail process to: The LLC, 77 Park Avenue, #2D, NY, NY 10016. Purpose: Any Lawful Purpose.

SUPREME COURT – COUNTY OF KINGS

Notice of Sale

PNC BANK, NATION-AL ASSOCIATION Plaintiff against SIGISMONDO RENDA, ESQ. AS GUARDIAN AD LITEM MILITARY ATTORNEY ON BEHALF OF DAVID JARUSHEWSKY, if living, and if dead, the respective heirs at law, next of kin, distributees, executors, administrators, trustees, devisees, legatees, assignors, lienors, creditors and successors in interest and generally all persons having or claiming under, by or through said defendant who may be deceased, by purchase, inheritance, lien or otherwise of any right, title or interest in and to the premises described in the complaint herein, and their respective husbands, wives or widow, if any, and each and every person not specifically named who may be entitled to or claim to have any right, title or interest in the property described in the verified complaint; all of whom and whose names and places of residence unknown, and cannot after diligent inquiry be ascertained by the Plaintiff, et al Defendant(s).

Pursuant to a Judgment of Foreclosure and Sale entered on November 28, 2018.

I, the undersigned Referee will sell at public auction in Room 224 of the Kings County Courthouse, 360 Adams Street, Brooklyn, N.Y. on the 14th day of March, 2019 at 2:30 p.m. premises described as follows: All that certain plot, piece or parcel of land, situate, lying and being in the Borough of Brooklyn, County of Kings, City and State of New York.

Said premises known as 996 Decatur Street, Brooklyn, N.Y. 11207.

(Section: 11, Block: 3432, Lot: 22).

Approximate amount of lien $1,054,190.83 plus interest and costs.

Premises will be sold subject to provisions of filed judgment and terms of sale.

SUPREME COURT COUNTY OF KINGS, CITIMORTGAGE, INC., Plaintiff, vs. IBEKLIS OLEA, ET AL., Defendant(s).

Index No. 502602-14. Jack Segal, Esq., Referee.

McCabe, Weisberg & Conway, LLC Attorney(s) for Plaintiff 145 Huguenot Street – Suite 210 New Rochelle, New York 10801 (914) 636-8900

Notice of Qualification of PEGASUS FUND, LLC Appl. for Auth. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 02/06/19. Office location: NY County.

LLC formed in Delaware (DE) on 12/12/17. NYS fictitious name: PEGASUS LITIGATION CAPITAL FUND, LLC. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to c/o Cullen and Dykman LLP, Attn: Andrew Nitkewicz, Esq., 100 Quentin Roosevelt Blvd., Garden City, NY 11530. DE addr. of LLC: 251 Little Falls Dr., Wilmington, DE 19808. Cert. of Form. filed with DE Secy. of State, Townsend Bldg., 401 Federal St., #4, Dover, DE 19901. Purpose: Any lawful activity.

PNK LUSH, LLC, Arts. of Org. filed with SSNY 01/02/2019. Office loc: NY County. SSNY has been designated as agent upon whom process against LLC may be served. SSNY shall mail process to: PNK LUSH, LLC, Attn: Alexandra Vassall-Beckford, 31 Oxford Place, apt. 1, Staten Island, NY 10301.

Purpose: Any Lawful Purpose.

AMPLE PROPERTIES, LLC, Arts. of Org. filed with SSNY 02/08/2019.

Office loc: WESTCHESTER County. SSNY has been designated as agent upon whom process against LLC may be served. SSNY shall mail process to: The LLC, Attn: Ample Properties, LLC, 941 McLean Avenue, Suite 264, Yonkers, NY 10704. Purpose: Any Lawful Purpose.

Notice of Formation of 5th Avenue Salon LLC. Arts. of Org. filed with NY Dept. of State on 12/7/18.

Office location: NY County. Sec. of State designated agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served and shall mail process to: Cogency Global Inc., 10 E. 40th St., 10th Fl., NY, NY 10016.

Purpose: all lawful purposes.

BALAYIRA LLC, Arts. of Org. filed with SSNY 3/21/2018. Office loc: NY County. SSNY has been designated as agent upon whom process against LLC may be served. SSNY shall mail process to: The LLC, Attn: Mamadou Balayira, 298 W. 147th Street, New York, NY 10039 Purpose: Any Lawful Purpose.

Pursuant to an Order Confirming Referee’s Report and Judgment of Foreclosure and Sale duly filed on January 17, 2019, I, the undersigned Referee will sell at public auction at the Kings County Supreme Court, Room 224, 360 Adams Street, Brooklyn, NY on March 21, 2019 at 2:30 p.m., premises known as 339 Wyona Street, Brooklyn, NY. All that certain plot, piece or parcel of land, with the buildings and improvements thereon erected, situate, lying and being in the Borough of Brooklyn, County of Kings, City and State of New York, Block 3758 and Lot 13.

Approximate amount of judgment is $930,919.86 plus interest and costs.

Premises will be sold subject to provisions of filed Judgment Index # 508809/2014.

Aaron D. Maslow, Esq., Referee Knuckles, Komosinski & Manfro, LLP, 565 Taxter Road, Suite 590, Elmsford, NY 10523, Attorneys for Plaintiff Cash will not be accepted.

Notice of Formation of HIDDEN GROVE DEVELOPER, LLC Arts. of Org. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 02/22/19. Office location: NY County.

Princ. office of LLC: 60 Columbus Circle, NY, NY 10023. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to Corporation Service Co., 80 State St., Albany, NY 12207-2543. Purpose: Any lawful activity.

LEGALNOTICES@ CITYANDSTATENY.COM

PUBLIC and LEGAL NOTICES / CityAndStateNY.com

March 4, 2019

Notice of Qualification of Strategic Partners Fund Solutions Associates VIII (Lux) S.a r.l.

Appl. for Auth. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 02/07/19.

“L.L.C.” will be added to the name for use in this state. Office location: NY County. LLC formed in Luxembourg on 03/29/18. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served.

SSNY shall mail process to Corporation Service Co., 80 State St., Albany, NY 12207-2543. Luxembourg addr. of LLC: 11-13, boulevard de la Fiore, L-1528, Luxembourg, Grand Duchy of Luxembourg. Cert. of Form. filed with Registre de Commerce et des Societes, 14.

Rue Erasme, L-1468 Luxembourg, Grand Duchy of Luxembourg.

Purpose: Any lawful activity.

RMV Universal Solutions LLC, Arts. of Org. filed with SSNY 01/30/2019. Office loc: Westchester County.

SSNY has been designated as agent upon whom process against LLC may be served.

SSNY shall mail process to: The LLC, Attn: Rakell M. Vazquez-Murray, Owner, 2 Ronalds Avenue, New Rochelle, NY 10801. Purpose: Any Lawful Purpose.

LEGALNOTICES@ CITYANDSTATENY.COM

Notice of Qualification of 165 East 66th Street (NY) Garage Owner, LLC. Authority filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 01/30/19. Office location: NY County.

LLC formed in Delaware (DE) on 11/29/18. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served.

SSNY shall mail process to: Paracorp Incorporated, 2804 Gateway Oaks Dr. #100, Sacramento, CA 95833. Address to be maintained in DE: 2140 S. DuPont Hwy., Camden, DE 19934. Arts of Org. filed with the Secy. of State, Townsend Bldg., 401 Federal St. #4, Dover, DE 19901. Purpose: any lawful activities.

Notice of Qualification of LibreMax Opportunistic Value Fund, LP Appl. for Auth. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 01/02/19. Office location: NY County.

LP formed in Cayman Islands (C.I.) on 11/30/18.

Princ. office of LP: 600 Lexington Ave., 7th Fl., NY, NY 10022. Duration of LP is Perpetual. SSNY designated as agent of LP upon whom process against it may be served.

SSNY shall mail process to the Partnership at the princ. office of the LP. Name and addr. of each general partner are available from SSNY. C.I. addr. of LP: Maples Corporate Services Limited, PO Box 309, Ugland House, Grand Cayman, C.I. KY11104. Cert. of LP filed with General Registry, Ground Fl., Government Administration Bldg., 133 Elgin Ave, George Town, Grand Cayman, C.I. KY1-9000.

Purpose: Any lawful activity.

Notice of Qualification of Flight Center Holdings LLC. Authority filed with NY Dept. of State on 2/8/19. Office location: NY County. Princ. bus. addr.: 1503 LBJ Freeway, Ste. 300, Dallas, TX 75234. LLC formed in DE on 8/2/17. NY Sec. of State designated agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served and shall mail process to: Cogency Global Inc., 10 E. 40th St., 10th Fl., NY, NY 10016. DE addr. of LLC: 251 Little Falls Dr., Wilmington, DE 19808. Cert. of Form. filed with DE Sec. of State, 401 Federal St., Dover, DE 19901. Purpose: any lawful activity.

RMV Universal Solutions LLC, Arts. of Org. filed with SSNY 01/30/2019. Office loc: Westchester County.

SSNY has been designated as agent upon whom process against LLC may be served.

SSNY shall mail process to: The LLC, Attn: Rakell M. Vazquez-Murray, Owner, 2 Ronalds Avenue, New Rochelle, NY 10801. Purpose: Any Lawful Purpose.

LEGALNOTICES@ CITYANDSTATENY.COM

Notice of Qualification of AdaptiveHR, LLC. Authority filed with NY Dept. of State on 2/7/19.

Office location: NY County. Princ. bus. addr.: 800 Hingham St., Ste. 2025-3, Rockland, MA 02370. LLC formed in DE on 12/12/18.

NY Sec. of State designated agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served and shall mail process to: Cogency Global Inc., 10 E. 40th St., 10th Fl., NY, NY 10016.

DE addr. of LLC: 1209 Orange St., Wilmington, DE 19801. Cert. of Form. filed with DE Sec. of State, 401 Federal St., Dover, DE 19901. Purpose: any lawful activity.

Notice of Qualification of Adaptive Payroll, LLC. Authority filed with NY Dept. of State on 2/7/19.

Office location: NY County. Princ. bus. addr.: 800 Hingham St., Ste. 2025-3, Rockland, MA 02370. LLC formed in DE on 12/12/18.

NY Sec. of State designated agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served and shall mail process to: Cogency Global Inc., 10 E. 40th St., 10th Fl., NY, NY 10016.

DE addr. of LLC: 1209 Orange St., Wilmington, DE 19801. Cert. of Form. filed with DE Sec. of State, 401 Federal St., Dover, DE 19901. Purpose: any lawful activity.

LEGALNOTICES@ CITYANDSTATENY.COM

Notice of Qualification of DANCING BROOMSTICK DEVELOPMENT LLC Appl. for Auth. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 02/07/19. Office location: NY County.

LLC formed in Delaware (DE) on 12/12/18. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to c/o Corporation Service Co. (CSC), 80 State St., Albany, NY 12207-2543. DE addr. of LLC: c/o CSC, 251 Little Falls Dr., Wilmington, DE 19808-1674.

Cert. of Form. filed with DE Secy. of State, John G. Townsend Bldg., 401 Federal St. - Ste. 4, Dover, DE 19901. Purpose: Any lawful activity.

27

STORAGE NOTICE

Notice of Auction

Midtown Moving & Storage Inc. will sell at Public Auction at 810 East 170 Street, Bronx NY 10459 at 6:00 P.M. on February 12th, 2019 for due and unpaid charges by virtue of a lien in accordance with the provisions of the law and with due notice given all parties claiming an interest therein, the time specified in each notice for payment of said charges having expired household furniture & effects, pianos, trunks, cases, TV’s, radios, hifi’s, refrigerators, sewing machines, washers, air conditioners, household furniture of all descriptions and the contents thereof, stored under the following names:

Notice of Auction Sale is herein given that Access Self Storage of Long Island City located at 29-00 Review Avenue, Long Island City, N.Y. 11101 will take place on WWW.STORAGETREASURES.COM Sale by competitive bidding starting on March 8, 2019 and end on March 21, 2019 at 12:00 p.m. to satisfy unpaid rent and charges on the following accounts:

-FRANC, MARICE -GANDY, ZENOVIA -HAMMAD, KHALED -HAYLE, CLAUDETTE -JORDAN, KATHRYN GRACE -MARTINI, MARGO -MORGANTE, CHRISTIE/ JOSEPH LICUL AKA JOSEPH DOE/JOHN DOE/ JANE DOE -PROCRASS, MIOLLY / PROCRASS SUSAN -PARKS, EVELYN KYEI/ KWATENG, DORIS

-PAREDES, JOHANNA -PETERSON DOUGLAS/ MCLEMORE/COCHRAN DENNIS -ROY JONATHAN -RUIZ, VIGEN -ROSALES MIGUEL/DOE JOHN -WILSON CHRISTOPHER/WILSON SHELBY -KASSIM IMRON -BLOT, MARIO BLACKWELL MARLLYN/ DOE JOHN/JANE

Notice of Qualification of CHESHIRE CAT DEVELOPMENT LLC Appl. for Auth. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 02/07/19. Office location: NY County.

LLC formed in Delaware (DE) on 12/12/18. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to c/o Corporation Service Co. (CSC), 80 State St., Albany, NY 12207-2543. DE addr. of LLC: c/o CSC, 251 Little Falls Dr., Wilmington, DE 19808-1674.

Cert. of Form. filed with DE Secy. of State, John G. Townsend Bldg., 401 Federal St. - Ste. 4, Dover, DE 19901. Purpose: Any lawful activity.

Notice is hereby given that a license, number 1316194 for beer and wine has been applied for by the undersigned to sell beer and wine at retail in a restaurant under the Alcoholic Beverage Control Law at 220 Park Avenue South, New York, NY 10003 for on-premises consumption.

NOTICE OF QUALIFICATION of Rosa E., LLC amended to White Spark, LLC. Authority filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 12/13/05. Office loc: NY County. LLC formed in Delaware on 7/28/05. SSNY designated agent upon whom process may be served and mailed to: 465 W 23rd St, #11B, NY, NY 10011. R/A CSC, 80 State St, Albany, NY 12207.

Cert. of LLC filed with Secy. Of State of DE loc: 401 Federal St., #4, Dover, DE 19901. Purpose: any lawful activity.

LEGALNOTICES@ CITYANDSTATENY.COM

Saltbae NY LLC

LEGALNOTICES@ CITYANDSTATENY.COM

Notice of Qualification of PEGASUS LEGAL CAPITAL, LLC Appl. for Auth. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 02/06/19. Office location: NY County.

LLC formed in Delaware (DE) on 12/12/17. NYS fictitious name: PEGASUS LITIGATION CAPITAL, LLC. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to c/o Cullen and Dykman LLP, Attn: Andrew Nitkewicz, Esq., 100 Quentin Roosevelt Blvd., Garden City, NY 11530. DE addr. of LLC: 251 Little Falls Dr., Wilmington, DE 19808. Cert. of Form. filed with DE Secy. of State, Townsend Bldg., 401 Federal St., #4, Dover, DE 19901. Purpose: Any lawful activity.

Contents of rooms generally contain misc. #368-David Gegechkori; Box spring, King mattress, computer chair, printer, small metal file cabinet, computer desk, picture frame, 4 boxes, 2 black garbage bags, table and end table, #818-Mamadou L. Diallo; 2 queen mattresses, headboard and 30+ boxes, #1220-Daniel Rothman; 19” TV, 25+ boxes, 1 chair, exercise bike, 1 cooler, 50 + books, 1 dresser, 2 end tables, 4 duffle bags, #2319Neda Sarmast; 2 picture frames, 4 folding chairs, 8 black plastic bags, 4 plastic bins, vacuum, 9 assorted boxes, duffel bag and 2 metal rods, #3715-Jamaal Parham; 10 small boxes, 5 - 6 plastic totes, a backpack, #4319-1-Quinsessa Harrison; Bags, plastic totes and a plastic organizer with drawers.

The contents of each unit will be sold as a lot and all items must be removed from the premises within 72 hours. Owners may redeem their goods by paying all rent and charges due at any time before the sale. All sales are held “with reserve”.

Owner reserves the right to cancel sale at any time.

113 Mulberry Restaurant, LLC, Arts. of Org. filed with SSNY 1/14/2019. Office loc: NY County. SSNY has been designated as agent upon whom process against LLC may be served. SSNY shall mail process to: The LLC, Attn: Koorosh Bakhtiar, 161 Mulberry Street, New York, NY 10013. Purpose: Any Lawful Purpose.

28

CityAndStateNY.com / PUBLIC and LEGAL NOTICES

March 4, 2019

SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK COUNTY OF RICHMOND SUPPLEMENTAL SUMMONS AND NOTICE Index No. 130747/13 Date Filed: 1/22/2019 Wells Fargo Bank, N.A.,

Notice of Auction

Plaintiff,

-againstEllen Schuster a/k/a Ellen M. Schuster; Thomas Fagan; Jessica Fagan; Any unknown heirs, devisees, distributees, or succesors in interest of the late Helen Fagan a/k/a Helem M. Fagan, if they be living or, if they be dead, their spouses, heirs, devisees, distributees and successors in interest of the late Helen Fagan a/k/a Helen M. Fagan, if they be living or, if they be dead, their spouses, heirs, devisees, distributees and successors in interest, all of whom and whose names and places of residence are unknown to the Plaintiff; The United States of America acting through the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development; City of New York Environmental Control Board; City of New York Parking Violations Bureau; City of New York Transit Adjudication Bureau; State of New York, Defendants.

PROPERTY ADDRESS: 167 Wolverine Street, Staten Island, NY 10306 TO THE ABOVE NAMED DEFENDANTS: YOU ARE HEREBY SUMMONED to answer the complaint in this action and to serve a copy of your answer, or a notice of appearance on the attorneys for the Plaintiff within thirty (30) days after the service of this summons, exclusive of the date of service. The United States of America, if designated as a defendant in this action, may appear within sixty (60) days of service hereof. In case of your failure to appear or answer, judgment will be taken against you by default for the relief demanded in the complaint.

TO THE ABOVE NAMED DEFENDANTS: The foregoing Summons is served upon you by publication pursuant to an Order of the Hon. Desmond Green, a Justice of the Supreme Court, Richmond County, entered Jan. 9, 2019 and filed with the complaint and other papers in the Richmond County Clerk’s Office.

NOTICE OF NATURE OF ACTION AND RELIEF SOUGHT THE OBJECT of the above captioned action is to foreclose a Home Equity Conversion Mortgage to secure $675,000.00 and interest, recorded in the Richmond County Office of the City Register on August 31, 2009, in Land Document Number: 306466 covering premises known as 167 Wolverine Street, Staten Island, NY 10306 a/k/a Block 4419, Lot 69.

The relief sought in the within action is a final judgment directing the sale of the premises described above to satisfy the debt secured by the Home Equity Conversion Mortgage described above.

Plaintiff designates Richmond County as the place of trail. Venue is based upon the County in which the mortgaged premises is situated.

NOTICE YOU ARE IN DANGER OF LOSING YOUR HOME IF YOU DO NOT RESPOND TO THIS SUMMONS AND COMPLAINT BY SERVING A COPY OF THE ANSWER ON THE ATTORNEY FOR THE MORTGAGE COMPANY WHO FILED THIS FORECLOSURE PROCEEDING AGAINST YOU AND FILING THE ANSWER WITH THE COURT, A DEFAULT JUDGMENT MAY BE ENTERED AND YOU CAN LOSE YOUR HOME. SPEAK TO AN ATTORNEY OR GO TO THE COURT WHERE YOUR CASE IS PENDING FOR FURTHER INFORMATION ON HOW TO ANSWER THE SUMMONS AND PROTECT YOUR PROPERTY. SENDING A PAYMENT TO YOUR MORTGAGE COMPANY WILL NOT STOP THIS FORECLOSURE ACTION. YOU MUST RESPOND BY SERVING A COPY OF THE ANSWER ON THE ATTORNEY FOR TIIE PLAINTIFF (MORTGAGE COMPANY) AND FILING THE ANSWER WITH THE COURT. Dated: March 28, 2017 Steven M. Palmer, Esq. Associate Attorney SHAPIRO, DICARO & BARAK, LLC Attorneys for Plaintiff 175 Mile Crossing Boulevard Rochester, New York 14624 (585) 247-9000 Fax: (585) 247-7380 Our File No. 12-020442 Notice of Formation of Open6 LLC. Arts. of Org. filed with NY Dept. of State on 2/25/19. Office location: NY County.

Sec. of State designated agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served and shall mail process to: 420 E. 72nd St., Apt. 18A, NY, NY 10021, principal business address. Purpose: all lawful purposes.

LEGALNOTICES@ CITYANDSTATENY.COM

LISA & EVELYN CO., L.L.C. Arts. of Org. filed with the SSNY on 12/14/18.

Office: New York County. SSNY designated as agent of the LLC upon whom process against it may be served.

SSNY shall mail copy of process to the LLC, c/o Solomon Zabrowsky, Esq., 250 West 57th Street, Suite 1301, New York, NY 10107.

Purpose: Any lawful purpose.

Notice of Formation of HIDDEN GROVE HOUSING CLASS B, LLC Arts. of Org. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 02/22/19. Office location: NY County.

Princ. office of LLC: 60 Columbus Circle, NY, NY 10023. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to Corporation Service Co., 80 State St., Albany, NY 12207-2543. Purpose: Any lawful activity.

NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN THAT A LICENSE, SERIAL # 1316416 FOR WINE & BEER HAS BEEN APPLIED FOR BY THE UNDERSIGNED TO SELL WINE & BEER AT RETAIL UNDER THE ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGE CONTROL LAW AT 77 2ND AVE NEW YORK, NY 10003.

NEW YORK COUNTY, FOR ON-PREMISE CONSUMPTION. BRICKLANE 1 LLC.

Notice of Auction Sale is herein given that Citiwide Self Storage located at 45-55 Pearson Street, Long Island City, N.Y. 11101 will take place on WWW.STORAGE TRE ASURES .COM Sale by competitive bidding starting on March 8th, 2019 and end on March 21, 2019 at 10:00 a.m. to satisfy unpaid rent and charges on the following accounts: Contents of rooms generally contain misc items. #10R03-Stephen J. Javaras; 4 large plastic bins, 3 large cardboard bins, large wrapped pieces of wood and other materials (possible art). #5S04 -Tiffany Fernandes; Electric guitar, Air conditioner, 3 boxes, foot stool with storage #4J09-Susie Tene Bimbo; Sofa, 2 bins, 2 boxes dishware, table and small t.v. # 9T11-Efrain Palaguachi Humala; twin mattress, 4 suitcases, t.v. box, few bags, dresser. #9S01-Raquel (Robert) Sanchez 40 plus boxes, 2 office chairs, 2 bins, 15 plus bags, 7 crates and misc. items.

The contents of each unit will be sold as a lot and all items must be removed from the premises within 72 hours. Owners may redeem their goods by paying all rent and charges due at any time before the sale. All sales are held “with reserve”.

Owner reserves the right to cancel sale at any time.

Notice of Qualification of BDG Design LLC. Authority filed with NY Dept. of State on 2/12/19.

Office location: NY County. Princ. bus. addr.: 100 Park Ave., 4th Fl., NY, NY 10017. LLC formed in DE on 2/8/19. NY Sec. of State designated agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served and shall mail process to: c/o WPP, 1740 Broadway, NY, NY 10019.

DE addr. of LLC: 3411 Silverside Rd., Tatnall Bldg. #104, Wilmington, DE 19810. Cert. of Form. filed with DE Sec. of State, 401 Federal St., Dover, DE 19901. Purpose: all lawful purposes.

Notice of Qualification of MSGN ENTERPRISES, LLC Appl. for Auth. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 02/07/19. Office location: NY County.

LLC formed in Delaware (DE) on 12/10/18. Princ. office of LLC: Two Pennsylvania Plaza, 19th Fl., NY, NY 10121-0091. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to c/o Corporation Service Co. (CSC), 80 State St., Albany, NY 12207-2543. DE addr. of LLC: c/o CSC, 251 Little Falls Dr., Wilmington, DE 19808. Cert. of Form. filed with Secy. of State of DE, 401 Federal St., Dover, DE 19901. Purpose: Any lawful activity.

PUBLIC NOTICE AT&T Mobility Services LLC (AT&T) proposes the modification of an existing AT&T facility installed atop an existing building/ rooftop at 301 East 48th St in Manhattan, NY (Project 43074).

In accordance with the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966 and the 2005 Nationwide Programmatic Agreement, AT&T is hereby notifying the public of the proposed undertaking and soliciting comments on Historic Properties which may be affected by the proposed undertaking. If you would like to provide specific information regarding potential effects that the proposed undertaking might have to properties that are listed on or eligible for listing in the National Register of Historic Places and located within 350 feet of the site, please submit the comments (with project number) to: RAMAKER, Contractor for AT&T, 855 Community Dr, Sauk City, WI 53583 or via e-mail to history@ramaker.com within 30 days of this notice.

LEGALNOTICES@ CITYANDSTATENY.COM

PUBLIC and LEGAL NOTICES / CityAndStateNY.com

March 4, 2019

PUBLIC NOTICE Cellco Partnership and its controlled affiliates doing business as Verizon Wireless (Verizon Wireless) proposes the collocation of wireless communications antennas at a top height of 288 feet on a 295-foot building at the approx. vicinity of 141 West 36th Street, New York, New York County, NY 10018. Public comments regarding potential effects from this site on historic properties may be submitted within 30 days from the date of this publication to: Trileaf Corp, Theresa, t.docal@ trileaf.com, 8600 LaSalle Rd, Suite 301, Towson, MD 21286, 410-853-7128.

Notice of Formation of VWNG Holdings, LLC. Arts. of Org. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 01/31/19. Office location: NY County. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to: the Company, c/o Steven S Pretsfelder, Van Wagner Group, LLC, 800 Third Ave., NY, NY 10022. Purpose: any lawful activities.

Notice of Formation of BTTD, LLC. Arts. of Org. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 02/06/19.

Office location: NY County. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to: c/o Julien Kabla, Prime Realty Luxury, 48 Wall St., 5th Fl., NY, NY 10043. Purpose: any lawful activities.

LEGALNOTICES@ CITYANDSTATENY.COM

SUPREME COURT – COUNTY OF KINGS THE BANK OF NEW YORK MELLON FKA THE BANK OF NEW YORK, AS TRUSTEE FOR THE CERTIFICATEHOLDERS OF CWALT, INC., ALTERNATIVE LOAN TRUST 2006-OA14, MORTGAGE PASS-THROUGH CERTIFICATES, SERIES 2006-OA14, Plaintiff against MIRIAM RIVERA A/K/A MIRIAM R. RIVERA; JOE R. RIVERA A/K/A JOE RIVERA; ANA RIVERA; JOE RIVERA, et al Defendant(s).

Pursuant to a Judgment of Foreclosure and Sale entered on October 25, 2017.

I, the undersigned Referee will sell at public auction in Room 224 of the Kings County Courthouse, 360 Adams Street, Brooklyn, N.Y. on the 4th day of April, 2019 at 2:30 p.m. premises described as follows: All that certain plot, piece or parcel of land, situate, lying and being in the Borough of Brooklyn, County of Kings, City and State of New York.

Said premises known as 12 Nichols Avenue, Brooklyn, N.Y. 11208.

(Block: 4109, Lot: 112).

Approximate amount of lien $ 628,907.05 plus interest and costs.

Premises will be sold subject to provisions of filed judgment and terms of sale.

Index No. 511600-15. Doron A. Leiby, Esq., Referee.

Stern & Eisenberg, PC Attorney(s) for Plaintiff Woodbridge Corporate Plaza 485 B Route 1 South – Suite 330 Iselin, NJ 08830 (732) 582-6344

Notice of Formation of BLUE ENERGY DESIGN, LLC. Articles of Organization filed with SSNY on 09/26/2018.

Office Location: Westchester County, New York. SSNY designated as agent of Blue Energy Design, LLC upon whom process may be served.

SSNY shall mail process to Blue Energy Design, LLC, 10348 Bluegrass Parkway, Louisville, KY 40299. Purpose: any lawful act or activity.

Notice of Formation of HUDSON POOL LLC Arts. of Org. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 02/26/19. Office location: NY County.

Princ. office of LLC: c/o The Hudson Companies Inc., 826 Broadway, NY, NY 10003. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served.

SSNY shall mail process to the LLC at the addr. of its princ. office. Purpose: Any lawful activity.

Notice of Formation of Open6 LLC. Arts. of Org. filed with NY Dept. of State on 2/25/19. Office location: NY County.

Sec. of State designated agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served and shall mail process to: 420 E. 72nd St., Apt. 18A, NY, NY 10021, principal business address. Purpose: all lawful purposes.

Notice of Formation of DL AND AP PHYSICAL THERAPY AND CHIROPRACTIC, PLLC Arts. of Org. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 02/15/19. Office location: NY County.

Princ. office of PLLC: 113 W. 78th St., Ste. 1, NY, NY 10024. SSNY designated as agent of PLLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to the PLLC at the addr. of its princ. office. Purpose: Physical therapy and chiropractic.

NOTICE OF SALE PUBLIC AUCTION Supreme Court of New York, KINGS County. WILMINGTON TRUST, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION, NOT IN ITS INDIVIDUAL CAPACITY, BUT SOLELY AS TRUSTEE FOR MFRA TRUST 2014-2, Plaintiff, -against- LEYLA DAVIS; NEW YORK CITY ENVIRONMENTAL CONTROL BOARD; KAYLIE JOHNSON; KYANNE JOHNSON; ANSIL JOHNSON; KAREN LIVERPOOL; AUDREY LIVERPOOL; VANESSA SIMPSON; LEO COLON; JESSICA CRUZ, Index No. 512846/2016.

Pursuant to a Judgment of Foreclosure and Sale duly dated, January 9, 2019 and entered with the Kings County Clerk on January 18, 2019, Steven Z. Naiman, Esq., the Appointed Referee, will sell the premises known as 203 Cornelia Street, Brooklyn, New York 11221 at public auction in Room 224 of the Kings County Supreme Court, 360 Adams Street, Brooklyn, New York 11201, on April 11, 2019 at 2:30 P.M. All that certain plot, piece or parcel of land, situate, lying and being in the Borough of Brooklyn, County of Kings, City and State of New York known as Block: 3376; Lot: 54 will be sold subject to the provisions of filed Judgment, Index No. 512846/2016.

The approximate amount of judgment is $891,323.70 plus interest and costs.

FRIEDMAN VARTOLO LLP 85 Broad Street, Suite 501, New York, New York 10004, Attorneys for Plaintiff.

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UNCLAIMED FUNDS! Insurance companies We can publish unclaimed funds for you quickly, easily and efficiently.

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CityAndStateNY.com

March 4, 2019

CITY & STATE NEW YORK MANAGEMENT & PUBLISHING CEO Steve Farbman, President & Publisher Tom Allon tallon@cityandstateny.com, Comptroller David Pirozzi, Business & Operations Manager Patrea Patterson, Administrative Assistant Jenny Hochberg

Who was up and who was down last week Michael Cohen – a local attorney, one-time New York City Council candidate and cigar aficionado – held the collective attention of every newsroom and politicsoriented office in America on Wednesday. Winner or Loser? That’s for the feds to decide. But you can bet there were a ton of small-time New York political operatives who would have gladly paid $130,000 and their dignity for that kind of attention.

EDITORIAL editor@cityandstateny.com Editor-in-Chief Jon Lentz jlentz@cityandstateny.com, Managing Editor Ryan Somers, Senior Editor Ben Adler badler@cityandstateny.com, Special Projects Editor Alice Popovici, Copy Editor Eric Holmberg, Staff Reporter Jeff Coltin jcoltin@cityandstateny.com, Staff Reporter Zach Williams zwilliams@cityandstateny.com, Staff Reporter Rebecca C. Lewis rlewis@cityandstateny.com, Tech & Policy Reporter Annie McDonough amcdonough@ cityandstateny.com

LOSERS

DIGITAL Digital Director Derek Evers devers@cityandstateny.com, Digital Content Coordinator Michael Filippi, Social Media Editor/Content Producer Amanda Luz Henning Santiago

NOMIKI KONST Nomiki Konst entered the public advocate race with the largest Twitter following of any of the 17 contenders, but her impressive virtual following translated to virtually nothing on Election Day. The self-identified democratic socialist hoped to follow the lead of ultra-progressive Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez with her unconventional candidacy, but fell far short, convincing just 2 percent of the electorate that she was right for the job. Too bad Twitter bots can’t vote.

THE BEST OF THE REST

THE REST OF THE WORST

ED BRAUNSTEIN & MONICA MARTINEZ

BILL DE BLASIO

It’s just sad it took so long to enact legislation making revenge porn illegal.

ANDREW CUOMO

Renewal’s a bust, Iowa says “meh,” and even Chirlane isn’t optimistic about 2020.

MONIQUE JOHNSON

De Blasio backed his congestion pricing plan. Next: Dogs and cats living together!

NYCHA: If we can’t host our sex parties, damn it, we’re taking this whistleblower down with us!

JERRY KASSAR

CHIRLANE MCCRAY

TOM REED

SHAWN MORSE

Not a great time to be Conservative Party leader in NY, but congrats on the new gig!

He’s making the National Comedy Center the National Comedy Center. Grammar!

$1B later, the first lady’s ThriveNYC program just gave people headaches.

The Cohoes mayor just can’t stop getting arrested – this time on federal charges.

WINNERS & LOSERS is published every Friday morning in City & State’s First Read email.

Sign up for the email, cast your vote and see who won at cityandstateny.com.

ADVERTISING Vice President of Advertising Jim Katocin jkatocin@ cityandstateny.com, Account/Business Development Executive Scott Augustine saugustine@cityandstateny.com, Event Sponsorship Strategist Danielle Koza dkoza@ cityandstateny.com, Sales Associate Cydney McQuillanGrace cydney@cityandstateny.com, Junior Sales Executive Caitlin Dorman, Junior Sales Executive Shakirah Gittens, Junior Sales Associate Chris Hogan EVENTS events@cityandstateny.com Sales Director Lissa Blake, Events Manager Alexis Arsenault, Director of Events Research & Development Bryan Terry, Marketing Coordinator Meg McCabe, Event Coordinator Amanda Cortez

Vol. 8 Issue 8 March 4, 2019 Who’s shortchanging New York’s students?

Jumaane won Now he needs to keep it

SLUMMING IT

LYNNE PATTON’S PATH FROM TRUMP TOWER TO A NYCHA S**THOLE

CIT YANDSTATENY.COM

@CIT YANDSTATENY

March 4, 2019

Cover photo Sarah Blesener

CITY & STATE NEW YORK (ISSN 2474-4107) is published weekly, 48 times a year except for the four weeks containing New Year’s Day, July 4th, Thanksgiving and Christmas by City & State NY, LLC, 61 Broadway, Suite 1315, New York, NY 10006-2763. Periodicals postage paid at New York, NY and at additional mailing offices.

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JUMAANE WILLIAMS Jump up! Jump up! The soca beats that blasted in East Flatbush on Tuesday night were still echoing in Williams’ head when he went to see the sign on his new office: “Jumaane Williams – Public Advocate.”

Yes, after losing races for lieutenant governor, New York City Council speaker (twice!) and even college class president (really!), Williams finally got a big win, riding a wave of endorsements and popular support to citywide office.

OUR PICK

OUR PICK

WINNERS

CREATIVE Art Director Andrew Horton, Senior Graphic Designer Alex Law, Graphic Designer Aaron Aniton

SUMMIT 03 . 21 . 19

NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC ENCOUNTER 226 W 44TH ST, NEW YORK, NY 10036 City & State’s Diversity Summit will offer industry executives, public sector leaders and academics a full-day conference dedicated to fostering business partnerships between the state and local government, prime contractors and MWBEs. PANEL TOPICS: THE FUTURE OF MWBES IN NEW YORK FUNDING AND RESOURCE OPPORTUNITIES FOR SMALL BUSINESS BECOMING A PART OF NEW YORK’S BIGGEST MWBE PROJECTS DIVERSITY IN GOVERNMENT, BUSINESS, TECH AND HEALTH CARE FEATURED SPEAKERS: Congresswoman Nydia Velazquez, Chairwoman, House Small Business Committee State Sen. James Sanders, Chairman, MWBE Task Force Lourdes Zapata, Chief Diversity Officer, Office of Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo Jonnel Doris, NYC Mayor’s Office of Minority and Women Owned Businesses Gregg Bishop, Commissioner, NYC Dept. of Small Business Services

RSVP at CityAndStateNY.com/Events For more information on programming and sponsorship opportunities, please contact Lissa Blake at lblake@cityandstateny.com

THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSORS:

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