FRANK CARONE

Frank Carone hasn’t been canceled (yet)

City Council members have been willing allies, tweeting meetings with Mayor Eric Adams’ chief of staff.

By Jeff Coltin

YOU CAN’T blame Frank Carone, chief of staff to New York City Mayor Eric Adams, for thinking a lot about “cancel culture.”

His boss, Adams, “doesn’t pay attention to it,” Carone told Ruby Cramer, in her extended profile of the new mayor in Politico. “He canceled it. We have totally canceled cancel culture.”

You can’t blame him, because Carone is the kind of guy who could have been “canceled,” or made into a public pariah, at least in the world of city politics.

After all, Adams brought in as his chief of staff a political fixer who represented one of the pettiest, least progressive political organizations in the city, the Brooklyn Democratic Party. More than that, Carone has represented countless private clients with business before the city, while spreading his money through campaign donations to political players like former New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio. Formerly an attorney with the firm Abrams Fensterman, Carone has lately been put in the hot seat for some of his private investments. One of his companies, CHC Surgical Center, has been sued at least four times for allegedly not paying its bills, the Daily News reported in January. Bloomberg reported in February that Carone had been subpoenaed in a federal civil racketeering lawsuit involving firms that he had invested in. Court records reported by the Daily News showed that Carone talked up his no-fault insurance business with Zhan Petrosyants and Robert Petrosyants after the brothers had faced charges for an illegal check cashing scheme involving no-fault insurance claims. Carone later represented the brothers’ restaurant when they faced sanctions from the state Liquor Authority, The City reported.

To be fair – despite the impression of him in some corners of Twitter as the godfather himself being given a desk in City Hall – Carone has not personally been accused of breaking the law in any of the above cases, and he has said that he divested from all of his outside businesses and put his assets in a blind trust before joining the Adams administration. Adams has been his client for nearly a decade, as well as a friend, and Carone is hardly the first person in politics who had private clients before going into public service.

But Carone was so radioactive for a little while that even Adams, defender of the politically unsavory, seemed to distance himself from Carone a bit.

“What happened to his business agreements prior to being my chief of staff is really something that I am not accountable for,” Adams told the press on Feb. 25. “What he does as my chief of staff, he will live up to the highest standard that I expect from all of my staff and employees.”

Maybe wary of the mayor’s identity as someone who doesn’t bow to cancel culture, Adams’ team walked it back, saying that his statement distancing himself from Carone was not distancing himself from Carone.

“(Adams) pointed out that there is nothing wrong with being friends with people who have made mistakes in their life, especially if those people have paid their debt to society,” spokesperson Maxwell Young tweeted regarding Carone and the Petrosyants. “And just to repeat, the ‘link’ is that they are friends.”

But it’s not just Adams who hasn’t canceled Carone. The chief of staff has found many willing allies among City Council members, eager to show their ties to one of the new administration’s power players. No fewer than seven council members have tweeted photos of their meetings with Carone over the past two weeks, most gushing with praise.

Carone met with City Council Member Kalman Yeger, who tweeted: “Unscheduled, no fuss.” Carone is “keeping (his) doors open for Council members”, Council Member Ari Kagan said, and Council Mem-

DANIEL J. MARINO/MARINO PHOTOGRAPHY

All eyes are on how Eric Adams and Adrienne Adams work together to pass their first budget.

“I imagine they tweet nice things because Carone is thoughtful, listens, and is committed to getting things done.”

– Maxwell Young, Adams’ spokesperson, on recent tweets by City Council members meeting with Carone

ber Kamillah Hanks encouraged her fellow members to “make an appointment; your district will thank you!” – though an appointment shouldn’t be needed, since she also praised his “open door policy.” Ditto Council Member Lincoln Restler, who once tussled about Brooklyn politics with Carone when Restler was the leader of the New Kings Democrats, and is now praising Carone’s “open door.” Council

Members Francisco Moya, James Gennaro and

Julie Menin also met, and tweeted. Featured in many of these messages have been photos of Carone’s desk, which have become a topic of chatter about City Hall watchers. It’s overflowing with organization charts, and papers stacked on papers ad infinitum, like a caricature of hard work. “It looked like a prop,” joked one politico. Has Carone been asking for messages of support? Or are members simply eager to show that they’re meeting with a member of the new mayor’s inner circle? “This was a ‘we are doing our job’ tweet,” said Moya’s chief of staff, Meghan Tadio Benham, who also joined their meeting. City Hall denied any coordination. “Carone has widespread support and no need to make a show of it,” Young wrote to City & State in an email. “He meets with elected officials because they have good ideas and are our partners in government and (while I don’t want to put words in their mouth) I imagine they tweet nice things because Carone is thoughtful, listens, and is committed to getting things done.” One thing’s clear: Carone has canceled cancel culture. For now. ■

Gas gimmick

The state wants to suspend gas taxes, but it still needs money to pave roads.

By Zach Williams

GAS PRICES have reached record levels in the Empire State due to rising inflation and the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Nearly half a dozen bills have been introduced before the state Legislature in recent weeks to offer some financial relief to motorists by suspending the state’s gas taxes. The only problem is that the taxes fund mass transit, roadway repairs and service current debt held by the state for past projects.

There is no single gas tax in New York – but four separate state taxes add up to 33.35 cents per gallon this year. That amounts to one of the largest tax bills in the nation, especially since local taxes also typically add about 15 cents per gallon.

“We have a crisis on our hands,” said Democratic Assembly Member Angelo Santabarbara of the Capital Region, who sponsored legislation to suspend the state’s gas taxes (local taxes would be unaffected) for one year. “It may look like a small amount, so you may say: ‘OK, it’s only going to save this much’ ... but that small amount adds up.”

The governor resisted calls to suspend the state’s gas taxes by arguing that the potential costs outweighed any benefits to New Yorkers affected by inflation. Experts said suspending the gas taxes would provide little financial relief to motorists while still leaving taxpayers as a whole responsible for potentially more than $1 billion in related spending. “It’s gimmicky,” Peter Warren, director of research at the Empire Center for Public Policy told City & State about suspending the gas taxes. “It’s a very dangerous precedent. Once you do something like this, it can be pretty hard to go back.”

The state gas taxes include 8 cents from the motor fuel tax, 17.3 cents from the petroleum business tax, 8 cents from a state sales tax on gas and a half penny from a fee on gas testing.

The state Dedicated Highway and Bridge Trust Fund received more than $1 billion in revenue last year from such taxes to support construction projects, bond payments and downstate transit agencies like the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, according to the state comptroller’s office. That money would have to be replaced if taxes were suspended.

Three bills before the state Legislature – sponsored by Santabarbara, Democratic state Sen. Kevin Parker of Brooklyn and Republican state Sen. Fred Akshar of the Southern Tier – would cover revenue losses by tapping into the state’s general fund supported by income taxes. “It’s really not the right instrument to provide relief to people,” Andrew Rein, president of the Citizens Budget Commission, told City & State. “It costs the state money and it’s got to come from somewhere.” In other words, income taxes would make up for transit costs that are currently levied on motorists.

Federal stimulus funding approved during the pandemic meant New York had a multibillion-dollar budget surplus. “New York State government has been robbing the taxpayers for years,” Akshar, who is sponsoring a bill that would cover suspended gas taxes

High gas prices across the state have legislators looking for creative ways to provide some relief at the pump.

through the general fund, said in a statement. “The state finally has a surplus and they should be passing that savings on to the taxpayers, not coming up with new ways to spend their hard earned tax dollars through an endlessly expanding budget.” His bill would also allow county governments to suspend their sales taxes on gas.

Democrats, including President Joe Biden, have faced criticisms for supporting efforts to increase fossil fuel production as the world faces a climate crisis. “The state will need to rely on gas as a bridge fuel,” reads the legislative memo of a bill aiming to suspend gas taxes, which was introduced by Parker, who also previously sponsored a controversial bill aiming to tax carbon emissions. While Republicans lamented how policy moves like the 2014 statewide ban on fracking, experts said climate-friendly policies have had a minimal role in rising energy prices compared to disruptions caused by the pandemic.

A January report by state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli highlighted how New York diverted money away from maintaining roads and bridges in recent decades. “These taxes are supposed to fix the roads and the bridges,” Robert Sinclair Jr., a spokesperson for AAA Northeast, told City & State. “We know that’s been usurped already, (so) we need to spend a “It’s really not the lot more money on roads to get right instrument to provide them in good shape.” The recent inrelief to people. troduction of two It costs the state money bills by Democratic state Sens. James Skoufis and it’s got to come from of the Hudson Valley and John Mannion of Censomewhere.” tral New York suggested the push for a gas tax holiday was only – Andrew Rein, Citizens getting stron-

Budget Commission ger. The Skoufis president bill was similar to those already proposed by having the general fund cover any revenue gaps. The Mannion bill would cap sales taxes – county and state – at 25 cents per gallon. Legislators like Santabarbara were hopeful that the upcoming state budget could pave the way to suspend the state’s gas taxes.

Legislative leaders and Hochul will have the final say on whether the state suspends its gas taxes. Representatives for state Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins and Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie did not respond to requests for comment by publication time. But the governor has made it clear that she is in no hurry to divert money away from roads and bridges at a time when she has invested political capital in that very idea in the state budget process. “It’s going to keep going up,” she told reporters this week about gas prices. “I want to make sure that if we do something, it’s actually going to have an impact.” ■