City Hall - August 24, 2009

JosĂŠ Peralta begins planning for a State Senate run (Page 6), Ruben Diaz Jr., right, digs in (Page 19)

Vol. 4, No. 4

www.cityhallnews.com

August 24, 2009

and Joel Klein, left, maps out the future of more mayoral control (Page 23).

Charlie Rangel fights to save health care, Harlem and himself

The

Last Campaign

2

CITY HALL

www.cityhallnews.com

AUGUST 24, 2009

Forethought Waiting On CFB Investigations Comes At Too High A Cost o one who has ever been involved with any New York City campaign has nice things to say about the Campaign Finance Board. It is a pain in every conceivable body part, its staff is maniacal and prone to unreasonable demands, it fills the lives of campaign staffers with endless paperwork and never-ending stress. It is awful, it is burdensome, it is frustrating.

But it is also the guardian and sole arbiter of millions of taxpayer dollars that people can use on behalf of their own political advancement, provided those people reach some minimum thresholds and live up to some very basic rules. Designed to ensure fairness and equality, these rules are, not surprisingly, often the target of political players looking to exploit them for the sake of their own enrichment and empowerment. Such is almost always the fate of rules: They are a drag on those who follow them, and are turned into mockeries by the people who evade them.

As recent reports published by City Hall show, that seems to be exactly what is going on: Some candidates are living up to the rules, while others, such as those entangled in the hazy relationships with the Working Families Party and its for-profit but not-at-all-separate corporation, seem to be pushing the rules’ limits. There are reasons to be skeptical, given the lack of clarity from the financial disclosures, contradictory answers provided to explain them and the remaining questions about whether candidates are paying fair market value for the services provided (such as when a Manhattan district attorney candidate has already been charged much more than a public advocate candidate running citywide for what is supposed to be similar work). At the very least, candidates involved appear to have tried to squeeze every last bit of spirit out of what should be the nation’s top system for promoting democracy. And there is reason to fear they have done much worse than that.

This behavior is, to put it mildly, unfortunate, and the kind of thing voters should have on their minds as they make their decisions in the Sept. 15 primary, in the potential run-offs and in the general election.

Rules exist not to be bent to their brink, but to be followed in good faith.

Sure, the campaign finance laws might—might—just barely allow for what has happened here and in other similar instances, much as the City Charter just barely allowed for the mayor and 29 Council members to slip in a term limits extension which was not at all the intention of the voters who twice approved referendums barring their officials from having more than two terms. We have reached a sad day in city politics when these are the sorts of arguments brandished by people who are already or want to become New York’s leaders.

The call for better leadership should ring out louder and more widely than just the people involved in this latest situation. Though there is good reason for the Campaign Finance Board to be wary of

N

publicizing its investigations into candidates’ questionable behavior in the middle of the election cycle for fear of affecting outcomes, there is even better reason for it to let people know when behavior has set off internal alarm bells. Waiting until after the elections are held and results are in sounds noble, but the reality is that slapping a candidate with a fine and reprimand after he or she is in office severely limits the efficacy of the Board and the rationale for candidates to obey its rules. Just look at Miguel Martinez, the top CFB scofflaw, who racked up his penalties while sitting calmly in his Council seat for years—and would likely have won a third term if the unrelated charges which he pled guilty to had not caught up with him. Once they win, politicians are very hard to remove from office.

Rules exist not to be bent to their brink, but to be followed in good faith.

www.cityhallnews.com President/CEO: Tom Allon CFO/COO: Joanne Harras

EDITORIAL Editor: Edward-Isaac Dovere eidovere@cityhallnews.com Managing Editor: David Freedlander dfreedlander@cityhallnews.com Associate Editor: Andrew J. Hawkins ahawkins@cityhallnews.com Reporters: Chris Bragg cbragg@cityhallnews.com Sal Gentile sgentile@cityhallnews.com Dan Rivoli drivoli@cityhallnews.com Photography Editor: Andrew Schwartz Interns: Julie Sobel, Prameet Kumar, Joe Walker, Kate Kelberg

CFB investigations certainly could affect the outcome of elections, and they should. Candidates who break the rules or who raise significant enough questions with the Board about breaking the rules should lose. There is little consolation for upstanding candidates to know, as they give their concession speeches, that one day, the cheaters will have to pay several-thousand-dollar penalties. On the contrary, they might feel compelled to give up on following the letter and spirit of the laws themselves.

This is not some minor issue. More needs to come out of the CFB, and more needs to come out of the Council and the mayor to give the board the tools necessary to be more effective. That means new powers and new impetus to use them. That means more attention to these issues and more seriousness in dealing with how much they mean. This referee needs more than a whistle that gets blown after Election Day. New York should have a campaign finance system that does a lot more than this. We should have a system that rewards the people who take extra steps to do what is legal, moral and ethical. Instead, the city has one that is the other way around. That is something every voter, but especially every elected official, should make a priority. Without this, everything else is at stake.

C

ADVERTISING Associate Publishers: Jim Katocin, Seth Miller Advertising Manager: Marty Strongin Senior Account Executives: Ceil Ainsworth, Monica Conde Marketing Director: Tom Kelly Marketing Coordinator: Stephanie Musso Executive Assistant of Sales: Jennie Valenti

City Hall is published twice monthly.

Copyright © 2009, Manhattan Media, LLC

PRODUCTION Production Manager: Mark Stinson Art Director: Mitchell Hoffman Advertising Design: Heather Mulcahey Assistant Production Manager: Jessica A. Balaschak Web Design: Lesley Siegel Editorial (212) 894-5417 Fax (212) 268-2935

Advertising (212) 284-9715 General (212) 268-8600

City Hall is a division of Manhattan Media, LLC, publisher of The Capitol, Our Town, The West Side Spirit, Chelsea Clinton News, The Westsider, New York Press, New York Family and AVENUE magazine.

For over 40 years, Wynn Resorts has developed and operated gaming destinations that have been the pride of their communities and have redefined the marketplace through professionalism, job opportunities and unparalleled economic growth. A project of this nature is long overdue for the Borough of Queens and the State of New York, and I am committed to seeing Aqueduct reach its full potential.

You deserve a partner with a proven track record and the knowledge and experience to deliver a marketdefining project that will maximize the state’s revenues and drive job growth. If awarded this project, Wynn Resorts will not have to shop for credit. For a company with solid financial resources, community participation, operational expertise and overall creative vision, Wynn Resorts is the clear choice.

I am personally committed to overseeing and directing the redevelopment of Aqueduct; that is how I have done business with all my projects, and I will do nothing less for the Borough of Queens and New York State. I hope to have the opportunity to help New York State realize the full, long-term potential of a gaming destination at Aqueduct.

Chairman and CEO, Wynn Resorts, Ltd.

THE ADMINISTRATION (The Top 25)

N GREE N E R KA ations Director ic RSON E Commun D N A JAMESaff S St OOMI L Chief of E N LI CAROaff St Chief of SMITH E T T NANE

PEOPLE

Total Number of Employees 98 Total Number Democratic Party 65 Total Number Republican Party 9 Total Number Political Independents 11 Total Number Unknown 9 Total Number Independence Party 0 Total Number Not Registered in NYC 4

e Mayor tant to th E

PARTY

CITY HALL

www.cityhallnews.com

AUGUST 24, 2009

e Assis Executiv

4

OMent O L pm k Yor . B evelo w ER e D fo N L R mic EB I yor ono Ma AE or Ec . L y h t r F 108 ICH ayor T C creta e M S M puty ER ress ST B uty P PO De ER O p N e R st D N RT Fir SO taff A JA ief of S N G Ch A AL

Sen

THE CAMPAIGN

STU LOESER

Press Secretary

FELIX CIAMPA

Chief of Staff

ialist

KATIE APPEL

Commuications Spec

Chief of Staff

KRISTIN MIS

NER

De

C A put y M RO ayor f De put DE y M L or Leg NN ayor f A. al Affa Cou o R AN nselor IS r Educ OB irs and TH to the M. ation a LE Coun Dep W nd C S- sel to M AL om R th LI uty Ma ONY ayor ND yor F CO munit OM e May W. Dep or A TT y Deve AN or WI uty Cou I. GHealth a CR lop me LL nselor IB nd H OW nt um I Exe B A E a nS cut M S L erv IR ive As L ice EN sista M. H s E P nt to t E First IST he May INZ Depu EN PAT ty May OR or RIC or IN O IA E Depu . HA ty Ma KEV yor For Go R IN S vernment RIS HEE Affairs Assistan KEY t CATHto the Mayor Y C. L UONG Chief of Staff & Cou CAS HOLLnsel OWAY

G

R BE

y Cit

SH ior Advise f of NO Staff EA r FIN RM Dep uty K A A ED Mayor WA For O BBE NE RD peratio SK ns YL ER Chie

66.33% 9.18% 11.22% 9.18% 0.00% 4.08%

ichael Bloomberg may cycle through political parties as regularly as the changing seasons, but his staff—both in his administration and his re-election campaign—remain firmly in one camp or the other. Most of the mayor’s staff are Democrats, with 66 percent of his administration and 49 percent of his campaign in the blue column, according to Board of Election records. The rest are a hodge podge of Republicans and independents (including the mayor himself, who dropped the Republican tag last summer). Shown here is the political affiliation breakdown of his top-25 deputies and commissioners, as well as that of his campaign team.

M

Total Number of Employees 51 Total Number Democratic Party Total Number Republican Party Total Number Political Independents Total Number Unknown Total Number Not Reistered in NYC

25 10 3 5 7

49.02% 19.61% 5.88% 9.8% 13.73%

You spoke.

In meetings with community leaders and in recent polling of residents, you made known your views on the redevelopment of the Aqueduct Racetrack, and several issues stood out:

¦ Queens residents want development that respects the existing character of the community. ¦ Queens residents are concerned about crime. ¦ Queens residents want jobs for local people.

¦ Aqueduct Gaming LLC, a coalition of New York companies, has tailored its development proposal to address your concerns. And we are the only bidder to do so.

We listened.

OUR PLAN FEATURES: 9

Right-sized development that includes world-class gaming, entertainment and hospitality.

9 Comprehensive security/safety measures.

9 A commitment to hire Queens residents and purchase goods and services from local vendors through a highly visible Employment and Small Business Center.

9 Establishment of a community foundation to share a portion of the profits with the community and address community-identified needs.

9

With the community’s assistance, completion of a master plan for additional economic development features such as a hotel, conference center, sports complex or family entertainment center.

9 Environmentally friendly LEED certified design and construction.

9 Development of a Kids Quest hourly daycare center and Cyber Quest interactive experience.

9 Community input at every step.

For more information: visit www.AqueductGaming.com

AQUEDUCT

G AM I NG L.L.C.

6

AUGUST 24, 2009

CITY HALL

www.cityhallnews.com

As Monserrate Trial Nears, Peralta Prepares To Press His Own Case

AGGIE KENNY

Popular Assembly member makes moves toward succession race, possible primary challenge

BY SAL GENTILE ssembly Member José Peralta may still be a member of the Legislature’s lower chamber, but in the eyes of his colleagues, he is well on his way to a promotion.

In the cloakrooms of Albany, at least, he has earned a new nickname: “Senator Peralta.”

That has become a running joke among Peralta’s allies in the Assembly, according to one person who has heard the phrase whispered in the corridors of the Capitol.

Many there consider his ascension to the Senate a fait accompli.

Peralta is already preparing a run next year for the seat of State Sen. Hiram Monserrate, according to Democrats in Queens and Albany with knowledge of the matter. Monserrate has been charged with slashing his girlfriend’s face with a broken glass, with his case scheduled to go to trial on Sept. 15. If convicted, Monserrate will automatically be removed from office.

Peralta, meanwhile, lies in wait. He is keeping his head down and his name out of the headlines, according to those close to him, but quietly putting the pieces together for a Senate campaign, should a jury find Monserrate guilty—or maybe

A

even if not. He has discussed the idea with colleagues, and approached members of at least two organizations that would be influential in choosing a candidate to take Monserrate’s seat: the Working Families Party and SEIU 32 BJ. “He and I have discussed that,” said Assembly Member Peter Rivera, a close friend and ally of Peralta’s. “He’d be the number-one candidate to replace Senator Monserrate, should Senator Monserrate become disabled because of any issues that happen in the very near future.”

If the seat did become open, Rivera, added, “I’d be an advocate for him to seriously consider moving to the Senate.”

Peralta has been encouraged by Democratic allies who remain angry at Monserrate for his role in instigating the Senate stalemate earlier this year, which threw the chamber into chaos and tarnished lawmakers across the state.

Peralta has taken that anger as a sign that he can quietly begin assembling the support necessary to succeed Monserrate, even while Monserrate remains in office.

“There’s no question that he wants to do it,” said a Democratic staffer who works in Albany, and who has spoken with Peralta and has urged him to run for Monserrate’s seat.

The knottier question, Democrats said, was whether Peralta would challenge Monserrate should the senator survive his criminal trial and run for re-election next year. Many angry Democrats are searching for a credible challenger to Monserrate regardless of whether he is removed from office, but the organizations that influence and—more importantly—fund Democratic campaigns, such as labor unions, are less interested in seeing a battle royale.

“It’s not a question of, ‘Would he make a run if Hiram dropped out?’ If Hiram dropped out for one reason or another, he’s the guy,” said the staffer who has spoken with Peralta. “The only issue is whether or not Monserrate will still be there come next September.”

For the moment, the political players are taking a wait-and-see approach, as are most Queens Democrats. Even Monserrate’s former chief of staff and successor in the City Council, Julissa Ferreras, feels she must “stay on the fence,” according to one person close to her, in order to maintain her relationship with Peralta should he decide to run. Ferreras publicly expressed her disappointment with Monserrate for his temporary move to the Senate GOP conference, which instigated the Senate coup.

Both Monserrate and Peralta declined comment.

Queens Democrats say Monserrate remains popular in his core constituencies—among poor Latino voters, for example—but that there is considerable resentment in the parts of his district that he did not represent as a Council member, which do not know him as well.

“He’s king in Corona. He can do no wrong,” said one Queens Democratic staffer. “However, in Elmhurst … they’re holding his feet to the flames.”

That anger could be a springboard for Peralta, whose base is similar to Monserrate’s, but who remains widely respected within the political establishment.

“José is a consensus builder and knows how to work with people,” Rivera said.

“Everybody looks at him as the leader of the Latino community, at least in Queens.”

Still, Rivera cautioned against predicting what might happen to Monserrate, who has routinely surprised Democratic leaders in the past.

“For anybody to assume that Monserrate is history,” Rivera said, “[that] would be making a bad assumption.” sgentile@cityhallnews.com

.EW 9ORK CAN HAVE A (ARD 2OCK #ASINO 2ACETRACK BY 3PRING ¯ '5!2!.4%%$ .O ONE CAN GET YOU ROCKIN´ FASTER 4HAT MEANS MORE JOBS HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF DOLLARS MORE PER YEAR IN .EW 9ORK 3TATE REVENUES AND A WHOLE LOT MORE TO LOVE ABOUT .EW 9ORK ¯ SOONER

8

CITY HALL

www.cityhallnews.com

AUGUST 24, 2009

In City Classrooms, The Goverment Experts Are The Government Vets

BY JOE WALKER www.aqueductentertainment.com

n the campus known as New York City, being a professor of public policy does not mean much cloistering away behind books and seminars.

Just ask Doug Muzzio.

The professor of public affairs at Baruch College recalled that during the 2008 presidential primaries, ABC, CBS and CNN came by his New Jersey home all in the same day to talk about Rudy Guiliani, the then-presumptive GOP nominee.

Muzzio is one of a handful of academics who have left behind a life of merely delivering wonky papers at conferences to dirty their hands in the world of city politics.

“The reason they keep coming back is I have a sense of the sound bite, and at the same time I have the academic and professional perspective that a lot of folks don’t,” he said, trying to explain his own success.

Indeed, few public-policy talking heads have the breadth of experience of Muzzio, who served as chief of staff for the late City Council Member Antonio Olivieri, and was a staffer during David Dinkins’ successful mayoral campaign in 1989.

O

GRADUATE We build faster than a speeding bullet.

Our team is more powerful than a locomotive.

We are able to build tall buildings in a single year.

NO, WE ARE NOT SUPERHEROES! We are a team of homegrown professionals who have helped build New York for more than 50 years.

We are the Union men and women who are the backbone of our city and state.

We are a team of different races, colors, and religions all with one goal in mind...

To quickly open a wonderful entertainment facility at the proposed new Aqueduct casino that all New Yorkers can be proud of.

EDC

SCHOOL

GUIDE “I can do the academic analysis and use the word ‘ain’t’ in a sentence,” the Queens-bred scholar quipped.

Then there is NYU’s Mitchell Moss.

The professor of Urban Policy and Planning served as an informal adviser during the 2001 campaign of Mayor Michael Bloomberg and has remained a circulating presence in the administration in the years since.

Moss’ near-encyclopedic knowledge of the city was of great help, said Bill Cunningham, the mayor’s former communications director.

“We had a consultant who wasn’t familiar with the geography of the city, so I had Mitchell give him a tour of three boroughs,” Cunningham recalled.

Now, with hundreds of his former students working in all ranks of city government, Moss remains an adviser to the mayor on issues such as demographic changes and urban political history.

“We could pick his brain,” Cunningham said. “Because of his interests from the university, he’s constantly going to hearings and forums and sometimes he

Doug Muzzio is one of the leading academics around City Hall. would be able to tell us something he picked up or heard along the way.”

Another Bloomberg alum, Columbia University’s Esther Fuchs sparred with many of the mayor’s critics during her time as a City Hall adviser from 2001– 2005.

The fiery academic took public service leave to work on Bloomberg’s first campaign. She planned on taking a year off and ended up staying for four.

“I was absolutely surprised when he asked me to come to City Hall,” she said recently. “He literally said to me: ‘You’ll bring new ideas, and you’ll figure things out.’”

Having since returned to Columbia, Fuchs has brought her time in government with her back to the classroom where her courses now can include “a mixture of academic theory, empirical work, and my experiences.”

Not all professors, though, who leave the ivory tower for the legislative chamber do so through the rough and tumble of a political campaign.

Professor Joseph Viteritti never lent his academic pedigree to a campaign nor has he served in an official capacity for an elected official.

But that does not mean his voice cannot be heard.

An education expert, Viteritti’s 2009 book, When Mayor’s Take Charge: School Governance in the City, was a must-read for policy makers in the recent debate over mayoral control. Schools Chancellor Joel Klein publicly recommended it.

Viteritti served as the executive director of the Commission on School Governance, appointed by Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum.

Yet, when his commission’s report was released, he was shown how hard it is to become well-known through government service.

A student, who was also an Assembly staffer, came into class one day holding a copy of the commission’s findings.

“Have you seen this report?” the student asked.

“Yes, I saw it,” Viteritti replied. “I wrote it.”

C

CITY HALL

www.cityhallnews.com

AUGUST 24, 2009

For Politicians Who Go Back To School, Lessons And Tests For more than 60 years, Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs has been educating professionals who make a difference in the world. Through rigorous social science research and hands-on practice, SIPA’s graduates and faculty work to improve social services, advocate Assembly Member Carl Heastie not only talks through the inner workings of the Legislature with students, but also teaches business at Monroe College.

BY JULIE SOBEL

A

ssembly Member and Bronx Party chair Carl Heastie took nine years to complete his MBA from Baruch College at CUNY. The program takes two years to complete for full-time students, but during most of his time in school Heastie was also serving in the Assembly. He is one of several New York politicians who have juggled their public service with academics by heading back to school for a graduate degree.

Heastie began the degree in 1998 while working in the New York City comptroller’s office. He estimates he was 20 percent finished when he was elected to the Assembly in 2000. After taking a break to acclimate to the new job, he decided to go back to school.

“I wanted to hone a skill—one that I thought could help me as a legislator too, and when I decide to leave politics, I’ll have a marketable skill,” he said.

Heastie already had a background in finance, having worked previously on the budget in the comptroller’s office, so he found the MBA most useful for the management and behavioral courses that helped him learn to deal with people more effectively.

“One of the things is I don’t ever want to get stale being in the same office,” said Heastie. “At some point I think it’ll be in my best interests and the community’s best interests to have a new Assembly person.”

Not every politician can balance a job and part-time school. Gifford Miller, who now runs the strategic consulting firm Miller Strategies, started to attend night classes at Fordham Law while on the Council but had to withdraw as his political career gained speed.

“I thought that learning more about the law would be a useful experience,” he said.

Miller did not finish his law degree because he could no longer fit night classes into his schedule once he was elected Council speaker.

Miller had finished two years of the three-year program before stopping, but says he sees no merit in completing the degree.

“I felt I’d gotten what I wanted to get out of the education aspect and was uninterested in actually practicing,” Miller said, noting he had not realized this would be the case when he first enrolled.

But he is glad he spent two years in law school, despite the fact he never made it to the bar.

“I think that learning the basics of contracts and tort and constitutional law is a useful course of study,” he said. “I’m glad I went.”

Council Member Maria del Carmen Arroyo wins the award for going back and obtaining the most degrees. Arroyo dropped out of high school at age 16 to work, and did not start college until she was 28.

While working as a clerk at a diagnostic and treatment center, Arroyo decided she needed to further her education in order to be taken seriously in her career. She proceeded to get an associate’s degree at Hostos Community College in 1989, a bachelor’s degree at Lehman College in 1991, and finally got a master’s from New York University’s Robert Wagner School of Public Service in 1994.

As a legislator, she believes she has benefited from higher education.

“I think the graduate work or college or university environment helps you learn how to learn in a structured way,” Arroyo said, “so that today I know that I don’t know everything about everything I need to deal with as a legislator, but I know how to figure out how to get the information to get the knowledge that I need to be able to make informed decisions.”

In fact, she has only good things to say about her belated education.

“The best is that you learn how to learn,” she said, adding that she does not regret the time she spent in the classroom at all.

“Not one minute of it,” she said. jsobel@manhattanmedia.com

C

for human rights, strengthen markets, protect the environment, and secure peace, in their home communities and around the world. The School draws its strengths from the resources of New York City and Columbia University, and has a global reach, with graduates in more than 100 countries.

Degree Programs Master of International Affairs Master of Public Administration MPA in Environmental Science and Policy Executive MPA Program MPA in Economic Policy Management MPA in Development Practice PhD in Sustainable Development

SIPA also has educational partnerships with international schools, including the London School of Economics and Political Science, the Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Paris, the National University of Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, Peking University, the Hertie School of Governance in Berlin, Fundação Getulio Vargas in São Paulo, and CIDE in Mexico City.

www.sipa.columbia.edu

9

10

AUGUST 24, 2009

www.cityhallnews.com

CITY HALL

Lessons For The Electoral Arena For Politicians Who Double As Professors

BY JOE WALKER hen Daniel Patrick Moynihan first ran for Senate in 1976, his opponent, James Buckley, dismissively referred to the former Harvard sociologist as “Professor Moynihan.”

The backhanded insult did not work well enough. Moynihan won that race and three more that put him in Washington for the next 24 years.

W

Moynihan may have been the most famous New Yorker to transition from the lecture hall to the legislative chamber, but today there are several politicians that live in both worlds.

Council Member David Yassky admits to being something of a professorial type—and for good reason. The comptroller candidate had been teaching law at Brooklyn Law School when he abandoned his tenure-track position to join the City Council in 2001.

Yassky has found that constituents and colleagues can be as hard to get through to as his students were.

As a law professor, he said, he learned the rule that “anything you want students to learn, you have to say three times and I took that to heart.”

“It’s true that as an elected official, if you’re speaking to a group or talking about an issue, you oftentimes have to repeat yourself to make yourself heard,” Yassky said.

There are differences between the two jobs, of course. Politics, he said, allows for less time for serious deliberation.

“As a law professor, you spend five months writing an article—so it allows you to step back and think more deeply about the underlying policy issues,” he said.

Yassky taught a class at NYU in 2007, but other than that, the demands of the Council and running for citywide office has kept him from the classroom.

Others have found a way to balance the two roles.

Council Member Gale Brewer has juggled stints in government and academia for 30 years. She has taught at CUNY and Barnard while serving as a government staffer and representing the Upper West Side.

GRADUATE

SCHOOL

GUIDE

Sonia Nieves Principal JHS 226, Queens

Great Schools Begin With Great Leaders.

Representing Principals, Assistant Principals, Supervisors, Education Administrators and City-Funded Day Care Directors and Assistant Directors.

Council of School Supervisors and Administrators Local 1: American Federation of School Administrators, AFL-CIO www.csa-nyc.org

She now teaches a spring semester course at Hunter College with one of her old bosses, former Manhattan Borough President Ruth Messinger. The class is about the relationship between policy and politics, she said, adding that attempts to bridge the divide between academia and the real world were rare on campus.

“When I was at the CUNY Graduate Center for two years,” she recalled, “here we have all these great professors working on housing issues, but what they were doing didn’t have anything to do with what government was doing.”

Brewer said responsibility for the disconnect goes both ways. While electeds need to listen more, academics also need to get off campus more and bend the ears of lawmakers.

“It takes a lot of time to get your ideas into the right hands,” she said of her fellow professors. “It’s very time consuming.”

Since 2007, Assembly Member Carl Heastie has put his MBA to use in teaching finance and business ethics at Monroe College in the Bronx.

Heastie finds that his business students “are very much attuned to politics.”

With all the government intervention in the finance sector in recent years, Heastie offers a window into the mind frames of legislators.

“A lot of the times, politics comes up and they like having an elected politician teaching,” he said.

Heastie added that at least one lesson from business school translated into the political realm: He talks to his students about what kind of managers they will be.

“In graduate school, they teach that there’s three types of leaders: authoritarian, laissez-faire and democratic.”

Asked where he was on the spectrum, the Bronx Democratic Party boss had an obvious answer: “Democratic.”

C

Analysis and Action: The Cornerstone of a SIPA Degree

The Curriculum: Core Skills and a Policy Focus

Capstone Workshops: The Culminating Experience of a SIPA Education

The curricula of SIPA’s seven degree programs combine training in analytical methods and practical management. MPA and MIA students combine these core skills with one of the following policy areas: Economic and Political Development, Energy and Environment, Human Rights, International Finance and Economic Policy, International Security Policy, Urban and Social Policy.

Workshops apply the practical skills and analytical knowledge learned at SIPA to a real-world issue.

Student consulting teams, under the supervision of a faculty expert, work on substantive, policy-oriented projects with external clients in the public, private and nonprofit sectors.

Recent clients include: New York City Fire Department, JPMorgan Chase, NYC Economic Development Corporation, Montefiore Family Health Center, Booz Allen Hamilton, Clinton Global Initiative, United Nations Development Programme, Women’s Refugee Commission, World Bank Group

To learn more about SIPA’s master’s, PhD, and executive non-degree programs in New York and around the world, visit:

sipa.columbia.edu

Exciting Sales Opportunity Earn up to $80,000 in the first year representing City Hall and The Capitol, two fast-growing political newspapers that target politicians, lobbyists, unions, staffers and issues that shape New York City and State.. Salary plus commission, health, 401k, dental, paid holidays and sick days.

Our awarding-winning group is looking for self-starters with outside sales experience, good communication skills, attention to detail and good computer skills. Knowledge of New York City and State politics a plus.

To apply, please email your resume and cover letter to aschweitzer@manhattanmedia.com.

Get your career going and keep it moving with a Master’s of Public Administration from Metropolitan College.

Come learn about exciting career opportunities and employment trends in homeland security, business continuity, health and non-profit administration, as well as careers in city, state and federal government agencies. A Master’s in Public Affairs and Administration can be completed in as little as one year.

MCNY’s “Constructive Action” approach to learning applies your chosen career directly to the classroom studies, allowing you to advance your career as you advance towards your degree. Additionally, our flexible schedules enable you to take evening or weekend classes.

Join us at one of the On the Spot Admissions Week Enrollment Sessions, where our admissions representatives will help you enroll and ensure that you receive the maximum financial aid benefits from the variety of grants, loans and MCNY scholarships available to you. Take advantage of our fixed tuition policy and free personal tuition planner.

There’s still time to enroll! Classes start September 1st.

On the Spot Admissions Week Monday, August 24 through Thursday, August 27, 10am-7pm Friday, August 28, 10am-6pm

For more information visit mcny.edu or call 1.800.33.THINK nycapitolnews.com cityhallnews.com

431 Canal Street (off Varick)

12

AUGUST 24, 2009

www.cityhallnews.com

The Last

Campaign Charlie Rangel fights to save health care, Harlem and himself

By David Freedlander

A

hot day in Harlem, the last week of July, and most of the elected officials from the heart of the district are gathered in front of the Helen B. Atkinson Health Center on 115th Street, standing underneath some scaffolding in search of shade.

They are waiting for the start of a press conference for health-care reform, brought together by the local chapter of Organizing for America, the retooled leftover operation from Barack Obama’s presidential campaign. Across the street lies the vast red brick Martin Luther King Jr. Houses, and down the block a bit, new gleaming glass condos that sit empty, monuments to an era when real estate speculation assumed that changes to Harlem would happen faster than they did. In a new community center on the ground floor of one is a sign advertising a summer “Street Squash” program for kids in the area.

Harlem Assembly Member Keith Wright, whose father employed Charlie Rangel when the congressman was a young lawyer, is there. So is Council Member Inez Dickens, whom Rangel calls “my political wife,” as well as assorted district leaders and other Democrats from around the neighborhood.

Rangel, however, is not. Various reports put him en route, at the Martin Luther King Jr. Democratic Club, his local

political outfit, or at home.

But he is not far from people’s minds.

Rangel is, after all, in charge of the most powerful committee in Washington, one that is now tasked with reforming a fundamental sector of American life. He remains the chief Harlem power broker, even as the rest of political establishment quietly wonders when he will exit the stage. And all the while, he is still operating under a cloud of allegations that he—and this is a partial list—lived in four rent-controlled apartments at a $3,000 month discount; that he keeps one of them illegally as a campaign office; that he paid his son $80,000 to design a shoddy campaign website for him even though he has never really faced serious opposition; that he keeps a Mercedes-Benz parked in a House of Representatives garage in violation of Congressional rules; that he has failed to pay more than $75,000 in taxes on a villa he owns in the Dominican Republic; and that he used his perch on the Ways and Means Committee to write a tax loophole on behalf of a corporation that donated funds to the Charles B. Rangel Center for Public Service at City College.

“I don’t know of any other state that treats their Ways and Means chairman like this,” said Wright, rejecting all the charges. “Goddamn. That doesn’t help anybody.”

Last year, Rangel racked up $1 million in legal fees to fend off these accusations.

He did not need to spend a penny, though, to convince Wright and other people on the Harlem home turf.

“Take that thing with his niece,” he said, referring to a bizarre story from June in which a Port Authority officer helped spring a trio of suspected pot smugglers from jail by falsely claiming she was a relative of Rangel’s. “Bitch wasn’t even related. The apartments—shit wasn’t even illegal. Hell, Charlie lived here before anybody wanted to live here. You talk about stone-cold Harlem. You don’t get more stone-cold Harlem than Charlie Rangel.”

Just then, a Cadillac pulls up and out steps a smiling Rangel, dressed in a creamcolored blazer, blue-stripped buttondown shirt ringed with French collar and comfortable blue walking shoes.

“Hey chief!” shouts Wright. “What’s up chief!”

Rangel walks up to Dickens, kisses her and gives her a playful, close-fisted double-sided jab to both cheeks. He waves, even though the crowd is mostly political staffers.

There are no press at this press conference, but the show goes on anyway.

When it is Rangel’s turn to speak, he launches into a tirade against those who are working his health-care bill, which at

CITY HALL

www.cityhallnews.com

AUGUST 24, 2009

the moment was making its way through committee.

On the insurance companies: “They are what we call on Lenox Avenue, skimming. That’s all they do—skimming.

And when they get together, then the skimmers are in control of the price. The public option means we don’t have to buy your product.”

On his hold-out Democratic colleagues: “Now, wherever you see money, you see hustlers. We have that problem in the House of Representatives today. They call themselves Blue Dogs, or whatever you want, but at the end of the day, if you got enough for the doctors and the insurance companies, you got their vote.”

He spends the next several minutes at the press conference talking through the public option, cost containment and the status of various bills moving through the House and Senate. He ends with some advice for those Blue Dogs and other enemies of reform.

“Don’t spit into the wind,” he said.

“Don’t look under the Lone Ranger’s mask.

And don’t mess with Barack Obama.”

The local politicians assembled behind him look at one another quizzically for half a moment. Then they break out in a long, loud cheer.

A

fter rallying the troops on health care, Rangel slipped into his Cadillac with Dickens. Washington Heights Council Member Miguel Martinez had, days before, pled guilty to swindling taxpayer funds, and Rangel wanted to find out who he should endorse to replace him—activist Ydanis Rodriguez, who most elected officials had rallied behind, or Guillermo Linares, an old friend who became the first Dominican elected official in the country when he won the Council seat in 1991, but in the years since being term limited out of office, had been working for Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

Rangel takes a near-proprietary interest in all political doings uptown, though there is not really personal preservation at stake. The last time an opponent reached even the high single digits against Rangel was 1994, when Adam Clayton Powell IV received 33 percent of the vote. The joke after the primary was that the next person to hold Rangel’s seat would be a Dominican who was then in high school, since even then perspicacious observers could see that the black cultural capital of the world was becoming whiter and more Hispanic.

Fifteen years later, that kid in high school still had not emerged. The word was that Linares gave up his $200,000a-year commissioner job not because he was interested in being back on the Council, but because he wanted to set himself up for a run at Rangel’s seat in a few years.

13

Though he shows no signs of leaving, Rangel continues to keep his hand on the status, rankling some.

“I think it belittles his status,” said Powell, whose father also held the Congressional seat for decades until Rangel beat him in the contentious 1970 primary. “He is way too involved in petty stuff. He makes things difficult, blocking here and blocking there. I think he feels threatened that if somebody gets in without his blessing, then somehow there is trouble brewing.”

Back in July, as he walked through a blacktop at the King Houses for a Family Day where only a few dozen people were stretched out on lawn chairs and around picnic tables, Rangel remained sanguine about the prospects of healthcare reform, though word had just come from Washington that Congress would not meet the president’s goal of passing a bill before the August recess.

He was even a tad blasé about his role in extending health-care coverage to 45 million Americans and reconfiguring 15 percent of the national economy.

“A major accomplishment of anybody is what makes them feel good,” he said, citing the 1986 tax bill that dropped working-class Americans from the federal tax rolls, the creation of the Upper Manhattan Empowerment Zone under President Bill Clinton, and the so-called Rangel Amendment, which removed tax benefits for corporations doing business in apartheid South Africa as his proudest moments.

“A lot of people think a major accomplishment [of mine] is getting shot in the ass in Korea. I appreciate the compliment, but that’s not really what I think,” he said. “Now, as chairman of Ways and Means, it is not as though I made a personal sacrifice. I’m there. If anybody else was there, that would be a part of what they accomplished. Because of Rangel? No. Because of Obama? You bet your life.”

“They were checking Charlie’s pulse 20 years ago,” said Assembly Member Denny Farrell. “There are people who wanted that seat who are dead and buried already.”

DANIEL S. BURNSTEIN

CITY HALL

R

angel came close to not being there this year, having insisted through 2006 that if the Democrats did not take control of Congress that year, he was done.

“Just because I could bark more eloquently at the moon doesn’t mean I could bring about any big changes,” he said, reflecting. “It would just have been a

AUGUST 24, 2009

CITY HALL

www.cityhallnews.com

DANIEL S. BURNSTEIN

14

question of seeing who in the community wanted to come forward and what I could do to make the transition easier. Hell, staff knows I put them on notice.”

Instead, Rangel has seen the Democrats take over Congress and then increase their margins, seen the ranks of the members of the Congressional Black Caucus swell to an all-time high of 42 (there were 12 when Rangel joined as a founding member in 1971) and the country elect its first African-American president.

When Charlie Rangel moves through Harlem now, through the endless parade of housing-project barbecues and block parties and seniors banquets, no one asks him about retiring, or about the scandals that led the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington to name him one of 20 most corrupt members of Congress.

No, traveling through Harlem with Rangel is like walking through St. Peter’s with the pope. People stop in their tracks when they see him. They hand cell phones to friends and mug with him for pictures.

The only mention he gets about the scandals are those who pump a fist his way, tell him to stay strong, to keep giving ’em hell.

“Of course the ones that oppose me don’t come up and say anything,” he said.

“So I know I’m really getting the cream of the Rangel crop.”

Rangel has long mastered the fortuneteller’s skill of letting people think he knows more about them than he really does. One Harlem man comes up to shake Rangel’s hand, and tell him how his mother kept a photo of him on their

refrigerator while the man was growing up.

“Aw,” Rangel says in that trademark voice of his, equal parts Eldridge Street and Lenox Avenue. “And how is your mother?”

After a few more laps through the sparse crowd, Rangel is off again to his fourth block party of the day, this one at the Wagner Houses in East Harlem, where he will parade past rows of tables piled high with fried chicken, green beans and sweet potatoes. He passed on every plate offered to him.

Before he heads in, he sits in the parked car for a moment. A steady stream of politicians come by to pay their respects.

“Why are you always one step ahead of me?” asks Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer, peering in through the open window in the backseat.

“You’ll never catch up today, Scott,” Rangel says.

East Harlem Council Member Melissa Mark-Viverito is next.

“How’s the campaign going?” Rangel asks of her re-election. “I was talking with [SEIU 1199 political director Kevin] Finnegan and told him we will organize and see what we can do together.”

“That would be great,” she replies.

“Nice to see you! Keep up that fight with the health-care reform!”

Then comes Johnny C. Rivera, a former community liaison in Rangel’s office who is making another attempt at winning a district leader seat.

“It looks like against Adam [Clayton Powell IV] only, and we’ll give it a try and see how it goes.”

“We’ll get you some kind of help,”

Rangel replies, directing him to talk to a couple of Congressional aides. “We got to help you. We got to do something.”

“You don’t tangle with Charlie,” says one Congressional staffer. “You come out on the wrong side of it—and you are going to come out on the wrong side of it—and you are on dead in the water. If Charlie wants to see a certain political action carried out in a certain way, just let it go.”

Rangel’s ascension in Washington has not dimmed his enthusiasm for the local back-and-forth one bit. That no one has emerged to challenge him, despite the steady drumbeat of allegations that would undo most politicians, is a testament, political observers say, to his ability to pick winners in local races and to bring into the fold those who he has not backed.

There is a joke Rangel likes to tell, about how for years he has been grooming his successors to take his place, but that in the meantime they all got too old.

There is more than a grain of truth to it. All of the likely contenders for Rangel’s seat, should he ever retire, are at or near 60, too old to accrue much in the way of seniority.

When Rangel tells the joke in their company, they grin tightly, as if it is not something they find particularly funny.

“There is a dig there, yeah, there is a smirk there,” said State Sen. Bill Perkins, whom the Harlem establishment foiled repeatedly until he won his first race in 1998, and whom is often mentioned as a likely replacement for Rangel. “The suggestion of that sort of smirking remark is that we are frustrated. I am not

frustrated. If in fact there is a frustration, Charlie should be grateful that folks did not run against him and continue to support him, those who he is talking about, including myself. So while it’s a little smirky, I would think that it’s appreciated.”

Others are not concerned.

“They were checking Charlie’s pulse 20 years ago,” said Assembly Member Denny Farrell, a longtime Rangel ally and the outgoing head of the Manhattan Democratic Party. “There are people who wanted that seat who are dead and buried already.”

Days later, an aide to Perkins began circulating a rumor that the firebrand politician was considering a run against Rangel next year.

S

omeday, whether it be 2010 or 2012 or 3012, Charlie Rangel will not be the congressman from Harlem.

There may not in fact be another AfricanAmerican congressman from Manhattan, since a huge influx of white and Hispanic residents have moved into the borough in recent years.

Redistricting is set for the 2012 elections, and if Rangel is still around, political observers say, how his district’s lines move will give a clear message about the seat’s future. If the district moves northward into the Bronx, it will, first of all, no longer be the only district to be entirely in Manhattan, and, secondly, show that Rangel and his allies intend for the seat to remain African-American. If the district moves to the south, it would favor a white candidate and mean that

CITY HALL

www.cityhallnews.com

black political power has effectively switched to the outer boroughs. If the district stays the same, then New York will likely send the first Dominican-American to Congress.

For his part, Rangel may be the only person in Harlem who denies that the neighborhood is changing face, or that black political power is slipping away from Manhattan. For him, it is the kind of thing that reporters like to latch onto, but that has no basis in fact.

Despite his protestations, Rangel in fact had as much to do with the changing face of Harlem as anyone, bringing corporate investment and federal dollars to a neighborhood that was once synonymous with urban poverty. His office on the seventh floor of the Adam Clayton Powell Jr. State Office Building on 125th Street is a testament to the change and to Rangel’s efforts in bringing it about. The walls are covered with photos of the congressman walking various officials through the neighborhood, Walter Mondale back when Harlem was broken and bombed out, up to brighter, more recent pictures.

Rangel eases himself into thick leather armchair beneath a standing cardboard cutout version of himself. It is the beginning of August and the House Energy and Commerce Committee had just passed their own health-care bill, just before the deadline of the August recess.

“I tell you, this last month and certainly the last couple of weeks is the hardest working legislative weeks I’ve had. You have to take out the Judiciary Committee impeachment with Nixon. It wasn’t nearly anything as glamorous [as that].

It’s just that the president’s bill for health care was so important and our committee was the key committee, so we had to get the bill out because we knew Energy and Commerce was going to have problems.

Not only that but we have more caucuses in the Democratic Party.”

Rangel rolls his eyes.

“The black caucus. The Hispanic caucus. The Blue Dogs. The Progressives.

The New Democrats. I had to go to every one of them and defend what we were doing,” he said.

When asked how he is able to convince skeptical colleagues to come around, Rangel rubs his hands across his face and sighs deeply. “Now you’re really getting into it,” he says, and sits quietly for several moments.

“To tell you the truth, the more attention you give someone, the more skeptical they get, because they believe that without them the bill won’t pass. So at the end of the game, you would say who is the most difficult to deal with is the one who refuses to fold, sticks to it until the end to give you the hardest time and raises the ante.”

The part of Rangel that knows every stoop in Harlem, that spends his

Saturdays posing for pictures is not, he says, what makes for good horse-trading in Congress. No, down in D.C., he says, the name of the game is salesmanship— find out what somebody wants, and then sell them on how your bill will bring it to them.

“Charm is the first thing that goes,” he says. “When you get into a major poker game, you may be charming at the smaller games, but when you start getting a bill that the president has put all his capital in, has indicated is his top priority, then everyone becomes more important and that outdoes charm.”

Out in the rest of the country, beyond Rangel’s window, the first rumblings of panic had begun. Conservatives feared a government takeover, a further intrusion into their lives. Liberals feared that once again their dreams of health-care reform would wither on the vine.

Rangel was having none of it. That members of Congress were willing to meet with their constituents in town halls

such little confidence in America?”’

He had been on the phone nearly daily with Nancy Pelosi and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

A staffer from the Ways and Means Committee had called him to tell him that Newt Gingrich, whom Rangel had agreed to do some kind of public town hall with where they would go through and debate the bill, was now saying that the bill contained provisions to euthanize the elderly.

“Unless he changes his vision and wants to do something responsible, then I am not thinking of joining him, not at all.

I’d be willing to sit down and do anything in the world, but he was on a recent show where he said, ‘This is euthanasia.’ That means he is off the reservation of sanity— which he gets on from time to time.”

He was in his Cadillac, being driven to a meeting with Gov. David Paterson and Rev. Calvin Butts about a hospital in the neighborhood that was on the brink of closing. As the car pulled out of the garage underneath Adam Clayton Powell office building, a security guard stood and saluted.

The souring of the national mood seemed to have started Rangel changing his mind about his role in the whole debate.

“I’m inclined to believe that this could be the biggest thing I do,” he said. “This has grown beyond health care. This is not a Republican or Democratic issue anymore. This is now a national thing. It shouldn’t turn out the way it’s turning now.”

He was planning on holding his own town halls, by telephone.

“We would only do it so when reporters ask, I’ll be able to say yes,” he said.

Not that he needs a town hall. Every day out on the streets, waving to people on Malcolm X Boulevard, was a town hall.

A steady stream of nervous and curious constituents came up to his office to ask about health care, to be reassured and walked through the different scenarios by various aides, in mini-town halls.

Less than a year ago, editorial boards across the city were calling on Rangel to step down as chair of Ways and Means, and even from his Congressional seat.

With the health-care bill on the ropes suddenly, his attachment to its passage and the importance of the help he brought seemed to make all the troubles worth it.

“I don’t know what to tell you, but all the heat I’ve taken is already worth it. The opportunity to be where I am is worth what I’ve taken. Passing this will be what I will be known for, as opposed to what I would like to be known for. It would be the Rangel Bill,” he said, adding.

“I’ve never had a bad day. Never had a bad day in politics. Never had a bad day in politics. Compared to where I am and

“All the heat I’ve taken is already worth it. The opportunity to be where I am is worth what I’ve taken,” said Rep. Charlie Rangel, discussing the health-care bill.

“Passing this will be what I will be known for, as opposed to what I would like to be known for.” across the country (he did none himself) showed him that they were, as he put it, “confident as hell.”

“Once fear catches on, I don’t care what the hell you are talking about, fear doesn’t have to make any damn sense. At all. You are just scared. They are going to take away what I got,” he said, “So many people just need assurances.”

He continued: “There is always a fear when a very popular president puts his political capital on the line. I’m a poker player. You know what all-in means? It means everything you got you are putting on the line, you are not backing off.”

A

week later, and the mood of the country had changed considerably.

The town halls were getting worse, and Rangel, back in the same leather armchair in his office, was looking worn out from a cataract operation earlier in the week.

“I really think we don’t know where this one is going to go. These town hall meetings, it’s not pretty at all. It brings out the worst in people,” he said. “Hopefully, with the confidence that I have in this country someone will say, ‘How could you ever think, Rangel, that the good people of this country wouldn’t turn out and turn this thing around. What made you have

AUGUST 24, 2009

15

what I’ve been doing, I couldn’t consider it a bad day.”

Those close to him say Rangel never discusses stepping down anymore. Too much potential for leaks, and circling potentials would start to smell blood if he did. And besides, Rangel says, everybody would take his retirement as implied proof that the charges against him were true, which he could not allow.

Still, he admits that one day, his age will finally catch up with him, and no longer will he be able to hit every fish fry above 96th Street. Or maybe the Democratic Congress, after failing to pass a signature issue like health care, will flip back to Republican control.

“Things catch up with you,” he acknowledged. “When and if it does, it won’t make giving of myself as easy as it is now. When enjoying yourself is combined with physical disability and those things that come with age, you don’t have to make decisions. You’re physical situation makes decisions for you. If we were pausing, I’d be glad to say, ‘Hey, I picked up the lantern these two miles, let’s give it to somebody else to carry it the next two.”

Rumors of his imminent retirement persist in some Harlem circles, and he will for the first time in years face some kind of opposition in 2010 in the form of Vince Morgan, a young banker who believes he represents the new face of Harlem.

A challenge, though, will not change Rangel’s schedule much.

“I wouldn’t have to do that much more,” he says. “I campaign all the time.

What would I have to do extra? It’s hard to think of any of what I do as work. I love this. And if it’s work, then I’ve really earned the right to retire.”

After hanging up on a call from Washington, Rangel went downstairs to appear at a banquet for seniors celebrating Harlem Week.

When he walked to the microphone, men and women old enough to make Rangel seem young stood on canes and walkers to applaud.

“I have a reporter following me around these days, and I don’t know how his story is going to turn out. But I tell you, it doesn’t make much difference. Because I’m not as religious as I should be, but I got to say thank you, Jesus, for helping me have come this far because it allows me to say thank you.

“There reaches a point when you give these interviews where they really want to know what you want to achieve. And all I want to do is be able to let everyone know that because of you, I’ve been given an opportunity that so few have in life. I can go to sleep at night, and if someone is asking me where do I want to be born, where do I want to die, there ain’t no place like Harlem. Every year, Harlem Week is like my birthday. This is where I’m from, this is where I’m going to die, and I can’t thank you for how good you’ve been to me.” dfreedlander@cityhallnews.com

C

16

AUGUST 24, 2009

CITY HALL

www.cityhallnews.com

With Walder Still Waiting On Sidelines, MTA Plans Road Ahead Capital plan remains in flux as incoming chair awaits confirmation

BY SAL GENTILE

T

he Metropolitan Transportation Authority has issued its proposed five-year capital plan, a $25 billion roadmap to the future of the beleaguered agency that was produced after months of painstaking discussions and consultations with outside groups.

Now, out come the hatchets.

“I suspect there are going to be serious changes,” said Assembly Member Richard Brodsky, of Westchester. “The capital plan has to be seen with a greater level of uncertainty than with previous kinds of things.”

That level of uncertainty, according to MTA board members, legislators and transportation advocates, is due to the fact that the agency is without a permanent leader and a coherent plan for how to finance the future of mass transit in New York. The MTA’s incoming chairman and CEO, Jay Walder, awaits confirmation by the Legislature, which may not happen until late this fall—if then.

The capital plan, meanwhile, has an outstanding $10 billion financing gap, which the Legislature will also have to fill in order to fund long-term projects such as the Second Avenue Subway.

Even the $6 billion in bonds the MTA plans to issue are potentially in jeopardy: Those bonds are backed, in part, by a payroll tax established by the Legislature in May, which has since grown politically unpopular.

Marginal Democrats, such as State Sen. Brian Foley of Suffolk, have grown anxious over the political implications of the tax and have asked Democratic leaders to revisit it.

And a bill passed by the Legislature in June to overhaul the state’s sprawling system of public authorities would also have far-reaching implications for how the MTA makes key financial decisions, and how much power the governor and Mayor Michael Bloomberg wield over the agency’s future.

“The MTA is in flux,” Brodsky said. “That flux includes not only the obvious change in leadership, not just the change in financing that we put together, but the change in the way authorities function that is likely to occur.”

Already, the consequences of that flux are becoming apparent, with the Legislature trying to figure out how to fill the $10 billion hole while simultaneously trimming $2.1 billion from the state budget.

MTA board members and transportation advocates are angry that the agency’s leaders did not present their proposed capital plan to a public meeting of the board, as they historically have. This year, the MTA simply posted its blueprint to the authority’s website and sent copies to board members, who did not have the chance to offer adjustments.

“They would have liked to have more input in the drafting of the current draft,”

said Mitchell Pally, an MTA board member from Suffolk, of his colleagues. “That was disappointing.”

Pally, who has also served as chief counsel to the Transportation Committee in the State Senate, suggested that MTA leaders quietly released the plan without public discussion in order to avoid hamstringing Walder as he comes onto the job as chair. The proposal itself is mostly a continuation of ongoing programs rather than the kind of strong leap forward many observers expect from Walder.

“His views on any of the other major projects or maintenance efforts or things like that obviously is to be determined. So in that case, it’s going to be difficult,” Pally said.

“Whatever decisions are made on the capital plan in the next six months, he is going to have to live with in the next six years.”

Those decisions are likely to have major implications not just for the agency’s fiveyear capital plan, but also for the longer-term fiscal health of the MTA. There are two ways the governor and legislators could choose to solve that problem when they return in the fall: trim the MTA budget and force the agency to find efficiencies in its operating expenses, which many experts claim the agency’s leaders have not done, or create more dedicated taxes to back more debt financing.

Many observers expect Walder, who helped set the London transit system on sound fiscal footing, to favor either a combination of the two or even an emphasis on making the MTA more efficient and transparent.

If so, he is likely to encounter one considerable obstacle: Richard Ravitch.

Ravitch, Paterson’s disputed pick for lieutenant governor, is seen by transportation advocates as favoring an approach that raises revenue for the MTA rather than one that corrals the agency’s runaway finances.

“He publicly has taken a line that the problem is just one of resources,” said Cameron Gordon, a senior lecturer in finance at the University of Canberra in Australia and a visiting professor at the College of Staten Island, who studies mass transit systems worldwide. “But the other problem is that the way that we run transit needs reform, and that’s the side that he does not pick up on.”

Still, transportation advocates say they are heartened by the fact that, at least in a few months, the MTA will have a chairman who actually has a relationship with the governor and his top aides, which many say the previous leader, Elliot Sander, did not.

“There is no question that the fact that the leadership of the MTA was appointed by Governor Spitzer, and they were not Governor Paterson’s people, was an uncomfortable situation, and did not lead to the ability of both sides to work together collectively,” Pally said. sgentile@cityhallnews.com

C

THE

OF

The weird and woeful mayors through hizz-tory

Mr. Elegance By all accounts, “Elegant” Oakey, as he was known for his dandyish ways, was a talented lawyer prior to and after politics. However, he is best remembered as a talented crook, Tammany stooge and member of the infamous “Tweed Ring” that dominated city politics from 1866 to 1871.

The Tweed Ring by and large remains the corrupt political machine before which all other corrupt political machines must genuflect. In other words, they were the Yankees of municipal fraud.

In addition to “Elegant” Oakey as mayor, the batting order for the Ring consisted of William “Boss” Tweed as state senator, Tammany Hall boss and Ring namesake; Peter “Brains” Sweeney as Department of A. OAKEY HALL Public Works head; and Richard “Slippery 1869-1872 Dick” Connolly (who obviously wins that nickname contest) as comptroller.

After gaining leadership of Tammany Hall following the Civil War, Boss Tweed convinced Hall, at that time a lawyer and editor of the official Tammany newspaper, to run for mayor. After Hall won convincingly in 1868, Tweed proceeded to ram through the Legislature a new city charter that significantly boosted the power of the mayor’s office. More importantly, the charter put Tweed, along with Hall, Slippery Dick and Brains, in charge of a new “Board of Audit” that would oversee all city expenditures.

Hello, corruption.

In large part, it worked like this: in the post-Civil War years, the city needed significant new building projects. The contractors for these projects would be vastly overpaid and in turn would kick back large sums to Tammany Hall. In this way, Hall and the Tweed Ring essentially turned the city into one giant ATM with no daily withdrawal limit.

It was not long before the public caught on to this venal, plundering system, with the ITAL New York Times ITAL launching a campaign against the Ring. Hall was brought to trial no less than three times between 1871 and 1873. To his credit, his score for that criminal trifecta was mistrial, hung jury, not guilty—a fairly impressive showing, and far better than Boss Tweed, who was eventually arrested, escaped prison, fled to Spain, was extradited back to the U.S. and died in a jail on Ludlow St. Having dodged that fate, “Elegant” Oakey’s post-Ring life was fairly colorful. In addition to being a spectacularly amoral politician, Hall was a bit of a playwright whose catalogue included such titles as “Old Whitney’s Christmas Trot,” and the always popular “The Congressman’s Christmas Dreams and the Lobby Member’s Happy New Year: A Holiday Sketch.”

Fittingly, after leaving office in disgrace, Hall cast himself as the star in a play he had written about—get this—a falsely accused man. Most thought the production simply stunk up the joint while others thought the ex-mayor had actually gone nuts. Either way, thespian immortality escaped Hall and the play closed after a mercifully short run.

While his public image never recovered, “Elegant” Oakey continued to write and practice law until he died in New York in October, 1898. Among his possessions at death was a manuscript, “History of the Tweed Ring,” which never found a buyer. To this day, his version of events remains unpublished.

—James Caldwell

POLITICS • POLICY • PERSONALITIES

Look who’s reading

City Hall...

The Way to Reach Elected Officials

www.cityhallnews.com

For advertising information, please contact your account executive at 212-284-9735 or advertising@manhattanmedia.com

18

AUGUST 24, 2009

CITY HALL

www.cityhallnews.com

Among Asian Candidates, Divide Between First And Second Generation Campaigns make very different arguments in same Flushing and Chinatown districts

BY CHRIS BRAGG ouncil candidate P.J. Kim stirred controversy recently when he said one of his opponents in his Council race, Margaret Chin, was running a campaign not to represent the whole of Lower Manhattan but rather to be the “mayor of Chinatown.”

Kim’s language in this instance was particularly blunt, and his statement was blasted by Chin as “racially charged.”

Nonetheless, this message is one that Kim and several other young, secondgeneration Asian-Americans have been making throughout their Council campaigns: that having grown up in the United States, their experiences and worldviews are different from those of the first-generation immigrants they are competing against.

“We have very different professional networks, and that is partially a function of what we have done professionally and academically,” Kim said. “This is a very diverse district and we need a candidate who can reach out to all of the constituencies.”

Chin, a first-generation immigrant, is a longtime community activist in Chinatown making her fourth run for the Council. Kim, meanwhile, grew up in Louisiana and graduated from Princeton and Harvard.

Despite the fact that Kim is Korean and Chin is Chinese, Kim seems to be getting some reception in Chinatown, where a number of people appear to be buying into his argument that he would offer more effective representation.

Had Council Member Alan Gerson’s legal efforts to be restored to the ballot not been successful, Kim likely would have been the one to get the lion’s share of the

C

P.J. Kim, a Council candidate in Lower Manhattan, has been trying to reach beyond his Asian-American base.

Wu, a Democratic district leader, also often mentions that he was born in Flushing, and that during the Gulf War he served in the Marine Corps, in an apparent overt effort to show that two parts of his hyphenated identity—Asian and American—are equally important to who he is as a candidate and as a person.

Tensions between the first and second generation are also present among the Korean-American community in the Flushing race, in which first-generation candidate S.J. Jung and secondgeneration candidate John Choe are each vying to become the first KoreanAmerican elected to the Council.

In 1999, Choe and others of the second generation founded a group called Nodutdol, whose stated goal is the reunification of North and South Korea.

This, however, has sparked concern about his candidacy among some firstgeneration Korean-Americans who are fervently anti-Communist.

Danny Shin, a reporter who covers the race for Korea Daily, a Korean language newspaper, said this reaction demonstrates how foreign policy issues can play an outsized role in local elections for some in the first generation.

“This is an issue mainly to Korean War veterans or people for whom patriotism still plays a role in their lives,” Shin said.

“Many in the second generation have an open-minded view of foreign policy.”

Sandy Kim, executive director of

Council member’s ample support among likely to serve their narrow base, while Chinatown civic and business leaders, second-generation candidates such as according to one person involved in the Kim will be able to affect greater change discussions. But even with Gerson back in the neighborhood. on the ballot, Kim has been generating “A lot of the immigrants here will only support in the neighborhood, pulling vote for a Chinese candidate,” Chiu said. support from people like Eddie Chiu, head of the Chinatown community “There is still something special about getting group the Lin Sing Association. an Asian-American politician elected,” said Chiu, a first-generation immigrant Sandy Kim, executive director of the Korean who emigrated from Hong Kong, American League for Civic Action. “But the said he believes that first-generation candidates such as Chin are more second generation is looking more at the big

picture, and at the merits of the candidates.”

James Wu, a delegate to last year’s Democratic National Convention, is a second-generation Chinese-American running in Flushing.

“But I’ve been here longer than anybody, and they haven’t done anything. This is an American district—District 1 is a very big district—and we need someone who represents all of the races, not just one or two races.”

Meanwhile, Council candidate James Wu, a second-generation ChineseAmerican who is running in the six-way race to replace John Liu in Flushing, is making a similar argument.

“You have to have a mindset that is not part of some special niche,” Wu said.

“You can’t run for office for just one little group.”

In his comments, Wu also appears to be backhandedly referring to Yen Chou, the other Chinese-American candidate in the race for Liu’s seat, who is a firstgeneration immigrant. Wu has made a differentiation between, among other things, the fact that he speaks fluent English while she does not.

the Korean American League for Civic Action, noted that some first-generation candidates including Jung, in the Flushing race, were looking past ethnicity as they ran for the Council. Kim said that because Jung is a longtime labor organizer, he has gained a broader perspective that reaches beyond the Korean-American community.

Nonetheless, she acknowledged that as a general trend, second-generation candidates were more prone to seeking broader support outside their ethnic bases. Kim added that Asian-American voters in the city were also increasingly looking past ethnicity, too.

“There is still something special about getting an Asian-American politician elected,” she said. “But the second generation is looking more at the big picture, and at the merits of the candidates.” cbragg@cityhallnews.com

C

CITY HALL

www.cityhallnews.com

AUGUST 24, 2009

19

Bacalao Salad And Lemonade With Ruben Diaz, Jr. ew Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz, Jr., recently sat down at El Nuevo Bohio, a Puerto Rican restaurant on East Tremont Avenue, to talk about the Diaz family think tank, the allure of octopus salad and whether or not he takes after Reese Witherspoon.

N

CH: So what’s good?

RD: I’m gonna have the white rice with red beans and it’s called “bacalao salad,” or “codfish salad.” The soups are excellent here. Do you like octopus salad? The last time I had lunch with somebody here, it was funny because I was supposed to go to a candidate screening afterward. And I’m allergic to seafood, well shellfish, but octopus and calamari. But I couldn’t help myself, so I started digging in. By the time I went to—it was the DC37 screening—by the time I went over there, I looked like somebody punched me.

CH: What did you tell them?

RD: I explained myself. I had just popped a Benadryl so after a while it started coming down—cause I break into hives and stuff. But it’s to die for.

CH: I’m going to try the octopus salad if it’s so good that you got an allergic reaction to actually eat it.

RD: I may just have to get my Benadryl out.

CH: I’m all about sharing, but I will not take responsibility if you go into anaphylactic shock.

RD: I have some Benadryl in the car.

CH: That would be a terrible way to end the interview.

CH: In terms of Pedro Espada’s future in Bronx politics, how do you think he’s going to fare? Do you think that if a candidate comes out and challenges him, will the powers-that-be back that challenger?

RD: Well, I mean, he’s the majority leader now. Anyone who runs against him has a disadvantage.

CH: But he’s also come under fire for going back and forth between parties and causing disruption, and there’s controversy over whether he lives in the district or not.

RD: I think it’ll be very difficult to beat him. I don’t know if the organization, the Democratic organization—and this is probably a better question for the Democratic county chairman—I don’t know if it would be the right thing to do to run against him. Look, it’s not a bad thing

CH: I assume you’re a Yankee fan.

RD: Did you see what I did, since I’ve become borough president? The Yankees were on a 10game losing streak before I got elected. I spoke to Joe Girardi, you know, and they turned it around.

CH: What about that “God Bless America” recording? Do you think maybe they should get a new one? Because it sounds like it’s being played on a phonograph.

RD: I don’t know. And, you know, I guess the boss wanted his way. What the boss wants, the boss gets. I’m big on having celebrities. And the Yankee fans get celebrities all the time.

CH: Who would be your first choice to sing?

RD: The American Idol winner. The one who did the movie.

CH: Jennifer Hudson?

RD: Jennifer Hudson. I love the way she sings.

ANDREW SCHWARTZ

City Hall: What does “El Bohio” mean?

Ruben Diaz: It’s a kiosk. So in places like Carolina, in Bayamón, they have different little bohios.

CH: Like little takeout food places.

RD: Yeah, you go to the beach. When you leave the beach, you drive up to the front [of the bohio].

In Puerto Rico, the way we have it, it’s all open air.

And you drive up in front of the bohios and order and you can eat there or take it home with you.

CH: Maybe have a beer or something like that.

RD: A couple of beers—never one.

CH: Thanks for making time for lunch, I really appreciate it.

RD: Thank you. I’m sorry I wasn’t able to cook for you.

CH: Was that an option?

RD: I could only cook breakfast. All kinds of breakfast.

CH: Do you cook other stuff too?

RD: No. You lost me there. I can get my microwave on. I know how to reheat leftovers.

during high school. I rebelled against Reverend Diaz and his heavy-handedness in terms of discipline. My brother and I—I’m a victim of teenage pregnancy. My wife and I were victims of teenage pregnancy. I don’t try to sugarcoat it. In fact, I used it to talk to young folks throughout the borough. I told them that I ran off course during high school and did things that I’m not proud of.

But luckily everything worked out perfectly well.

that when you look at Albany and the State Senate, at least, and you look at that two out of the top four leaders in the State Senate are from the Bronx. It came because of some chaos, but I mean, nonetheless, there’s a new paradigm and a new leadership. You have Jeff Klein and Pedro Espada, both from the borough of the Bronx.

CH: You and your father, State Sen. Ruben Diaz, Sr., are notoriously divergent in your political views. So how did you become the “liberal son”?

RD: I think it’s generational. And obviously, as we get older—and this just doesn’t apply to my family—I think, as a whole, as you get older—whether you’re black, Latino, white, female, male, from New York, wherever in the United States—you tend to become a little more conservative in your point of view.

CH: So you think you may get conservative as you get older, too?

RD: Probably. I certainly am now more so, now that I have two teenaged sons, than when I was a teenager, right?

CH: Where does your mother fall on the political spectrum? Do you take after her at all?

RD: My mother—a lot of folks don’t realize this because the Reverend is so vocal and public and he’s an elected official—my mother is very much part of the Diaz think tank, the political think tank. And we do have that. We make political decisions at times and we have certain political conversations around the dinner table. Our parents are divorced. But we do so at Hilda Diaz’s, our mother, and that’s where we make the decisions in our house. For the most part, you have a discussion that goes like this. My brother, who is—I don’t know if you want to call him a libertarian, an independent—he’s the one who thinks that everyone in government needs to go. Then you have my father with his conservative views. And you have my sister, who is Sergeant Diaz. I don’t know if I want to quote her too much, but she’s a sergeant in the NYPD. Her and my father kind of—they are more aligned in their political points of view. And then there’s my mother, always takes her baby’s side.

CH: Considering you were the youngest Assembly member, elected at 23 at the time, I was wondering if in high school you were like Reese Witherspoon in Election.

RD: Oh, no. No, I was a straight-A student in elementary school and middle school, and I totally went off course

CH: You got a salad for lunch, a pretty healthy choice.

RD: I could do better. I’ve been eating more fruits as of late. But, you know, nonetheless, at least for the young people in the borough of the Bronx: Do as the borough president says, not as the borough president does, when it comes to his diet. But yeah, we do have a diabetes problem. And we have—we have to be mindful, too, of different cultures and eating habits from different cultures. We’re so diverse.

CH: You mentioned that you try to eat well, but you could do a better job. Is there something that’s like a guilty pleasure?

RD: Candy. All kind of candy. Snicker bars, Nerds, M&Ms, potato chips, Doritos. Oh, my God, Doritos. Oh lord. Doritos barbecue chips. Now and Laters. Starburst.

Bubble gum.

CH: Are you home every night for dinner? It’s probably difficult to do that.

RD: Well, it depends. My wife is a professional in her own right. She is a supervisor for the Port Authority for the security and runway at LaGuardia Airport.

CH: Do you make a point to have a family meal every once in a while?

RD: Not only do we have family meals, but we have something called movie nights. The last movie we watched…we did Iron Man and Sleeping Beauty. All right, I gotta explain that. So they have a new TV, right?

So you gotta do the whole Blu-Ray stuff. And my wife really loves…Disney, the animated movies. So, the other day, I saw Iron Man at the store, but I really wanted to see it on Blu-Ray. And it was like action-packed, you know? The boys and I like it. But what about, what do we bring for Mommy?

CH: Sleeping Beauty. ceichna@manhattanmedia.com

C

20

the

CITY HALL

www.cityhallnews.com

AUGUST 24, 2009

Art

of Politics

24-Hour Party Politics New group endorses and mobilizes for votes for pro-nightlife candidates

BY DAN RIVOLI

Hall.

Most community board attendees complain about late-night noise stemming from nearby bars and clubs. These residents were armed with signs and pickets in support of the Park Slope tavern, after a committee voted to urge the State Liquor Authority to revoke its liquor license.

“There’s a significant percentage of people who really care about preserving nightlife in New York City,” said Bob Zuckerman, who sits on the community board and supports Union Hall.

Finding such dedicated partiers is the goal of the Nightlife Preservation Community, a newly formed offshoot of the New York Nightlife Association, which formed in reaction to Mayor Rudolph Giuliani’s crackdown on bars and clubs in the 1990s.

Where the Nightlife Association dealt with industry policy and safety issues, the Preservation Community is strictly a political group that launched in June. The kick-off obviously called for a party, where Council members such as Gale Brewer got to mingle with celebrities like actress Chloë Sevigny, the event’s hostess, at the hot spot M2 in Chelsea.

With 3,000 people on its growing e-mail list, the group aims to boost its following to 100,000 voters who are active in the nightlife scene by the next mayoral race in 2013.

In addition to club and bar owners that have been the nightlife industry’s base of support, the organization is targeting bartenders, waiters, late-night food vendors and cab drivers to cast votes or donate money to candidates deemed friendly to the nightlife industry. And in New York, those numbers can make all the difference in crowded primary elections.

ANDREW SCHWARTZ

E

arlier in the year, Park Slope residents arrived at a local community board meeting in droves to discuss the popular bar Union

Paul Seres, a co-founder of the organization and owner of the Chelsea club SOL, believes his group can give political leverage to nightlife proponents.

“I think where they’ll have the greatest impact is getting people out to vote in a primary who wouldn’t otherwise,” Zuckerman said. “They’re not prime voters, but they care about this issue.”

The Nightlife Preservation Community endorsed several candidates in contested primary races.

got the group’s nod.

In citywide campaigns, the group is supporting David Yassky for comptroller and Council Member Eric Gioia for public advocate. Lest voters think they are endorsing people soft on public nuisances, the group is supporting the re-election of Queens Council Member Peter Vallone, Jr., a quality-of-life crusader.

Vallone, who chairs the Public Safety Committee, had previously collaborated with the New York Nightlife Association, which he said showed him the value of the nighttime economy to the city. Vallone attended the organization’s opening-night bash.

“It was a unique experience, for them to turn down the pumping club music and thank myself and few others there for help saving the nightlife industry,” Vallone said.

“It was a constituency I’ve never been in front of before: people with liquor in their hands.”

“I don’t think elected officials will be so quick to write a letter to the Liquor Authority because a constituent says that a bar is bothering them,” said Robert Bookman, counsel to the Nightlife Preservation Community. “They’ll think twice about it because it gains one vote but loses 10.”

My Pick

Unsurprisingly, one of the first was Zuckerman, a former executive director of the group who is running to replace Bill de Blasio on the Council.

Karen Koslowitz, running for Council in Queens, also

Council Member Gale Brewer Obviously having gone to Twelfth Night [in Central Park] was an experience that you could only dream of. Because I would say that my favorite art—and when I say art, I mean music, dance, theater—is anything outside and free. There’s something very special about sitting in a park.

I also love going to hear Verdi in Verdi Square, which is right by the subway at 72nd Street and Broadway. So here we have chairs, the subway underneath, the buses, the sirens, the ambulances and the opera. I love it. I can’t tell you, I love it.

I think, first of all, when you see Shakespeare or you see

Hair, which was there last year [in Central Park], there’s something about the air, something about seeing trees that are moving at the same time the trees are moving on the set.

And Shakespeare’s often supposed to be out of doors, so it just feels like it really is. And music, I often go to—there’s a pier on the Hudson River at 70th Street and Riverside Park.

Also there are movies there, every week during the summer, July and August. So somehow seeing Casablanca on a pier with stars and water, with Casablanca being about water in some cases, down the Nile, that’s pretty exciting. I would say the out-of-doors mirrors what’s often being either felt, seen or heard.

CITY HALL

www.cityhallnews.com

Robert Bookman, the organization’s counsel, who said his ideal night out is a quiet conversation over dinner rather than a raucous dance party, said the group decided to enter electoral politics because of the immense influence city government could exert over the nightlife industry. Council members and borough presidents can shape rezoning and appoint community board members who could hold up a liquor-license application or raise opposition to a new establishment, he noted.

AUGUST 24, 2009

21

endorsement from Dick Cheney in Chelsea to some.

“If they’re offering me protection and are respectful of my quality of life, I might be inclined to look at their endorsement,” said Craig Hammerman, a district manager of a Brooklyn community board who, in April, dropped out the race for de Blasio’s seat. “If they’re offering me the opposition, their endorsement could be the kiss of death.” drivoli@cityhallnews.com

“I don’t think elected officials will be so quick to write a letter to the Liquor Authority because a constituent says that a bar is bothering them,” Bookman said. “They’ll think twice about it because it gains one vote but loses 10.”

But in neighborhoods such as the Lower Manhattan or Park Slope, where residents and nightlife businesses snipe at each other at community board meetings, an endorsement from a nightlife group may be tantamount to an

Did You Hear the One About the City Comptroller?

Why comedy fund-raisers are all the rage, and why some pols should avoid them

A

More Access

“They’re cheap to produce,” he said. “It’s like getting strippers.”

Andrew Moesel, director of media public relations at Sheinkopf Communications—which is consulting for Weprin—and an aspiring comic himself, agreed.

Plus, the more traditional wine-and-cheese fund-raisers can get boring after a while.

“It adds a level of levity and a sense of fun that some fund-raisers lack,” said Moesel, who used to plan comedy fund-raisers for Council Member Peter Vallone, Jr.

“I think Boss Tweed would have been a better comic than 99 percent of these guys today,” said comedian Randy Credico.

ANDREW SCHWARTZ

t the Yippie Museum in SoHo, where a large portrait of a pot leaf hangs on the wall, Council Member David Weprin was just getting warmed up.

“Some people have called me unexciting,” Weprin said, microphone in hand, a half-drunk bottle of Michelob Ultra sitting nearby. “I’ve actually been called handsome, but that was by Governor David Paterson.”

Ba-dum-bum.

His reward for the rim shot was a handful of laughs and a few checks for his comptroller campaign. Weprin’s comedy fund-raiser, which was equal parts funny, shocking, sad and cringe-worthy, was just one of many such events popping up across the city this election season. Cy Vance and Richard Aborn, both candidates for Manhattan district attorney, have held or are planning to hold comedy fund-raisers. Ruben Diaz, Jr., had one before being elected Bronx borough president. Mark Green did one with, among others, Susie Essman of Curb Your Enthusiasm.

Marc Crawford Leavitt, a local political satirist, is running against Helen Marshall for Queens borough president.

Indeed, so many candidates are planning fund-raisers at comedy clubs or inviting comedians to tickle potential donors, that several comics are beginning to think that the shtick is getting a bit old.

“It’s getting tired this year, all these comedy fund-raisers,” said Randy Credico, a comedian who warmed up the crowd for Weprin.

Credico, who has political aspirations of his own (he is currently deciding between a run for governor or a run for Chuck Schumer’s Senate seat), has consulted for political campaigns for Tom Golisano, Al Lewis and Jimmy Hoffa, Jr. While the tradition of comedians shilling for politicians is nothing new, Credico says there may be more of these types of fund-raisers this year because many campaigns, strapped for cash in a bad economy, are trying to save every penny.

Comedian Randy Credico advises candidates on working jokes into their campaigns, and is currently deciding between a run of his own next year for either governor or senator.

But when the comedy gets risqué, or the candidate decides to tell a few jokes of their own, events like these can have a less than desirous effect for a campaign.

“There are some more sensitive subjects, like race, that a smart politician would make sure are off-limits,” Moesel said. “But it makes a candidate more likable, that he’s willing to go out on a limb and embarrass himself in a lighthearted way.”

But Credico says that some politicians should stay as far away from a comedy stage as possible.

“I can’t imagine Chuck Schumer doing stand-up comedy,” he said. “I think Boss Tweed would have been a better comic than 99 percent of these guys today.”

—Andrew J. Hawkins

Eva Moskowitz, right, mulls a 2013 comeback (Page 8), new Council Member Liz Crowley braves the harsh weather for her first day on the job

More News More

(Page 18)

Vol. 3, No. 8

www.cityhallnews.com

January 2009

and Richard Ravitch, left, explains why everyone should get on board his plan to save the MTA (Page 23).

D8IKP www.cityhallnews.com

K_\ 9iffbcpe 9G fe Y\`e^ fm\icffb\[# Xe[ n_Xk _\ gcXej kf [f XYflk `k

22

Commish Out Of Water

as Council rules permit him to do by way of his position as minority leader.

He used his time to attack the bill as an unnecessary intervention by government into private enterprise.

“To have government impose this on them is wrong,” he said. “I guarantee you we will be back for another piece of legislation that goes way beyond this.”

He added: “Where does it end?”

For the most part, Oddo’s Democratic colleagues voted to approve the bill.

But he did seem to sway at least a few Democrats, including Council Members Elizabeth Crowley of Queens and Dan Garodnick of Manhattan, who voted no.

Paterson Supports No One For Mayor. No— Thompson. No—Maybe Bloomberg.

Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe welcomed 37 paddlers finishing a 195-mile journey down the Hudson from near the Canadian border to New York City on Aug. 17 by joining them for the last stretch, which finished at Pier 96 at 56th Street.

Waiting For Bloomberg Before a press conference, in the green room, which was really the faculty room at P.S. 208 in Harlem, Joel Klein waited for Charlie Rangel.

The chancellor started asking the Ways and Means chair about the healthcare debate in Washington, which at the moment seemed to be stuck on Sarah Palin’s death panels.

“In order for me to look good, I have to be able to have a debate,” Rangel told him.

A moment later, George Soros, whose donation of $35 million toward back-toschool supplies for Harlem youths was the occasion for the gathering in the first place, entered.

“George!” Rangel exclaimed. “George, Joel came up through the housing projects, I was a high school dropout.

No one ever gave us dollars and cents.”

Gov. David Paterson joined their circle next. Rangel put both his hands on the back of the governor’s neck and hugged him.

The circle, though, was not complete.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg still had not arrived.

They waited. They fiddled.

Paterson asked when Bloomberg was expected.

Ten minutes, an aide said.

That was what had been said 15 minutes ago, Paterson pointed out.

CITY HALL

www.cityhallnews.com

AUGUST 24, 2009

“If the mayor is not here, than who is in charge?” Rangel asked.

“Just act like it’s you, Charlie,” Klein joked. “If no one says anything, we know who is taking control.”

“I’m just testing the waters,” Rangel said.

“I am going to tell the mayor that the congressman was going to get started without him,” Klein said.

“No, you wouldn’t,” Rangel responded.

“Not at this point.”

The four shuffled out into the hallway just at the arrival of the mayor, who was all set to join them at the front of the line before a school security guard stopped him.

All visitors have to sign in at the front desk, the guard said.

All visitors.

The mayor shrugged.

“It’s okay. I called 311 to report something the other day, and the lady that answered said, ‘And how do you spell your name?’” Bloomberg said. “So you never know.”

In Rare Move, Oddo Breaks With Quinn And Bloomberg Council Minority Leader James Oddo invoked an obscure rule at the Aug. 20 stated Council meeting to rail against a bill supported by Speaker Christine Quinn, Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum and Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

The bill, which passed by a wide margin, requires pharmacies with more than four locations to provide translation services in seven different languages to speakers of limited English.

Oddo interrupted general remarks by supporters of the bill to ask that he be allowed an extra five minutes to speak,

Much to the deepening infuriation of many active New York City Democrats, Gov. David Paterson has stayed insistently hard to read on the mayor’s race, showering Mayor Michael Bloomberg with praise from literally the event after the famous October 2008 press conference when the mayor went public with his plan to extend term limits, then saying in March that he expected to endorse the Democratic candidate.

At every point in between, throwing up head fakes and vague, inconsistent statements. “I haven’t announced the person who should be the mayor, and I guess I’ll do that before the election,” he said when after an event on Aug. 11, admitting that the as to whether he had decided in his own head who that person would be, the answer was “no.”

Then that very night, doing his familiar booming voice announcer routine while emceeing Rep. Charles Rangel’s birthday party, Paterson jokingly shifted again.

“So it says on my program that the first person that we want to introduce is the mayor,” Paterson said. “Apparently, a psychic must have written tonight’s program, because the first person I’m going to introduce is currently the comptroller of the City of New York, Bill Thompson!”

A few days later, onstage for the East River Promenade announcement, he seemed to switch again, returning a nice introduction from Bloomberg with some warm words of his own.

“I want to thank Mayor Bloomberg not only for his very kind introduction, but for eight years of service in which he’s tried to raise the standard and quality of life for all New Yorkers,” he said.

Skaller Goes In For the Photo Comptroller candidate John Liu has not endorsed anyone in the race to replace Bill de Blasio in the City Council.

But that does not mean he will not soon become part of one candidate’s campaign.

Josh Skaller, who many see in a head-to-head race with Brad Lander,

managed to squeeze himself into a photo of Liu with former Rep. Major Owens, who endorsed Liu at his former district office in Crown Heights on August 17th.

After the event—during which Owens offered a fiery tirade against one of Liu’s opponents, David Yassky—Liu and Owens posed for photos. After a few minutes, Skaller—whose campaign manager is Owens’ son, Chris—asked, “Can we maybe get a picture of the three of us?”

Liu, skeptical, said, “Sure, if it’s okay with the congressman.”

Owens said nothing. Skaller moved in for the shot.

A spokesperson for Liu quickly noted that despite the photograph, Liu “did not endorse, and will not endorse” in the race.

Rodriguez Gets A Council Shout-Out It was vague, but Ydanis Rodriguez, running to replace Miguel Martinez in his northern Manhattan district, may have won an unexpected endorsement from one of his would-be colleagues at a Council event on August 18.

Council Member Julissa Ferreras of Queens was hosting a Dominican-pride event that evening along with Brooklyn Council Member Diana Reyna.

During one of her speeches, Ferreras broke abruptly out of her Spanish to recognize Rodriguez, sitting in the audience, who she called “somebody who has his own fight, but I think that he’s winning that fight right now.”

Rodriguez rose to applause from the audience and waved, the Dominican Republic flag in his hand.

Earning Thanks, Lombardi Explains The Budget To Mario Cuomo In front of the Municipal Building to endorse Bill de Blasio for public advocate, former Gov. Mario Cuomo was asked by Daily News reporter Frank Lombardi what he thought of the mayor and Council speaker approving a deal to slash the office’s budget. At length.

Lombardi’s question took a minute and a half, concluding with him asking if Cuomo was aware of that controversy.

“Even if I weren’t aware, you were so lucid in your presentation that I now understand it,” Cuomo joked.

As the scrum laughed, de Blasio leaned in with his two cents about the nice words for the press.

“You guys don’t get that very often, do you?” said the man campaigning to be a check on the mayor. “Not from Bloomberg, anyway.”

—Edward-Isaac Dovere, David Freedlander and Sal Gentile

Have a tip for

CHatter?

Email cityhall@manhattanmedia.com

CITY HALL

www.cityhallnews.com

AUGUST 24, 2009

23

ANDREW SCHWARTZ PHOTOS

Back to School he summer has been pretty wild for Schools Chancellor Joel Klein. As the Senate coup up in Albany threw the reauthorization of mayoral control in danger, as the old Board of Education was reconstituted, and as politicians of all stripes called for his firing—or worse, his arrest—he waited and watched.

But the bill eventually passed, and Klein says he is eager to put those tumultuous months behind him. Klein spoke to City Hall about the renewed system of governance, those loud calls for his firing and what he did immediately after the bill passed the Legislature.

What follows is an edited transcript.

T

City Hall: How did you celebrate the passage of mayoral control?

Joel Klein: We were kind of excited when it passed. No formal event, but a lot of high-fiving. That night, I went with my wife to Colorado and did some serious hiking and relaxing.

CH: Council Member Charles Barron tried to arrest you for ‘illegally occupying the Tweed Courthouse’…

JK: It was a curious moment. I actually know Charles Barron reasonably well. He has an instinct for the dramatic, and that’s what that was all about.

CH: Was all the waiting stressful?

JK: Stress? No stress. We wanted and hoped this would be done by June 30.

We didn’t anticipate that the issues of control of the Senate would become an issue. But we were confident, certainly I was confidant throughout the process, because we knew we had more than enough votes, as it turned out. I think it’s a real tribute to the mayor that this thing overwhelmingly passed both houses. There were legitimate issues that were raised and we engaged the process constructively. I think, in the end, fundamental precepts of mayoral control are preserved in there. It reflects the fact that people don’t want to go back to an old dysfunctional way of doing business.

CH: Since the bill has passed, how as your job changed?

JK: My job is basically the same. I do think the bill requires that we implement certain processes, particularly the role of the Panel for Education Policy.

Contracts that we bring there, so on.

There are other issues concerning the role of the superintendants. I think these are not at the core of what the department does, but it does change our work in certain ways.

CH: Was it constructive to have so many officials calling for your removal?

JK: Overwhelmingly this thing passed. But there were a few people, and I’ve been in politics, both in Washington and here, for probably around 15 years. And it’s part of the process. Politics often become lively and personal. I’m pretty used to it. But I feel pretty good about the fact that we won the Senate by something like 5– or 6–1, won the same way in the Assembly.

That’s by any stretch of the imagination a very small minority. But I’d rather it not be about me.

CH: Are parent training centers a good idea?

JK: I hope so. We’ll partner with the City University, which I think is terrific. And training parents is always a positive step in terms of ensuring parental involvement in the school system. It seemed like a reasonable concern that was raised in Albany, and this addresses that.…I don’t think it undermines the mayor’s ability to make the tough decisions and do what’s right for the school system.

CH: There were eight senators who voted against the bill. Will there be any outreach to those dissenting legislators?

JK: We would prefer it to be unanimous.

When something like this, eight out of 62-

person Senate, it’s a very small percentage.

I’ve had a lot of discussions with those various people and I have some sense of what their concerns are. And of course we’ll continue to engage them. I happened to see Senator [Bill] Perkins, we were up in Harlem the other day for an event. I will continue to hear what their concerns are and try to address. That doesn’t mean we’ll always agree. That’s the nature of the enterprise. It’s never been personal.

People who have different views on the way to do it, those are their views. And you have to persuade them that our views make sense.

CH: But it does get personal when they target you for their criticisms and attacks.

JK: I always think that’s unfortunate. I think we should focus on issues, not on personalities. And in my experience, I don’t personalize it. I don’t think it’s constructive in the process. But this is New York. I like to say this is a noisy place. People have a lot of very strong views.

“Stress?

No stress.”

CH: Do you feel like you’ve been made into a scapegoat?

JK: I don’t want to comment on what motivates people.

CH: Looking back, was your decision to maintain a low profile during the run-up to the vote a wise move?

JK: I was up in Albany several different days, talking to senators and Assembly people. I talked to the governor about it.

CH: Even after the coup?

JK: I think I may have. In general, I think, not to make a media thing about it, just to engage the process and get the work done.

CH: The Senate voted to create a task force to look into the issue of

school governance, with the power to subpoena documents. What sort of effect will this have?

JK: Legislative oversight is always part of the process. They had that authority before. That’s the authority to hold hearings. They’ve held lots of hearings.

And the authority to subpoena. Those are all powers that they have. You’d have to ask them. This is not something we’re involved in. Hearings are a good thing.

My view is to not especially be focused or concerned with that.

CH: [The year] 2015 is the next reauthorization, which is a long ways down the road. What is on the agenda in the meantime?

JK: Building on our successes is important.… We’re consistently making progress at the highest levels across the state. Our five counties are at the top of the list. I think that’s going to require continuing to focus on accountability.

Continuing to develop our ARIS system … giving parents more information about their kids. Something else interesting is this ‘School of One’ thing. Very interesting. Basically, what we’re trying to do is design programs that focus on the individual students.… I expect we’ll try to make the use of technology more sophisticated. There’s a lot we can do that we haven’t done.

CH: What’s your take on the new UFT president, Michael Mulgrew?

JK: I got to know Mike pretty closely through the work we did on career technical. There was a commission we did a few years ago. I have a high regard for him. Obviously there will be times when we disagree, as is the case. I think the process will be good.

CH: Will he be able to fill Weingarten’s shoes?

JK: I sure hope so. Those are big shoes. I think we all benefit by having prominent, successful leaders here in New York. It’s fascinating. Virtually all the heads of the national union have at one time been UFT presidents. I think it speaks well of the fact that the city is a kind of hub of the education universe.

C