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CityAndStateNY.com
STIMULUS SPENDING SPREE
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HOW THE TOP NYC MAYORAL CANDIDATES MIGHT USE THEIR $1,400 CHECKS.
BY CAITLIN DORMAN
AS $1,400 stimulus checks start to hit people’s bank accounts, we’ve seen a characteristically toxic internet discourse on how people “ought to spend their money” evolve into a playful meme that delivers a better message: It’s up to you how to spend your stimulus during this hellscape of a pandemic. $1,400 in the bank? Go to Red Lobster and order the whale. Head to Victoria’s Secret and make them tell you “the secret.” The mayoral candidates just announced their latest round of matching funds, so how would the front-runners spend their $1,400?
Maya Wiley at the pet store:
"Give me every cat you have."
Andrew Yang to the MTA:
Eric Adams at the farmers market:
"This is going to be one hell of a smoothie."
Ray McGuire at Foot Locker:
Dianne Morales to the NYPD:
"This should be enough for your budget."
Scott Stringer at Gallup:
Kathryn Garcia at the New York City Department of Sanitation:
Shaun Donovan quietly
whispers to himself:
"It would have been $2,000 under Obama."
A Q&A with Real Estate Board of New York President
JAMES WHELAN
One of the things we like to remind folks is that over 50% of the taxes the city collects comes from real estate activity.
Right now, the state Legislature is considering relief for renters, landlords and homeowners. From your perspective, is the relief going to be enough, and how will it get to those who need it most? It is pretty much going to be on target for addressing rent arrears. There’s going to need to be a process to ensure this help gets to tenants and owners. We’re all in this: Tenants can’t pay their rent. Owners can’t pay their bills, taxes, mortgages, etc., right? So, it becomes a matter of having an orderly process that the money gets out on a timely basis and in an accurate manner. You know that that’s going to take some time. We are in conversations with state officials about the most sensible way to get the rent relief out.
How satisfied are you with the way New York’s lawmakers worked with the Biden administration to make this relief possible? You got to give a big shoutout to (U.S. Senate) Majority Leader (Chuck) Schumer and the congressional delegation because of the speed at which this moved through the process. I think most folks would find it impressive and it was a comprehensive package as opposed to some of the pieces of stimulus in the past.
There were multiple reports a year ago of New Yorkers leaving because of the coronavirus pandemic, and some proclaimed the city was dead. How would you respond to the fact that people have left? Let’s make sure we’re going to operate from the same factual premise, because people in some published reports are like, “Oh, we’re getting out of Florida. I’m coming back.” So, we just have these anecdotal stories. There hasn’t been really hard (and) fast data yet. I mean it is of concern, but what’s interesting is that it was a concern prepandemic. The city lost population for years before the virus. That already wasn’t a good sign.
Developers and policymakers are working on how to rebuild New York after the pandemic. What’s your vision? One of the things we like to remind folks is that on an annual basis, over 50% of the taxes the city collects comes from real estate activity. We’re not going to get there overnight, but we need to pursue a set of policies that sends us in that direction and gets people back to work. It’s going to require innovative government programs and folks putting their ideologies aside to get that done.
How long do you expect this period of rebuilding will last? It’s going to take a bit of work. Depending on the decisions made by city, state and federal officials, that will determine whether or not this is a turnaround that takes three to five years or takes 15 to 20. – Ralph Ortega
We are grateful to be part of the New York real estate community.
CityAndStateNY.com
LOYAL TO A FAULT
Cuomo sent Melissa DeRosa to put out his fires. Now she’s getting burned.
By Zach Williams
DeRosa became a pandemic hero in the media last spring alongside her boss, Gov. Andrew Cuomo. They are now having a fall from grace in part because of a shared abrasive management style. M ILLIONS OF AMERICANS got to know Secretary to the Governor Melissa DeRosa over the past year. She appeared in nationally televised COVID-19 briefings and in glossy magazine profiles. She rallied celebrities on social media to combat the pandemic. Whenever Gov. Andrew Cuomo spoke to the public, DeRosa was seemingly always by his side, working her smartphone, shuffling paperwork and offering responses to just about any question reporters might ask about the greatest public health crisis to hit New York in a century. Like her boss, DeRosa developed a national reputation as an avatar of competence and calm, in stark contrast to the chaos emanating from the White House. “Their strategy is simple: Be as transparent as possible, even when the news is bad,” reads an April story in Elle, referring to Cuomo’s team. For better or worse, her time in the national spotlight was hardly over.
As protests against systemic racism erupted last summer, causing other New York political figures such as New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio embarrassment over their reluctance to stand up to their own police, DeRosa continued to enjoy flattering coverage. “We flattened the curve, and we saved lives,” she told Harper’s Bazaar. “We now must use that same energy and unity and resolve to confront and beat back 400 years of systemic racism and discrimination.” The June issue of the fashion magazine featured DeRosa on one of six covers that also included a member of Congress, a widely respected epidemiologist and a six-time Olympic gold medalist. An advisory role to the transition team for President Joe Biden hinted at bigger things to come for the 38-year-old DeRosa. “Instead of working 24 hours a day, she’s been working 27 hours a day lately,” an anonymous source told the Daily News in January.
Now, with Cuomo under scrutiny for his management of COVID-19 in nursing homes and a series of sexual harassment allegations, DeRosa’s public image is again following the governor’s trajectory, and this time it’s downward. Her role in overseeing a report that undercounted COVID-19 deaths among nursing home residents, as well as her role in contributing to a reportedly abusive work environment in the governor’s office, is leading a growing group of former gubernatorial staffers (and some anonymous current ones), state lawmakers and political insiders to say she embodies much of what is wrong with Cuomo’s reportedly brutal management style.
“The enforcer for all of this is Melissa DeRosa,” a former senior Cuomo staffer told City & State on condition of anonymity. “And the way she goes about it is often about tearing you down to build herself up, and it’s usually about making sure other people see her do that to you, so they know they are a target as well.”
The Cuomo administration denies these charges. “Melissa is the exact same person behind the scenes as she is on camera – tough, hardworking, brilliant, meticulously prepared, and always fighting to improve the lives of New Yorkers,” Cuomo spokesperson Rich Azzopardi said in a statement. The governor is the indisputable head of his administration, but DeRosa (the first woman to ever be named to the top appointed position in the state) has an outsized influence in keeping staff in line. She entered the administration in 2013 as a spokesperson for the governor working under then-Secretary to the Governor Bill Mulrow, and moved up the ranks of Cuomo confidants as other aides left the administration. By the time Cuomo’s last reputed “enforcer” Joe Percoco went to federal prison in 2018 following a federal conviction for bribery, DeRosa had become one of the few people inside the governor’s innermost circle, after succeeding Mulrow in 2017. “DeRosa is definitely one of those people who, at the end of the day, their main goal is to make sure that he’s happy,” said a current gubernatorial staffer who requested anonymity to speak candidly. “His personality is always an element in everything.”
Like Cuomo, DeRosa’s image took its first major recent hit on Jan. 28, when a report on nursing home deaths released by Attorney General Letitia James stated the administration had undercounted the official death toll by 3,800 people in a report that DeRosa oversaw. The present scandals afflicting the administration really began
