City Hall - January 26, 2009

James Gennaro sets himself up for another State Senate run (Page 8),

Vol. 3, No. 9

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housing advocates contemplate life beyond Shaun Donovan, left, (page 14), and Lou Tobacco, above, says he is not that lonely, really (Page 19).

January 26, 2009

G N I T T E G

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R I A CH The complex, convoluted race to be the next public advocate

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JANUARY 26, 2009

Forethought Making the Call to Service Real hough Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s State of the City address was remarkable for its relative ambiguity, several notable ideas were proposed. But while his insistence that the government dismantle the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation will undoubtedly get a great deal of attention going forward, his call to expand the number of New Yorkers with community service likely will not. That is a shame, and one that the mayor should take care to address.

Building on the efforts of his own administration over the years and on Barack Obama’s call for national involvement, Bloomberg announced his assignment of First Deputy Mayor Patti Harris to create what he called a “blueprint” with city leaders outside of City Hall for how to best utilize New Yorkers. “She’ll bring together leaders in the nonprofit, philanthropic and private sectors to develop a bold and ambitious plan to maximize our greatest asset: The love that all of us have for this city and our willingness to put it to work,” the mayor promised.

Politicians’ calls for service tend to be empty, made for the sake of political expediency and without any real thinking behind them. Bloomberg and Harris can and should do better. No doubt, they will be bombarded with many ideas over the weeks ahead. Here is one to add to the list: in looking where to place people, the government should look in the mirror.

There are dozens of ways that eager civic-minded New Yorkers could be used to augment basic government services, from helping out at the 311 call centers to internships in the administration or city agencies, or in the offices of members of the City Council, Assembly and State Senate. There are thousands of unemployed people out there who have talents and skills with excess time on their hands who could be put to work for New York. There are thousands more who could use their own time out of work to develop new skills which could help them land jobs down the line.

Whatever the ultimate plan, though, Harris and Bloomberg will have to help the residents of this city see that they should be answering the call to service.

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Any true New Yorker knows that the city’s reputation for gruff apathy is often ill-deserved, as was confirmed by the response to the plane landing on the Hudson River shortly after Bloomberg’s speech ended. But for those people in this city still in jobs, while their love for the city and willingness to put that love to work may not have diminished, their ability to do so in the face of these tough times may have. People are working more hours to make their money, many of them burdened with picking up the slack left behind from layoffs ordered by employers anxious about their bottom lines.

A big piece of the administration’s efforts, therefore, will have to go toward a public relations effort to make clear to New Yorkers why they should be involved, promoting the idea of people giving back to their city and community. Public service announcements will be key, and promoting those service opportunities that can be done with family and friends would be a wise way to increase participation in this age when personal time will be increasingly hard to find. Meanwhile, the mayor and the Council should consider creating special economic incentives, whether through incremental city tax deductions or partnerships with stores to provide gift cards or discounts, to those that give of themselves, like the Starbucks offer of a free cup of coffee to those who answered Obama’s call to volunteer.

With the economy low and people’s spirits lower, a call to service could and should be a powerful thing to lift both. The Bloomberg administration has the marketing, management and creative aptitude to use the mayor’s rhetoric as the starting point for an effort which would truly improve New York City and New York City government. On what might at first seem to be a small and simple initiative, the mayor, the Council members and their staffs should dare to dream big.

The mayor and the Council should consider creating special economic incentives, whether through incremental city tax deductions or partnerships with stores to provide gift cards or discounts, to those that give of themselves.

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The Un-Making of a Senator Caroline Kennedy’s brief foray into the humiliations of local politics

BY DAVID FREEDLANDER n front of the Queens Museum on a dark and cold night last December, reporters and cameramen from the always voracious New York City press corps were standing in a shivering huddle.

Inside, by the coat check, a woman of late middle age in pearls and rouge leaned over to her campaign and intoned an explanation.

“Caroline Kennedy,” she whispered.

That simple.

The Queens County Democrats holiday party, a no-press affair, was one more stop on the Caroline Kennedy Introduction Tour as a cascade of inevitability swept up America’s sweetheart in her quasicampaign to be named the next senator from the state of New York.

A few days earlier, Brooklyn county boss Vito Lopez (D) had endorsed her, a sign to many observers that the political class was receiving loud and clear messages that she was the one.

There had been by that point an upstate tour, which many presumed was done with the blessing of Gov. David Paterson (D), with whom the final decision ultimately rested. There was the sit-down with Rev. Al Sharpton at Sylvia’s, apparently enough to quiet the man who could raise the most troubling questions about why the Senate seat should go to a middle-aged socialite from the Upper East Side whose previous accomplishments included editing a book of her mother’s favorite poems, among other books.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s (Ind.) right-hand political man, Kevin Sheekey, was reportedly calling around to labor leaders urging them to jump on board the ever-expanding bandwagon, referring to Kennedy’s appointment as a done deal.

So when she emerged into the main hall at the Queens Museum at the side of county leader Rep. Joseph Crowley, a powerful and practical pol wary of wasting political capital for anything less than a sure thing, everyone knew the Kennedy appointment was just that, a sure thing. With one arm he steered her through the throng of Democratic insiders and aspiring district leaders.

Kennedy listened politely as gray-bearded insiders regaled her with stories about her father and her uncle. She already had mastered the camera-ready grip and grin and willingly administered it to everyone in the room who wanted a shot of themselves with the next senator for future campaign literature.

Not long after, he led her up onto stage.

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“I hope to come back many times,” she told the crowd.

Crowley then put her through the kind of debasing all politicians must go through at one time or another: a few choruses of “Jingle Bells.”

Grimacing tightly, she did.

“Laughing all the way. Hey Hey Hey Hey.” But elsewhere, cracks in the inevitability were already showing.

Her handlers, led by Josh Isay and his

“I hope to come back many times,” Kennedy told the crowd at the Queens Museum. superstar consulting firm Knickerbocker SKD, had presumed that her visits with upstate legislative leaders would not merit much attention; instead, the local officials had, out of courtesy, tipped off the local newsmen and women, and the word spread. To their surprise, Kennedy was greeted by a throng of reporters

whom she blithely skated past.

That would prove the first, but not the last time, that Kennedy’s handlers would underestimate the press corps.

“Reporters have to be respected under all circumstances,” said one rival campaign consultant. “The press corps in New York City and state is filled with serious people. You can’t get into a situation where you don’t have answers, and can’t bob and weave your way out of it.”

Two days later, Kennedy aired her views on the critical issues facing the state and the nation for the first time.

Only instead of answering questions, she had her spokesman fill out responses to a questionnaire submitted

by Politico and even then the answers were unsatisfying and vague.

Sample: Question: Do you think Sen. Schumer made a mistake when he successfully pushed to have the GlassSteagal Act repealed, breaking down barriers between securities firms and banks? What priorities would you set for restructuring New York’s financial services industry? And which of the

current financial regulatory plans would you support?

Answer: “At this time, Caroline does not have a specific plan to fix New York’s financial services industry.”

“She’s leading people to think she doesn’t have any thoughts about the economy or the war or Israel or a whole host of issues,” said one prominent Democrat at the time. “Politicians can be vague when they have a foundation of public service that you can trust. When you are a blank canvas you need to paint a picture for yourself or your adversaries will do it for you.”

Most gallingly, when asked if she would pledge to support the Democratic nominee for mayor in 2009, the woman with the most Democratic last name in the world declined to comment, setting off a fury among local party stalwarts.

Suddenly, it was open season.

Congressman—and 2009 Bloomberg opponent—Anthony Weiner (DBrooklyn/Queens) questioned whether or not she had “the fire in the belly.” Rep. Gary Ackerman (D-Queens/Nassau) had already compared her to J-Lo. A Dec. 9 Marist Poll showed that a quarter of New Yorkers favored making her the next senator, about as many that favored Andrew Cuomo.

If that number rose as she traveled around the state, to say, 50 percent, many political observers said Paterson would have no choice but to select her.

Instead it sunk. According to someone close to her handlers, they never intended to have her meet with the press as early as she did and felt backed into a corner by questions of her readiness.

When she gave a few interviews in the dead news zone that is the week between Christmas and New Year’s, she came off as unsteady at best. She never did do another round with the press, even as she did more work behind the scenes like that night at the museum.

Finally freed from the agony on stage, she made her way back through the crowd, trailed by Isay, maniacally tapping on his Blackberry and scanning the room, glasses perched on his nose. Without turning, she walked past the famed panorama of New York City and ran into Weiner and his girlfriend, Huma Abedin.

“Huma!” she said, bending to kiss Hillary Clinton’s body woman on the cheek.

Weiner, meanwhile, got a polite nod in his direction.

Then it was off to the waiting car, breezing past the press corps still waiting for her out in the cold. They shouted questions. She smiled, saying not much back, only: “I’m having a very good time.” dfreedlander@cityhallnews.com

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January 26, 2009

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Public Officials Grapple Over City’s Approach to Public-Private Partnerships Buildings deteriorating, advocates say, so is the Parks Department’s legacy B y S a l G e nt ile

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hey call it the bathhouse.

The crumbling 18,000-foot complex has stood vacant and gutted on the corner of Madison and Rutgers streets on the Lower East Side since the 1970s, when it served as a popular recreation center tucked into a cluster of densely packed public housing projects.

Since the city shuttered it during the fiscal crisis, it has stood in this depressed neighborhood as a testament to a twotiered parks system where public lands in wealthy neighborhoods are well-kept by private funds while the rest are left to rot.

“Public space has more and more been taken over by private or commercial interests,” said Setha Low, a professor of environmental psychology at the City University of New York who has written extensively on the privatization of public space. “With the pulling back of this money, private citizens, corporations and the government have asked in some way, from these public-private partnerships, for private people to more and more take responsibility for the maintenance, ownership—everything—of public space.”

The case of the bathhouse, seen with parallel cases of sprawling capital projects taken up by wealthier parks groups across the city, has cast a spotlight

The crumbling bathhouse on the Lower East Side is an example of the downside of public-private partnerships in city parks, say critics. on that patchwork of public parkland and private parks groups, such as the Central Park Conservancy, which are able to fund large-scale development projects with money from wealthy patrons.

“Quite frankly, I think it’s discrimination. This is a lower-income neighborhood with mostly Latino and

Asian and African-American [residents],” said Gerson, whose district includes the bathhouse. “It goes to the fact that some communities are able to raise funds. It also goes to political clout, unfortunately.”

On Randall’s Island, for example, a private conservancy has raised tens of millions of dollars from 20 nearby private schools for the rehabilitation of aging ball fields at the park. In exchange, the Randall’s Island Sports Foundation would grant the schools exclusive access to the vast majority of those fields during after-school hours.

Politicians and community activists have fought the plan, which has gestated in some form for close to a decade, prompting a protracted court battle and hearings at the City Council.

But similar arrangements, made with the Parks Department’s blessing, have multiplied since then. Private conservancies built on the model of the Central Park Conservancy have proliferated rapidly— there are now more than 40 throughout the city—their growth unchecked by the Parks Department and regulated only by a smattering of ad hoc policies.

The Parks Department has been resistant to calls for clearly articulated policies regulating privatization. In a statement, Jama Adams, a spokeswoman, said: “Parks has the same goals for all parks in its charge and applies the same

standards and management strategies to every park regardless of location or condition. Private investment allows us to direct more resources to parks in need of support and has raised the standard for parks across the board.”

Private investment in the public parks system has ballooned over the past 20 years, though the flow of cash to individual parks has been uneven. Private conservancies spend about $87 million annually on park upkeep, but about $33 million of that is spent by the Central Park Conservancy alone.

Some neighborhoods, like the Lower East Side community where the bathhouse is located, cannot afford even a meager attempt at fundraising—which is why they are forced to rely on an everdiminishing pool of public resources.

The Parks Department’s own projections say an investment of about $20 million would be necessary to rehabilitate the bathhouse—money Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe says his agency does not have.

And without private philanthropists ready to fill the void, the structure will continue to rot away. Gerson blames Benepe.

“He claims he doesn’t have the resources,” Gerson said. “And I claim it’s his responsibility to figure out how to get the resources.” sgentile@cityhallnews.com

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Facing Fundraising Laws They Passed Themselves, Members Voice Complaints Pre-term limit extension restrictions come home to roost in poorer districts B y D a n R iv o li

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he stricter campaign finance laws that City Council candidates will be running under this year have some complaining that candidates from poorer districts are disproportionately hit by the effects of the law.

When the new limits were passed by the Council in July 2007 and became effective January 2008, most on the Council thought they would not be subject to them, due to the two-term limit. The rules cap contributions from organizations with business in front of the city to $250 and ban contributions from limited-liability companies and partnerships.

Designed to eliminate even the perception of pay-to-play politics, the rules force candidates to rely more on individuals for fundraising. For some candidates, this is less of an option.

“It’s not a level playing field,” said Letitia James (D-Brooklyn), whose district’s median income ranks 36th in the city, according to the 2000 census. James said relying on individual constituents to dig into their own pockets for campaign donations has created difficulties for her in her fundraising.

Council Member Larry Seabrook (D-

Bronx), one of the 47 Council members who voted for the new rules, has criticized them as too restrictive since starting his fundraising for re-election this fall. Seabrook argued that the companies that benefit his community, such as affordable housing developers, should be able to contribute even if they have business in front of the city.

“They can’t make contributions and they live in the district,” Seabrook opined.

“It makes absolutely no sense.”

Though Seabrook and other Council members have only recently begun criticizing the bill, concerns were voiced by some Council staffers at the outset.

“This was a bad idea,” said one Democratic insider who helped draft the campaign finance reform bill despite being adamantly opposed to the new rules. “It hurt Council members of color disproportionately.”

Seabrook, who was to have been forced from office by term limits this year and is now running for a third term, has yet to register with the Campaign Finance Board (CFB). But fundraising numbers from other Council members registered with the CFB do appear to demonstrate a disparity in giving from individuals.

Council Member Daniel Garodnick (DManhattan), whose district has the highest median income in the city, raised $347,348

with 16 donors contributing the maximum amount, $2,750. By contrast, Council Member Inez Dickens (D-Manhattan), whose Central Harlem district has one of the city’s lowest median incomes, raised $66,500 with an average contribution of $301. Only four people—one of whom is Rep. Charles Rangel (D-Manhattan) and two of whom live outside the district—contributed the maximum amount to her campaign. When both were seeking their first terms in 2005, Garodnick raised $875 from three LLCs, while Dickens raised $4,375 from nine LLCs. The campaign finance reform bill’s supporters argue that matching funds should help make up differences like these.

Council Member Simcha Felder (DBrooklyn), chair of the Government Operations Committee, said the concerns were heeded throughout the process. He pointed to the increase in matching funds to a 6-1 level included in the bill as evidence that he and other Council members had taken steps to correct potential disparities.

In addition to the increase in public funds, contributions by unions—always a dependable source of cash for Democratic candidates—were not subject to new rules, much to Felder’s chagrin.

“Unions got a free pass. That helps some of these candidates,” Felder said.

“It cuts both ways.”

Still, complaints persist that these measures failed to equalize the situation for candidates who have fewer constituents able to cut a check for $2,750—the maximum contribution to a Council candidate. The ceiling for the 6-1 matching funds up to $175 gives the candidate a total of $1,050 in public funds for each contributor, a $1,700 difference.

According to CFB executive director Amy Loprest, the higher matching fund rate has indeed proven effective as a means for minority candidates to stay competitive.

“Another thing we found very heartening to the purpose of the campaign finance rules was an increase in small donations,” Loprest said. “The change from 4-1 to 6-1 encouraged smaller donations.”

Seabrook, if re-elected for a third term, said he will push for a commission on improving the existing campaign finance laws.

“It needs to be dealt with in an intellectual way to come up with real reform,” Seabrook said. “Not have it driven in such a way as to undo some good things.” drivoli@cityhallnews.com

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JANUARY 26, 2009

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The Threat More Severe, Bloomberg Takes a Softer Approach with Albany State legislators see a stark reversal as mayor woos them on budget and mayoral control

Michelle Goldstein and her boss Michael Bloomberg have taken a different approach with Albany legislators this year as they try to recover at least a portion of the $1.6 billion the city is slated to lose in the governor’s budget.

BY SAL GENTILE he night before Gov. David Paterson (D) delivered his executive budget proposal in December, his aides called Michelle Goldstein, Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s (Ind.) chief lobbyist in Albany, to brief her on what they knew would be the most stinging elements of the plan: eliminating direct aid to the city; delaying by four years a program that would increase funding for city schools; slashing Medicaid reimbursements.

With each of the $1.6 billion in cuts, Goldstein winced, dreading walking into the mayor’s office the next day and handing him a piece of paper with the bleak reality laid out in full.

In past years, such a hefty cut would have set off a public back-and-forth between Bloomberg and state lawmakers.

But as the new legislative session gets under way, the mayor and his lobbyists are taking a decidedly softer approach in trying to restore some of those cuts and set the agenda for the rest of the year.

Many see that as a startling but necessary shift, made by an administration trying to soothe lingering tensions with Albany after the failure of its congestion pricing plan last year.

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“It was a learning experience for everybody,” Goldstein said.

So far this year, Bloomberg has largely refrained from chiding state lawmakers the way he has in years past. In his testimony to the Assembly Ways and Means Committee in late January, he only once called one of their proposals “ridiculous.”

But the scars of old battles remain, and many legislators are likely to remember their fights with Bloomberg when it comes time to vote on the budget in April.

“It’s got to weigh on their minds,” said Assembly Member Sam Hoyt (DErie), who sits on the Ways and Means Committee.

Some upstate lawmakers have already expressed their opposition to restoring some of the cuts.

“The state’s cupboard is bare,” said Assembly Member Robin Schimminger (D-Erie/Niagara), also on the Ways and Means Committee. “Anything will be a difficult lift.”

Even in private negotiating sessions, rank-and-file lawmakers remain wary of the mayor’s proposals and remember his bare-knuckled tactics from past confrontations.

“A lot of people focus on things that we did not get done, one or two big

deals,” said Jeff Kay, the mayor’s director of operations and a former lobbyist in Albany. “But not many people focus on the many, many, many really good things that we’ve gotten out of Albany.”

Aides point to a series of recent victories, such as the success of the mayor’s pension reform proposal, which made it into the governor’s budget and will allow the Bloomberg administration

on their 2009 agenda: mayoral control of schools, which expires in June. That debate is already shaping up to be a contentious one, and state lawmakers have warned Bloomberg against pushing them around again.

“The heavy-handedness of the mayor’s approach in the congestion pricing debate has not been forgotten,” said Assembly Member Hakeem Jeffries (DBrooklyn), who has supported the mayor on some of his largest proposals, such as the Gansevoort waste transfer station, and opposed him on others. “The mayor’s approach on congestion pricing was ‘take it or leave it.’ And we left it.”

Some legislators say they’ve already detected the impact of those lessons in the administration’s approach toward the debate over mayoral control and expect to win concessions from the mayor that they would never have won in past years.

Jeffries, for one, said he had already had preliminary conversations last year about mayoral control with the late Terence Tolbert, then the mayor’s chief education lobbyist. Tolbert indicated in those conversations that the administration would be willing to entertain changes to the program in order to empower parents in the education process.

“He made it clear that, in terms of the key decision makers in this process, of what would happen in 2009, would be rank-and-file members of the Legislature, who have to got be responsive to their constituents, and who ultimately are the ones to vote up or down on any change or reauthorization,” he said.

That, legislators say, would be a stark reversal from the congestion pricing fight, during which the mayor hauled rank-andfile lawmakers into private meetings at Gracie Mansion to insist that they accept his plan without adjustments.

To some, the fact that the mayor has abandoned his hard-charging approach is a rare, if tacit acknowledgment that it had

The scars of old battles remain, and many legislators are likely to remember their fights with Bloomberg when it comes time to vote on the budget in April. to cut back on the amount it pays city pensioners. That was a heartening win for the mayor, who personally crafted the plan and advocated for it both publicly and privately (Deputy Mayor Ed Skyler called Albany constantly in the weeks leading up to the budget presentation to secure the deal).

Boosted by that small but important victory, the mayor’s lobbyists have begun moving forward on the next major item

failed.

“I don’t think that’s the right way to go,” said Bill Lynch, a former deputy mayor who oversaw the Albany office during the administration of Mayor David Dinkins (D). “If you approach them like you’re the smartest kid on the block, and you know everything that’s going on, that has nothing to do with politics. That has to do with common sense.” sgentile@cityhallnews.com

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JANUARY 26, 2009

For Molinaro’s Third Term, He Relies on Old, if Unlikely, Alliance Democratic plan to back Conservative candidate next peg in long-term strategy

BY DAN RIVOLI ess than a year ago, Staten Island Borough President James Molinaro (C) was contemplating whom to give the crucial Conservative Party endorsement to in the race to succeed him: then-Council Member Michael McMahon (D) or Council Minority Leader James Oddo (R).

Now, with term limits extended, Molinaro is the one fishing for party endorsements. In seeking a third term, he will interview with the Republican Party, which cross-endorsed both his previous runs, as well as with the Democratic Party, which in recent years has become a consistent ally of Molinaro and his Conservative Party.

“I’m friendly with all people,” Molinaro joked.

Nonetheless, he will not do so without some opposition on both the Republican and Democratic fronts. Jamshad “Jim” Wyne, a cardiologist who tried for the Republican nomination for Congress last year, is seeking his party’s nomination, while attorney and community activist John Luisi, who challenged Molinaro in 2005, said he is interested as well.

But the incumbent borough president said he expects to get all three ballot lines in November, the product of a somewhat

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James Molinaro’s bid for a third term may be central to a new Conservative-Democratic alliance. surprising courtship of the Democrats— Molinaro was local Republican icon Guy Molinari’s chief of staff in Congress and served as his deputy during Molinari’s stint in Borough Hall—that is the latest move for a borough president who has become a friend of the Democrats.

Molinaro endorsed McMahon in his House race and wife Judith McMahon’s successful State Supreme Court bid last

year. As a result, the Democratic Party on the island is on the upswing in the borough: In addition to capturing the House seat for the first time in decades, they now hold three of the four state legislative districts.

Nonetheless, it is prepared to return the favor and back Molinaro, rather than run its own candidate for borough president.

The decision is not without long-term strategy, however. Endorsing Molinaro for re-election plays into Democratic Party chair John Gulino’s plans to expand the party beyond its base in the North Shore by building a Democratic-Conservative coalition.

“Support from the minor party was an important victory. You can’t pooh-pooh it,” Gulino said. “For borough-wide seats, it’s going to translate into victories for Democrats.”

In a way, Gulino said, this is a return to form.

“Going back 25 years, a lot of candidates ran Democrat-Conservative,” Gulino said.

“Then the era of Molinari started.”

In most borough wide races, voters pull the lever for the Conservative candidate in higher numbers than the party’s registration rolls. Under Molinari, the former Congressman and borough president who created the Staten Island Republicans as a potent force, the Conservative Party

endorsed the few Democrats that were shooins for re-election while generally backing the Republicans in close borough-wide races. The result was an era of extended GOP dominance.

The pendulum has swung back.

McMahon and his Conservative-approved centrist beliefs swept the middle portion of the borough. The appeal was so strong that while he lost the heavily Republican South Shore, he did by only a thousand votes.

“Conservative Democrats really speak to the politics of that part of the borough,” said Richard Flanagan, associate professor of political science at the College of Staten Island. “They are your swing voters. They’ll move any borough-wide election.”

This bodes well for future boroughwide races and flipping the area’s Council seat in 2013 when Oddo—himself a centrist Republican who appears to have begged off a challenge to Molinaro on the Republican line—will be term-limited.

“Gulino’s approach has put every seat in play,” said Luisi, Molinaro’s ’05 opponent. “It has been a huge lift to the Democratic Party in Staten Island.” “It’s a stable partnership,” Flanagan said. “It’s the great advantage to the Democratic Party.” drivoli@cityhallnews.com

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JANUARY 26, 2009

Continuing the Count for 2008, Counting on Results in 2010 Battering Padavan in court, Gennaro settles into permanent campaign mode

For most of 2008, James Gennaro was viewed for some time as an awkward long-shot. Now his expected rematch with Frank Padavan appears to be the marquee race for 2010.

BY SAL GENTILE n his stripped-down campaign headquarters, paint peeling and walls bare, the Queens Council Member James Gennaro shuffled from one supporter to the next to chat about the Giants and the weather, a rare opportunity to retreat from the frustrated monotony of what is now Gennaro’s daily life— thrown from the frenzied pace of the campaign to the grinding, hurry-up-and-wait of a recount.

“It’s just like a different focus, played on a different playing field,” Gennaro said. “The campaign was out in the neighborhood, and this is in the courtroom.”

Gennaro has spent close to three months in what can be charitably described as the purgatory of American democracy: a winding, protracted court battle over 2,000 disputed ballots that could send him to Albany. He is currently behind Republican incumbent State Sen. Frank Padavan by 580 votes.

Even as the State Senate enters its second month in session, Gennaro’s supporters and lawyers have held

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up the decision, convinced, they say, that Padavan’s objections to the ballots are discriminatory and illegal.

But realistically, that effort may only be secondary to their real goal: needling Padavan and his staff as much as possible, relishing the chance to agitate a man they see as ornery and out of step, recounting each of the increasingly outlandish turns the legal battle has taken since November and indulging the sense of vindication

“I hope so,” Padavan said of the prospect that Gennaro would run again, “because he’ll be easy to beat.” that comes with seeing Padavan, a lion of the Republican Senate for 36 years, work without a salary.

Padavan said he and his Senate staff, which he will not have to cut until March, have been handling constituent casework in the district office without pay.

CITY HALL If the goal is to goad Padavan into a rematch—one Gennaro’s supporters think the he can win—the effort seems to have succeeded.

“There’s no question I will be running again,” Padavan said, batting down speculation that the Republican leadership might replace him with a more viable candidate by the next election, or perhaps in a special election in the interim. “I’ve made it clear that I will be running in 2010.”

Even if the Republican leadership did want to replace Padavan, Queens Republicans say, it would be difficult to find a viable candidate. There are no Republican members of the Assembly or City Council in Padavan’s district and no one with enough name recognition to mount a serious campaign.

So on whether he expected to face Gennaro again in 2010, Padavan was firm.

“I hope so,” he said, “because he’ll be easy to beat.”

Though they will not go that far, some of Gennaro’s supporters acknowledge that the road to victory in 2010 may be difficult.

“The scenario could definitely flip in 2010,” said Assembly Member Rory Lancman (D-Queens), an early supporter of Gennaro who fared poorly in his own run against Padavan in 2000. “It’s not a presidential election, and you don’t have these thousands of new voters or occasional voters coming out.”

In the meantime, Gennaro may face a primary challenge. Some Queens Democrats expect that Council Member Tony Avella (D-Queens), who has often been mentioned as a candidate for the seat, may jump in if his dark horse mayoral campaign fails. Not only would he likely be boosted by the publicity he is likely to get out of a citywide campaign, but he already has a Council district that overlaps much more with Padavan’s Senate district than Gennaro’s does.

Avella declined to comment, saying he was focused entirely on running for mayor.

However, Michael Reich, the executive secretary of the Queens Democratic Party, made clear that whether or not Avella makes the race, the county party has already coalesced behind Gennaro if he chooses to make another run for the seat.

“He would have to be considered the frontrunner,” Reich said. “And I think it would be hard for anyone else to jump in and claim that seat.”

That is part of a marked change for Democrats’ view of the district: For most of 2008, Gennaro was viewed for some time as an awkward long-shot, running a quixotic or even misguided campaign in the shadow of the crusade being waged on behalf of Joseph Addabbo in his race against State Sen. Serf Maltese in the district next door.

Gennaro seemed almost beside the point. But now the party, its top strategists and allies like the Working Families Party all agree that his is the marquee race for 2010.

“The Addabbo-Maltese race, it was a major grassroots ground operation that was run by people who run those things,” Lancman said. “I think that’s the main difference that you would see in the next Gennaro versus Padavan round.”

In the meantime, Gennaro plans on running for reelection to the Council in 2009, a decision his supporters, even groups like the Working Families Party, support despite his vote against extending term limits.

Gennaro’s supporters regard the newfound attention as a validation of the guerilla-style campaign they assembled, though they bear a little resentment at the sudden swell of goodwill. But the Council member and his aides know they will need the cavalry, even one that arrives a little later than they would have liked.

“There’s only so much energy I’m going to spend on getting institutional players interested in our campaign,” he said. “And I don’t blame the ones that didn’t see it.”

Then, with evident satisfaction, he added, “They see it now.” sgentile@cityhallnews.com

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Getting the

The complex, convoluted race to be the next public advocate

ESTHER CROTTY

CHAIR

BY DAVID FREEDLANDER F BARACK OBAMA ever decides that he is tired of running the world and wants to become the next public advocate, the ground had already been laid for him.

“This is a season of renewal, a season of rejoicing,” said Council Member Eric Gioia (D-Queens) to a chorus of amens from the pulpit of the Center of Hope Church, across the street from the massive Queensbridge housing projects in Long Island City on a snowy Sunday in early January, a few days before the inauguration. “Because in one week we will swear in Barack Obama as president of the United States.”

“Look at Barack Obama,” said Council Member Bill de Blasio (D-Brooklyn), explaining why his anemic fundraising totals would not hinder his efforts. “I mean, okay, yes, he raised a ton of money, but he did not win Iowa because he had a lot of money. He won because he excited people. Then he got all the money.”

Or Norman Siegel, the civil rights attorney making his third try for the job who sees in Obama a path to victory “Barack Obama is a factor. What was the mantra? Change. Well, shit, you want change, I’ve been doing change for 40 years. What’s the other mantra? Experience.

Well, for being an advocate, who has more experience than me? No one.”

If Obama stepped up (or rather, down), he would probably be the front-runner

to replace Betsy Gotbaum. Failing that, the race to be her successor is a tangled mess, and been getting more tangled since Gotbaum decided not to seek re-election after the Council voted, against her advice, to extend term limits. There are no shortage of candidates: Gioia, a hyper-ambitious ex-Clinton White House staffer who has been running in place for the seat since he was first elected to the Council in 2002; there is Council Member John Liu (D-Queens), a press savvy former accountant who once seemed to be wavering about which office to run for before the term limits extension made his decision for him; there is Siegel who had the inside track eight years ago but ran out of money before he could make it the finish line; and then there is de Blasio, a longtime Democratic party political operative who led the fight against the term limits extension but got into the race late and has fallen behind in the money race.

And those are just the declared candidates. Council Member Jessica Lappin (D-Manhattan) has also indicated

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her intentions to get in the race, and Mark Green, who served as the city’s first public advocate from 1993-2001, has been calling around to supporters to gauge their interest, saying he feels called to by the way term limits were extended. Both say they expect to make decisions soon.

And one formerly declared candidate is on the cusp of dropping out: Assembly Member Adam Clayton Powell IV (DManhattan), who said that he will not run if Green does, which he expects will happen.

“It’s frustrating.

I’ve been working on this for two years,” Powell said.

“But love him or hate him, Mark Green is a 500-pound gorilla in that race. It will be hard for anyone to even make it in a runoff if he’s in it, and it would be nearly impossible to beat him in a runoff. I see why he wants to get in. He sees it as a weak field filled with Council members who are not that well known outside of their districts. I bet none of these Council candidates run if Mark’s in it.”

P r i v a t e l y, others in the race have expressed fury that Green looks like he is going to take the plunge, eight years after running an inept campaign for mayor that saw him snatch defeat from the jaws of victory and lose to Mayor Michael Bloomberg Ind.). ( “It’s a total ego trip,” said one hopeful, citing an old Green mentor. “He’s in danger of becoming the Ralph Nader of New York City.”

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very political observer in the city seems to have a different calculus for who has the mortal lock to get in the run-off, who is going to be embarrass themselves with a pitifully poor showing, and who will be competing most with Green for votes.

Green is generally thought of to have done a good job as public advocate, taking on the worst abuses of the Giuliani era and defining the office as a foil to an imperious mayor. But he has a string of losses dating back to 1980, and, after a 20-point drubbing to Andrew Cuomo in a race to become the Democratic nominee for Attorney General—the fifth political office Green has sought—he told supporters “I am not a very good politician” and vowed “I will not seek office again.”

If he does decide to jump in again, Green will have

some catching up to. Liu, de Blasio, Gioia, and Siegel have all been running (for something at least) for a few years now. Gioia and Liu have nearly maxed out on fundraising. De Blasio has taken the lead on some high profile issues in the Council, and Siegel has used his usual rabble-rousing to put him in front of news cameras on a regular basis.

Green meanwhile has been running Air America, the liberal talk radio network and occasionally appearing on left-leaning outlets like MSNBC and The Huffington Post, while on an intermittent book tour for his latest book—the 22nd he has written or edited—Change for America: A Progressive Blueprint for the 44th President.

Green would not comment publicly about his potential run, since he has not officially made up his mind to do so, but he is clearly very serious about possibly making the race. A source familiar with his thinking said Green believes his name recognition, and the fact that people most associate him with the office, would be enough to make up for his late start. Plus, the source added, Green has a huge potential donor base from his years in politics and the media, and a Barack Obama-type Internet fundraising campaign—there he is again!— combined with the city’s generous campaign finance program would be enough to close the gap a late start has generated.

But political observers are not so sure Green still has the touch—if he ever did.

“Mark Green is the person most likely to say something stupid, and then cover it up by saying something even more stupid,” said one local veteran of several citywide races.

That may not be his only problem.

“Minorities won’t get behind him at all. He didn’t do too much when he was in there.”

“He would be better off not running,” added Democratic consultant Hank Shienkopf, who ran Gotbaum’s efforts and Green’s mayoral campaign. “It would take a lot to get past 2001. If it was only about name ID it would be one thing, but we don’t know what his name ID is after eight years or what it’s like.”

If Green does enter the race, it would likely have the biggest impact on Norman Siegel.

“I hope he doesn’t,” Siegel said when asked about the possibility. “What I learned in ’05 is that I can’t control the field. When Mark Green called me I said, ‘Look Mark, everybody’s got a dream. If you have a dream that you want to go back to being public advocate, than good luck on your dream.’ But my theme is that I’m different than everyone else who is running. They are all career politicians. I’m the outsider. That’s how Barack Obama has succeeded.”

Siegel perhaps can lay claim to this comparison more easily than the rest of the field, as he was the only one to line up behind the 44th President back when his candidacy was still considered a long shot. And Siegel is the only one in the race who can rival Green for name recognition, having been in the courtroom and in front of the cameras on—and this is only a very partial list: the City Council slush fund scandal; a Bloomberg administration deal to give local private schools priority over athletic fields at Randall’s Island; the Columbia expansion; the case of the Critical Mass bicyclist whose decking by an New York cop was caught on videotape; and, most recently, on behalf of 9/11 families who are protesting Obama’s decision to stop holding terrorist trials at Guantanamo Bay. At a birthday fundraiser for Siegel late last year, the Granny Peace Brigade were the guests of honor and tattooed bike activists in black sweatshirts puffed cigarettes outside. Siegel’s base is the

In many ways, the race as a whole will be a test case for city politics.

JANUARY 26, 2009

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Fighting for the Job,

Whatever It Is In the 2009 public advocate’s race, there is one critical question all candidates must answer: What does the public advocate do, anyway?

On this there is no real agreement.

Most New Yorkers, after all, would hope that all of the elected officials are advocates for the public.

The office has been plagued by a vague mandate since it was created to give former City Council President Andrew Stein a landing strip after his office and the Board of Estimate were abolished.

In a 1993 editorial endorsing Mark Green to be the first officeholder, The New York Times called the office “a government job with no recognizable role” and said it “could easily be abolished with no ill effects.” Other editorial boards have followed suit during the office’s brief existence.

In its short history to date, as long as the city has had a public advocate, there has also been a somewhat imperious (if nominally in some cases) Republican mayor and both public advocates Green and Betsy Gotbaum have positioned themselves as loyal opposition to Mayors Rudolph Giuliani and Michael Bloomberg. But the office’s budget is determined by the mayor, and both men cut it when budgets got too tight or they deemed the post’s gadflyish sensibility too enervating.

Even the candidates knocking each other out of the way to get the job sometimes have trouble explained what it does. They tend to pause, stutter, and eventually say something like, “Well, you need to just look at my record…”

They all agree, though, that something needs to be done about the lack of an independent budget, a no-win compromise, of sorts, according to Gotbaum, between those who wanted the office to have its own budget and those who did not think the city should have a public advocate at all.

When Gotbaum took over in 2002, she said the cupboards were completely bare—a function of taking over in the middle of the fiscal year. For six months, she could not afford to hire a press secretary.

Gotbaum started raising money on her own, and said she hopes to pass along the Fund for Public Advocacy to her successor, if he or she wants it.

“This is a terrific office,” she says. “If we had an independent budget it would be absolutely fantastic.”

—DF dfreedlander@cityhallnews.com

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furthest edge of the activist left of the city, and though he has essentially done the job of public advocate for decades, political insiders wonder if he can make himself palpable to the vast majority of the city’s voters who see things like Critical Mass rallies more as a traffic nuisance and less as a First Amendment issue. Few doubt that the coalition that twice made him a runner-up still exists.

The question is whether he can live up to his vow to raise enough money this time to keep up the ad onslaught in the endgame.

The way Siegel sees things, he just has to get elected.

“I’m a natural fit for this job, and I’ve said over and over again I don’t want to be mayor, and all these others guys want to be the mayor,” he said. “A lot of people use this as a stepping stone. What stepping stone do I have?

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JANUARY 26, 2009

ANDREW SCHWARTZ PHOTOS

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Adam Clayton Powell IV

Eric Gioia

I’m 64 years old. I want to do this for at least four years, if not eight years, and then that’s it.”

The same will not likely be true of the other candidates, especially if Bloomberg wins re-election in the fall. Both Comptroller William C. Thompson (D) and Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-Queens/Brooklyn) could run again in 2013, but could emerge badly damaged from this year’s race.

And Council Speaker Christine Quinn (D-Manhattan) will face the difficulty of running for the top job from the position of legislative leader—a transition that foiled both her predecessors.

The next public advocate however will have already won a citywide election and will be able to spend the next four years fighting the mayor on behalf of the people in what will likely be a difficult stretch for Bloomberg.

To political insiders, that explains the sudden appearance of Lappin, whom many think is being encouraged into the race to set a pick against one possible 2013 opponent for Quinn, or to have a more cooperative ally in the seat in the meantime for Bloomberg.

When asked this scenario, Lappin looked downward and slowly shook her head.

“I stood up the mayor and I stood up to the speaker and I would continue to do that if that is the right thing to do,” she said, pointing out that it was her inquiry into

Norman Siegal

a crane collapse on E. 91st street last summer that led to the resignation of Bloomberg’s Buildings Commissioner, Patricia Lancaster.

Lappin declined to reveal what her discussions with Quinn have consisted regarding the public advocate’s race, and said she had not thought about whether she would support the mayor in the fall campaign.

Lappin is taking her time with things—she said she would make a decision within the next couple of months, even though time is running thin—but she has hired two new finance chairs and changed the name campaign committee from “Lappin for Council” to “Lappin 2009.”

Her campaign spokesman, Mark Guma, is a long-time Quinn confidant.

If she jumps in, Lappin may find the perils of not planning ahead. The candidates who filled their coffers in preparation for 2009 races did so during a bull market, and if there is competitive mayoral primary, money and manpower will go there instead. Plus, some political insiders say, being perceived as close to Bloomberg will be a hindrance in this race: if Democratic voters choose to put the former Republican back in the city’s top job, they may want a vigorous check on him for the city’s second-in-command.

“There’s a big drop off between the number of people

The chair from which the Public Advocate presides has a unique history all its own.

The lush and rather ornate piece of furniture was designed by John H. Duncan, said Jason Post, spokesman for the New York City Design Commission.

Duncan, one of the more famous architects in the United States at the turn of the 20th century, designed the New York City Council chambers at City Hall, but is probably best known as the designer of Grant’s Tomb and the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Memorial Arch at Grand Army Plaza.

The chair, a lavish red plush, adorned with a large white star on its convex frame, wooden eagle armrests and lions paw feet, was constructed in 1897-98 for the president of the City Council, Post said.

“The City Council chair has been around forever. It’s ancient,” said Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum (D). “What most people don’t know about it is that it weighs a ton!”

For now, the chair, like the office of the public advocate, does not seem to be going anywhere. But if there were a change in the charter, the city could make a small dent in its projected deficit by putting the chair up for sale, predicted Brooke Sivo, director of American Furniture and Decorative Arts at Bonhams & Butterfields Auctioneers.

“You might be looking at $6,000 to $8,000,” said Sivo. “It’s an attractive looking chair, certainly. It’s reminiscent of classical revival motifs of government.”

Take note, Rod Blagojevich. Sivo said a U.S. Senator’s seat would fetch consider—Nicole Turso ably more.

The

Hot Seat

Mark Green

who vote for mayor and the number who vote for public advocate,” said one Democratic operative. “And people who vote for public advocate will do it as a way to keep the mayor in check.”

Lappin has kept a mostly low profile in her first term in office. But she would be the only woman in the race, which might be enough to catapult her to the top, especially if she can convince women from the outer boroughs and minority women that gender trumps race and geography.

Her foil in that effort will be Liu, whose attempt to become the first Asian-American citywide elected official will likely attract much media attention, and, his campaign team hopes, excite other minorities.

Liu has been one of the most media friendly Council members in his two terms in office.

He hands out his personal cell phone number to reporters, helping him land above-the-fold quotes in stories about everything from Con Edison to Caroline Kennedy. He has two monthly radio shows on ethnic stations and is often trailed by reporters from the city’s foreign language press corps—in one hardly atypical day, in between juggling phone calls from reporter’s asking about an anti-Department of Transportation rally the coming weekend and phone calls from fellow Council members whom he was connecting with producers at NY1, he sat on pleather couches in front of a giant poster of Santa Claus for an interview on a local satellite station devoted to the city’s growing South Asian population.

“As far as the long term prospects of our community, what we need is for people to get out there and register to vote,” he told the program host, Ashok Vyas, by way of delivering a holiday message. “We all have to understand that in New York City the elections do not take place in November. They take place in September, during the Democratic primary. It is time now to get out there to register to vote. You can get the forms online nowadays. People can certainly call my office to get an idea of where to get the forms, we have a lot of temples that are giving out the forms. That is the American way.

That is why we come to this country to be part of the democracy and be part of the free way of life. It is our very first responsibility.”

Liu’s hoping that large segments of the city who have not voted are energized by the chance to vote for him.

“As I see it, 300,000 gets you a win without a run-off,” he said, quickly pointing out that Gotbaum and Siegel

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John Liu each went into the 2001 run-off, itself the product of a seven-person field, with between 150,000 and 200,000 votes.

There are 140,000 registered Democrats of Asian descent, according to a Liu aide, and his campaign is hoping to get many more of them to the polls than have voted in previous cycles. They are even hoping to get a few that are registered Republicans or independents to switch over in time.

After that, the Liu game plan relies on convincing Latino and particularly African-American voters to back him in a new kind of electoral alliance. Liu signed Harlem operative Bill Lynch to run his campaign, and he has already attracted the support of prominent AfricanAmerican elected officials like Council Member Leroy Comrie (D-Queens) and Assembly Member Darryl Towns (D-Brooklyn.)

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multi-minority alliance has so far proven impossible in the Balkans of New York City politics, and the candidate looking to gum up the works again is de Blasio, who has already garnered the support of left-leaning grassroots groups like ACORN and is close to several major unions.

De Blasio got into the race relatively late, after term limits were extended and after running most of the past year for the post of Brooklyn borough president. Even though he quickly exited that race, the work he did could still serve him well—Brooklyn provides a trove of votes, and de Blasio is the only candidate in the field from the borough. But he has sparred with county leader Vito Lopez, and a lot of groups that might otherwise have backed him have already pledged themselves to other candidates. Still more seem to resent de Blasio getting into the race so late, forcing them to choose between friends. He is better served, many say, by a Green-less field, since he runs strong among older, white progressives.

“He’s the one who scares me,” said one rival campaign consultant. “He’s got the institutional support, he’s got a lifetime of building relationships. He’s got to be a frontrunner right now.”

Nonetheless, de Blasio has lagged far behind Gioia and Liu in fundraising. At the January filing, he had less than $900,000, compared to the more than $3 million each of the leaders have collected over the year.

He insists he is not concerned, especially given how

Bill de Blasio

JANUARY 26, 2009

13

Jessica Lappin

shortly before the deadline he got into the race.

“Campaigns aren’t all about money. They never have been and they never will be,” he said. “That’s not the way to look at this.”

In the meantime, the former Hillary Clinton campaign manager is taking his time. His aides guffawed when asked when their man was going to start the subway stop glad-handing required of anyone running for office in the city, and for now has nothing but the most bare bones of campaign apparatus.

That is a stark contrast to Gioia, who started doing subway stops on New Year’s weekend, and on a recent Sunday, 35 weeks before election day, went to two black churches, made an appearance at the pro-Israel rally in front of the United Nations, and shook hands in front of the Park Slope Food Co-Op—deep in de Blasio territory—while repeating over and over “Hi, I’m Eric Gioia and I’m running for public advocate” to all who scurried past.

“You’ve got to admire a guy who has a little baby at home who is willing to spend every waking hour out on the campaign trail,” said one campaign consultant.

“He’s the kind of guy you never want to underestimate because of his energy,” said longtime consultant Norman Adler. “He’s just a terrific retail politician of the kind there aren’t that many of in this city anymore. You never want to underestimate him because of his energy.”

At a boozy, pre-filing day fundraiser at a basement bar on the Upper West Side filled with exactly the kind of younger voters that could form the base which puts him in a runoff, Gioia, in a speech made a reference to Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers, which was then sitting atop the New York Times bestseller list. And indeed, the book’s central premise—that 10,000 hours of hard work combined with dumb luck equals success—could almost be the mantra of his campaign.

Except that so far, Gioia’s luck has turned sour. A

few months ago, before term limits upended the city’s political universe, the public advocate’s race looked to be between him and Siegel. Most of the city’s influential players were going to line up behind Gioia to prohibit a rabble-rouser like Siegel from winning.

Now, many political insiders say, Gioia is a man without a country, another white male politician in the race lacing a strong base beyond his Council district. In response, Gioia has been focusing on building a small donor base and gathering email addresses, both because he is branding his as the city’s first “carbon neutral” campaign and as a measure to keep down costs ahead of the $3.8 million spending cap. (He has spent less than half of the $820,000 that Liu has.)

“I’m running in a very different way,” Gioia said. “The way you usually run is either you are a wealthy plutocrat who can self-finance or you are someone who makes a deal with powerful interests. I mean it’s pretty remarkable that a kid from Woodside who does not have any political connections at this point will have over three million bucks and over 3,000 contributors.

In many ways, the race as a whole will be a test case for city politics— whether there is such a thing as a political rebirth as Green hopes, whether persistence pays off as Siegel hopes, whether a candidate can indeed win without much planning and a play for the female vote as Lappin hopes, whether a minority coalition and constant media barrage can work as Liu hopes, whether a sort of old-fashioned play for Democratic interest groups can work as de Blasio hopes, or whether, in the end, it really does take eight years in the fields securing money and support, as Gioia hopes.

The candidate himself knows which one he believes.

“We are going to win, man, and it’s going to be a different kind of campaign,” he added. “You are going to write about this campaign.” dfreedlander@cityhallnews.com

The next public advocate however will have already won a citywide election and will be able to spend the next four years fighting the mayor on behalf of the people in what will likely be a difficult stretch for Bloomberg.

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JANUARY 26, 2009

Search for Donovan’s Replacement at HPD Troubled in Part by Troubled Times With no clear successor, wide net is cast to replace housing chief

BY SAL GENTILE or four years, Housing Commissioner Shaun Donovan shepherded a sprawling affordablehousing plan credited with resurrecting some of the city’s most depressed neighborhoods from the ashes of the 1970s and ’80s.

He was hailed as no less than a visionary for prophesying, at the outset of his term, the looming foreclosure crisis and rejecting the conventional wisdom that homeownership was the panacea for low-income neighborhoods.

And even though Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s affordable housing plan has received mixed reviews, Donovan garnered glittering praise for his ability to corral private and non-profit developers, entice banks and sort out the tangle of federal subsidies that make affordable housing possible in New York.

Now that Donovan has decamped to becomePresidentBarackObama’ssecretary of housing and urban development, the city is forced to replace him—and without an heir apparent. The acting commissioner, Housing Development Corporation President Mark Jahr, has signaled his unwillingness to stay on the job. And the position of first deputy commissioner has been vacant since last year. The next obvious choice, Deputy Commissioner for Development Holly Leicht, has been in that post for less than a year.

As a result, questions have been swirling among housing advocates and policymakers as to who might be willing, let alone able, to step into one of the most complex jobs in city government as development stalls, the foreclosure crisis rages and financing from the public and

ANDREW SCHWARTZ

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Shaun Donovan, right, leaves behind a gaping hole at the city housing department, advocates say—one his interim successor, Housing Development Corporation President Mark Jahr, left, is unwilling to fill. private sectors evaporates.

“The tax credit program is going through all kinds of chaos, and the capital budget is very limited, and there’s many more deals that need to get done, and not enough money to do them,” said Dina Levy, of the Urban Homesteading Assistance Board. “A lot of the programs that [Donovan] started, seems to me would be easy to keep going and keep alive—but without money, that’s really hard to do.”

Speculation has centered around a gallery of high-profile figures in the private and non-profit sectors: Mark Willis, a former JP Morgan executive and Ford Foundation analyst; Raphael Cestero, Enterprise Community Partners vice president; Denise Scott, executive

With No Political Ambition or Criminal History, Donovan is a Departure for HUD In keeping with his pledge to make a clean break from the past, President Barack Obama (D) picked a secretary of housing and urban development who has won praise from all corners of the housing and real estate industries.

In selecting Shaun Donovan, Obama has also picked someone with no discernable political ambition and no criminal record.

That is an especially dramatic turnaround for an agency whose leaders have almost exclusively been criminals or politicians since at least the 1970s.

Of the nine HUD secretaries who came before Donovan, seven have pursued or held political office either before or after their tenures at HUD, including current New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo (D), who served during President Bill Clinton’s second term. Three have either resigned in disgrace or been indicted on criminal charges.

Then there is Cuomo’s predecessor at HUD, Henry Cisneros, who pulled double duty: Not only was he the former mayor of San Antonio, but he was indicted in a scandal involving conspiracy and hush money.

For added flavor, Donovan is arguably the first HUD secretary in the history of the department with actual experience in the fields of architecture and housing.

He is the first since the Ford administration to have never run for political office or been indicted.

—Sal Gentile

director of the New York office of the Local Initiatives Support Corporation; state Housing Commissioner Deborah VanAmerongen; Bill Traylor, president of the Richman Group; and John Warren, former first deputy commissioner. Leicht’s name also remains in the mix.

Cestero, Traylor and Scott have emerged as three of the leading candidates because of their extensive experience at HPD and HUD: Cestero was Donovan’s deputy commissioner for development until 2007; Traylor held the same position, as well as that of HDC president, under the previous commissioner; and Scott served as the White House liaison to HUD from 1998 to 2001. Warren also served at HPD as Donovan’s first deputy commissioner for four years, but was unceremoniously forced out over disagreements about how to run the department. That could make a possible return politically awkward.

City officials have also reportedly contacted Lennar Corporation executive Kofi Bonner about the job. Bonner, a Ghana-born architect and urban planner, has overseen several high-profile development projects in California, where he is currently redeveloping a square-mile plot of barren land named Hunters Point in San Francisco.

But the names that get the most chatter among housing advocates come from within the city, perhaps because the dynamics of the New York housing market are fundamentally different from market forces anywhere else in the country.

“Ideally, it would be someone who really does understand the markets here in New York City,” VanAmerongen said.

“The field of play has changed dramatically

over the last 12 or 18 months.”

Most of those under consideration declined to comment. But VanAmerongen, who worked with Donovan at HUD in the 1990s, took herself out of the running, saying she had received a flurry of calls about the position but preferred to stay in her current job.

Jahr—seen as more of a “numbers guy” with a distaste for management—and VanAmerongen are not the only rumored candidates who have expressed a lack of interest in the job. Willis, who declined to comment, is also seen as reluctant to leave what one person called “a sweet gig” at the Ford Foundation and a base in the private sector for a portfolio that involves herding thousands of employees and untangling complex federal regulations.

Attracting candidates to the job has proven especially difficult, according to people familiar with the process.

Whoever steps into the post will take the reigns of an often unwieldy bureaucracy responsible for more than $1 billion in spending and nearly 3,000 employees at a time when the city and state are slashing their budgets and private financing has all but vanished.

“They need someone who has a good core understanding of all those things … but who, most importantly, understands how to use the resources that are there in the agency already to their maximum effect,” said Jerilyn Perine, Donovan’s predecessor and a principal architect of the mayor’s original affordable housing plan.

She said, for example, that the housing commissioner might focus more on code enforcement than housing development to ensure that the affordable units that currently exist do not fall into disrepair.

“This is a time for somebody with a very good understanding of the substance, but also a very good manager,” Perine said.

Undoubtedly, the next commissioner will have to recalibrate the blueprints Perine and Bloomberg etched in 2002.

But more important, Perine said, is the foresight to prepare for an economic turnaround—as difficult as it may be to imagine at the moment—so that, years from now, when the housing market recovers, the city is prepared for it.

“Now’s a good time to really think about how can we clear the decks, so that we are taking away obstacles to development or investment in the existing stock,” Perine said, referring to recently tightened standards for tax incentives.

“How can we get things ready so that, when the industry heats up again— because it absolutely will—we’ve taken the time to do some smart things.” sgentile@cityhallnews.com

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Teamsters Local 237 Congratulates

H.U.D Secretary Shaun Donovan The leadership of Local 237 and our 9,000 members working in the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) look forward to working with Secretary Donovan to provide quality, affordable housing for New York City’s working families, disabled and senior citizens.

We firmly believe that Secretary Donovan – a major force in preserving affordable housing in New York – will provide the leadership needed to weather the current crisis that threatens a full-blown housing emergency.

In New York City, our single most important source of affordable housing is NYCHA. Providing homes for over 400,000 residents, it is the nation’s largest public housing system. But after nearly a decade of federal cuts, the very future of NYCHA is at risk.

We are committed to working with the Secretary Donovan and the entire Obama Administration to rebuild NYCHA and to provide decent housing for all. Together we can fulfill NYCHA’s mission and restore it as a model.

RICHARD HENDERSHOT Vice President

Teamsters Local 237 Executive Board GREGORY FLOYD President RUBEN TORRES PATRICIA STRYKER Secretary-Treasurer Recording Secretary

NOREEN HOLLINGSWORTH EDMUND KANE Trustees

City Employees Union Local 237, 216 West 14th Street, New York, NY 10011-7296 www.Local237.org

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January 26, 2009

www.cityhallnews.com

CITY HALL

No Home Left Behind

By Jarret Murphy

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hen the federal government began funding public housing in 1934, New York City led the way. The city was so eager to build housing that it moved even before federal funds were available, setting up its own housing authority (with a socialist on the board), which completed First Houses on the Lower East Side—the first public housing in America—in 1935. The feds’ driving concern may have been job creation, but Mayor Fiorello La Guardia had greater ambitions. “If there is one thing I hope to do before my time is up,” he said, “it is to give the people of my city, in place of their tenements, decent, modern, cheerful housing with a window in every room and a lot of sunshine in every window.”

The need for such housing was undeniable: 3,000 people joined the waiting list for the 119 apartments in First Houses. Eighty-one of the families who moved in came from

A selection from

apartments that lacked heat and toilets.

Federal money soon flowed in to build the Williamsburg and Harlem River houses.

But the New York City Housing Authority continued to chart an independent course.

Even in the 1930s it resisted pressure from the federal government to offer public housing only to the poorest people, even going so far as to build state- and city-funded housing in order to escape some of Washington’s dictates. University of Michigan housing historian Roy Strickland says the criteria for getting into New York’s public housing were singularly strict. You had to be a citizen, have a bank account and insurance, and earn enough that you’d probably not be considered poor. Housing officials visited applicants’ apartments to see if they were clean, dirty or even “filthy.” Those who made the cut, Strickland says, “were an elite group of working-class people.” By selecting desirable tenants, NYCHA made managing the projects easier.

The people running the authority were also well suited to it. “In Chicago and Washington, D.C., many cities, it was just a cesspool for nepotism and patronage.

It was not taken seriously,” says Alex Schwartz, a New School professor who has studied public housing. “It wasn’t well maintained. New York City was much more judicious in terms of managing the housing.” This is probably a major reason that New York’s public housing is

widely considered the best managed and most successful in the country.

But public housing in New York drew on a number of built-in benefits. Federal cost limits meant that a lot of public housing around the country was built in highrise buildings. In many towns and cities, that represented a sharp break with how most residents lived. In New York, however, it was natural—hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers lived in high-rises, and there was a class of managers and tradespeople skilled at running and fixing such buildings. A good mass-transit system meant that it was feasible to locate many public housing developments near subway stops, or at least along bus lines, helping New York’s housing avoid the isolation that vexed projects in other cities. Even Robert Moses, whose sweeping slum clearance projects housed a mere fraction of the people they displaced, wanted public housing to be close to transportation.

Still, even in those early days, NYCHA started to see some of the financial problems that would eventually cause extensive damage to public housing in other cities. While public housing was envisioned as self-sustaining, with rents covering operating costs, NYCHA warned as early as 1938 that “serious thought must be given to the question of securing a permanent income to support authority activities which cannot be properly taken out of the rent paid by low income tenants.” In NYCHA’s 1964 annual report, the declaration was starker: “With the exception of certain [city-funded] projects, income from rents is insufficient to meet operating costs and debt service.”

As NYCHA began to face the financial reality of low rents, it also had to contend with sweeping social change among its tenants. In 1953, NYCHA updated its already exacting entry requirements to include 21 factors that counted against an application, according to Nicholas Dagen Bloom, a New York Institute of Technology professor who recently published a masterful history of public housing in New York. These factors included being a single mother, having a child with mental retardation and not having furniture. These rules came about, Bloom says, “because there was this sense that public housing might become socially unmanageable.”

But in the 1960s, “there was enormous pressure on NYCHA,” Bloom says, to admit poorer people, single mothers, welfare recipients and others whom the authority had avoided housing. The Welfare Department’s hotels were overbooked and costing the city a lot of money, and

so Mayor John Lindsay’s administration pressed NYCHA to alter its selection criteria. “In 1968, they basically changed the rules, and almost immediately the welfare percentage doubles to 35 percent,” Bloom says. Vandalism and crime increased, he says: In 1972, NYCHA replaced 188,000 panes of glass; in 1974, it spent $3 million to remove graffiti.

At the same time, New York and housing authorities around the country were seeing costs rise rapidly. Congress responded by passing the Brooke Amendment in 1969. This capped rents that could be charged for public housing at 25 percent of a tenant’s income—preserving affordability but also limiting NYCHA’s revenue stream. Congress created a subsidy to help make up the difference, but— as would become painfully clear during the recent Bush administration—that put public housing at the mercy of annual appropriations decisions.

NYCHA, however, benefited from certain demographic bulwarks. The tight housing market in the city meant there was consistent demand from moderate-income people for public housing; that made it easier for NYCHA to attract customers who could pay more rent. Forcing NYCHA to open its doors to the homeless, in the 1980s, took changes in federal rules and significant local political

pressure, and the authority quickly moved back to favoring the higher-income working poor in the 1990s.

Through it all, NYCHA managed to avoid the disasters to which other housing authorities fell victim. “By and large, there’s a much more positive view of public housing in New York because they don’t have the buildings that Chicago or New Orleans had,” says Joseph Shuldiner, a veteran of NYCHA, HUD and housing agencies in Los Angeles and Chicago who now runs Yonkers’ housing agency.

That success has given NYCHA standing, he adds. “I believe that politically, the authority was protected more than it would have been anywhere else.”

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his year, NYCHA is getting a paltry 83 percent of what it is supposed to receive under the funding formula—and that formula is less generous to New York than it used to be. At the same time, the federal government has also stopped funding a drug-elimination program for public housing that used to mean $35 million a year to NYCHA. The housing authority expects to receive a slightly better, but still insufficient, 88 percent of what it is owed under the federal funding formula in the current fiscal year.

The federal failure to fund has cost

www.cityhallnews.com

CITY HALL NYCHA more than $600 million since 2001. But NYCHA’s problems don’t end there, because it also runs housing built by the state and city—a unique situation, since only three other states and no other cities built their own housing.

In 1998, the Pataki administration stopped New York State’s operating subsidies for state-built public housing, a loss to NYCHA of about $11 million a year—but even that amount fell well short of the estimated $62 million a year it costs the authority to operate the 15 state-built buildings (containing about 12,000 units) in the city. While the state does pay the debt service on construction costs for those buildings and ponied up $3.4 million to help NYCHA this year, that’s “still a drop in the bucket relative to $62 million,” says Victor Bach, a housing analyst at the Community Service Society. NYCHA sued the state to try to force it to pay, but lost.

Meanwhile, New York City has reduced support for its own share of NYCHA’s housing—8,000 units in six buildings remaining from the stock that the city built on its own. City payments fell dramatically under Rudy Giuliani. Then, amid post– Sept. 11 budget cutting, Mayor Michael Bloomberg ended the NYCHA subsidy altogether in 2004. In 2006, the Bloomberg administration made a one-time payment of $121 million. But that did not make up for the shortfall under his administration, and it did not restore the kind of annual support NYCHA needs. The New York City Independent Budget Office (IBO) estimates that it costs NYCHA $24 million a year to operate the city-built housing.

Since the Housing Police merged with the NYPD in 1995, NYCHA has paid for police services, to the tune of $74 million in 2008. NYCHA also paid $2.4 million last year for sanitation services. And while NYCHA doesn’t pay property taxes, it does fork over $27 million in “payments in lieu of taxes” under a decades-old agreement with the city—an agreement that, oddly enough, was supposed to cover police and sanitation services, for which the authority now pays extra.

Meanwhile, NYCHA’s other costs are rising rapidly. According to the IBO, NYCHA is spending more on its employees each year despite a shrinking workforce, mainly because of higher benefit costs.

Since 2002, the price of providing employees with benefits has risen 70 percent, as workers’ compensation and health care costs have climbed by 50 percent and pension costs have soared from $8 million to $91 million. The future looks even pricier than the recent past: Between 2008 and 2012, NYCHA expects its labor costs to more than double.

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ublic housing in New York might not disappear in a fire sale. It might go unit by unit as NYCHA is starved of subsidies. “This is death by strangulation,” says NYCHA board member Margarita López. “Do you know how you die by strangulation? Very slowly.”

Hopes for avoiding that fate rose when

January 26, 2009

17

Time for Hardball Public housing residents play politics

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here were many exciting races on Election Day 2008, but the State Senate contest in New York’s 12th District, which includes Long Island City and Astoria, was not one of them. Incumbent Democrat George Onorato was expected to easily defeat Republican challenger Thomas Dooley. But it was a big contest for Community Voices Heard (CVH), the lowincome-people’s advocacy group, in its bid to mobilize New York’s 400,000-strong public-housing population into a potent political force—one that can fight for survival in Washington, Albany and City Hall.

Despite their numbers (if New York City Housing Authority developments were a city, it would easily be the second-largest in the state), public housing residents haven’t often wielded a big stick in the corridors of power. For one thing, the population is dispersed among the city’s legislative districts. For another, low-income people like those living in the projects are less likely to vote than middle- and upper-income people.

So in the weeks leading up to Election Day, CVH organizers visited households in the Ravenswood, Astoria and Queensbridge houses to get residents to pledge that they would vote in the Onorato race. The aim was not just to persuade people to vote but to make sure they voted all the way down the ballot—something many voters don’t do. The winning candidate would then receive postcards from the pledged voters reminding them to support public housing. CVH, which collected 1,500 pledges, hopes the additional votes and the postcards will send a clear message to the pols: “Whoever wins, they need to start paying attention to public housing,” says Alisa Pizarro, a public housing resident and CVH canvasser. But the residents themselves are also a target. “We’re just trying to convince them that their vote does count,” adds Demitrus Gonzalez, another canvasser. “We outnumber the politicians.”

The 2008 cycle was the fifth during which CVH did election organizing, but it has refined its approach over time—shifting from targeting specific geographic areas to looking at key issues, like public housing, which tend to be better motivation to get people to vote. “The idea that it’s your civic duty, it doesn’t work,” says organizer Henry Serrano. “So the idea behind this is really to tie it to a specific issue.”

Organizers who target public housing have one thing going for them: The density of public housing makes it easy to reach a lot of potential voters fast—and then to follow up with them. Late on the afternoon of Election Day, Serrano sent his canvassers out with instructions to knock on doors until dinnertime. “After seven, you’re not going to move anyone to vote,” he said, then added, “Well, if we were pushing a candidate, we’d be out until nine.” Under its current tax-exempt status, CVH can’t legally work for a particular candidate now, but it is considering whether to shift its tax status so that it can. It’s also trying to recalibrate its strategy for the 2009 local elections to reflect the new reality of extended term limits.

CVH isn’t the only organization trying to bulk up public housing’s political muscle. It’s part of a national group, the Right to the City Alliance, that’s pushing that effort nationally.

Barack Obama won the presidency. Obama’s position papers and the Democratic platform call for a restoration of the public housing operating subsidy. As Yonkers Municipal Housing Authority boss Joseph Shuldiner points out, the obstacle to public housing isn’t the cost, but ideology. What public housing needs, “is really a pittance,” he says. “This is less than a B-1 bomber. In the federal government, this is a rounding error. It’s a question of priorities.”

Organizers from Public Housing Residents of the Lower East Side traveled to Chicago after the election to meet with fellow members of the Housing Justice Movement, a coalition lobbying for affordable housing. Landmark West, which is trying to obtain landmark status for the Amsterdam Houses in Hell’s Kitchen, is providing support to the tenants’ association there so it can mobilize to preserve the development. From her post at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities in Washington, analyst Barbara Sard is spreading the message that the problems that afflicted a great deal of public housing in the early 1990s have largely been eliminated by demolition and redevelopment. “We’re trying to persuade the people who would listen to us—who are more likely to be liberals—that public housing is no longer what you think, and it’s really important to look again,” Sard says.

NYCHA itself is no slouch when it comes to playing politics. In recent years, the authority won a better state “shelter allowance” payment for welfare recipients living in public housing, obtained the right to use federal Section 8 vouchers to pay for city- and state-built public housing, and—according to historian Nicholas Bloom—worked public housing into the policy platforms of the Obama campaign and the Democratic National Committee. In late November, when NYCHA began pushing for public housing to get some cash out of a new economic-stimulus bill, then-NYCHA chairman Tino Hernandez urged residents to “reach out to Senators Schumer and Clinton as well as the entire New York State Congressional Delegation to call for their support of this legislation.”

NYCHA and advocacy groups know they need to join forces for fights like these, and that partnership fosters negotiations over areas where the two sides disagree. In 2007, Congress began considering the Section 8 Voucher Reform Act, which contains measures that both NYCHA and the advocates like. But the bill, which could move toward law in the next Congress, would also create a new program under which housing authorities could win the right to impose time limits on residents and sharply raise rents. Advocates and NYCHA agreed on language that would prevent that measure from applying to NYCHA. Now resident leaders are turning their attention to city elections in 2009. Reginald Bowman, president of the citywide council of resident leaders, says, “We are mobilizing ourselves because the only equity we have is our political leverage, and we plan to invest it wisely in the coming election.”

But the priorities in the New York City area are vastly different from those in the places most members of Congress represent. On a practical level, the demolition of public housing around the country has eroded the constituency that might press elected officials to fight to preserve it. New York now has 15 percent of all the public housing in the country. “New York City is becoming more and more different from every

city in the country,” says Douglas Apple, NYCHA’s general manager. “That makes it really more challenging in Washington because every other city in this country has actually demolished public housing, eliminated public housing and changed public housing. I actually just spent some time with the head of the Atlanta housing agency, and she was proud to announce that the last public housing in Atlanta had been demolished.”

Go to www.citylimits.org to learn more about the history and potential future of public housing in the city, and to obtain a copy of the full article

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www.cityhallnews.com

JANUARY 26, 2009

CITY HALL

If Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau can keep the checks rolling in, Gov. David Paterson may not have to follow through on those hard-to-swallow budget cuts after all.

Morgenthau presented Paterson on Jan. 16 with a check for $109 million, the state’s share of a settlement with the British bank Lloyds TSB. Paterson acknowledged the unusual circumstances—not the unorthodox breach of federal banking regulations, but the fact that Morgenthau was helping Paterson pay down the deficit.

“I’ve never been in this office talking about money that’s going in,” he said. “I’m always here talking about money going out.”

That was certainly a welcome change for Paterson, who knocked one decimal point off the state’s budget gap.

“The check was immediately taken from me and applied to the New York State deficit,” he said. “It was $15.4 billion, now it’s $15.3 billion. Just bring a few more, and we’ll wipe this problem out.”

City Takes Final Step Toward Term Limits Approval as Holder Confirmation Stalls The Bloomberg administration has taken the final step toward approval of its bid to extend term limits by submitting the changes to the federal Justice Department for review.

The application for “pre-clearance,” required under the Voting Rights Act, consists mostly of hearing transcripts and memos detailing the city’s legal argument.

It also includes letters from black and Latino Council members who supported the extension and testify that it does not disfranchise minority voters.

Attorneys for the city have asked for “expedited consideration” of the submission, a provision generally reserved for election law changes that require accelerated implementation.

City attorneys asked that the Justice Department review the application as quickly as possible in order to “provide candidates with clarity regarding the elected offices they may be permitted to seek,” and “to provide voters with as much notice as possible with respect to the choices of candidates in the upcoming election.”

The Bloomberg administration submitted the application more than two months after the mayor signed the

ANDREW SCHWARTZ

In Fight to Close the State’s Budget Gap, Paterson Has New Silver Bullet: Robert Morgenthau

bill into law in November, a delay that struck legal observers as bizarre. Some speculated that the city was waiting until after Obama became president, in order to avoid political retribution by Republicans in the Bush Justice Department.

Indeed, in a letter to Corporation Counsel Michael Cardozo in October, Reps.

Anthony Weiner (D-Brooklyn/Queens) and Nydia Velazquez (D-Manhattan/ Brooklyn) requested that city attorneys wait until after the inauguration in order to ensure a fair hearing for opponents of the extension. Cardozo responded that the law department would not take politics into consideration, and a law department spokesperson said that the process was taking an especially long time because several of the city’s attorneys (including Cardozo) were on vacation.

The Obama Justice Department, under Attorney Generaldesignate Eric Holder, will now be responsible for reviewing the changes.

Holder’s confirmation has been delayed by the Senate, however, and the timetable for pre-clearance may also be delayed as a result.

Ex-Giuliani Aide Heads to Bloomberg Campaign After Leaving SRCC It may not pay $30,000 a month, but at least it is something.

Matt Mahoney, an aide to former Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s presidential campaign and former head of the State Senate Republican Campaign Committee (SRCC), has taken a job with Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s reelection campaign.

Mahoney is the second former aide

to a failed presidential candidate in as many weeks to join up with Bloomberg: Howard Wolfson, Hillary Clinton’s former spokesman, signed on with the mayor’s campaign in December.

Mahoney was the source of much consternation within Republican circles for his supposed allegiance to Giuliani and his focus on downstate races. When Sen. Dean Skelos (R-Nassau) became majority leader in July, he reassigned Mahoney, angering members of the Giuliani circle and prompting two of Mahoney’s deputies to resign in protest.

The Republicans lost control of the State Senate nonetheless.

For Thompson, Inauguration Offers a Different Kind of History For most of New York’s elected officials, President Barack Obama’s inauguration was a rare opportunity to see history in the making.

But for Comptroller Bill Thompson, it was also a chance to relive history already made.

“I ran into a college classmate!” he said, “that I haven’t seen in over 30 years.”

As Thompson converged with a sea of people migrating toward the Capitol, someone in the crowd recognized him. It turned out to be the wife of an old college friend.

“I was standing next to his wife, and she went, ‘Bill Thompson.’ And she said, ‘You don’t remember me, I’m Lindsay.’ I went, ‘You’re Rafael’s wife.’ And she goes, ‘We’ve been married for 32 years. He’s right in front of me.’”

After he introduced his wife and daughter, Thompson said he knew he would have to add a few names to what is likely an already lengthy call sheet.

“So I was introducing him to my wife,

and my daughter, ‘this is a friend of mine from college,’” he said. “So, you know I’m going to wind up calling other friends to say, ‘guess who I ran into.’”

At Gillibrand Debut, Hot Mic Picks Up Some Impatience, Playfulness The dais was full of familiar faces for Kirsten Gillibrand’s (D) senatorial debut. But before Gov. David Paterson (D) emerged to introduce his Senate pick to the nation, a hot microphone (the bane of loose-lipped politicians everywhere) broadcasted some slight impatience of those who were selected to be background for the event.

“It’s going to be Shabbos soon,” said Rep. Gary Ackerman (D-Queens/ Nassau), looking at his watch.

One person on the platform was heard complaining about the heat from the television lights, while others took the opportunity to gently rib former rivals.

Former Sen. Alfonse D’Amato (R), in deep conversation with Freddy Ferrer, the former Bronx borough president, attempted to get Ackerman to fess up to some perceived slight.

“Tell him what you did,” D’Amato said playfully.

“Don’t pin anything on me, D’Amato!”

Ackerman shot back.

Minutes ticked by as everyone waited for Paterson to emerge with the state’s next junior senator. Ackerman, who made news in the run-up to the announcement by equating Senate candidate Caroline Kennedy to Jennifer Lopez, could not help but make one more snarky comment for the road.

“Come on,” he said. “I’m gonna turn into a pumpkin soon!”

By Sal Gentile, Andrew J. Hawkins and Julie Sobel

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CITY HALL

www.cityhallnews.com

JANUARY 26, 2009

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: Last Man Standing CH: Switching to Staten Island politics, when Vito Fossella announced last spring that he wasn’t going to run again for Congress, did you ever think about jumping into the primary? And would you ever consider running for that seat in 2010?

LT: All doors are open in the future. But at that particular time, to be honest, I did look at it. But I felt, I just got elected to the Assembly, I made a commitment to the people of my Assembly district. And at that time, I didn’t think it would be prudent for me, as such a freshman in the Assembly.

ou could forgive Assembly Member Lou Tobacco (R-Staten Island) if he is feeling a bit lonely these days. Tobacco, who won his Assembly seat in a 2007 special election, is the lone Republican representing New York City in the Assembly.

Sitting in his Albany office, Tobacco reflected on representing his district in the midst of so many Democrats, whether he one day aspires to run for Congress, and how he sees former Rep. Vito Fossella’s role in Staten Island politics these days. He even claimed a small measure of credit for ruining Hillary Clinton’s presidential ambitions.

What follows is an edited transcript.

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CH: Would you feel the same way if a Republican would have been appointed?

LT: I would want a special election. I am truly bipartisan.

That’s been the trademark of my short term in the New York Assembly. I compliment my colleagues on the other side of the aisle. I give them kudos. The New York City media doesn’t really cover me, but believe me, I put my money where my mouth is.

CH: What is it like being the only Republican member of the Assembly from New York City? Is it lonely?

LT: I have a motto: In the New York City Republican delegation, our emphasis is on quality, not quantity.

CH: Does it make it difficult to get things done in the Assembly when all the other members of your party are not from your area?

LT: I’m proud of the relationships that I’ve cultivated on the other side of the aisle. I’m not blind to dogma. I’m not blind to ideology. But I come up here, and I have to work—and work well—with people that have a different political philosophy. That’s what my constituents elected me to do. Not to come up here and put my head in the sand.

CH: Do you think the dynamics for Assembly Republicans have changed with Democrats taking the Senate? Do they have even less influence than they did before?

LT: The dynamic has changed. And as a Republican, I guess I need to be more vigilant, in the sense of “safeguards.”

Where we agree, we should roll up our sleeves and work hand in hand with the majority party. Where we disagree, it’s incumbent upon us to point it out and to articulate that. Going back in my first term, Governor Spitzer at the time was trying to install a plan to unilaterally, without any contest of the Legislature, to give driver’s licenses to illegal

BARRY SLOAN

City Hall: You were one of the assembly members out in front on the bill calling for a special election to fill the vacant U.S. Senate seat, rather than the governor making an appointment.

Why did you feel so strongly about that?

Lou Tobacco: It goes to the essence of democracy. In our democracy we elect our officials. And, when you look at New York State right now, we have a governor by accident—and that’s not a negative tone, I love David Paterson—but I’m pointing out that we have a governor right now who was not voted in by the people. We have a state comptroller who was not voted in by the people.

And now, we have a U.S. senator who was not voted in by the people. We’re talking about three powerful positions that the people did not vote in.

CH: Do you think you would have fared better than the Republican nominee in that race [former Assembly Member Robert Straniere]?

LT: I feel that, probably, that I would have done better, yes.

Assembly Member Lou Tobacco is the lone Republican representing New York City in the Assembly. aliens. I was the first assembly member downstate to come out against it, using the power of the media. And from little old Lou Tobacco, it became a headline story.

As a result it became a major part of the debate, and it became a major part of the presidential debate. It was the question that Hillary Clinton fumbled on. Once she fumbled on that question, that was the beginning of her starting to go down. And, all of a sudden, something happened behind the scenes and Governor Spitzer recanted on this issue. So it’s not all about legislation.

It’s about vigilance.

CH: So are you claiming credit for Hillary Clinton’s downfall in the presidential race?

LT: [Laughs] No, I’m not single-handedly claiming that.

CH: What do you think the Republican Party can do to win more Assembly seats in New York City, and statewide, in 2010?

LT: We need to stick to our fundamentals and we need to stay true to them. People are hurting. People are struggling to pay their household taxes. Now is not the time to tag on more taxes, to further push people out of the state.

CH: With the groundswell of excitement going on around Barack Obama and the Democrats these days, how do you feel about being a Republican?

LT: First of all, as an American, I want to say that I’m so proud. I look at Mr. Obama as my president. He’s not just the president of the Democrats. He’s our American president. I’m not rooting for his demise. His success is ultimately my success. But when he would push certain policies, when he would push a certain plan that I have a fundamental difference with, it is our responsibility to disagree with it. But we need to take the nastiness out of politics—the high-school-ness.

CH: Fossella was the de facto leader of the Republican Party in Staten Island. Who do you think will emerge as the new leader—or will it remain Fossella?

LT: You know what? I think it could still be him. I’m proud to say that I’m not going to distance myself from him, for whatever political expedience. He is a mentor of mine, and he’s someone just today that I called and asked him his advice. To me, he still has a lot of experience; he’s still a valuable member of the party.

“From little old Lou Tobacco, it became a headline story. As a result it became a major part of the debate, and it became a major part of the presidential debate.

It was the question that Hillary Clinton fumbled on. Once she fumbled on that question, that was the beginning of her starting to go down.”

CH: You won reelection with almost 75 percent of the vote. Even though every other seat in the city is held

by Democrats, do you consider your seat safe?

LT: I don’t think anyone’s seat is ever safe. You go to work, and you do your job every day. I don’t take anything for granted. It truly is a humbling experience in every way to represent approximately 130,000 people. They’re my boss and they let me know if I can continue to serve them every two years. And that goes for everybody. And that’s why there’s always hope. That goes for everybody in this state—not just me.

CH: Even for Republicans in New York City?

LT: Even in New York City. There’s even hope in New York City.

—Chris Bragg cbragg@nycapitolnews.com

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Look Who’s

in CUNY! THE NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION

THE NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION’S highly competitive Graduate Research Fellowships support exceptional students whose cutting-edge research shows clear evidence of contributing to important scholarly knowledge in their fields. Outstanding CUNY winners include (l.–r.) Yisa Rumala, York College 2006, University of Michigan 2012, M.S. Electrical Engineering, Ph.D. in Applied Physics; Joseph Hirsh, Macaulay Honors College at Queens College 2008, CUNY Graduate Center 2012, Ph.D. in Mathematics; Mitsy Chanel-Blot, Macaulay Honors College at Hunter College 2008, University of Texas 2012, M.A.-Ph.D. in Social Anthropology.

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he National Science Foundation and far-sighted private foundations know the value of quality public higher education. They are financing schools and programs, supporting scholarly research by world-class faculty, and endowing student scholarships at every college of The City University of New York. They are answering CUNY’s call for a Compact for Public Higher Education that unites all stakeholders — government, donors, students and the University itself—to ensure that our city, state and nation will continue to have well-educated leaders. They are investing in CUNY, investing in New York, and investing in futures.”

— Chancellor Matthew Goldstein

1-800-CUNY-YES

www.cuny.edu/investing