City Hall - August 10, 2009

The Independence Party recasts itself (Page 4), the new Bronx leadership stakes itself on

Vol. 4, No. 3

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August 10, 2009

Fernando Cabrera, left (Page 8) and John Rhea, above, looks to build the future of NYCHA (Page 19).

ANDREW SCHWARTZ PHOTOS

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AUGUST 10, 2009

Forethought

About That Referendum… t a press conference last month, a reporter asked Mayor Michael Bloomberg if he intended to seek a fourth term. The mayor seemed taken aback. After all, his second term is not yet over, and polls have begun to show at least a glimmer of doubt for the prospect of a third term.

He stammered through a response.

“The law does not permit it,” he said at first, as if such concerns were determinative.

“Let me point out that I had no intention of running for a [third] term up until near the end, as you know,” he added, as if the world had forgotten that he made similar public denials up until abruptly shifting his position last fall.

The next day, the mayor said he thought the reporter who asked the question was kidding.

He was not.

So everyone is confused. Will the mayor try running for a fourth term?

Does he really think reporters would joke about this topic in the middle of a Blue Room Q&A? Will the city’s term limits law be capped at three terms, the way the law currently stands? Or will the mayor follow through on his promise to convene a Charter Review Commission and snap things back to two terms? Or will city lawmakers once again wait “up until near the end” to decide that they are too indispensable, and extend term limits yet again?

It is time to resolve these questions. And there is no better moment than November.

Last year, when asked why the term limit question could not be put before the voters as it was twice before, backers of the extension said there simply was not enough time. The mayor waited to go public until just after the deadline to get something on the ballot for the November 2008 elections, and he and others insisted that having a referendum in February, so close to when petitioning would begin, was impractical.

This November’s election is now over four months away. That is plenty of time to put together a ballot referendum to settle the term limits uncertainty.

Backers of the term limit extension last year said their

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presence in office was necessary to give voters continuity. Most of them will get that continuity. A referendum would apply for what the law should be going forward, after the ends of the terms to which they will be elected. Voters could even pull the lever for their incumbent, extension-supporting Council member and mayor, while also pulling a lever reverting the law to two terms. And in the process, New Yorkers might be able to resuscitate the principles of democracy that were thrashed on the rocks of last year’s flash-bolt process.

Getting a referendum on the ballot would not be easy. According to the City Charter, at least 50,000 voters would need to sign a petition that was submitted 60 days prior to Nov. 3. But given how easily they were able to change a law twice affirmed by voters for their own benefit, perhaps a little hardship is in order.

Council members have had enough practice to bring them back into good petition-gathering shape in their quests for the unexpected third terms, and the mayor has certainly shown that he is willing to commit money toward elections. The 29 Council members who backed the change should be the first ones out on the streets with clipboards bought and provided with Bloomberg cash.

After all, most of the 29 who gave themselves the right to another four years do not even have real challengers.

They need something to do with the rest of the summer.

This undertaking will not be cheap. But compared with the kinds of cash swashing around campaign coffers—by one person in particular— adding one more ballot measure is chump change. Nor will there be major cost to the city, since we are holding an election on Nov. 3, barring some even more novel maneuver on the part of city government. But putting this question back to the voters, quickly, would be worth whatever cost, especially if it means upholding the democratic process and reminding citizens that this government is theirs.

A referendum would end speculation about whether or not a Charter Review Commission, which the mayor said would be appointed to settle this question, would in fact be seated. A November term limit referendum would mean that the kinds of promises made to people like Ronald Lauder, who was told that he would be on the Commission to render a verdict on this matter, would be moot. The voters of the city may in the end approve of a three-term limit, and Council members elected in 2005 will be able to breathe easy knowing that their day of seniority will come soon enough. But either way, the voters should decide.

At that press conference, the mayor also said, “It’s up to the voters whether they want four more years.”

Correct. Now the time has come for him and the rest of the Council to make sure that happens.

The 29 Council members who backed the change should be the first ones out on the streets with clipboards bought and provided with Bloomberg cash. After all, most of the 29 who gave themselves the right to another four years do not even have real challengers. They need something to do with the rest of the summer.

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With REBNY And Other Key Allies, Independence Party Regroups To Fight WFP Bloomberg’s hand-picked candidates part of effort to advance pro-business agenda

BY SAL GENTILE usiness groups in New York were seething.

They had been outgunned by their liberal opponents in the battle over the state’s $14 billion budget deficit.

The new Democratic majority, with the help of the Working Families Party, had succeeded in filling the gap largely with increased taxes, mostly on the state’s highest earners.

So on April 2, a day after the budget was passed, Gov. David Paterson’s chief aide, Larry Schwartz, told a gathering of business leaders at a breakfast hosted by the Association for Better New York where his boss was speaking that, if they wanted to exert more influence over New York politics, they had to transform themselves into an organizational force akin to the Working Families Party, which had helped put the Democrats in the majority.

Little did Schwartz know that the process had already begun.

The day before, Frank MacKay, the chair of the state Independence Party, had met in Manhattan with representatives of a wide range of business and civic organizations, from the Business Council of New York to the Real Estate Board of New York (REBNY).

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The agenda was simple: how to beat the WFP. “They are a lobby group that needs to have a counterbalance,” said REBNY president Steven Spinola.

MacKay’s pitch seems to have been appealing. In the months since the April meeting, the Independence Party has collected tens of thousands of dollars in donations from some of the city’s most powerful developers, such as Tishman Speyer and the Durst Organization, as well famed real estate moguls Leonard Litwin and Mary Ann Tighe, among others. The party also received $15,000 in June and July from the political action committee of the Rent Stabilization Association, a landlord group.

“We may be reaching out to a new party to see if it makes sense to work with them, and so far, we’re impressed,” Spinola said.

REBNY and the other business groups are in the early stages of marshalling their considerable resources to advance a probusiness and anti-WFP agenda in New York City and beyond, with an effort in this year’s races already quietly underway.

They have convinced the Independence Party to join them in the fight, and, crucially, to lend their ballot line when necessary in several Council races.

“I think that there are places where we can set up with certain people, several of them incumbents, who are being, for lack of a better term, accosted by the Working Families Party,” said Tom Connolly, the vice chair of the state Independence Party, which last year seized control of who gets the line from the city party. “And I think there are opportunities for us to move on those.”

Connolly added that the party was being supported in that effort by business groups across the state.

“There are all kinds of business groups, there are all kinds of civic organizations that are looking to help,” he said. “Some of them are real estate people, some of them are business people.”

The party appears to be developing an organizational structure that serves two masters: Rochester billionaire Tom Golisano for upstate races and Mayor Michael Bloomberg for races in the city. MacKay has all but admitted that Golisano lieutenant Steve Pigeon dictates who receives the line in Erie County, and other Independence Party sources believe that his power extends across the whole of Western New York.

Meanwhile, Bloomberg has donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to the state Independence Party as well as

a separate, local faction loyal to Fred Newman and Lenora Fulani. He will appear on the Independence line himself in the fall.

Bloomberg and his aides have directed the leaders of the Independence Party to endorse several candidates for City Council, in some cases overriding the wishes of local party members, according to state Independence Party leaders and the candidates themselves.

“We put up recommendations, and a good chunk of them didn’t go through,” said Michael Zumbluskas, a member of the Independence Party’s executive committee who screened candidates in New York City. “Some of it, I know, is because the mayor wanted certain people.”

Zumbluskas added that, in races where Bloomberg did not have a preference, party leaders chose to target WFP-backed candidates. In most cases, the candidates who in the end received the line are running against candidates supported by the WFP. “There is a little bit of a battle going on between us and the Working Families Party,” Zumbluskas said.

Tom Ognibene, a Republican candidate for City Council who is running against WFP-backed incumbent Elizabeth Crowley, was recruited into the race

by Bloomberg in February. Ognibene confirmed that he would not have received the Independence Party’s ballot line without the mayor’s permission.

“If I wasn’t being supported by the mayor, if the mayor and I didn’t have a mutual agreement to support each other, I don’t think that the Independence Party would have given me the line,” he said.

“Those on the inside understand that would not happen if the mayor didn’t consent it.”

The WFP is apparently retaliating.

Party leaders have discouraged several candidates during the screening process from pursuing the Independence Party ballot line, and have suggested that doing so would disqualify them from receiving WFP support. In at least one race—for the seat of Council Member Tony Avella in Queens—the WFP declined to endorse a candidate after the top three contenders in the Democratic primary all interviewed for the Independence line.

Dan Levitan, a spokesperson for the WFP, confirmed that the party discourages potential candidates from seeking the Independence Party’s support. He argued that the Independence Party’s connections to the real estate and business worlds would repel voters.

“If they want to help highlight which candidates are in the pocket of real estate developers and landlords, it will make the choice to vote against them that much easier for middle-class families on election day,” he said.

But after years of being marginalized and dismissed, Ognibene said, the Independence Party is finally becoming a power broker.

He added: “It was revived kind of by the mayor, I guess you’d say.” sgentile@cityhallnews.com

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Repeal Luxury De-Control?

Who Are We Really Protecting?

Fact: From 1994 to 2007, the deregulation of highincome/high-rent apartments resulted in a $6.9 billion infusion to the New York City economy.1 Fact: This included $2.1 billion in increased real estate tax revenue that funded municipal services and $4.8 billion in housing construction and improvements that generated thousands of jobs.1 Fact: During the same 14-year period, while 75,250 apartments were deregulated, rent-stabilized units increased by 25,811 to 1,077,333.1 Fact: Eighty percent of deregulated apartments are in Manhattan.2 Fact: For approximately 28 percent of rent regulated households, or 291,000 households, rent regulations do not substantially lower the rent they pay.3 Fact: Wealthy renters in Manhattan saw their rent subsidy increase from $159 in 1987 to $345 in 2005.4 Fact: In many parts of the City outside the Manhattan Core, approximately 19%, or 154,900 stabilized apartments, rent for less than the legal regulated rent.5 Fact: A majority of multi-family property owners own less than 20 units of housing.6 Nearly half of all owners are at risk because rental income fails to exceed building operating costs.7

You Can’t Argue Against the Facts.

Luxury De-Control Stimulates Investment in Quality Affordable Housing, Fuels the Local Economy, Generates New Tax Revenue Streams, Creates Jobs and Protects Affordability for the People Most in Need.

Why Would Anyone Want to Repeal Luxury De-Control?

“The Impact of Deregulation of Rent Stabilized Units by High-Rent/High-Income Decontrol and High-Rent Vacancy Decontrol: An Economic and Fiscal Impact Study” Urbanomics, March 30, 2009 2 “Changes to the Rent Stabilized Housing Stock in New York City in 2008” The New York City Rent Guidelines Board, June 4, 2009 3 “Nine Facts New Yorkers Should Know About Rent Regulation” Citizens Budget Commission, June 23, 2009 4 “The Value of Rent Subsidies from Rent Stabilization by Borough & Neighborhood of New York City: An Econometric Study based on the2005 Housing and Vacancy Survey” Urbanomics, May 15, 2009 5 “The New York State Division of Housing and Community Renewal Testimony before the New York City Rent Guidelines Board” June 4, 2009 6 The Rent Stabilization Association Membership Files 7 “Survey of Owners of Rent Stabilized Property” Urbanomics, June 17, 2009 1

RENT STABILIZATION ASSOCIATION 123 William Street New York, NY 10038 TEL: 212-214-9200 www.rsanyc.org

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De Blasio Banks On Ballot Bounce, Gioia On Late Surge, In Advocate Race Poll leaders Green, Siegel try to keep campaign steady in final weeks

BY DAVID FREEDLANDER fter eight months of campaigning, public polls of the Democratic nomination for public advocate have moved only microscopically.

For the three candidates hoping to get into a run-off against Mark Green as he hopes to reclaim his old office, that is agonizing.

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rely on institutional strength to target his supporters and make sure they get to the polls. De Blasio has been endorsed by most of the elected officials in Brooklyn, territory where he was always expected to do well, and has made significant inroads among minority voters in all five boroughs—voters who were expected to go to John Liu before he dropped out of the race and decided to run for comptroller. The campaign has been

Eric Gioia is relying on voter-to-voter contact and a huge money advantage. trailed his competitors in the low single digits throughout most of the spring and summer. “Money spent petitioning is money you can’t spend elsewhere.”

Aside from the support of the powerful Queens County organization, money is the one clear advantage Gioia has over his opponents. The Queens councilman has about $1 million more on hand than anyone else in the field, much of it from small donors—crucial to getting more matching claims than anyone else. That will be used to flood the airwaves and mailboxes with $3 million of messaging until Election Day.

The campaign hired Joel Benenson, the pollster behind the Barack Obama presidential campaign, and is relying on a similar organizing effort that propelled the president to victory in the Iowa caucuses.

According to Gioia, the campaign has already deputized thousands of precinct captains and will rely on them to talk up the councilman, whose face will suddenly be all over the place.

“It’s a combination of the right message and the ability to deliver it in an effective way, on top of the foundation we have already built,” Gioia said. “The evidence

Bill de Blasio hopes that his support among unions and among his Council colleagues vaults him into a run-off.

With the election less than six weeks away, a lot of momentum appears to be with Bill de Blasio. He has racked up a slew of endorsements from elected officials and labor unions, many of whom backed Green in his previous runs for office. After he was kicked off the ballot last month due to an error by the Board of Elections, De Blasio was featured on nearly a half-dozen television shows and rallies. A New York Times editorial appeared on his behalf. His campaign started a Facebook group called “Put Bill de Blasio Back On The Ballot” that gathered 500 members within hours.

The campaign was able to dominate the news cycle in a way that none of the other candidates have been able to yet, causing aides to half-jokingly confide that they hoped the fight to restore him would drag on for a little while.

It did not, and now his campaign will

using elected officials that back him to introduce de Blasio in districts where he is not well known.

“This race still revolves around what these races always revolve around—who can turn out voters in a low-turnout dynamic,” de Blasio said. “I think it’s telling that Mark has not won a sizeable number of endorsements. That will mean a lot of voters. He does not have that much in the way of organizational strength.”

De Blasio showed his organizational strength when he gathered 125,000 signatures during the petition gathering, a figure that dwarfed that of all his opponents. But rival campaigns said that getting over 16 times the required number of signatures was a needless waste of resources.

“Gifford Miller got the most signatures too,” remarked a campaign aide for Council Member Eric Gioia, who has

Civil rights attorney Norman Siegel is among the top tier of candidates despite struggling to raise money.

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EXCELLENCE, FROM START TO FINISH LINE. Mark Green has maintained a huge advantage in early polls; critics say it’s due to his name I.D. of our work will come in at the end.”

But Benenson is not looking to Iowa so much as to another campaign he worked on—Anthony Weiner’s in 2005, when the congressman vaulted from the bottom of the mayoral primary pack, and just short of a run-off, with speed that only picked up in the three weeks before Election Day. If there turns out to be movement in the polls, it will come at the expense of the two people currently leading—Siegel, who has consistently polled in the high

“People tell me I’m being stupid,” he says. “I say I think that’s wrong, but then again, I haven’t an election, right? What I’m hoping is maybe some of these anecdotes cumulatively come together and people say, ‘Whoa, he really is a terrific public advocate. Why don’t we do that?’”

Siegel has been looking into hiring local campaign guru Hank Sheinkopf to run his effort, a move that could confer upon him serious legitimacy by many of the city’s political class, but so far he has been unable to raise enough money.

If they want to speculate that they have an advantage that has never previously been dispositive, but miraculously this time will be, god bless them. —Mark Green

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teens, and Green, who has been hovering near the 40-percent threshold needed to avoid a runoff. Both de Blasio and Gioia’s camps say that their high poll numbers are more a function of high name recognition than an indication that voters will actually pull the levers for them. Green has kept a lower profile than the other candidates, skipping some of the debates and not holding nearly as many press conferences, but said he is not worried about Gioia’s fundraising advantage or de Blasio’s endorsements.

“If they want to speculate that they have an advantage that has never previously been dispositive, but miraculously this time will be, god bless them,” he said.

“Look, I don’t blame them for their selfserving speculation. What do you expect them to say?”

Meanwhile, Siegel is again running something of an anti-campaign.

At a recent rally against the Atlantic Yards development, he asked his supporters not to hand out literature or wave campaign signs for fear that it would take away from the message of the event.

Siegel hopes that if he gets into a run-off, many of de Blasio’s and Gioia’s supporters will gravitate toward him rather than Green. All of them are in the midst, then, of an odd dance with similar hopes, requiring extra caution not to alienate their opponents’ supporters who might then stay home in a run-off. They also have to be careful that everyone does well enough to keep Green below 40 percent. If any of the three begins to falter, it could be enough to push Green back into the job.

There are a few major moments yet to arrive: two televised debates, which could lead to someone’s downfall. There is The New York Times endorsement, which has often gone to Green in the past and could provide a big boost to one of the lesserknown candidates.

At this point, all would likely agree with Gioia when he was asked why poll numbers have not moved.

“We’re setting the table and now is the time to go out there and campaign,” he said. “Most New Yorkers are just at the very beginning of the beginning in terms of focusing on this race.” dfreedlander@cityhallnews.com

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Bronx Battle Brews Below Baez Challenge

BY ANDREW J. HAWKINS he fate of the Bronx County Democratic Party may rest on the shoulders of a 45-year-old Pentecostal preacher who, until two years ago, was a registered Republican.

That is the gamble Assembly Member Carl Heastie and the new Bronx Democratic leadership have made by making Fernando Cabrera, running to unseat Council Member Maria Baez, the first insurgent candidate to be endorsed by the party since wresting control from Assembly Member José Rivera last year.

And Rivera and his allies are waiting on the sidelines, eager to stage an effort to recapture the leadership if Cabrera loses.

“This is a test for Carl,” said Assembly Member Peter Rivera, an ally of (but of no relation to) José Rivera. “He has made it his test. He has put his reputation behind it—something that will prove whether he has the strength.”

ANDREW SCHWARTZ

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“They’re trying to make this into the political Armageddon,” said preacher and Council candidate Fernando Cabrera, discussing the interest in his race against Maria Baez.

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On the surface, going after Baez may have seemed like an easy decision for Heastie and the Bronx party. She has the worst attendance in the Council, showing up for just 56 percent of stated meetings.

She is reportedly under investigation for allocations she made to a nonprofit that was deemed unfit to receive public funds.

And her die-hard loyalty to Rivera—she is reputed to be the chief architect of many of the decisions he made as chairman— earned her the enmity of practically every member of the Rainbow Rebels.

“Baez was an intimate of [Rivera’s]— I’m not saying in a sexual way—but she was very close to him,” said Council Member G. Oliver Koppell, who himself supported Rivera during the insurrection before eventually flipping to Heastie’s side.

“She was, in a sense, more hostile to the so-called Rebels than Rivera himself.”

But several officials, Koppell included, speculate that the decision to target Baez is actually rooted in a little-noticed primary race in 2008. After Heastie publicly split with Rivera over supporting Elizabeth G. Taylor for circuit court—the spark that eventually set off the Rainbow Rebellion—an angry Rivera recruited Baez’s community liaison, Sherman Brown, to run against Heastie for the Democratic line. There are some who believe that Heastie’s move to deny Baez the party’s endorsement, even while backing other loyalists like Koppell and Joel Rivera, is little more than payback for that race.

Patrick Jenkins, an advisor to Heastie, said that any attempt to personalize the party’s endorsement process is just political tactics.

“I think that the key point of [Baez] not receiving the endorsement was the fact that she lost the support of the district leaders in her district,” Jenkins said.

Kingsbridge Hts/ University Hts DISTRICT

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Baez, who is now in full-on survival mode, suggested sexism may have had more to do with it.

“I think this is a Mt. gender issue,” Baez said.

“I think for some reason individuals think that I’m the STATEN weakest link.”

ISLAND In recent weeks, Baez has rallied several of her colleagues to her side, touting endorsements from Council Speaker Christine Quinn, Council Member Maria Carmen del Arroyo, Assembly Member Carmen Arroyo and others. (Baez also claimed to have been endorsed by city comptroller and mayoral candidate Bill Thompson, but a spokesperson for Thompson denied any such move.) She has already lured one former primary opponent, Yesenia Polanco, over to her camp, to serve as her campaign manager. And she has raised over $50,000 in campaign cash, about $13,000 more than Cabrera, despite his institutional support.

Comptroller candidate David Weprin, who plans on endorsing Baez in the coming weeks and donated the maximum amount of $2,750 to her campaign—and notably lost the Bronx party endorsement to rival Melinda Katz—countered the criticism of Baez as an absentee Council member.

“She has always been one of my more active members of the Finance Committee,” said Weprin, who chairs the committee. “She played a particularly active role in budget process.”

Despite all the ruckus about endorsements, control of the party machine and federal investigations,

Baez Bucked, But Koppell Keeps Counting On County

ouncil Member Maria Baez may be a target of the Rainbow Rebels, but her colleague G. Oliver Koppell is enjoying the full support of the people whose leadership he helped fight.

The decision to accept Koppell, who faces a competitive race for his Riverdale seat from the union-backed Anthony Cassino, back into the fold hinged on the support of Assembly Member Jeffrey Dinowitz, the head of the Benjamin Franklin Democratic Club and a dominant force in local politics.

“Oliver and I did disagree on the leadership struggle, I thought he made a mistake,” said Dinowitz, who was given a top position in the new party organization after the leadership change.

In the end, though, Koppell’s recalcitrance was forgiven.

“We’ve had a personal friendship and political relationship for many, many years,” Dinowitz said, “and nothing is going to change that.”

When it became clear that former chair José Rivera had been overthrown, Koppell reached out to Dinowitz, Assembly Member Carl Heastie and then-Assembly Member Ruben Diaz, Jr., to explain

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that his support of Rivera was born out of loyalty to the party boss for getting him a committee chairmanship in the Council after being denied one by former party leader Roberto Ramirez.

“We had a number of meetings and interactions that basically put me in good stead,” Koppell said. “Was I concerned that they might not support me? Yeah, I was.”

Koppell insisted that he never offered a mea culpa.

“I don’t tend to be quite so abashed,” he said. “Uh, I’m Oliver Koppell. I’ve served this community for over 30 years. I’m the councilman. I’m the elected official. I have some cards too.”

One of those cards was whether he would support Diaz, Jr. in his bid to be Bronx borough president.

Ultimately, Koppell did.

“He didn’t want to have me as an adversary,” Koppell said slyly.

“The reality is, I don’t think they wanted to take me on.”

—Joe Walker jwalker@cityhallnews.com

BROOKLYN

Hope/Mt. Eden

Cabrera is trying to keep things in perspective.

“No one race determines the leadership,” he said. “They’re trying to make this into the political Armageddon.”

Cabrera is a pastor at New Life Outreach International on Morris Avenue, a church he started with his wife, and a professor at Mercy College. His supporters describe him as a “likeable guy” with deep roots in the community.

But his is no grassroots effort. His campaign team is comprised of veteran political operatives, including Fernando Aquino, who was press secretary for the State Senate Democrats under both David Paterson and Malcolm Smith, and Venancio “Benny” Catala, a district leader who ran campaigns for Adolfo Carrión and Ruben Diaz, Jr. Baez supporters have hammered Cabrera for his Republican past and for owning a home in Pelham, a suburb outside of the Bronx. (Cabrera recently invited reporters into his Sedgwick Avenue apartment to prove his residency.)

“There is no distance between being Republican yesterday and a Democrat today,” said Peter Rivera. “I haven’t seen a clear explanation on that yet.”

Cabrera insists he was thoroughly vetted by the Bronx Democratic organization.

“People are into labels,” he said, his voice rising with an almost religious fervor. “And to them I say this, ‘You should know them by the fruits.’ If a Democrat is one that helps the poor, then I’m a Democrat.”

Cabrera says Baez would rather steer clear of discussing real issues, like the plan to redevelop the Kingsbridge Armory into a shopping mall. Neither Baez nor Cabrera support the controversial plan by the Related Cos. to include a big box supermarket in the redevelopment. But, as Cabrera is quick to point out, Baez has been absent from several community meetings to discuss the Kingsbridge Armory project, and has received tens of thousands in campaign donations from >> Continued on next page

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Running To Slow Flushing’s Growth, Sasson Makes Sparks Fly And Fires Hard

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>> Continued from previous page Related in the process.

“To this day I haven’t taken a dollar from a developer,” Cabrera said, though quickly adding, “I’m not saying I won’t in the future.”

The election could end up being decided based on a few hundred votes. In a district with historically low turnout like this one, observers say each campaign’s ability to turn out as their voters will be the deciding factor. Also, in a race between two Latino candidates (Baez is Puerto Rican; Cabrera is half Puerto

Isaac Sasson wants to slow development in Flushing, but his Council bid has been slowed by feuds and racial tensions. group asking them to support “those who will represent our values and way of life.”

The letter came to light and was condemned as racist by Rep. Gary Ackerman, who is also Jewish. Ackerman accused Sasson of making “very base appeal on the basis of religion and ethnicity.”

Sasson, however, denies that he had anything to do with the letter. He maintains that Ackerman, who supported Liu during that campaign, was simply playing politics.

As someone who himself emigrated from Lebanon at 15, Sasson said he empathizes with the new immigrants.

“The protection is not just for older residents but for newer comers,” Sasson said of his anti-development views. “The neighborhood is changing—and the newer people also want to have a stable neighborhood.”

More than any of the racial issues, though, it is Sasson’s confrontational attitude that may trip him up in the Council race, according to his critics.

Sasson, for instance, is currently engaged in a blood feud with the other white candidate in the race, a 27-yearold recent college graduate named Constantine Kavadas.

Rican, half Dominican), some say that black residents could be the swing voters in the race.

Cabrera is counting on his overwhelming support with the unions— District Council 37, 1199, 32 BJ and Hotel and Motel Trade Council (HTC) to name a few—to assist with turnout. HTC is committing over 800 members to the race, while an 1199 spokesperson insists it has “several thousand” members ready to rally to Cabrera’s cause.

In addition to her own network of support she has built over eight years as an incumbent, Baez says she can also call

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BY CHRIS BRAGG wo years ago, Isaac Sasson overcame 45 million-toone odds and took home a $13 million state lottery jackpot.

Now, as the 68-year-old Sephardic Jewish leader runs for the Council in the six-way Democratic primary to replace John Liu, he faces perhaps an equally daunting task: overcoming Isaac Sasson.

After winning the lottery, Sasson dumped over $100,000 into local community groups through the Isaac Sasson Charitable Foundation, he said, a move that endeared him to a number of Flushing residents.

Yet despite the goodwill Sasson has built up in some circles, there remains just as much antipathy towards him in the community.

In his second run for the Council, Sasson, who is the head of the neighborhood group Holly Civic Association, is making the overdevelopment of the area the centerpiece of his campaign. He puts the blame for this overdevelopment squarely at the feet of the man he is hoping to succeed.

“It really all started at Councilman Liu’s office,” Sasson said. “I think it is really deplorable.”

But in a campaign where ethnic tensions have often boiled to the surface, some cannot help but see a play for divisiveness in Sasson’s efforts. After all, those who have benefited most from the increased housing stock are largely the newer Asian-American immigrants, and those who mourn the changing face of the neighborhood are largely the longtime white residents.

This perception of Sasson’s campaign is fed, in part, by his unsuccessful 2003 Council campaign against Liu. During that campaign, a member of a Sephardic Jewish group involved with Sasson’s campaign wrote a letter to others in the

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This began after Sasson Flushing-North filed a still-pending lawsuit to try and disqualify Kavadas from the ballot, which some saw as BROOKLYN motivated primarily out of fear that Kavadas would siphon off some of the white vote.

Kavadas did not take kindly STATEN to this maneuver, however, and ISLAND has since relentlessly attacked Sasson at candidate debates. the mayor’s office and allow limited Kavadas has made a number development in the neighborhoods, he of unsubstantiated charges said, but Sasson, as head of the Holly against Sasson, including Civic Association, resisted even modest that Sasson offered to pay off Kavadas’ $17,000 in campaign debt if he concessions. Eventually, Apelian said, the city and Waldheim went ahead with would drop out of the race.

At the least, Kavadas may hurt Sasson’s the zoning plan and did not include the chances of winning votes in the district’s Holly neighborhood.

Sasson’s failure to compromise left Greek community.

“If I’m on the ballot, I’m going to beat Holly completely unprotected from him,” said Kavadas. “If I’m off the ballot, developers, Apelian said.

“He’s the worst candidate out there, then I’m going to make sure he’s not going and I don’t even know the rest,” said to win.”

Sasson’s critics are hardly surprised Apelian. “He’s just a hostile person.”

Sasson disputed that version of events. that he has found himself in a fight.

Several years ago, when Liu voted Instead, he said the city had intentionally for the ban on smoking in restaurants held up the rezoning deal so that several and bars, Sasson blasted the Council developments in the neighborhood would member—even though Sasson spent most continue unabated.

Others in the neighborhood, however, of his life working as a cancer researcher.

Sasson reasoned that bartenders should feel Sasson is the only candidate who know that second-hand smoke is a peril understands their problems. From his doorstep on Kinnessa Boulevard, Sasson, of the job.

During a 2006 zoning dispute, Sasson like other longtime residents, has seen took the unlikely tack of calling for the the neighborhood change dramatically closing of the local Flushing hospital, over the three decades he has lived there, citing a report stating there were too many with single-family homes turning into hospital beds in the city. Community Board row houses and vacant lots now lining 7 defeated his proposal by a vote of 39 to 1. the streets from the housing bust.

After a recent candidate forum, Sasson’s tendency to bullishly go it alone was again demonstrated last year Flushing resident Rudy Thermon gripped during a joint rezoning effort between the onto a cane as he explained why he Flushing neighborhoods of Waldheim and believes in Sasson and his cause.

“If we keep building, sooner or later Holly, said Community Board 7 vice-chair we’re going to be on top of each other,” Chuck Apelian.

Apelian wanted to compromise with Thermon said. “You can’t even walk down the street anymore on the weekends.”

Sasson said he feels Thermon’s pain. in favors from Assembly Member Nelson When Sasson arrived in Flushing in Castro and Senate Majority Leader Pedro Espada, both of whose districts overlap 1976, he did not expect to stay long. Yet over three decades later, there he remains, her own.

But if Baez wants to drag Espada into and in the same building he moved into the race, Cabrera says she should be all those years ago.

Sasson said he simply fell in love mindful of the recent poll that showed only 6 percent of Latinos in New York in with the place—and he is not planning on stopping his fight against the new support of the controversial politician.

“When we walk around the development there anytime soon, no neighborhood, everyone always asks, matter what his critics say.

“This is where I’ve lived for 33 years,” ‘You’re not with Espada, are you?’”

Cabrera said, laughing. “And I have to say, Sasson said, “and this is where I’m going to die.”

‘No, no. Not me.’” ahawkins@cityhallnews.com cbragg@cityhallnews.com

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here is fear in the Manhattan district attorney’s office. Change is coming. The boss is leaving for the egg farm. Come January, after 35 years of Robert Morgenthau and the first election without an incumbent since 1941, someone new will be throwing open the windows at 1 Hogan Place—or at least those windows that still open, beneath the decades of rust and layered paint.

There are three different visions projecting three very different futures for the office Morgenthau is about to leave behind. They matter for Manhattan, but they matter for the city and the state as a whole too, because whether people live, work or do business in New York, the office has an incontrovertible, crucial role in their lives.

Accidentally shoot yourself in the leg as part of a night out on the town, and off you go to the Manhattan district attorney. Deliver fake concrete test results for buildings in midtown from your offices all the way north in Port Chester, and it is the Manhattan district attorney who will be delivering the indictment. Much as the outer boroughs might grumble, Manhattan is the center of the city, the home of the financial sector, the most major of businesses and the municipal government. The job of the Manhattan DA is to watch over them all.

Morgenthau revolutionized the office. He switched from a horizontal to a vertical organization model, keeping his prosecutors with cases through every step of the judicial process, a rethinking that has been embraced by many other district attorneys’ offices in the decades since. He created several new pioneering bureaus. He set a standard of justice and innovation that has become famous across the country, synonymous with his name.

But, critics charge, that was then. Not even the display documenting the history of the office since Thomas “Gangbuster” Dewey in front of the elevators has been updated since 1985, when the pictures of a noticeably younger Morgenthau playing with children at the Police Athletic League and riding his tractor were added.

While things have been humming along in recent years, despite the departure of several longtime aides and problems like the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission complaint that has been filed against Morgenthau’s press office, they have been doing just that: humming along, continuing in the same way and with the same mindset while the world has changed. Exhibit A, potentially, is a 2003 case when the office nabbed a money laundering operation with hundreds of millions of dollars stashed in Caribbean accounts. They won accolades, scored huge headlines. Morgenthau still brags about making the case.

But if not for a young paralegal who realized that the lawyers could find out how the process worked by just going online and applying for an account, the case might never have been cracked. No one on the case even realized they could do that.

No matter who wins in September, a greater emphasis on technology will soon arrive, along with a significantly more hands-on approach. For decades, junior assistant district attorneys got just a single one one-onone meeting with their boss, at the last stage in the hiring process. Most were only in the same room with him once a year, when he called them all together in the central jury room on the 15th floor to tell them raises were coming. (“If you have thanks, I’ll take them,” every speech concluded.

“If you have complaints, talk to Fred [Watts, the administrative district attorney]. Keep up the good work.” The over-under among the staff on the length of the speech usually paid out to whomever guessed 27 seconds.)

Cy Vance, Richard Aborn and Leslie Crocker Snyder all have their white papers and their press releases and their op-eds promising the changes that will come. They have debated more than any other field of candidates, worked grooves into each other with their now standard attack lines and expected rhythms.

This is the way Vance drums up the support among the editorial boards and the downtrodden communities and the elite who feel sorry for the downtrodden communities. This is the way Aborn energizes the clubs and the Working Families Party and the dripping-blood bleeding-hearts, the way Snyder strikes the cords deep within voters that convince them she is the one who fits the bill of the fearless prosecutor who will never be satisfied or stopped.

There are those who assume that none of them would actually be able to change much if elected. Sure, the new DA will tinker around the edges, but the skeptics in the office worry and fear what will happen when so few of their big plans come to be.

Daniel Donovan, a one-time Morgenthau ADA who is now the Staten Island district attorney, is familiar with this kind of thinking. He heard it from people who doubted what he would really be able to get done from among the promises

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Richard Aborn, Leslie Cro Cy Vance predict the futu

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DECISION Cy Vance, Leslie Crocker Snyder and Richard Aborn have been laying out their plans all over town, including at a City Hall debate on July 29.

ocker Snyder and ure of the Manhattan DA’s office

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of change he made in his 2003 campaign.

Donovan, after all, also succeeded a man who had been there for decades (two decades, as opposed to Morgenthau’s three and a half, but nonetheless). The office was pretty set in its ways.

But then Donovan got to work. His predecessor had complained that 70 percent of his cases were dismissed because of witness intimidation or failure to follow through with their testimony.

Donovan created programs to protect and encourage witnesses, funded by $583,000 in forfeiture money (he has more forfeiture money coming in than ever before, thanks to other changes he has made in the conditions of plea bargains). Before he came into office, a minor drunk driving epidemic had erupted on Staten Island, but only one in six people caught were being sent to jail.

Last year, all but one of those caught went to jail. He made a policy of never talking to defense lawyers who tried to go over the heads of his assistants, he dropped by courtrooms and started bringing in every assistant for a review of every case.

Within six months, people in Staten Island were beginning to feel the difference. And not just the people in the office.

The Manhattan district attorney’s office has more lawyers than Staten Island’s by a factor of 10. The annual budget for the office is $74 million, as opposed to $7 million for Donovan. Unlike just about any other government officials, district attorneys have essentially full discretion over allocating their budgets. There are no head counts, no requirements in the law or anywhere else that determine how that money can be spent. In setting a direction for the office, that means big opportunities. And knowing what he does about the three candidates running in Manhattan, Donovan expects the result to be big differences.

“You have to change the mindset.

You have to change the mindset of your staff, you have to change the mindset of the defense bar, you have to change the mindset of the bench of the way you’re going to handle things,” he said. “But the folks that think that it doesn’t matter who’s sitting in the big guy’s chair across the pond are mistaken.” nly in front of the largely comfortable, extremely liberal electorate that resides on that strange island off the coast of the rest of America could people campaign to be the next top prosecutor by each trying to outdo the others on figuring out ways not to lock people up, not to pursue prosecutions, not to get the maximum penalties for every perp who walks through the doors.

The earliest to release much of his plans was Cy Vance, the son of Jimmy Carter’s secretary of state (early in the campaign, his staff argued whether to have people call him Cyrus, or whether

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the “junior” was too diminutive, before settling on the simpler version), a son of privilege complete with round tortoise shell glasses. He is a man who keeps WQXR playing in his office and marches in parades in Harlem in a trench coat, with a clutched briefcase and long umbrella in either hand. He was such a well-known figure in Seattle during the decade and a half he lived there that the local papers have even written articles about his race.

But his own attention is focused fully in Manhattan and the specific neighborhoods that could be served by his communitybased justice model, which would assign lawyers to specific neighborhoods. That, he believes, would help them develop expertise with local problems and forge the relationships with people within them that will make solving those problems easier. Though skeptics doubt that this would equitably distribute the workload, in areas with at-risk poor and immigrant residents like Washington Heights, where Vance has campaigned heavily and pledged to open a satellite office, the idea has gotten some traction. There may not be money to ever go through with the plan, but if he wins and finds a way to make one work in the budget, Vance will fill it with staff catering to the specific needs of the community, complete with a hate crimes unit and a family justice center to provide services to those looking to escape or prevent domestic violence.

Meanwhile, in the main office, he would add new bureaus to deal more extensively with hate crimes, as well as with public integrity, immigration and the environment. He would lobby to expand community courts, and, pointing out that 90 percent of the cases the office deals with go through criminal court, he has proposed a plan to clear out the backlog that causes years of delays, though this is all predicated on Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman agreeing with the proposal and deciding to reassign judges to the court to start moving through the cases.

For all of his proposed changes, Vance is the candidate who sees himself as most in the Morgenthau mode. The office will change, he said, but not radically. What he is looking to do is “add some arrows in the quiver.”

www.cityhallnews.com sketches that have been going around, Vance is the status quo Morgenthau operator, Richard Aborn is the pie-in-thesky dreamer and Leslie Crocker Snyder is aggressive and mean. Or there are the dueling résumés: though they are now all partners in high-priced midtown firms, complete (except for at Aborn’s) with doormen decked out in campaign buttons, each comes to the race with a distinctive set of legal experiences after finishing as Morgenthau ADAs—Snyder as a government lawyer and then judge in various city courts, Vance as a corporate and defense attorney and member of various legal reform organizations, Aborn as a legal consultant to various organizations and activist on behalf of legislation.

But the part of his biography that he wants people to focus on is what he believes makes him the courtroom candidate. Snyder’s time on the bench and Aborn’s work in pursuit of new laws are important, Vance said, but neither can match the experience he has in the criminal justice process from so many years working, as he says, as an active advocate in the system.

“When I talk about expanding discovery—which I think is very important—it’s not someone else telling me about the issue of problems with criminal cases. This is the business I’ve been working in, these are the problems I have confronted in my own cases for the last 20 years,” he said, citing one example.

“I wasn’t a judge ruling on discovery issues, I wasn’t someone who hasn’t been in the litigation process in any meaningful way.”

Thus Vance’s main contention with Richard Aborn: Aborn’s last time representing a client in a courtroom was in the early 1990s. How, Vance asks, can someone who has not actively conducted trials know where the needs are? This gets at a gut political appeal and, as far as Vance tells things, the question of what informs the district attorney’s judgment about the priorities of the office.

But that has very little to do with why he got the outgoing DA’s support.

Morgenthau, who is still incensed that Snyder dared challenge him in the 2005 election and just as likely as ever to fight over the decimal points in his margin of

The folks that think that it doesn’t matter who’s sitting in the big guy’s chair across the pond are mistaken. —Staten Island District Attorney Dan Donovan The changes he wants to see are an extension of the underlying principles and philosophy he shares with Morgenthau, interpolated through his own legal career so far.

In the simple, one-stroke character

victory over her, has committed himself to making sure that she not succeed him.

Always known for being obsessive, he has gotten more so with age, and increasingly concerned with protecting his legacy. When the time came to officially put the dream

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After 35 years of Robert Morgenthau, there are three critically different views of where the Manhattan DA’s office should go next. of a “90 in ’09” campaign to rest, he began calling aides and confidants into his office to ask their advice. First, he wanted to know: who did they think would make the best district attorney? Then came the more pressing question: who could beat Snyder?

The consensus on the first question was Dan Castleman, his longtime chief of investigations who had recently been promoted to chief assistant. But since he had stayed on staff, Castleman was legally restricted from raising any money or doing much to raise his profile, unlike Vance, who, while publicly declaring that he would never run against Morgenthau, had been putting together hundreds of thousands of dollars, appearing at events around the borough and had a name that Morgenthau and his loyalists believed would still ring bells in people’s minds.

Morgenthau went with Vance.

Even before the endorsement became official with a big press conference on the steps of the main courthouse June 24, the committed Morgenthau alumni were all on board, sending money, lending support.

Morgenthau himself chipped in with $5,000 from his Friends of Morgenthau committee, though he has so far not done anything with the remaining $800,000 in his campaign account or made a personal contribution to Vance.

Former Mayor David Dinkins came out for Vance, as did Caroline and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. But the current elected

officials were harder to sway. As much as they liked Morgenthau and respected what he had done with the office, they resisted as he berated them over speakerphone from his office, pushing them to get on board with his man.

To Vance, the explanation for why they instead went with Aborn is simple: “He was a district leader,” Vance insisted.

“He’s been involved with the club process for many years.”

But in fact Aborn never was a district leader, nor was he ever a maven of the political clubs. While he did meet some of the elected officials now backing his candidacy through the various causes he championed over the years, they chose Aborn because they did not like Vance or Snyder, and because Aborn appealed to their deepest, leftiest tendencies.

This is Manhattan, after all. To this crowd, “progressive” is a sacred word.

And while Vance and Snyder have both tried to work it into their speeches and campaign material, Aborn—who resists wearing ties, is married to Isabella Rosselini’s sister, runs with The Nation crowd and keeps a chipped front tooth unfixed in the kind of anti-aesthetic that is classic Upper West Side—has staked his campaign on showing how seriously he takes the idea of progressivism.

Progressive criminal justice, he says, means moving swiftly against violent crime while being heavily involved in easing reentry to prevent recidivism, being proactive on non-violent crime and

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having an open discussion on the impact of race in the criminal justice system.

Some of Aborn’s proposals to use the office as an extension of his advocacy work, within the context of criminal prosecution, are pretty radical. Take his juvenile justice plan, which drew most of the politicians who have endorsed him out onto a hot summer sidewalk to praise for its comprehensive thinking. By keeping nonviolent youth offenders out of adult courts and prisons, Aborn believes, he will protect them from being drawn into even worse problems and become recidivists. Much of the plan involves pursuing programs to identify and intervene with atrisk youth, which he believes is as simple as reallocating resources and reshuffling priorities. Here, as in other proposals he has issued, he wants the district attorney’s office to act as a nexus for service referrals, pressed upon anyone who comes in through the office.

File a domestic violence complaint, for example, and the office under Aborn would not only pursue the charge, but at the same time recommend everything from good shelters in the neighborhood to therapy for the children who witnessed the beatings.

And Aborn wants to throw a lot of the criminals into treatment programs as well.

Keeping someone in Rikers’ costs $65,000 per year, by his calculations, compared to $35,000 per year to have that same person in an in-patient program or $15,000 in an out-patient program. As district attorney, he believes he will be able to quickly show by way of his proposed data-tracking “PreventStat” that he is both lowering crime and saving money.

Then the real revolution will begin.

“It’s my obligation to show that these two things are more effective,” he said, referring to the in-patient and out-patient programs. “But once I prove that, I expect the legislature to transfer some of those existing budget lines that are for prisons and move them into these more effective interventions.”

There are a number of assumptions involved, not even counting all the ones about whether his theories will actually work in practice in the New York criminal justice system. First, whether in changing the age delineations for who counts as a juvenile or trying to establish an interstate compact to prevent gun trafficking, Aborn will need new laws that may well prove beyond the comfort zone of Albany. The narrow margin and divided conference had enough trouble working out a deal on Rockefeller reform earlier this year.

And that was before the June coup, which certified that all the individual senators have the power to at least temporarily destroy the government for whatever dissatisfactions they may have. Then there is the idea that they will actually be willing to compensate the district attorney’s office if Aborn does succeed in lowering prison costs. Innovative financial thinking is not

something for which the state government is renowned. Before any of this, though, there is Aborn’s assumption that he will be able to get all 500 ADAs and additional 700 members of the support staff to so completely shift their conception of their roles in the system.

“I want them to shed themselves of how

name recognition and being the only woman in the race, can press ahead with a strong case of what she would do, basing it on what she knows she actually could do.

Noticeably softer in tone and wearing less black since she charged in to the race four years ago, first opening people’s

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prosecutorial tool at her disposal while pushing for new ones, Snyder puts herself forward as the one who has the greatest commitment to pursuing change that would actually work.

But for the ADAs and support staff in Morgenthau’s office, most of whom have never met any of the three candidates,

Only in front of the largely comfortable, extremely liberal electorate that resides on that strange island off the coast of the rest of America could people campaign to be the next top prosecutor by each trying to outdo the others on figuring out ways not to lock people up. they do things now and think of how they should do things,” Aborn said, pointing to his successful work on the Brady Bill as an example of how he has been able to move legislation past most expectations. “In the traditional model of the DA’s office, these things would not get done.”

For all the changes Vance and Aborn discuss, Snyder charges, neither has a real answer for where they were four years ago, when she was running against Morgenthau with promises to change the office and they were on the sidelines, refusing to challenge him. This year, she has laid out a series of proposals building on those issued in 2005, all based on the principle of preventing second offenses, whether by getting the stiffest penalties for the worst offenses or by intervening with rehabilitation programs and other alternatives to incarceration.

The problem, according to her opponents, is that there is no reason to believe she is sincere about the second part. As a judge, they say, her interest was purely in sending people away, and that is what her interest will be if put in charge of the district attorney’s office. As they portray her, the things she says about alternatives or rethinking the office are all campaign ploys. A perfect example, they say, is her proposed Second Look Bureau: if she were less committed to the idea of getting convictions in the first place, her critics charge, she would be more interested in taking a more careful first look.

When they hammer her for supporting the death penalty—once an advocate of its use for terrorists and child rapists, she has since recanted and opposes it entirely—she says they are purposefully missing the point. No matter what precautions are taken, she said, mistakes will be made, and, as with everything else, she is just being realistic, pragmatic.

That is the luxury afforded to the candidate who is running ahead in all the polls, apparently succeeding in getting a second look of her own from voters.

She has refined her approach and slowly modulated some of her more controversial positions but, with the strength of her

minds to a post-Morgenthau era, Snyder proudly discusses her history as a tough judge. But that was what was required in her courtroom, which often presented her with the most violent drug dealers, gang members and murderers in the city. When possible, she looked for other methods, finding ways to send people to treatment or even to college rather than jail.

With her strengths as a candidate and enough money to put her own message out, she is keeping quieter. The attacks on her this year are largely the same as they were in her last campaign, and she has for the most part learned to ignore them. If Aborn gets more attention for having exonerated prisoner Jeffrey Deskovic slamming Snyder on his behalf, or if Vance cracks open the television ads acting out the more chilling statements, from her autobiography (like her desire to be the one to personally deliver a lethal injection) that were presented to Morgenthau in 2005 but never aired, that might need to change. But for now, she seems to be settling into a groove of simply avoiding many mistakes.

In the meantime, she has put together her own proposals for tackling the criminal court backlog and pursuing better gun control, though she questions how much will be possible under the current fiscal constraints. She wants specialized units for housing, counterterrorism and hate crimes. She would pursue certain organizational restructurings like merging the Narcotics Eviction Program, which forces drug dealers from residential and commercial properties, with the Formal Trespass Affidavit Program, which broadens the kinds of patrols police can perform in certain buildings. Moves like this, she believes, will lead to swifter, more thorough and more effective crime fighting that would go after the smaller criminals with just as much fervor as the big ones.

The same goes for white-collar crime, on which she insists the office should spend more time, going after the “mini-Madoffs” instead of just the Dennis Kozlowskiscale prosecutions that have become a Morgenthau specialty. By flexing every

Snyder is the scariest one. They are convinced that her perceived vendetta against Morgenthau will put them all on the chopping block. Like Vance and Aborn, she says that things will start changing immediately if she is the one who takes over next year, but insists that she will preserve many of the people in the office, much of what they do and a good portion of how they do it.

No matter who wins, a lot of senior people in the office are going to retire.

Those who remain or get promoted to fill the vacancies are going to be busier.

But while Vance has the legal staff worried that he will not be a strong enough leader, potentially still taking direction from Morgenthau, and Aborn has them worried that he will be too caught up in his liberal ideology to be practical, Snyder has them worried that she will put a lot of them on the street and be vicious with whomever remains.

“Every day, someone says to me, ‘The word in the DA’s office is you’re going to fire everyone or ask for their resignations,’” she said. “It’s ridiculous.”

In the meantime, whoever wins will have to start by learning their ways around 1 Hogan Place. Vance has not been there for months, Aborn for slightly longer than that. Snyder’s last time there was in 2003, in a visit toward the end of her time on the bench.

The toughest part may be literally cleaning out Morgenthau’s office itself.

Anyone who has ever been in there speaks in odd wonderment about the number of papers and books piled up in the long corridor up on the eighth floor where he spends his days, all mixed in with mementoes and ceremonial shovels and various photographs. The walls alone are covered in enough frames and photo blow-ups to outfit a museum.

At least for that, Morgenthau himself has come up with a simple answer for the future.

“Ida put them all up,” he has been telling people, referring to his longtime secretary, Ida Van Lindt. “Ida will have to take them all down.” eidovere@cityhallnews.com

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After Harding, Hard Times For Liberal Party Stalwarts In ’09 Elections Hopes pinned on Giuliani to restore power to one-time powerbrokers next year The determined few, including Hassner, Stern and party chair Jack Olchin, are hoping to take steps back to relevance during the 2009 elections in preparation for the make-or-break 2010 governor’s race.

Yet like many of the party’s efforts in recent years, this has not gone as planned.

Instead of backing Mayor Michael Bloomberg for mayor as they have in the past, this year party leaders had all but decided to support Comptroller Bill Thompson.

But, when the time came for Thompson’s candidate screening a few months ago, he failed to show. According to Hassner, Thompson feared that accepting the Liberal Party endorsement would preclude him from gaining the backing of the Working Families Party, which formed in response to what some on the left saw as the Liberal Party’s betrayal of progressive values.

Hassner said he believes that the rivalry has continued and said he has seen several other candidates scared off from seeking the Liberal Party endorsement by the WFP. Dan Levitan, a spokesperson for the WFP, denied they were dissuading candidates from showing up at Liberal Party screenings.

A more likely explanation may be that gaining the Liberal Party endorsement simply does not hold much political appeal anymore. Where once their designee would appear on a ballot line next to the other major parties, the line is now all the way to the right, in the far corner, clumped with the minor parties.

Combined with the negative stigma of being associated with Harding, there is little incentive for many candidates to spend hours at a candidate screening.

In fact, the Liberal Party’s main criterion in doling out candidate endorsements these days seems to be finding candidates willing to show up to their meetings. After the Thompson snub, the party settled on Edward Culvert, a noted professor and sociologist from Lehman College, as its mayoral candidate. Culvert, however, recently fell ill and the party is now scrambling to find a new nominee.

The party endorsed Republican Greg Camp for Manhattan district attorney.

But he has also since dropped out of that race.

In Council races, the party has endorsed long-shot candidate Simon Belsky, who is running against Council Member Michael Nelson on a platform of reforming the city’s parking ticket regulations. Belsky was inspired to run after spending three years in court beating a $115 ticket.

The other recipient of a Council endorsement is Council Member Thomas White, Jr. But so far he has not done much to raise the party’s profile, declining to announce their endorsement in his recent Board of Elections voter guide interview.

White said he was not even sure he would be listing the Liberal Party endorsement on his campaign literature.

“I would love to, but that’s up to my political advisors,” White said.

The sad state of affairs did not come about overnight. The party was founded during the Great Depression as progressive and pro-union. But it drifted ideologically over the years and, under Harding’s two decades of leadership, its line was often for sale to the highest bidder, according to the allegations against him.

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“It was a one-man show,” lamented former party chair Henry Stern. “After 20 years of there being a one-man show, people are going to drop off.”

Henry Stern proudly and successfully campaigned for Council on the Liberal line in the party’s 1970s heyday. These days, he is one of the few people left making one last attempt to save what remains.

BY CHRIS BRAGG mere 16 years ago, the Liberal Party gave a young former U.S. attorney named Rudolph Giuliani enough votes on its ballot line to make him the mayor of New York City.

All that remains of the party these days is a small group of graying men who meet monthly on the 54th floor of the Trump Building on Wall Street, without their ballot line, their money and members, or

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Ray Harding, the once omnipotent party boss who is facing indictment for his role in the pension fund scandal.

“It was a one-man show,” lamented former party chair Henry Stern. “After 20 years of there being a one-man show, people are going to drop off.”

Where once there was a backroom full of political powerbrokers, barely anything is left.

“There’s no smoke-filled room,” said the party’s executive director, Martin Hassner. “It’s very, very clear.”

The final straw came in 2002, when Andrew Cuomo dropped out of the governor’s race, leaving the party without the 50,000 votes needed to maintain its automatic ballot line in citywide and statewide elections. After this fiasco, Harding left the party, and with him went the political connections he had built over the years.

The 2010 elections are likely the party’s last chance at salvation. Their greatest hopes are pinned on Giuliani, who ran for mayor on the Liberal Party line three times. Party leaders hope he runs, and runs on their line to make himself more palatable to Democratic voters who could not bear to pull the lever for a Republican.

Party leaders are also holding out hope that Cuomo might run on their line, despite the party’s rocky history with him.

If their hopes fail to materialize in 2010, however, the Liberal Party faces four more years in the political wilderness.

Given its current state, such a scenario would likely be too much for the party to survive, said Louis Dvorkin, the party’s Queens County chair.

“Over the past eight years, we’ve lost too many of the top people,” he said. “Some of them haven’t survived politically. And some of them—some of them are just too damn old.” cbragg@cityhallnews.com

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AUGUST 10, 2009

Fractured Support In Comptroller’s Race Demonstrates Divided Labor Priorities

SCOTT WILLIAMS

Different takes on necessary city action on behalf of unions and their pensions

BY SAL GENTILE ne has the police. Another has the firefighters.

The Teamsters have gone another way, as have the stage musicians.

In the election to choose the next city comptroller, organized labor has splintered among the four contenders to a degree not usually seen in citywide races, with each offering different promises to win the unions’ support.

The splits come at a time when organized labor’s stake in the comptroller’s race is larger than ever. With pension costs spiraling out of control, Mayor Michael Bloomberg has proposed creating a fifth and less generous pension tier, which most public employee unions oppose. And with cutbacks at City Hall, the unions are looking for a comptroller who can put them back to work by both protecting their collective bargaining agreements and investing the pension funds in ways that spur economic development for private workers.

“It’s really the pension issues,” said a senior adviser to one comptroller campaign, discussing the effort to woo the unions. “It’s how people intend to invest the pension—how aggressive or not aggressive. Who’s going to have a seat at the table when you divide it up?”

So Melinda Katz, who has built relationships with the buildings trades unions from her time as chair of the City Council’s Land Use Committee, has proposed increased investment in real estate and affordable housing.

David Weprin, who as Finance chair

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John Liu, Melinda Katz and David Weprin have all drawn some labor support based on past relationships and big promises, while David Yassky has so far only been able to lure the American Federation of Musicians. sided with the uniformed services in their battles with the administration, has promised a more substantial role for labor representatives in deciding how the police and fire unions’ pensions are managed.

And John Liu, who warred with the MTA as Transportation chair, has emphasized his financial background as a way to keep pension costs under control as well as his opposition to the fifth tier.

“Everybody has a constituency and an interest that they have to deal with,” said Wanda Williams, the political director for DC 37, which is backing Liu. Of the fifth tier, she said: “That’s first and foremost for us.”

The heightened economic anxiety and the swirl of promises from four candidates have made the decision of whom to back for each union that much

more complicated.

As one labor official put it, the unions have generally been following three main criteria in their endorsement decisions this year: “Investment strategies, past performance and relationships.”

Most private labor groups, for example, split from DC 37 and the public employee unions over the importance of the fifth pension tier. Greg Floyd, the president of Teamsters Local 237, said the fifth tier issue proved less important to his members than the question of who would create and protect union jobs. His parent union, the Teamsters Joint Council 16, endorsed Katz in July.

But Floyd himself has remained neutral, even after almost two years of intensive lobbying from the candidates, one of many signs of how hard getting

labor to agree on who would serve them best has been this year.

Katz, for example, began aggressively courting Floyd as early as April 2008, a year and a half out from the Democratic primary. After some observers, including Floyd, expressed skepticism about a plan she has touted to invest pension funds in flailing local companies, she redoubled her efforts to ease Floyd’s concerns.

Weprin, meanwhile, approached Floyd with the promise of a larger role for Floyd and his fellow trustees in deciding how to invest the city’s pension funds.

But while the other three candidates scramble for labor support, Council Member David Yassky has largely been left on the sidelines.

Yassky, a Bloomberg ally, essentially forfeited most union backing by leaving the door open to creating a fifth pension tier. With that position, most public employee unions refused to consider him as an option in the race.

As for the private ones, union officials say Yassky’s role as chair of the Council’s Small Business Committee did not allow him to forge relationships—and dole out favors—as much as his opponents were able to do.

Only one union has backed Yassky so far: the American Federation of Musicians, which hopes Yassky will protect the film tax credit program for industry professionals, such as musicians, which he spearheaded earlier this year.

Joel LeFevre, the union’s organizing director, said that decision put the musicians and the actors they represent at odds with the rest of the AFL-CIO, of which they are a part. The AFL-CIO endorsed Liu. LeFevre admitted that he does not expect the remaining unions—most of which have endorsed a candidate, with the United Federation of Teachers the only major labor group still undecided— to join them in singing the Yassky tune.

“We’re members of the Central Labor Council. We’re members of the New York State Federation of Labor. It doesn’t mean that any of them have to listen to us. Obviously they didn’t,” LeFevre said.

As for the difference his union’s support will make for Yassky, LeFevre was cautious.

“I can’t tell you how many actors vote,” he said, “especially in primaries.” sgentile@cityhallnews.com

Fragmentation Within DC 37 Benefits Weprin, Causes Headaches

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little disagreement between the unions on whom to back for comptroller is only natural. But at DC 37, the unions cannot even agree amongst themselves.

Seven of municipal workers’ union’s largest local chapters splintered off from their parent union in July and endorsed Council Member David Weprin for comptroller, though the leadership had already decided to back Council Member John Liu. The Weprin campaign pounced on an arcane rule in the DC 37 bylaws that frees up local chapters to back whomever they want if the union’s executive committee has not made an endorsement decision within 90 days of the election.

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That was a coup for Weprin, who was able to pick off some much-needed labor support. But the result was headaches for the DC 37 leadership, which was not happy to see the Weprin campaign exploiting the divisions and pitting DC 37 members against one another.

The split may be a sign that labor is not lining up uniformly behind Liu. But DC 37 political director Wanda Williams discounted the influence of the local chapters. The full force of the union’s support would still be behind Liu, she promised.

“It is the Council that is the parent, that is the one that is going to put the resources behind the candidate it is supporting,” she said, adding of the local chapters.

—SG

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AUGUST 10, 2009

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Many Of The Same Supporters And Ideas, But Do Not Call Them A Ticket In Thompson, Liu and de Blasio, some see a modern take on traditional politics

BY ANDREW J. HAWKINS hey have been touted around town by the same supporters. They have fought on similar issues. But do not call them a ticket.

Even so, that has not stopped some from quietly wishing that Bill Thompson, John Liu and Bill de Blasio, all candidates for citywide office, would join forces before the September primary.

“That’s the dream team!” said Assembly Member Adriano Espaillat, who has endorsed all three. The only thing missing in this perfect, racially balanced political equation, Espaillat feels, is a female candidate.

“If only Bill Thompson would be a woman,” he said, laughing, “then it really would be the dream team.”

But rather than endorse Melinda Katz, who is also running for comptroller, Espaillat went with Liu. And he is not the only one.

In the past few weeks, Thompson, Liu and de Blasio—running for mayor, comptroller and public advocate, respectively—have rolled out endorsements intended to burnish their progressive credentials. And those endorsements had a lot in common. All three were endorsed by the Working Families Party, the Communications Workers of America and the Civil Service Employees Association. Each has won the support of Rep. Charles Rangel and a dozen other elected officials. And

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John Liu, left, Bill de Blasio, right, and Bill Thompson (not pictured) have many supporters in common—so much so that some have begun to discuss the possibilty of forming a ticket. while each endorsement was earned independently, there is a sense that their collective supporters would like to see that change.

“Any time you have 10 people aligning on the Ouija board for these three candidates, it says something,” Espaillat said. “I think that they can come together.

They will be a major force to reckon with, and I think it will strengthen the Democratic Party.”

This idea of a Thompson/Liu/de Blasio ticket goes beyond simple endorsement harmony.

Each can claim to represent a distinct and politically powerful ethnic population in the city. Liu is vying to become the first Asian-American elected to citywide office, and has a Queens base. De Blasio can claim to represent both ItalianAmericans and segments of brownstone Brooklyn, a powerful voting bloc. And Thompson aims to become the second African-American elected mayor in New York.

While none of the three have taken any formal, or informal, steps to join forces, some believe that if they did, they could help each other win more votes, especially in those pockets of the city where each claims to have the most support.

“In terms of race and ethnicity,” said Doug Muzzio, political science professor at Baruch College, “it’s the old and the new.”

Decades ago, the city’s Democratic political machines would nominate a slate of candidates based partially on their appeal in certain ethnic enclaves. Mostly that included candidates who hailed from the “three I’s”: Italy, Ireland and Israel (for Jews).

Today, a ticket that would include Thompson, Liu and de Blasio, all of whom represent established or emerging political groups, could have the same impact, Muzzio said.

“It is at least suggestive of the old-time balance,” he said.

Bob Master, legislative director for CWA and a chair at the Working Families Party, said that most unions were not looking to create a slate of candidates through the endorsement process, despite the fact that many seem to have done just that by backing Thompson, Liu and de Blasio.

“There are a group of progressive individuals and unions that often will relate to the Working Families Party, that have come to a consensus on these three guys as the ticket for leadership in the city,” Master said. “It became a sort of de facto slate.”

Some of the elected officials who have endorsed all three candidates declined to speculate on the impact of a Thompson/ Liu/de Blasio ticket. But few could fully suppress their enthusiasm for the idea.

Council Member Letitia James said

that while she has not heard anyone speak specifically of a “dream ticket,” she believes that they could help each other’s electoral chances.

“There could be some crossfertilization,” she said, “with benefits from each constituency.”

Others were more measured in their reaction to the idea.

“They’ve got to run each race on their own merits,” said Sen. Eric Schneiderman, an endorser of all three. “But I think they all have some things in common.”

Assembly Member Hakeem Jeffries said he was unsure a formal relationship between the three could actually work, citing the lack of consensus among the five Democratic county organizations.

But he added that an alliance among the three may yet become a reality.

“It is something that may come into play in the run-off,” Jeffries said, “once the field is narrowed.”

As for the candidates themselves, they are keeping mum on the topic. All three deferred talk of a ticket in late May, when they gathered in Harlem, in front of a wall covered with all their signs, to receive Rangel’s endorsement.

And as for how they feel about things now, with Primary Day closer and the elections heating up, all three campaigns managed to avoid returning calls for comment. ahawkins@cityhallnews.com

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AUGUST 10, 2009

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In New York, The Secession Obsession Still Lingers A Thompson win, some speculate, could revive Staten Island’s independence spark

BY KATE KELBERG ack when the country was young, New Yorker Aaron Burr was a leader of the movement to get the north to secede from the south.

One country of the 13 states could not work, Burr thought. Better to split than to end up in some kind of civil war down the line.

In 1993, residents of Staten Island, “the forgotten borough,” voted to secede from the rest of the city. But under the Republican leadership of mayors Rudy Giuliani and Michael Bloomberg, such schisms in Staten Island have become largely a thing of the past.

However, the possibility that Comptroller Bill Thompson will be elected mayor has some worried that the clamor for secession will begin anew.

“There might be some alienation between Staten Island and a liberal democratic mayoralty, which might give rise to another secession movement,” said Richard Flanagan, a professor of political science at the College of Staten Island.

Jeffrey Kroessler, who once worked as an oral historian at the College of Staten Island, agreed, but added that secession movements may be on the wane. State Sen. Andrew Lanza has for now backed off of his own plans to introduce a secession

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bill, though he says that his constituents should expect one out of him in the next legislative session.

“It would be more of an empty saber rattling,” Kroessler said. “It would be a farce.”

Today, most calls for secession have been reduced to just that. No one really believes Long Island will become the 51st state (as a Suffolk County legislator called for in May) or Queens will depart to form its own city.

But secession still does have some merit as a political bargaining strategy.

“Calls for secession play well,” said Flanagan. “They play into ‘us against them’ stuff. It’s strategic: when you prattle on about secession, it pressures City Hall and Albany to maybe make some concessions.”

This was the case in Staten Island in the early ’90s, when the city closed the Fresh Kills landfill, made the Staten Island Ferry free, built a minor league ball park and gave out other concessions after residents made their anger known at the ballot box, Flanagan noted.

Yet there are others who claim to take the idea of secession much more seriously, such as Council Member Peter Vallone, who advocates New York City’s secession from the rest of the state.

“No one has yet been able to give me

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OF

The weird and woeful mayors through hizz-tory

The Wise Guy A city is not a city, perhaps, unless it has had a mayor with legitimate gangster intrigue, a mayor whose name might appear next to that of “Squint” Sheridan or “Cockeye” Dunn—a mayor who was one step outside of the dragnet when it came down, but who seemed to know an awful lot of the guys caught inside.

If said mayor is seen meeting with a top mafia boss and later admits to installing associates of this boss into prominent city jobs, that is a plus. This mayor has to resign at some point, of course, preferably just ahead of a massive police corruption scandal. Icing on the cake:

if this mayor conveniently takes up a ceremonial post in a foreign country.

Luckily, New York did not miss out on this all-important mayoral category because it had William “Bill-O” O’Dwyer, the city’s 100th mayor.

O’Dwyer was popular in his only full term as mayor, riding strong support as he tried to tackle the post-war city’s myriad problems, including a fiscal crisis and several citywide strikes. However, at just about no point could you take three steps from the guy before hitting the mob.

Choosing the shadiest moments of BillO’s career is tough. But try this: In 1949, when O’Dwyer was up for re-election, a mob hitman named “Cockeye” Dunn

one reason why we should be part of New York State,” Vallone said. “In every area of governing, Albany takes money from the city and gives it out to the state. We know that we are the economic engine that runs New York State, but after Sept. 11 we can’t afford to do that anymore. It makes perfect sense to secede.”

As evidence, Vallone noted a recent report that New York City gives $11 million more in taxes to the state than it receives in benefits from the state government. Adequate representation at the state level is also an issue, Vallone said.

“We have a population in New York City that is completely different than the population on the Canadian border, yet we are governed by people who have no clue what it’s like to live in an ethnically diverse setting,” he said. “There are things that exist here in New York City that don’t exist anywhere else in the country, and justify a movement for secession.”

Long Island Assembly Member Philip Boyle, who said he was at least open to advocates who want to split Long Island away from the state, faults Albany’s leadership with the failure to bind the state together.

“Our state and federal officials have not made parts of downstate feel like

we’re part of the same team,” Boyle said.

“They’ve divided our state into political areas: the first is Long Island, the second is New York City, and upstate is the third part.”

Secession movements, of course, are not unique to New York. Calls for secession have reverberated from Los Angeles to Seattle to Maine, some successful, others not.

And then there are cases such as Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who recently suggested his state secede from the union altogether. Perry’s sentiments are echoed by members of the Alaska Independence Party, of which Sarah Palin’s husband, Todd, is a member.

Though arguments for secession in New York can be strong, most consider it not only unlikely, but even a bit too silly an idea to entertain seriously. Most assume that the powers-that-be would never allow a borough to break off into its own city, or New York City to become its own state.

“It’s fun to talk about, it’s fun to contemplate,” Kroessler said. “There were real red-hot secessionists back in the Dinkins years, but I haven’t seen or heard that kind of passion for secession since.”

Direct letters to the editor to editor@cityhallnews.com

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faced the electric chair. Rather reporters, “Some day you’ll than ride the lightning, know why.”

Cockeye promised to give That day came the names of politicians about a month later, who had protected the when massive mob mafia’s waterfront corruption of the rackets.

As Brooklyn Police and speculation raged Fire Departments in the city about began to surface. whom Cockeye The character would name, the charged as the popular O’Dwyer bag man in these announced he operations was would not seek a one James Moran, second term. As it a close friend of turned out, the DA O’Dwyer’s, who refused to cut a deal may or may not have and Cockeye fried, slipped some of this taking his secrets with mafia protection money him. Two days later, Bill-O to the mayor. O’Dwyer was back in the running for denied any wrongdoing. another term.

Moran, who kept his WILLIAM Then there is the stuff mouth shut, did 10 years O’Dwyer openly admitted, “BILL-O” O’DWYER behind bars. like meeting with mob In the end, a Senate 1946-1950 kingpin Frank Costello committee found that ol’ while considering a mayoral run, then Bill-O had “either directly or indirectly” hiring Costello’s men to municipal jobs contributed to the mafia’s growth in once in office.

New York. For that, he gets the honorary When he abruptly resigned early in mayoral “Mob Award.” Not that anyone his second term to become ambassador is saying he was actually in the mob, of to Mexico (the post paid about half of course. At all. Ever. what he made as mayor), O’Dwyer told —James Caldwell

AUGUST 10, 2009

John Liu Keeps It PG. At a rally at 1199/SEIU headquarters on June 30, where he received the union’s endorsement along with public advocate candidate Bill de Blasio, comptroller candidate John Liu was so pumped he almost slipped in some semi-blue language.

“We’re going to win the election on September 15 outright,” he boldly predicted. “We’re going to kick some…”

He paused. “Butt.”

Awkward laughter rippled through the thoroughly adult crowd.

George Gresham, the union’s gravelly leader, was not quite so prudish.

“I can say this because I’m not running for office,” Gresham said. “Brother John Liu said we’re going to kick some butt.

But I can say, ‘We’re going to kick some ass.’”

Party Switching Runs In The Bloomberg Family Mayor Michael Bloomberg is not the only Bloomberg to switch political affiliations.

His sister, Marjorie Bloomberg Tiven, 65, is planning to go from Republican to Democrat a week after this year’s mayoral elections.

Papers filed with the Board of Elections on Election Day 2008 show that Tiven, who is head of the New York City Commission for the United Nations, will officially become a Democrat on Nov. 10, a week after her brother’s campaign for a third term ends.

No word yet on whether Tiven intends to later forswear all party affiliation, only then to become a Republican again.

In Queens, Choe Accused Again Of Ducking North Korea Halfway through a recent debate among the six Democrats seeking to replace Council Member John Liu, candidate John Choe regretfully informed the audience that he had to leave.

Choe had a prior engagement, he said—a meeting of the co-op board at the Mitchell Linden Houses. His early departure meant he would not be present when the audience finally got its chance to ask the candidates questions.

This did not sit well with Ellen Kang, however, who had come to the debate specifically to badger Choe about his views on North Korea, which have been a source of controversy for Choe’s campaign.

As Choe departed, Kang began screaming at him, demanding that Choe answer her questions.

CITY HALL

www.cityhallnews.com Afterward, Kang could barely contain her rage. Her hands shaking, she showed off a thick binder of anti-Choe research that she had brought to the meeting, apparently to be used as evidence during her inquisition.

“But that freaking asshole just left!” she lamented. “He probably smelled it.”

Hot Dog

Goodbye My Porkpie Hat The Naked Cowboy may have to shore up his left flank. And his right flank, for that matter.

There is another naked vaudevillian who has thrown his hat into the ring.

Or, in this case, his shirt into the crowd, which Jonny Porkpie did when he announced his candidacy on stage at Public Assembly in Brooklyn.

He says he was just giving the voters what they want.

Porkpie, who already holds the seat of “Burlesque Mayor of NYC” and who has been known to dance to “The Humpty Dance” while dressed as a geisha, has already gone on the offensive.

“It all comes down to trust,” he says.

“How can New Yorkers trust a man who calls himself ‘Naked’ while wearing boy panties for the whole world to see?”

Porkpie is already trying to frame the debate: “Voters should ask themselves this,” he says. “When looking at your mayor’s chapeau, do you want it to be a symbol of the Wild West? Or do you want it to be the hat worn by ‘Popeye’ Doyle in the classic New York film ‘The French Connection’—the hat about which Charles Mingus wrote a song when in New York City—that is to say, the Porkpie hat!”

He has challenged the Naked Cowboy to a debate at Public Assembly on Sept. 14. No word yet on whether the Cowboy has accepted.

Ticket-Fighting Hero Bounced From Ballot Simon Belsky’s crusade to reform the city’s parking ticket regulations has gotten booted.

Belsky, who was running in the Democratic primary against Council Member Michael Nelson, has been bounced from the ballot after only 230 of his nearly 2,600 signatures turned out to be valid, he said.

According to Belsky, this occurred because an incumbent Council member— he refused to say who—recommended to him a fraudulent signature gathering company that gathered the faulty signatures.

This all was part of a conspiracy, Belsky believes, to get him kicked off the ballot.

“I’m probably the last guy they want to see on the City Council,” said Belsky, a retired businessman. “I’d be trouble for all of them.”

Belsky said he had notified the authorities.

Belsky’s departure will likely come as

ANDREW SCHWARTZ

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Alfonso Quiroz may have dropped his campaign for City Council, but he is still as politically active as ever. He dressed his dog in full Bill Thompson regalia for the comptroller’s mayoral campaign kick-off in Brooklyn on July 11. sad news to those he inspired earlier this summer, when he made waves by winning a lengthy legal fight to beat an erroneous $115 parking ticket.

Three years ago, Belsky got a ticket for parking in front of a fire hydrant, even though all evidence indicated he had actually parked in front of a parking meter. Belsky appealed five administrative rejections before a State Supreme Court judge finally heard his case. After reviewing Belsky’s 66-page motion, the judge dismissed the ticket and awarded Belsky $650 in court costs.

As a Council member, Belsky wanted to create a $50,000 fund for those he deemed wrongly accused of parking violations, which they could use to pay their upfront court costs.

Eventually, after spreading the word about his cause, Belsky hoped to file one

massive lawsuit against the city.

“Eventually, we would file a class action suit worth tens of millions of dollars,” Belsky said.

As for his political ambitions, Belsky said now that he understands the nuances of petitioning, he would run again in four years. He expressed confidence that the next campaign would end more favorably than this one.

“I have no doubt that I’m going to win the next time,” Belsky said.

By Chris Bragg, Sal Gentile, Andrew Hawkins, Prameet Kumar and David Freedlander

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DANIEL S. BURNSTEIN PHOTOS

CITY HALL

House Warming hen John Rhea was first appointed in May to take the reigns of the city’s beleaguered public housing agency, the New York City Housing Authority, he was met with skepticism and even outright hostility from some corners.

Rhea, an investment banker by trade, was a managing director at the nowdefunct brokerage house Lehman Brothers and an executive at JP Morgan Chase.

But Rhea had no housing experience, which led many housing advocates and elected officials to criticize Mayor Michael Bloomberg for choosing a Wall Street insider rather than a veteran of the public housing world to head the largest public housing system in the country.

Now, with the system celebrating its 75th anniversary, Rhea is working to soothe those lingering concerns while grappling with a $45.1 million budget deficit, chronic under-funding from Washington and a seemingly intractable (and high-profile) problem with malfunctioning elevators in NYCHA buildings.

He is also tasked with shepherding close to half a billion dollars in federal stimulus projects.

Taking a break between managing the various elements of his portfolio, Rhea discussed those challenges and his overall vision for NYCHA. What follows is an edited transcript.

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City Hall: What do you and the mayor see as NYCHA’s role in the administration’s overall vision for affordable housing?

John Rhea: His first clear statement was that NYCHA was a very critical component of affordable housing availability in New York City, and that creating additional affordable housing was one of the city’s top priorities, and had been a top priority of the past two terms and will continue to play an important role in a third term.

CH: You have a Wall Street résumé, as opposed to an affordable housing one. Why was that the right choice for the mayor to make?

JR: NYCHA really does need to develop a strategic vision of where it fits in the affordable housing crisis of New York, but also a future vision of public housing in this country. And that’s a big piece of what I know the mayor is looking for from me and from NYCHA, which is to articulate: Where are we taking the agency over the next 10 years and how will we get there? So that is not so much about what I would call “housing experience” or “multi-unit dwelling management experience.” That’s about

articulating a vision of what’s going on in the broader dynamics of housing, of cost escalation for residents to live in New York, of what are the programs in Washington and the challenges around funding, what do communities need to be strong and strengthen so that the series of critical questions that need to be asked that will get to what’s sustainable, and a big piece of that, obviously, is financial.

CH: NYCHA has experimented with many different potential solutions to address its financial problems, from raising rent to selling vacant land.

What is the next step?

JR: I would say that NYCHA’s done a good job at firefighting. In an environment where support for public housing on a philosophical basis has been insignificant to many, and where funding has gone in one direction— which is down—I think NYCHA, being a large organization, has done the best it can to roll with those punches.

CH: Have you met with the people, such as tenant leaders and members of the City Council, who were initially skeptical of your appointment?

JR: I’ve been meeting with a range of stakeholders and constituents. I didn’t go out of my way to meet with people who expressed concerns. They were a critical component of NYCHA’s stakeholders and supporters. From what I can tell, the electeds and others who had comments about whether or not I was the right person for the job, I felt it was from the perspective of being very supportive of NYCHA, and a supporter of public housing and public housing residents. It wasn’t anything for me to take personally. I took it as them raising their hand and saying, “Look, we’re here, fighting in the trenches for NYCHA and for public housing and public housing residents. We want to know that the person who is coming to lead this organization is going to join us in the fight and has the requisite skill set to be successful and productive in doing that.”

CH: What about the elected officials who were initially critical?

JR: I’ve met with everybody, from making trips to Albany to meet with the [Housing Committee] and the Assembly to having met directly, one-on-one, with many City Council electeds, congressional reps. I’ve been to D.C. to meet with the [Secretary of Housing and Urban Development], the assistant secretary and the deputy secretary of housing. I’ve met with many of the community-based organizations’ leadership, leadership in not-for-profits.

So the short answer is, I don’t think it was just electeds who expressed a desire to see someone at the top NYCHA who could really make progress. I feel like electeds may have gotten more press, but I think that it was a wide-ranging input from the community to say, “Hey, we hope this guy understands the challenges confronting our residents, both financially and socially.

And if he does, great. And if he doesn’t, we have a problem.”

CH: Has HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan assured you that Washington’s financial commitment to public housing is going to change from what it has been over the past eight years?

JR: He’s been very explicit about wanting to fully move back to a full funding of public housing. And that, clearly, public

housing still represents 50 percent of that budget, and that it needs to be dealt with very directly and aggressively in terms of assuring not only its survival but also its viability. A big piece of that is funding.

We also talked about Section 8, and how we continue to support that program given the current state of the economy.

CH: What can you say about the state of the Section 8 voucher program under NYCHA, given the de-funding of the program over the past eight years and the current state of the economy?

JR: NYCHA is critically important to not just our traditional public housing stock but also having a vibrant and functioning Section 8 voucher program.

So we will continue to administer the largest program in the country, and to grow it appropriately to ensure that we can meet a wide range of low-income residents’ needs. Part of my conversation with Washington has been around what’s happening with the Section 8 programs in the country right now. New York is no different from any other low-income locality—it had to try and adjust because of the significant reduction.

CH: Some city agencies have had trouble securing the economic stimulus money they were allocated.

How much money did NYCHA receive, and how much has it actually spent so far?

JR: We had $423 million, and we are going to spend it on 70 shovel-ready projects across all five boroughs. We’ve already awarded 31 projects or contracts for $130 million. We are well off to the races in terms of spending the money.

The biggest component of the work is for elevator rehabilitation, almost $70 million. The second largest component is for replacing roofs, and then for all of our brickwork, which is the third biggest piece. About half of the overall stimulus pie is going to what we probably define as “green, energy-efficient-” related activities. Which obviously is a big focus of ours both for the environmental reasons, but also anything we can do to reduce energy.

—Sal Gentile sgentile@cityhallnews.com

C