29 minute read
REAL ESTATE
THE ART OF THE DEAL
Several City Council members’ reelection bids could depend on their development decisions.
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By Sahalie Donaldson
NEW YORK CITY Council Member Kristin Richardson Jordan is once again fighting a familiar foe. Standing before several dozen supporters at a busy Harlem intersection on the night of Jan. 3 – her birthday – she condemned a real estate developer’s plans for West 145th Street and Lenox Avenue. What had originally been proposed as a controversial rezoning to build a two-tower complex devolved into something nobody wanted. Months after Richardson Jordan’s opposition to the One45 rezoning effectively put a stop to the plan, developer Bruce Teitelbaum said he’d open a truck depot on the block instead. Residents – already living in a district with the highest rate of childhood asthma in Manhattan and a high volume of environmental hazards – were outraged.
What Teitelbaum had originally pitched as a blend of retail and residential space faced significant political headwinds from the start. Though he eventually agreed to make half of One45’s proposed 915 apartments subsidized to varying degrees, Richardson Jordan, Manhattan Community Board 10 and other locals fought hard against the proposal, arguing that the units still wouldn’t be affordable to most households and that gentrification would displace longtime residents. For months, Richardson Jordan held firm in insisting all the apartments should be rent regulated, with 57% set aside for the lowest-income New Yorkers. Now with no affordable housing on the table and the truck depot moving forward after Teitelbaum retracted his plan in May before it went to the City Council for a vote, she’s bearing the brunt of the fallout.
“I did something really drastic and I said ‘no.’ Some may even call it political suicide,” Richardson Jordan said into the megaphone. She paused for a moment.
“No, not as long as we can help it,” a woman’s voice rose above the swell of clapping. “We’ve got your back, we’ve got your back,” a man said from somewhere in the crowd.
“But here’s the bigger thing: It wasn’t me. It was all of us. It was a community. I see people who were here with us last year, and you are here again,” the council member continued. “God bless you.”
Although much about the council’s June primary elections has yet to take shape, one question circulating is whether Richardson Jordan, a proud Black socialist, will lose her reelection bid. Given the strength of the candidates who’ve already announced their intention to run for the District 9 seat, the way she handled One45 could be one nail in the coffin of her first term. However, it could be exactly the opposite: the fact that she didn’t waver in demanding truly affordable housing demonstrates her commitment to the community.
Several other progressive council members, albeit probably to lesser degrees given that the projects ended up moving forward, are also likely to take political hits in the months ahead for their initial opposition to real estate proposals. Developers have always had a major influence on local politics – but now the dynamics may be changing amid a growing sentiment that more housing needs to be built.
CAT AND MOUSE GAME
As the city wrestles with a severe lack of housing, New York City Mayor Eric Adams, Gov. Kathy Hochul and City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams all have plans to encourage housing production and set lofty goals for the next decade: Hochul with 800,000 units and Eric Adams with 500,000. Building more affordable housing is necessary because recent city numbers show a vacancy rate less than 1% for the city’s most affordable units. But while city leaders argue the crisis can’t be solved without private development and every neighborhood doing its part, battles have long waged between City Hall and council members acting on behalf of constituents worried that new development would raise prices or change their neighborhood’s character.
Council Member Kristin Richardson Jordan got flack for opposing a project in her Harlem district.
There are a few exceptions in which a proposal has been greeted with a swell of community support from the onset, though this is rare and typically only when developers propose 100% affordable housing or units specifically for seniors, veterans and other vulnerable groups, according to George Fontas, a political consultant who has real estate firms among his lobbying clients.
“There’s always been this cat and mouse game when it comes to rezonings between the development team and the elected official. The elected official is also pushed and pulled by their local community,” Fontas said. “It’s that dance that typically delivers more than what was proposed in the beginning if it passes. That’s OK. A win-win is what we are striving for.”
Because of the City Council’s tradition of member deference, the body almost always lets the local representative decide whether or not a real estate project requiring council approval moves forward. Richardson Jordan is far from the first elected official to unofficially veto a real estate proposal in their district. But now there are indications that some elected officials’ frequent opposition to real estate development proposals in their districts is beginning to lessen.
Pushback against Richardson Jordan has been fierce. Her Twitter mentions were hit by a barrage of pro-development accounts criticizing the role she played in stopping the One45 rezoning and blaming her for the developer’s plan to open a truck depot. Her personal Twitter account appeared to have been deactivated some time after she shared plans for the Jan. 3 rally. Several high-profile candidates, including Assembly Member Al Taylor, criminal justice advocate Yusef Salaam of the Exonerated Five and Assembly Member Inez Dickens, have also declared their intentions to primary her. Incumbents are rarely unseated, but Richardson Jordan was already vulnerable as a socialist in a relatively moderate district who has taken heat for her comments defending the Russian government’s invasion of Ukraine, among others. Her unwillingness to compromise on a rezoning to build housing could be yet another major factor.
“She was already a target for people in that community to be challenged before any decisions that she made on real estate. She made a very public decision to oppose that project,” Fontas said.
When asked whether the One45 proposal had anything to do with him deciding to run, Taylor said he was motivated by wanting to bring resources to the community as well as not wanting to “leave anything on the table” that longtime residents could benefit from. If he’d been the district’s council member when the project was first proposed, Taylor said, he’d have sat at the table with Teitelbaum to work out a compromise that would still bring housing to the community.
“I think if we’re at the table talking, it’s different than when you’re talking at each other. When you take the helium out of the room and everybody is back down and sitting in the space, what is it you want? What is it you hope for? It may not be any one person’s way of what they walked into the room expecting to get,” he said.
Richardson Jordan declined to answer any questions about the election, beyond saying “the old guard that sold us out will never be for us.”
Rezonings may get more attention in the upcoming elections for another reason: The council hasn’t done much yet. Thanks to a two-year election cycle, first-term incumbents don’t have a long voting record to run or be targeted on yet, potentially further throwing any stances they took into the spotlight.
Council Member Julie Won of District 26 will also probably be criticized for her initial opposition to a local housing project. She received pushback from labor unions and other pro-housing groups as she withheld her support from the $2 billion Innovation QNS mixed-use development in Astoria, Queens, for months. Many of Won’s constituents and community organizations rallied repeatedly against the proposal, arguing that the luxury buildings would drive up rents and force residents out. After intense negotiations with developers to get them to bolster their affordable housing commitment – and more than a little pressure from the speaker’s of-
THERE AREN’T MANY OPEN SEATS, BUT RECRUITING SEASON FOR THE JUNE CITY COUNCIL PRIMARIES IS ALREADY UNDERWAY. By Jeff Coltin
How did sitting council members get pulled off the sidelines and into campaigns? City & State asked some of them to share their recruitment stories, in their own words, so readers can feel inspired – or annoyed. Got a problem? Everyone’s up for reelection this year.
ALTHEA STEVENS
“I worked with young people for 20 years and did a lot of work around civic engagement. … I was talking to the kids, and they basically challenged me to run for office because they felt there weren’t enough people in office who cared about what they cared about. … The only question was which office. And then I talked to my mentor, (Council Member) Diana Ayala and she said ‘City Council, obviously.’”
CHI OSSÉ
“A lot of my friends that I was out there with (at the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020), within the span of a couple weeks, came up with a plan of – at the time, crazily – signing myself up to run for office. And I did just that. And here we are now. … I’ve really got to give my full credit to my aunt. She was the first person to tell me to do it. And then within 48 hours I threw my hat in the race. It moved very quickly. I’m surprised I’m here still. (Laughs.)”
JENNIFER GUTIÉRREZ
“I had (thenCouncil Member Antonio Reynoso) who was a mentor. Early on, maybe from like 2017, he was like, ‘Have you thought about it?’ And was very like hands off about it. But planted the seed. … I had to hear it at least seven times for me to feel confident. Like, all right, let me file, let me put this together.”
The scrapped One45 proposal in Harlem included two towers and more than 900 apartments.
fice and other stakeholders – Won agreed to terms in November.
No competitive challengers have emerged yet in that race, but many council watchers are keeping an eye on the district, with the Innovation QNS negotiations serving as a possible catalyst for a run.
CHANGING WINDS
The housing shortage and lack of affordable options may be pushing the council to embrace a more pro-housing direction. In addition to Won, a string of other progressive City Council members approved projects that they might have previously rejected.
One of those was a rezoning on Bruckner Boulevard in the East Bronx, in which half of the proposed 350 homes would rent at below-market rates. Although Council Member Marjorie Velázquez initially opposed the proposal, as did many outspoken residents in the area, she gave it her support, with some encouragement from the mayor’s office and the speaker’s office, after the developer said they would add housing for seniors and veterans.
“I didn’t shift my stance, the project changed. No one benefits if we aren’t willing to negotiate, and that’s what this was, conversations and negotiations that created a project that fits the community and will benefit local residents,” Velázquez said.
Another project in Central Brooklyn eventually earned the backing of Council Member Crystal Hudson, who had shut the project down when she first took office last January, citing concerns about gentrification, and that she hadn’t been involved in reviewing the proposal. The original plan for the two-tower, 400-apartment proposal would have rented 25% of its units at below-market rates, but Hudson, pushing the developer for 50%, ultimately agreed to 35%.
And when developers approached socialist Council Member Tiffany Cabán about a project that would bring around 1,300 apartments to the East River waterfront in Astoria, many expected her to refuse. Instead, after initial reservations, Cabán negotiated to lower the income levels for 335 affordable units at the site. She told The New York Times that while she would prefer public housing or locally owned housing, not approving the Hallets North development would run the risk of the land instead being used as a truck depot or a parking lot for delivery vehicles.
“There’s a real understanding starting to go further and further out across all five boroughs that housing production can’t be taken on by just one part of the city – it has to be a citywide effort,” said Ryan Monell, the Real Estate Board of New York’s city vice president of government affairs.
He said many people in the real estate industry feel Adrienne Adams has stepped up to demonstrate the council’s priorities – so much so that her pro-housing stance has begun “trickling down throughout the rest of the council.” He pointed to her leadership as well as Eric Adams’ receptiveness toward development as big reasons why some controversial projects ended up winning council backing toward the second half of 2022.
VARIED LANDSCAPE
Although the organized constituency for development is relatively new and growing, those who stand against more housing – be
UP FOR GRABS
A new majority-Asian seat in Brooklyn will showcase the community’s increasing voting power.
By Annie McDonough
it concerns about displacement or NIMBYism – certainly continue to wield influence.
Many New York City housing activists don’t believe that private development is capable of effectively and equitably creating affordable housing because housing that rents for less doesn’t generate enough money for profit-driven developers.
“The only way we are going to really make any new housing be affordable is if both the city and the state do their part to fund that widely available rental assistance for low-income people,” said Cea Weaver, campaign coordinator for Housing Justice for All.
A lot can happen between now and June in the District 9 race. Richardson Jordan said the rally against the truck depot was just a start.
Some, like Carlos Menchaca, a progressive former council member in Brooklyn, felt people too often forget about council members’ deep relationship with their community. His strong opposition to a proposal to rezone Sunset Park’s Industry City to promote development led to its defeat in 2020. He sees Richardson Jordan’s opposition as a strength – the trick will be effectively conveying her reasons for doing so to her constituents.
“I think she’s demonstrated incredible leadership in really confronting very powerful interests,” Menchaca said. “With such a short reelection cycle, I think she has one of the stronger stories to tell about what it takes to stand up and how she wants to reframe the engagement between a district like hers and the city of New York and developers. That’s going to benefit anyone whether you are pro or against the project.” ■ O VER THE COURSE of months and multiple drafts of New York City Council maps, one thing stayed constant through the redistricting process last year: the push to create a new majority Asian American district in Brooklyn.
The New York City Districting Commission’s mandate was to redraw the City Council district lines based on changes from the 2020 census, which saw the addition of 345,000 Asian Americans to the city over the past 10 years. Through hours of public hearings and commission deliberations, there wasn’t always agreement among Asian American community groups and advocates on how best to bolster the community’s voting power. But after several revisions, the Districting Commission landed on a map that linked together parts of Sunset Park, Dyker Heights and Bensonhurst in southern Brooklyn, creating a district with a nearly 54% majority-Asian population, according to data compiled by the Center for Urban Research at the CUNY Graduate Center. The end result: a long and somewhat narrow district that unites Asian American communities in those neighborhoods.
That end result has still received some minor objections. Yiatin Chu, president of the political club Asian Wave Alliance, advocated for the final map to include more of the fast growing Chinese American population in Sunset Park. Liz OuYang, coordinator of the Redistricting Task Force of APA VOICE (Asian Pacific Americans Voting & Organizing to Increase Civic Engagement) said she would have liked to see more of Bensonhurst kept together in the district. But Chu, OuYang and several advocates City & State spoke to said they were generally happy to see the creation of the majority Asian American district.
That’s partly because the new District 43 offers the best advantage at electing the first Asian American City Council member in Brooklyn, a borough that is home to roughly 370,000 Asian Americans, according to the 2020 census. In an election year that features familiar names and contests between colleagues-turned-competitors, District 43 is a rare seat without an incumbent.
Three candidates have declared so far, though the field will likely expand. The early entrants are all Democrats and all first-time candidates.
There’s Wai Yee Chan, the executive director of Homecrest Community Services, a social services nonprofit based in the district. Chan previously served as
NANTASHA WILLIAMS
“I ran for the Assembly, and I was kind of over it. But there were so many people that kept saying you’ve got to run again. … I was like OK, I guess I should do this. Then I always think about (political strategist) Donna Brazile. I went to one Caucus Weekend, she was talking about people running for office, and it’s just a basic comment that everyone says, but she’s like, ‘If not you, who? If not now, when?’”
INNA VERNIKOV
“I think what was really the straw that broke the camel’s back for me was the ‘defund the police’ movement. … There have been people telling me to run for office for years. But I never wanted to do it. I was very happy being a lawyer. I ran my own law practice for eight years, did divorce and immigration law. … But when I saw what was happening I said, OK, now I’ve got to get involved.”
community engagement director for Council Member Justin Brannan and entered the race with the support of former Assembly Member Peter Abbate Jr. and state Sen. Iwen Chu, who recently became the first Asian American woman elected to the state Senate after a narrow victory over her Republican opponent in November. Chan moved to Queens from Brooklyn 10 years ago, but she is looking to move back to the district now.
Susan Zhuang, a Bensonhurst resident and the chief of staff to Assembly Member William Colton, is also running with the support of some familiar local names, including Colton and former Council Member Mark Treyger. Zhuang and Chan both told City & State that they’ve already met the fundraising threshold to qualify for the Campaign Finance Board’s matching funds program.
Stanley Ng, the third declared candidate, said he will set himself apart from the competition as a candidate from outside the political system, not having worked for elected officials before. “I’m kind of tired of politicians, and the people working for them, not representing our community properly,” Ng said. Ng is a former member of Community Education Council 20 in southern Brooklyn and a longtime education advocate. He sued the city in 2007 alleging discrimination against Asians in a specialized high school test preparation program. A retired computer programmer whose more recent work includes volunteering at and running food pantries across the city, Ng said he briefly lived in Florida for his work between 2016 and 2017 but has otherwise lived in Brooklyn since the late 1980s and in Dyker Heights for the past 26 years.
It’s a Democratic primary field that’s already filled with candidates who have experience serving the community. But the field could continue to grow. That’s partially because it’s a rare open seat in a council full of incumbents running for reelection. But it’s also because of the opportunity it represents. “The Asian American community in Brooklyn specifically has built up a lot of civic engagement over the years, and this will likely be the first ever Asian American council member from Brooklyn,” said Trip Yang, a Democratic consultant who is not currently working
City Council District 43 candidate Wai Yee Chan
Candidate Susan Zhuang speaks at a rally against crime.
for any of the candidates. “There’s a lot of folks who have been doing the work on the ground who may want to throw their hat into the ring with nothing to lose.”
Jimmy Li, a Democratic candidate in last year’s primary for the new 10th Congressional District spanning lower Manhattan and Brooklyn, told City & State that he is mulling a potential run for the council seat. Despite finishing in seventh place in the congressional primary, Li outperformed all other candidates in the southern half of Sunset Park, which overlaps with City Council District 43.
But unlike the majority of City Council races in the overwhelmingly blue city, the Democratic primary is not the only important race in this district. This City Council district has a history of voting Republican in recent elections. In the 2021 mayoral election, Republican Curtis Sliwa won over half of the nearly 11,000 votes in the district. And though Gov. Kathy Hochul won Brooklyn in November, Republican gubernatorial candidate Lee Zeldin outperformed Hochul in southern Brooklyn.
Though no Republicans have declared yet, some observers suggested that the district could see a Republican primary too. Based on turnout in the previous mayoral election, getting out the vote in this year’s City Council elections – a nonmayoral year – will be a challenge. “It’s going to be really tight. It’s going to be small numbers,” said Yiatin Chu, who added that her organization is planning voter education and getout-the-vote efforts. “I think the action will definitely be in the general (election).”
Southern Brooklyn as a whole received renewed attention after the November elections, which saw several incumbent Democratic legislators lose to Republicans. In addition to renewing concerns about the Democratic Party not devoting enough resources to southern Brooklyn in general, the results also revived questions about whether the Democratic Party was paying enough attention to Asian American communities as parts of the electorate shifted to the political right. State Sen. Iwen Chu, who recently wrote an op-ed on this disconnect, said that voters in her district were not looking for the Democrat or Republican candidate on the ballot. “Voters here really do not go by party loyalty,” she said. “It really is about the issues.”
The Democratic candidates so far largely agree on the top issues for voters. Education, small-business services and affordable housing were each mentioned as priorities, but one issue is likely to take center stage. Each candidate mentioned public safety as either a top priority or the top priority, citing a wave of anti-Asian hate crimes as well as more general concerns about crime in the city. “Hate in our community is hate against everyone,” Zhuang said, adding that more needs to be done to educate residents about how to report hate crimes. “No matter if you’re Jewish, Chinese or Italian or Muslim, it’s hate for everyone.”
Chan, along with the other candidates, said she supports the city’s Gifted and Talented accelerated education program and the Specialized High School Admissions Test. Chan suggested that attempts by former Mayor Bill de Blasio to phase out Gifted and Talented and eliminate the test as the means of entrance to specialized high schools, where students are largely white or Asian American, is part of what has alienated Asian Americans from the Democratic Party. “I believe that we can build again from a grassroots level to get their trust back (and show that) we’ve delivered services and our policies fit the community as a whole,” Chan said. “We want to earn back their trust to our party.” ■
Longtime education advocate Stanley Ng is running for City Council.
A MORE PARTISAN GOVERNING BODY EMERGES
The New York City Council, known for maintaining a harmonious atmosphere, saw more partisanship and rancor among its members this past year.
By Jeff Coltin
City Council Member Ari Kagan tells the press why he switched from Democrat to Republican.
TWO DAYS AFTER defecting to the Republican Party in December, New York City Council Member Ari Kagan gave a short speech on the floor in the chamber, explaining his reasons, like how he “became sick and tired of these soft on crime and tough on police policies.” Sitting next to him was Council Member Althea Stevens, whose facial expressions were caught on camera – first stifling laughter, then as eyes widened in shock, and disdain, at each new piece of his statement.
A party switch like Kagan’s is rare, historically. But this one comes amid a new atmosphere in the City Council, of growing partisanship and open rancor among members. The City Council, like a minor league version of the U.S. Senate, has traditionally prided itself on a spirit of comity – no doubt benefited by the Democrats’ overwhelming numerical dominance in the body. But now the conservative contingent is growing and may even grow more following this year’s elections. There’s a sense that the council isn’t quite a one-party legislature anymore. Along with that, some conservatives are carrying culture war battles into the council and meeting there a growing socialist contingent that doesn’t hesitate to push back. And partisanship seems to have only escalated over the past year.
In fact, when 2022 began, the Women’s Caucus was bipartisan. The City Council was majority-women for the first time in history, and all 31 of them were members of the caucus. But the three Republican women who started the year as members asked the chair to be removed from the caucus on July 14. That was the same day the Women’s Caucus was credited with helping pass an abortion rights legislative package responding to the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling overturning Roe v. Wade.
The Republican women didn’t make a big deal of it – they didn’t release a statement, and in fact, their collective resignation has apparently gone unreported until now. But spokespeople for Council Members Joann Ariola and Vickie Paladino separately told City & State that the women felt that the caucus’ Democratic leadership was releasing pro-abortion statements without consulting all the members first.
Don’t be surprised this is taking place in a majority-women, female-led legislature – research shows women who serve as elected officials are just as partisan as men. And in fact, it seems to be the women leading the way, when it comes to open criticism of colleagues. Ariola appeared on Fox News in October in a segment slamming Council Member Tiffany Cabán. Ariola called her Democratic colleague a “chaos inciter” and didn’t push back when host Jesse Watters called Cabán “dumb” and “gang affiliated.” Cabán told The New York Times she received violent online threats after the interview.
Paladino, too, more than anyone, has fanned flames by picking up criticism of drag queen story hours, much of it based in anti-LGBTQ hate, and running with it, calling it “child grooming.” She also showed her opposition to COVID-19 vaccine mandates by refusing to show proof of vaccination to enter the council chamber for the first few meetings of the year. She attended virtually, before she was granted a waiver. Months later, she claimed she was a victim, telling a story that colleagues threw things at the screen when she appeared remotely at a meeting. The Daily News found no proof that ever happened.
Paladino denied she’s leading the charge,
saying “that’s a sad thing,” and that members just need to get to know her personally, and they’ll be surprised. “I’ll do whatever I can to make this city go tick-tock,” she said. “But we’ve got to meet in the middle. So that means compromise has got to come from the left. As well as compromise – I think the right bends a lot, because we’re such a minority.”
Council Member Chi Ossé, a progressive gay Democrat, was the target of online hate from Paladino’s followers in June. She didn’t discourage it, and doubled down, saying she’d been targeted too, by being called a “nazi” for her opposition to drag queen story hour. Her Twitter account later criticized him as “private school kid who’s never had a job.” He fired back, calling her “a vile bigot.” Asked this month about Paladino saying people need to get to know her better, Ossé didn’t seem interested. “She’s a lunatic,” he told City & State.
TO START, BLAME POLITICS AFTER TRUMP
Many insiders point to the national political atmosphere, after the presidency of Donald Trump, when explaining the shift. “I think we’ve always prided ourselves on having a more collaborative spirit than other places,” said Council Member Keith Powers, the majority leader. Sure enough, Ariola, a member of the minority party, chairs a committee. Council Member Joe Borelli, the minority leader, sits on the budget negotiating team. And Republican votes are sought after in the speaker race. None of this happens in Albany, or in Washington. “But I think the tone all across the country now is very electrified,” Powers continued. “And I think it’s not a surprise that would take place a bit here on the City Council as well.”
With a four-year election cycle and the power of incumbency, it may have taken longer for the council to reflect larger political trends, like Trumpism and the rise of the Democratic Socialists of America. Now it’s here, and, there’s a sense of change, from the former centrist Republicans to a new guard. As one lobbyist who asked for anonymity told City & State, “Jimmy Oddo is a different Republican than Vickie Paladino.” Oddo, who served in the council through 2013, now works in Democratic Mayor Eric Adams’ administration.
Others cite different reasons for the LYNN SCHULMAN
KEVIN RILEY
“Carl (Heastie, the Assembly speaker) believed in me. Jamaal (Bailey, Bronx County Democratic Party chair) believed in me. I knew Jamaal for over two decades; we go to the same church. I knew Carl for over a decade; he was my mentor. But really it was the people in my community that pitched me. People like Ms. Elizabeth Gill, Ms. Shirley Fearon, Mr. Al Decastro and Ms. Rogers. There’s a lot of people in the community pushing, ‘Hey Kevin, when are you going to step up and take care of the next generation?’”
growing partisanship. More social media-savvy members, playing to Twitter. COVID-19 limiting opportunities for the members to get to know each other at the beginning of the term. Or to political consultant Ryan Adams, the factionalism is a result of people trying to find their place amid turnover in the governor and mayor’s offices. “People are going to trust their friends and the organizations that came out for them in the face of a power vacuum,” he said. “Socialists aren’t only going to back socialist electeds and causes, but they are definitely going to go to bat for their friends in the face of attacks.”
While far-right members like Paladino have been elected, so have a handful of democratic socialists, meaning the ideological diversity of the council as a whole is arguably wider now than it has been at any time in modern history. There’s a revitalized Progressive Caucus, eager to push against the moderate Mayor Adams. And the Republicans have even more power than their numbers suggest. The Common Sense Caucus is now eight members strong, including nominal Democratic Council Members Bob Holden and Kalman Yeger, who most often align with Republicans.
A LITTLE PARTISANSHIP MAY NOT BE SO BAD
This growing sense of partisanship isn’t inherently a problem. A little more political debate could even be a good thing for the body, where public debate is rare, and bills are only brought to the floor if they’re guaranteed to pass (with one random recent exception).
The speaker, however, seems to disagree. Adrienne Adams has shared a draft of rule changes with the members, as Politico first reported. Among them is a rule that would raise the threshold of votes needed to move a bill over the speaker’s objections, in some rare cases, from seven to nine. Members of both the Common Sense Caucus, and some of the most progressive members, saw that as a move to limit their influence. Another change would prohibit members from calling each other out on the floor, to discourage personal attacks. Adams downplayed the proposed rules and suggested that the partisanship is just a reflection of the wider world. “Certainly we have differences, that’s to be expected,” she said at a December press conference. “But as far as particularly partisan, this council looks like the country looks, in a lot of different ways. There are ways that the country comes together, and there are ways that the country has their differences.”
But no observers actually want the council to reach the levels of rancor found in, for example, the U.S. House of Representatives. And Minority Leader Joe Borelli said he has tried to avoid that. Since city government is more focused on service delivery, you can’t be quite as partisan and ideological as you could be in Washington, the Republican leader told City & State: “There’s no shouting at clouds and punting in municipal government.”
Still, there’s no question the council’s character has changed. “You have a more empowered conservative bloc and a more empowered progressive bloc. The only outcome is essentially more partisan fracture,” he said.
But cross-party relationships aren’t gone yet from the council – especially when it comes to Borelli, who has worked hard to be friendly, even if his support for Trump or Republican gubernatorial candidate Lee Zeldin was shocking to most of his colleagues. While City & State was interviewing the Republican leader on the floor of the council chamber, Democratic Council Member Diana Ayala walked up to Borelli. “You going around trying to snatch our member in the middle of the night? Trying to grow the GOP?” It was all in good fun, followed with a hug and a kiss on the cheek. ■
As Ari Kagan explained why he was switching parties, Althea Stevens didn’t hide her chuckles, or disdain.
