Crain's New York Business, December 18, 2023

CRAINSNEWYORK.COM I DECEMBER 18, 2023

New York’s ‘rogue little messed up’ pension fund The Board of Education Retirement System shepherds savings for 60,000 workers.

Critics say it’s the most poorly managed of the city’s five pension fiefdoms.

By Aaron Elstein Natalie Green Giles was an ethics consultant at Arthur Andersen when the accounting firm helped cover up fraud at Enron. She rebuilt her career as an education consultant and hoped to never encounter such venality again. And she didn’t, she says, until she was appointed by Mayor Bill de Blasio as one of 27 trustees to the Board of Education Retirement System.

BERS is the pension plan for nearly 60,000 public-school workers in New York, including substitute teachers, cafeteria workers, crossing guards and janitors. Almost three-quarters of members are women earning an average wage of $46,000, according to plan documents. It’s the smallest of the city’s pension funds, with $9 billion in member assets, but Green Giles discovered BERS’ administrative costs — $35 million a year — were $10 million higher than at the police pension fund, which is more than five times as large.

That was the first red flag.

“This is the pension fund for people with the least,” Green Giles, who left the board when de Blasio’s term ended in 2021, told See PENSION on Page 18 Natalie Green Giles in front of the Department of Education | BUCK ENNIS

Amazon aims to get back in New York’s good graces with big lobbying spending after Queens HQ fight

By Amanda Glodowski

Ahead of New York’s legislative session that begins next month, Amazon is splurging on lobbying.

The tech giant has spent an average of $67,000 per month during 2023, approximately twice the budget of Google, IBM or Microsoft according to a Crain’s analysis of New York state lobbying records. In all, Amazon has spent nearly $700,000 on lob-

bying state officials so far in 2023, according to records, which are current through October. However, that sum is a bucket drop for Amazon, representing just .0001% of its 2022 revenue, which exceeded $513 billion.

Julie Samuels, president of Tech:NYC, chalks up the exuberant spending to Amazon’s evolving relationship with the city, not-

BY THE NUMBERS

$67K

Amazon’s average 2023 monthly New York lobbying spending

ing that before 2019, when the firm nixed plans to establish a second headquarters in Queens, Amazon had taken a “hands-off ” approach to public engagement at the local level. Now, Samuels said, they are more “engaged and thoughtful.”

Indeed, records also show the firm meeting with dozens of public officials across the city and

state to discuss topics ranging from cloud computing and e-bike pilots to procurement for the ongoing celebration of the 50th Anniversary of Hip Hop. The filings from the New York State Commission on Ethics and Lobbying in Government also point to a slew of bills on the upcoming legislative agenda that could threaten Amazon’s revenue.

See AMAZON on Page 22

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One of the city’s ‘worst landlords’ owns the Bronx building that partially collapsed this month.

BUSINESS BACKLASH: Effort to change street vendor rules sparks pushback.

POWER BREAKFAST REBNY president not optimistic on housing boost in city in 2024.

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REBNY’s president not very optimistic that Albany can boost housing development in the city next year At a Crain’s Power Breakfast on Dec. 5, James Whelan voiced frustration that the state Legislature has not offered the real estate industry much support on the housing front

By Mario Marroquin

James Whelan, president of real estate trade group the Real Estate Board of New York, says that when it comes to housing creation in the city, 2024 could mimic 2023.

During a Crain’s New York Business Power Breakfast on Dec. 5, Whelan voiced some frustration with the state Legislature and said he is not very optimistic that Albany can bolster housing development in the city in the upcoming legislative session.

He noted that the state Legislature opted not to put in place a re-

421-a program accounted for 70% of the rental housing production in New York City,” he said. He noted that the governor had come up with a replacement, 485-w, which had failed to gain traction with state lawmakers.

Hits ‘good cause’ eviction State legislators have been slow to react to the pressing need for new housing in the city, Whelan said, despite Hochul proposing several development assistance programs in the past year. Moreover, Whelan said that the Legislature’s push for “good cause” eviction legislation, which would cap annual rent increases and bar landlords from evicting tenants without pointing to a specific, permissible reason, will only worsen conditions for renters and landlords, and could increase homelessness as a result. The rule, he said, could lead to families who already are having a hard time paying rent ending up on the street with few

State legislators have been slow to react to the pressing need for new housing in the city, Whelan said. placement program for the 421-a tax abatement, meant to entice developers to create affordable housing. “To put that in perspective, over the prior 10 years, the

ways to get back into housing, as the rule could deter the production of residential units.

The governor put forth a number of incentive programs to bolster office-to-residential conversions, among other proposals, but those initiatives have stalled in the state Assembly and Senate, he said.

Whelan said that although he expects the local real estate industry to be challenged for a while, he expects the Fed to start cutting rates next year, which will be a relief for those trying to refinance their buildings.

A recent report from REBNY found that despite Mayor Eric Adams calling for the development of 50,000 units every year to address the housing crisis, developers have been much less eager to break ground. REBNY found that new building foundation filings, which provide an indicator about the pace of new construction, accounted for only 6,542 new units from January to August.

“Two-thirds of the housing stock [in the city] is rental housing, and we have been underperform-

James Whelan at a Crain’s New York Business Power Breakfast, held Dec. 5. | BUCK ENNIS

ing in production for some time.”

Whelan said. “It’s really going to come down to what the state Legislature wants to do.”

A few other takeaways from the conversation: ◗ Monthly office visitation rates reached 70% of pre-pandemic levels in October, according to data based on cellphone usage compiled by Placer.ai, which REBNY is

working with to provide such stats.

◗ Whelan says there are some offi-

cials in the suburbs who are willing to work with the state Legislature to create more housing. ◗ Whelan, who worked in the Bloomberg administration with Dan Doctoroff, deputy mayor for economic development, said he would consider working for the city again.

Most of insurers’ mental health providers are ‘ghosts,’ AG says

By Amanda D’Ambrosio

Among mental health providers listed in New York health plan directories, 86% did not take in-network patients — exposing sparse access to mental health and substance use services across the state, a new report shows.

Attorney General Letitia James’ office released a report Dec. 7 showing that only 14% of health plans’ listed behavioral health clinicians accepted appointments for in-network services. The rest were “ghosts,” meaning that they were either out-of-network, unable to take new patients or unreachable entirely.

The results come from a survey of 13 health plans across New York state, including Aetna, Cigna, UnitedHealthcare and Empire BlueCross BlueShield.

“By not maintaining accurate directories as required by law, health plans are making it harder for New Yorkers, especially the most vulnerable among us, to get mental health care,” James said in a statement. “I am calling on health plans to rapidly address this problem and help us tackle the mental health care crisis.”

One in five adults in New York lives with a mental illness, according to the report. But despite a high need for care, access remains patchy. Last year, 29% of New Yorkers with anxiety or depression reported an unmet need for counseling or therapy. There are even fewer services for youth.

The attorney general held hearings within the last year to further investigate mental health care access in New York state, and testimony from more than 100 patients and providers revealed a “broken system,” the office said. Parents reported months of searching for psychiatrists to provide care to their children and providers called attention to low reimbursement rates that have forced them to stop accepting certain commercial insurance plans.

Health plans in New York are required by law to keep up-to-date provider directories, including information about whether or not a provider is accepting new patients.

Law also requires insurers to make sure that their network of providers is robust enough to meet demands for care.

The attorney general’s office conducted a secret shopper survey

HAPPY HOLIDAYS Crain’s New York Business wishes you a peaceful and relaxing holiday season.

Please visit CrainsNewYork.com for news updates; we’ll be back in print Jan. 8.

to explore whether health plan directories offered patients reliable access to mental health care. Researchers called nearly 400 providers, including psychiatrists, psychologists, nurse practitioners, licensed mental health counselors and social workers, all of which were listed in health plan directories as accepting new patients.

Payment rate issue New York Attorney General Letitia James | BLOOMBERG

Across all health plans, just 56 providers offered an appointment, the researchers found. The percentage of ghost providers varied across health plans. Cigna had the lowest rate of ghost providers at 35%. All of the provider listings in MVP’s network were ghost providers, the report found.

Eric Linzer, president and chief executive of the New York Health Plan Association, which represents insurers across the state, said that “health plans are acutely aware of the behavioral health crisis that both children and adults are facing,” as well as the chronic shortage of mental health workers.

“The challenge here is that the delivery system is currently having real challenges to meet behavioral health demands,” Linzer told Crain’s. “The focus should be on ways to increase the number of available providers,” and not placing the responsibility on just one

segment of the health care system, he added.

But behavioral health providers say poor access is driven by more than just a shortage of available providers — it’s linked to inadequate rates paid by commercial insurers for behavioral health services.

Lauri Cole, executive director of the New York State Council for Community Behavioral Healthcare, said that commercial insurance often pays providers a fraction of what Medicaid pays for behavioral health care because the state dictates Medicaid rates.

The result is that some providers have to cut back on the number of patients with commercial insurance they accept or hire fewer providers to keep their doors open.

“If New York is wondering why we continue to have an abundance of overdose in our communities, or why children are sitting in emer-

gency departments not being able to find community-based care upon discharge, this is one of the primary reasons,” Cole said.

The attorney general recommended that state regulators conduct frequent audits of health plan directories, mandate wait time standards to ensure timely access to care and upscale enforcement for health plans that violate directory requirements.

The findings come as the state prepares to propose new regulations around network adequacy to ensure that health plans can provide enough services to meet demand. The Department of Financial Services, Department of Health, Office of Mental Health and the Office of Addiction Services and Supports are required to propose new network adequacy regulations for mental health and substance use services by the end of this year.

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1915 Billingsley Terrace, Morris Heights | GETTY IMAGES

One of city’s ‘worst landlords’ owns collapsed building Jay Zanger, on the public advocate’s list of bad city landlords, owns the 46-apartment prewar structure in Morris Heights

By C. J. Hughes

The Bronx building that partially collapsed Dec. 11 is owned by one of the city’s “worst landlords” and had cracked bricks and windowsills for years, according to a review of public data.

The landlord of the 6-story, 46-apartment prewar structure at 1915 Billingsley Terrace in Morris Heights is Jay Zanger, according to Department of Buildings records. He ranks 50th on the public advocate’s worst landlords list for 2023; over the past year, Zanger had an average of 623 open Housing and Preservation Development violations at four buildings, all of them in the Bronx, though No. 1915 was not among them. He also was on the worst-landlords list last year, ranking 81st with an average total of 471 HPD Department violations at his buildings, though just 1 more-serious Department of Buildings violations.

No. 1915, which had to vacate more than 150 people after one of its corners disintegrated into a pile of rubble, though only a few minor injuries were reported, didn’t make the list of Zanger’s worst addresses. But a few other Bronx buildings did, such as 1267 Sheridan Ave. in Mt. Eden, 3905 Carpenter Ave. in Bronxwood and 2414 E. Tremont Ave. in East

Tremont. cracked windowsills and a bowed section of Still, 1915 Billingsley, which also faces West the roof’s parapet. Because of them, the inBurnside Avenue, has racked up a list of viola- spector declared the building unsafe. tions since a shell company tied to Zanger A year later, however, No. 1915 still had isbought it in 2004 for $3 million. sues. “The outbreak of Covid-19 delayed the Most relevant to the Dec. 11 catastrophe, start on the repairs,” but “a sidewalk shed is perhaps, were problems discovered in the present,” the report said, adding “the condibuilding’s most recent inspection for Local tions observed in 2020 have not changed.”

Law 11, which mandates periodic checks of The collapse, though, could have had difthe facades of tall ferent causes. And structures. some repairs did In 2014 a Local seem to be underLaw 11 inspector way at the building. noted that, although Still, even the sidethe 1927 building walk shed would bewas not hazardous, it come compromised. still appeared deteriIn November offiorated and should cials slapped a be repaired. But — DOB Commissioner James Oddo on X (formerly Twitter) $2,400 fine on the when the next visit building after disrolled around in winter 2020, an inspector covering broken wooden supports under the noted that those repairs never seem to have shed’s columns. happened, and No. 1915 was in worse shape, Structural damage has not been the only with “significant masonry damage through- problem facing No. 1915. It has also racked up out the facade,” DOB records show. violations through the years for having illegal single-room-occupancy-style apartments in its basement — as many as five at one point, Some repairs seemed underway according to complaints — and those units The 2020 report went on to list a half-dozen were using illegal electrical hookups at times, specific problems, including cracked bricks, records show. Elevator breakdowns were also

“Awful situation & much work to do to figure out what happened & how to prevent future similar events.”

common.

Of the dozens of complaints that have poured in over the years, one from 2015 stands out in retrospect. “The building is highly unstable,” said a caller to 311. “You can hear it cracking and deteriorating from the inside.” But no cracks were discovered in an official followup visit.

Probe continuing Fire officials said they first learned of the building’s collapse around 3:30 p.m. on Dec. 11. The corner of the building seemed to peel away, exposing apartment interiors and sending a shower of bricks onto a deli in one of No. 1915’s handful of retail spaces along West Burnside.

By 10 p.m., after digging through the rubble with the help of a search dog, investigators determined there were no bodies buried under it. But two minor injuries, incurred during the building’s evacuation, were reported.

The investigation continues. “Awful situation & much work to do to figure out what happened & how to prevent future similar events,” wrote DOB commissioner James Oddo on X (formerly Twitter) Dec. 11. Some of the displaced tenants, meanwhile, are sheltering at a nearby school.

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WHO OWNS THE BLOCK

295 WILLOUGHBY AVE.

Church sites make ripe targets as developers flock to Bedford-Stuyvesant Watermark Capital Group is the latest major real estate firm to pick up a site on Willoughby Avenue

A

row of religious buildings in Bedford-Stuyvesant continues to draw developers, as churches remain challenged by dwindling congregations and steep maintenance costs — and as their ample air rights give off a tantalizing aura.

The most recent arrival to Willoughby Avenue is Watermark Capital Group, a Brooklyn firm that has capitalized on church sites before. In November, Watermark closed on the $12.3 million purchase of St. Lucy’s-St. Patrick’s, a block-long multi-building site between Kent Avenue and Taaffe Place, and the developer recently set up scaffolding around the Catholic prewar site as it waits for approvals to demolish it.

Precisely what will rise next on the parcel, which comes with air rights, remains unclear. Watermark has not yet filed specific plans with the Department of Buildings.

But a look at what has already transpired on the street, and how Watermark has handled similar projects, might offer a glimpse.

Two blocks away, a team led by Quinlan Development Group recently razed a pair of buildings on the campus of St. Mary’s Episcopal Church to make way for a new 17-story high-rise that towers over much of the area. The air rights at St. Mary’s — the unused development envelope between a building’s roof and the highest point permitted by zoning that is particularly common over low-slung churches — benefited Quinlan, as did the absence of historic protections for all but St. Mary’s itself.

Watermark might know the playbook. About a decade ago, it leased a two-story slope-roofed property at 321 Wythe Ave. in Williamsburg, part of the Saints Peter and Paul Church campus, then tore it down to build a 19-story, 130-unit tower that opened in 2019.

The investment in Bedford-Stuyvesant is sure to raise concerns about gentrification. The area’s median rent has doubled in the past 15 years, from $1,000 a month to $1,900, according to New York University’s Furman Center.

And 30% of its renters are currently considered “severely” rent-burdened, in that more than half their income goes toward housing costs, though that percentage is largely in line with the city as a whole, Furman said.

In addition, advocates for historic buildings may regret that officials never secured landmark status for the structures, among the oldest in this part of Brooklyn.

The churches may be breathing sighs of relief that financial help has arrived. And Wolfe Landau, a Watermark founding partner, had no comment.

But Landau seems bullish on the neighborhood’s future even as he’s removing a bit of its past. “Purchasing properties only in neighborhoods that he intuited had potential for positive cash flow” has been the essence of his strategy, according to Watermark’s website.

273 WILLOUGHBY AVE. The historic buildings peeking over a beguiling brick wall at this block-long site are yet another vestige of the ecclesiastical bent of the street. The Convent of the Sisters of Mercy, whose nuns took in homeless children starting in 1862 when the area was an Irish enclave before re-focusing in 1976 on those needing care for developmental challenges, occupied this site until millions of dollars in neglected building repairs forced the convent to wind down operations in 2008. At the time, some feared development. The deep non-landmarked site, which also contains a large parking lot and gardens, spans almost two acres, and that’s not including air rights. But demolitions never came to pass.

Today, a related social-services group, Mercy Home for Children, has its offices there while also offering after-school programs.

230 CLASSON AVE.

295 WILLOUGHBY AVE. The deep-red-brick church on this site opened in 1856 as St. Patrick’s, while its next-door rectory, at No. 285, came along in 1875, according to the Brooklyn news site Brownstoner.com. In the 1970s, with attendance dipping, St. Patrick’s merged with St. Lucy’s, then based at 802 Kent Ave. Along the way, the parish swung from Irish to Puerto Rican to Mexican, according to historical accounts. Bedford-Stuyvesant continues to be ethnically mixed: it’s about 40% Black, 33% white and 17% Hispanic, according to census figures compiled by the Furman Center. In November, residential developer Watermark Capital Group bought Nos. 295 and 285 and now wants to demolish them; a luxury tower is expected. (Two buildings behind the church, which look like they were once Catholic schools but contain low-income housing, were not included in the deal.) And the church’s parishioners have merged yet again. They now worship at Mary of Nazareth at 32 Clermont Ave. near the Brooklyn Navy Yard.

Rural until settled in the mid-19th century by laborers from the nearby Navy Yard, Willoughby in 1859 welcomed St. Mary’s Episcopal Church, a structure made of mottled New Jersey brownstone from a protégé of architect James Renwick Jr. in the style of the medieval English countryside, according to a Landmarks Preservation Commission report. Lawns blanketed its leafy campus, which grew to include three buildings, although only the lancet-windowed church ever became a landmark. In 2017, Quinlan Development Group, an Upper West Side firm once credited with reviving Columbus Avenue, leased a portion of the property for $7.2 million. Quinlan and partner Rivington Company then razed the site’s Second-Empire-style rectory as well as a set-back parish house to make way for Parish House, a 17-story, 141-unit tower developed with $36 million from CIT Bank that opened this year. Market-rate one-bedrooms at Parish House, which also has affordable housing, start at around $3,800 a month. Some of the green space lives on in the form of a private park for tenants.

296 WILLOUGHBY AVE. This four-story, eight-unit mixed-use building may have seen better days: a sidewalk-level deli that closed pre-pandemic has still not been replaced. (But the removal of the deli’s sign has revealed a grace note, the word “sandwiches” in a blocky Mid-Century font, suggesting the onetime presence of a 1940s-style lunch counter.) Through a tax lien sale in 2022, longtime owners the Ortega family sold the corner site to Brooklyn investor Shulem Herman for $2.4 million, according to the city register. Other Herman holdings include a Fairfield Inn by Marriott turned homeless shelter near Newtown Creek in Long Island City at 5234 Van Dam St., which he purchased for $36.5 million in 2018. In early 2020, Herman was in contract to buy 417 Suydam St. in Bushwick and 818 Woodward Ave. in Ridgewood for $6.1 million but backed out of the closing after Covid hit, according to court documents. Herman tried to sue to get his deposit back but lost his case on appeal in January.

288 WILLOUGHBY AVE.

274 WILLOUGHBY AVE. This structure, known as the Bommer Building, was a factory that churned out hinges during World War II and handbags in later years. But it had become vacant and an eyesore by the 1980s, according to news reports from the time. In 1992, Vanguard Construction snapped up the site for $750,000 in a foreclosure sale and redeveloped the six-story, block-long site, which sits atop a tunnel for the G subway line, as a condo. Most of the 94 units at the elevator building, which also uses the address 251 Classon Ave., have three bedrooms, records show. One of those three-bedrooms sold in February for $365,000

284 WILLOUGHBY AVE. Resembling much of the stock of this part of Brooklyn, No. 284 is a four-story brick Italianate apartment building with a modest store, Jay’s Family Deli Grocery, at its base. Its deed has changed hands only three times since the 1960s and not since 1997; a Williamsburg-based limited liability company controls the site today. The seven apartments upstairs, which are reachable from Taaffe Place, are often marketed to students at the private college Pratt Institute, whose main campus is in next-door Clinton Hill.

Founded in 1887 by oil tycoon Charles Pratt on land near his home, it is probably best known today for its architecture program. The most recent unit to lease at No. 284, a four-bedroom with exposed brick walls, was marketed in summer 2022 at about $4,000 a month.

For years, this narrow 27-foot wide site was a vacant lot, a break in the streetscape like a broken tooth in a smile. Some kind of residential building was once there: in June 1974, the address was identified in a New York Times report as the home of John Smith, who was accused of killing an off-duty police officer in Middle Village, Queens, in an attempted robbery gone awry. When and how that building disappeared is unclear. But neighborhoods considered rough-edged in the 1970s and 1980s, as Bedford-Stuyvesant was (Billy Joel sang of being “crazy” to have “walked through Bedford-Stuy alone”), often saw buildings fall prey to arson or general neglect. Still, the site appears to have been a hot commodity, trading a dozen times in 50 years, the city register shows.

In 2018, Jacob Friedman sold No. 288 for $1.9 million to Jerome Weinberger, who developed a six-story, 12-unit rental that opened last year, at a time of fresh interest in the area. Hanover Community Bank provided $4.2 million for the project, whose studios and one-bedrooms were initially listed for prices starting at $2,600 a month.

BUCK ENNIS, GOOGLE MAPS

By C. J. Hughes

4 | CRAIN’S NEW YORK BUSINESS | December 18, 2023

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Four in 10 full-time mental health positions at the city health department remain vacant, records show Of the more than 430 budgeted full-time positions dedicated to mental health services within the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, the city filled just 258 for fiscal year 2024–leaving 40% of full-time mental health roles vacant, according to data obtained by Crain’s through a Freedom of Information request.

The vacancy rate for substance use disorder positions at DOHMH was lower than for mental health, totaling 10% for the 2024 fiscal year. The health department budgeted for 94 roles dedicated to alcohol and drug prevention and treatment, 85 of which the agency has filled.

“Vacancies — particularly for certain positions — are a chal-

unfilled or how DOHMH is aiming to recruit and retain behavioral health workers.

Vacancies in the health department’s mental health and substance use divisions have widened as the city battles converging crises of mental illness and rising overdose deaths.

Behavioral health workforce challenges are not unique to city agencies, as nonprofits and hospitals also report challenges recruiting and retaining mental health providers.

Experts say the glimpse into vacancies at the government level provides insight into behavioral health workforce challenges that are much wider in scope.

“It’s just the tip of the iceberg,” said John Coppola, executive director of the New York Association of Alcoholism and Substance Abuse Providers. “What does it mean, frankly, when we have such an absence of personnel?”

Gaps in the number of mental health service workers coincide with rising rates of distress among New Yorkers. A new data brief from the DOHMH estimates that 858,000 adults in the city experienced serious psychological distress in 2022 alone, up from 7% in 2017. Anecdotally, providers say the need for care, including programs for those with serious mental illness, is high.

Fatal overdoses have also reached an all-time high, with more than 3,000 New Yorkers dying of a drug overdose in 2022, the most recent year in which data is available.

As mental illness became more

Experts say the glimpse into vacancies at the government level provides insight into behavioral health workforce challenges that are much wider in scope. lenge to every agency and organization that provides services throughout the country,” said Patrick Gallahue, a spokesman for the city health department, noting that many of the open positions are for social workers.

Gallahue did not answer questions about the number of vacant social worker positions, what types of other positions remain

prevalent during the pandemic, the number of personnel dedicated to solving these challenges has fluctuated. The vacancy rate for full-time mental health services roles hovered around 29% during the 2020 fiscal year, but peaked in 2022 at 49%. The vacancy rate peaked as DOHMH added more mental health positions, with the budgeted number rising to nearly 500 total roles in 2022.

Gaps in hiring The vacancy rate — and the number of positions budgeted — has declined since then, but the health department still faces wide gaps in hiring the number of behavioral health roles it has budgeted for.

Behavioral health experts say that the absence of a robust workforce has made it difficult for government and nonprofit providers to meet the demands of the mental health and substance use crises. Payment rates for behavioral health providers remain low, and workers depend on cost-of-living adjustments to sustain a livable wage, said Amy Dorin, president and CEO of the Coalition for Behavioral Health.

Dorin said that reimbursement rates have remained flat, making it difficult to recruit social workers and other clinicians to provide care.

“We have people that have left to go work at Home Depot or McDonald’s, because they can make just as much,” she said. “We have to think beyond social work. Because we’re never going to have enough social workers to provide care.”

Despite the persistence of vacant roles, Gallahue said that the city has still expanded mental health and

GETTY IMAGES

By Amanda D’Ambrosio and Jacqueline Neber

substance use services. The health department has expanded the capacity of the city’s intensive mobile treatment teams — which offer intensive support to people with mental illnesses who have experienced homelessness or incarceration — by 540 people, Gallahue said, adding that teams have the capacity to treat 837 individuals citywide. Gallahue also said the city has added more than 1,700 supportive housing units, increased clubhouse capacity, community spaces where people can go for support, and reduced the response time of mobile crisis response teams.

There have also been several harm reduction efforts to address the overdose crisis, Gallahue said.

The city has distributed more than 200,000 naloxone kits to overdose prevention programs and the community, and has launched public health vending machines where people can access fentanyl test trips and other harm reduction tools.

Outside of this progress, gaps in

the workforce pose barriers to the continued expansion of mental health services in a time when need is dire. Rachael Fauss, senior policy adviser at the government watchdog organization Reinvent Albany, said that recruitment and hiring could become even more strapped up against the city’s proposed across-the-board-budget cuts, noting that using attrition to save on labor costs is “bad policy and management that results in worse service delivery for New Yorkers.”

Coppola said that the city’s investments in workforce are juxtaposed with the gravity of mental health and substance use crises.

“The commitment that the city is making to staffing mental health and addiction . . . is a relatively small part of a very big bureaucracy,” Coppola said. “If we don’t have those vacancies filled, if it’s not a priority, if we’re not paying people enough to keep them — it just doesn’t bode well for the rest of the system.”

Debt-ridden Princeton Club in Midtown sells for $8 million

By C. J. Hughes

A Midtown hub for hobnobbing may be no more.

A buyer has completed the purchase of the Princeton Club of New York for $8 million, records show.

A court order forced the sale of the Ivy League membership club to make it whole after it defaulted on a $39.3 million loan. The buyer of the club’s debt, a shell company with the name 15 West 43rd Street LLC, as in the club’s address, now also controls its real estate, a 9-story, 63,900-square-foot building with 58 guest rooms.

The foreclosure auction that led to the sale took place Sept. 6 outside Manhattan’s Supreme Court.

The deal closed Nov. 21, and the deed appeared in the city register Dec. 1.

The pandemic seems to have battered the club, which was open for a few months in 2021 but other-

wise remained shuttered during the Covid crisis. Starting in spring 2020, the organization began missing loan payments to original lender Sterling National Bank and went into default the following year.

Membership drop In November 2021 Sterling auctioned off the debt, at the same time the club laid off its staff of about 100. A reported interested bidder at the time was former Google CEO and former Princeton trustee Eric Schmidt, though the idea apparently did not come to fruition, as Schmidt is not connected with the property today, according to a spokeswoman with his family foundation.

The winning bidder, the LLC, sued to recover its funds in June 2022. In March of this year, a judge ruled that the club needed to sell its longtime home on West 43rd to

help pay down its debt.

Yet the club, which features two restaurants, a pair of squash courts and a gym, seemed to have trouble filling its rooms even before the pandemic. Built in 1962 to accommodate 12,000 members, the building, which sports Princeton’s orange-and-black shield-andchevron crest on its facade, apparently had about a quarter of that amount at the time of its closing.

One problem was that Ivy League sibling Columbia University, which for years leased space at 15 W. 43rd St. for its own club for graduates, reportedly took thousands of members with it when it relocated a few years ago to a new berth at the University of Pennsylvania club on West 44th Street.

Unlike similar organizations such as the Yale Club on nearby Vanderbilt Avenue, the Princeton Club did not enjoy financial support from its namesake school. It

The Princeton Club of New York, 15 W. 43rd St., in 2021 | CHANDLER LLC

did, however, appear to make out nicely with a $12.8 million sale of air rights in 2007 to developer RFR Holding for a project around the corner at 520 Fifth Ave. Rabina Properties is now developing a 76-story mixed-use tower on that site.

After incorporating in 1899, New York’s Princeton Club operated out of a mansion on East 34th

Street and Park Avenue before relocating to the former home of architect Stanford White and an adjacent building at Lexington Avenue and East 21st Street, sites later razed to make way for the Gramercy Park Hotel, according to a club history. It then moved to Park and East 39th Street, where it stayed for decades before relocating to its West 43rd Street home.

December 18, 2023 | CRAIN’S NEW YORK BUSINESS | 5

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ON POLITICS

Democratic U.S. House primary in Westchester could be the most contentious in the country County Executive George Latimer has launched his campaign against outspoken leftist U.S. Rep Jamaal Bowman. Latimer’s bid, expected to be heavily financed by pro-Israel groups, will be the strongest challenge yet that the Squad has faced in Congress.

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ext year, New York will play Capitol in September before a cruhost to what might be the cial vote, but his tenure has been most contentious House largely scandal-free. He is not accused of corruption or harassing primary in America.

Democrat George Latimer, the staff. Unlike Engel, he very much Westchester county executive, has lives in his district, and he’s not launched his primary bid against known to have lax constituent serJamaal Bowman, the outspoken vices. leftist congressman. Latimer’s bid, expected to be heavily financed by What usually fails the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and other pro-Israel But Bowman operates to the left groups, is the strongest challenge of a district that is now almost fully yet the Squad has faced in Con- in Westchester, after redistricting gress. last year. (Another redisIf Bowman beats back tricting ruling on the curLatimer on April 2, it will rent lines could have be a major victory for the them ultimately redrawn Democrats aligned with again, this time by the Alexandria Ocasio-Corstate Legislature, in the tez, a statement made next few months.) When against the more conserBowman defeated Engel, vative interests who have the old 16th District inbeen trying to cripple cluded a large chunk of them in the House.

Ross Barkan the north Bronx that And if Bowman loses, proved to be friendly terriit will be a significant settory. As of now, most of it back for the left in Washington, is gone. and revenge for Eliot Engel, the Democratic primaries waged longtime congressman and Israel from the right of the incumbent hawk who Bowman soundly de- are rare and usually fail. Most vicfeated in the 2020 primary. tories, like AOC’s in 2018 and Unlike most primaries, Latimer Bowman’s own in 2020, come v. Bowman is a genuine toss-up when more left-wing Democrats that doesn’t necessarily reflect the galvanize a base of voters to drive incumbent’s weakness. Bowman, out a more moderate incumbent. a former middle school principal, Latimer is well-positioned to drew tough headlines for inten- scramble that dynamic. Wealthy, tionally pulling a fire alarm in the politically engaged Democrats in

towns like Scarsdale, Harrison and Mamaroneck are very likely to choose Latimer, who was first elected county executive in 2017 and enjoyed a long career in the state Legislature, over Bowman.

Bowman, meanwhile, is poised to run strongest with working and middle-class Black and Latino voters in Yonkers and Mount Vernon.

Latimer, too, is ready to turn as many Jewish Westchester voters as possible against Bowman. Ironically, Bowman caught heat from Democratic Socialists in 2021 after supporting funding for Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system — some in DSA wanted him expelled — but he has, on the whole, not been an Israel hawk, calling for a ceasefire in the war in Gaza and speaking forcefully about the rights of Palestinians.

AIPAC and its affiliated group, Democratic Majority for Israel, have found success blasting leftist candidates in House primaries over the last few years. DMFI was instrumental in blocking Nina Turner, a top Bernie Sanders ally, in her failed bids against Shontel Brown in Ohio. The playbook will probably be similar against Bowman: spend enormous sums of money to make him seem as alienating as possible to a wide swath of Democrats.

Will it work? If anyone can do it,

George Latimer (left) and Jamaal Bowman | WIKIPEDIA

it’s Latimer, who has been winning state and local elections in Westchester since the late 1980s. On most issues, he’s been a reliable liberal, and he’s never had to discuss foreign affairs before. Now he’s visited Israel and is ready to campaign, like Engel before him, as an unreconstructed hawk on the issue.

Bowman, though, will have his own progressive infrastructure behind him. The Working Families Party and its attendant groups will aggressively support him, as will various national donors. In what will be an incredibly high-profile primary, Bowman won’t struggle for funds, and Ocasio-Cortez will use her formidable fundraising list to assist him. Sanders will as well.

It’ll be a fight like few others

anywhere.

Quick takes ◗ A Quinnipiac University poll now

shows Mayor Eric Adams is the most unpopular mayor in modern history. Can he recover and win re-election? It’s plausible, but will depend on who the federal government indicts — and if they indict anyone at all. ◗ It used to be that a mayor had to worry about responding to snowstorms. But snow hasn’t accumulated a single inch in the city in almost two years, the longest streak in history. Perhaps Adams will have his first storm to contend with this winter.

Ross Barkan is a journalist and author in New York City.

Congressman accused of skipping rent at Tribeca pad

By C. J. Hughes

about the case are a bit scarce.

But Jason Gilbert, the owner of Rep. Dan Goldman is allegedly apartment No. 4A with his wife, on the hook for hundreds of thou- Natasha, claims Goldman and wife sands in unpaid rent for a Tribeca Corinne Goldman owe him apartment, according to a new $180,000 in unpaid rent for the August-to-November period, the filcourt document.

The congressman, who rep- ing says. In addition, Gilbert is deresents Lower Manhattan and manding Goldman fork over an brownstone Brooklyn in the House additional $360,000 to cover the of Representatives, allegedly has remainder of the broken lease, not paid rent since August for a which runs till the end of July.

For his part, Goldman is strongly five-bedroom apartment he was subletting at the condo 157 Hud- denying the accusations.

“These allegations are baseless,” son St., according to the docusaid spokesman Simone Kanter in a statement.

“The congressman has always paid his rent on time and in full.”

An heir to the Levi Strauss & Co. fortune who is considered one of the wealthiest members — Goldman spokesman Simone Kanter, in a statement of the House, Goldman, an attorney, does not apment, which was filed Dec. 5 in pear to still live in the apartment.

The address given for him in the Manhattan’s Supreme Court.

Because the filing is only a sum- filing is a sublet in nearby Battery mons and not the kind of fleshed- Park City. In fact, it’s not clear if out complaint that usually accom- Goldman ever even moved into panies a formal lawsuit, details No. 4A, which, according to Street-

“These allegations are baseless. The congressman has always paid his rent on time and in full.”

Easy, has been continuously marketed since the time he supposedly relocated there. Kanter declined further comment.

Apartment also for sale In 2012 the Gilberts paid $4.7 million for No. 4A, a 3,800-squarefoot unit with a wraparound terrace in a prewar former stable for the American Express (from back when AmEx was a delivery company), according to the city register.

The $45,000-a-month apartment, which is in a building that also goes by the address 60 Collister St., is not only currently for lease; it’s also simultaneously on the market as a sale property, for $14 million.

It’s not the first instance of a legal dust-up involving the apartment. In August Compass agent Eric Brown sued the Gilberts for allegedly breaking a promise to let him sell it. Brown, who handled the subletting of No. 4A for years, did it with the understanding that the Gilberts would eventually award him the for-sale listing when they decided to unload the property, Brown said in court papers.

The owner of a Tribeca condo sublet to Rep. Dan Goldman claims he owes $540,000. | ASSOCIATED PRESS/SUMAIDA KHURANA

But when it did come time to market the unit for sale, the Gilberts instead went with a different broker, from the firm Bespoke Real Estate, which potentially deprived Brown of a more than $800,000 broker’s fee, Brown’s suit claimed.

The two sides appear to have settled the case in September. Brown had no comment.

After serving as the lead counsel in former President Donald Trump’s first impeachment trial in

2019, Goldman emerged victorious in a close primary in 2022 and later cruised to a win to represent New York’s 10th congressional district. His district covers Brooklyn Heights, Park Slope and the Financial District.

Gilbert lawyer Bradley Pollina did not return a call or email, and the Gilberts, who now live in Hawaii, according to court documents, could not be located by press time.

6 | CRAIN’S NEW YORK BUSINESS | DECEMBER 18, 2023

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Crain's New York Business is looking to recognize influential women and workplaces that are inspiring change in New York City.

Nominate by January 12 CrainsNewYork.com/WomenOfInfluence

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EDITORIAL

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ew York’s Board of Education Retirement System is an emblem of oversight failure and a stark illustration of the urgent need for reform in our city’s pension administration.

BERS, which is responsible for the pensions of 60,000 current and retired school workers, stands out not for its size but for its staggering inefficiency. As senior reporter Aaron Elstein writes in this week’s cover story, BERS’ administrative costs are $35 mil-

The city’s pension system was designed to serve its workers, not to become a quagmire of waste and corruption. lion a year. That’s $10 million higher than the police pension fund, which is more than five times as large.

What’s more, BERS leadership actions seem less about stewardship and more about self-enrichment. In 2018 BERS Depu-

ty Executive Director Daniel Miller asked for a $28,000 raise to $255,000 — more than the mayor’s salary at the time. He lied about having another offer from a fund in Ohio, according to a subsequent investigation. BERS Executive Director Sanford Rich approved the hefty raise and then, according to a report from the plan’s inspector general, sought his own so he would be paid more than Miller. Both men still have their jobs today.

However, BERS is merely one symptom of a broader malaise affecting the city’s pension system. Taxpayers are footing an ever-increasing bill — nearly $10 billion last fiscal year — for a service that is less about securing retirements and more about sustaining bureaucracies and outdated practices. With Mayor Eric Adams proposing budget cuts to many essential city services, it’s time to question why pension costs remain untouched.

The revelations of misconduct within BERS signal a deep-rooted culture of impunity. Yet, despite this, the Department of Financial Services’ lax regulatory oversight has allowed BERS to fester without a completed

audit for almost a decade.

Clearly, the time for half-measures is over. We propose the following reforms: Consolidated oversight: A single, streamlined body should oversee all pension five funds to eliminate redundancy, reduce costs and increase efficiency.

Increased transparency: Regular and comprehensive audits must be mandated, with results made public.

Leadership accountability: Executive compensation must be tied to performance and subject to stringent board review. Any malfeasance should be met with immediate sanctions.

Diverse expertise on pension boards: Boards should include members with financial expertise, rather than political appointees without relevant experience.

Member education: Pension members should be educated about their funds’ health and the investment decisions being made on their behalf.

Regulatory muscle: The DFS needs to be empowered to sanction or remove board

BUCK ENNIS

‘Rogue’ fund illustrates the urgent need to reform city’s pension administration

members when necessary.

The complacency that has allowed for the “rogue little messed up fund,” in the words of City Comptroller Brad Lander, is unacceptable. The city’s pension system was designed to serve its workers — the backbone of our city — not to become a quagmire of waste and corruption. For the sake of every New Yorker relying on these pensions for their future, sweeping reform can’t wait.

PERSONAL VIEW

New York’s AI rules for city agencies provide a blueprint for the private sector and will help shape national policy

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ayor Eric Adams’ announcement in the subways and translate the mayor’s of his administration’s compre- voice in different languages.

The city government can also use AI to hensive “New York City Artificial Intelligence Action Plan” in October has help prevent public health outbreaks, set the AI ethics bar for all organizations maintain the city’s cyber resilience, detect criminal activity, make and businesses operatemployment decisions ing in the five boroughs. and empower students While the White in the classroom.

House, Congress and Just as importantly, other federal agencies Fraser and his team are offer guidelines and guiding the city’s strateconsider legislation, the gy for responsible AI use mayor’s AI action plan in city government. positions New York as a The regulation plan leader in AI regulation.

Given the slew of AI ini- Niranjan Ramsunder is the chief — touted by the city as the first of its kind for a tiatives undertaken un- technology officer and head of major U.S. city — will der the direction of Matt data services for UST, a digital develop a framework for Fraser, the city’s chief technology and IT services city agencies to carefully technology officer, with company based in Aliso Viejo, evaluate AI tools and asthe Office of Technology Calif. Adnan Masood is UST’s sociated risks, help city & Innovation, New York chief AI architect. government employees has a chance to lead by example — that is, to show how AI can be build AI knowledge and skills, and supbeneficial and work within ethical guard- port the responsible implementation of these technologies to improve the quality rails.

Tasked with unifying and overseeing the of life for New Yorkers.

This AI action plan also provides a bluecity’s technology initiatives, Fraser has led the development of AI-driven applica- print for businesses to put into place. The tions, including MyCity ChatBot to pro- city is not asking businesses to do what it vide small businesses with AI-generated isn’t doing itself.

When the administration enacts this responses to questions, track fare evasion

plan over the next 12 months, it will significantly influence national policy debates. These actions are microcosms for broader regulatory frameworks, showcasing what works and what doesn’t. Take facial recognition, for example. The NYPD’s targeted approach balances the benefits for law enforcement with safeguards to limit unintended consequences, and provides an oppor- Matthew C. Fraser (left), New York City’s chief technology officer, and Mayor tunity for national dis- Eric Adams. | GETTY IMAGES cussions, pushing federal lawmakers to consider, “If them, why clear that the momentum is building.

As this trend grows, we anticipate that not us?” These local actions provide a template, a proof-of-concept that guides larg- regulations born from local initiatives will er-scale policies. The more diverse our lo- eventually be woven into the national fabcal experiments, the more robust our ric. True AI regulation starts with New York and its many resources to acquire national policies can become.

We are convinced we’ll see more local professionals who can drive change. As AI jurisdictions driving the direction of na- technologies continue to advance, the tional AI regulation and setting a local ex- plan will need to change. For now, New ample for the private sector. Given the York is doing its job in paving the way for patchwork of policies emerging across other cities and states nationwide as well states — consent for facial recognition, de- as for the business community and other manding algorithmic accountability — it’s private sector organizations.

Write us: Crain’s welcomes submissions to its opinion pages. Send letters and op-eds of 500 words or fewer to opinion@CrainsNewYork.com. Please include the writer’s name, company, title, address and telephone number. Crain’s reserves the right to edit submissions for clarity.

8 | CRAIN’S NEW YORK BUSINESS | DECEMBER 18, 2023

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PERSONAL VIEW

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lected officials often talk about the city-certified MWBE firms, 85% of MWBE need to invest in minority- and respondents believed that they could not women-owned businesses, or survive for more than six months because MWBEs. Unfortunately, that rhetoric does of the pandemic.

Now, more than ever, New not always lead to results. ThirYork’s elected officials need to ty-one years ago, Mayor David turn their MWBE talking points Dinkins envisioned righting hisinto action. That’s exactly what toric injustices and ensuring that Mayor Eric Adams and our admore of our city government’s ministration have done. contracts — an economy worth $36 billion today — went to marginalized communities who have New chapter been shut out of this process for too long.

Because of targeted investOut of that vision, the MWBE Michael ments, executive action and a real program was born. Steering more Garner is the partnership between Albany and city contracts to MWBEs was chief business City Hall, there is a new chapter rightfully seen as a vital part of diversity officer in the story of MWBEs being writachieving economic equity. Over for New York ten. the last several years, though, our City.

Under Mayor Adams, we are ficity has drifted away from that vinally seeing numbers trend in the sion. right direction. The mayor tasked me to MWBEs have struggled in the aftermath become the city’s first-ever chief business of Covid-19, which disproportionately af- diversity officer with an aggressive goal — fected their businesses. A 2020 report pub- awarding $25 billion in city contracts to lished by the comptroller’s office — Mi- MWBEs by 2026 and $60 billion by 2030. nority- and Women Owned Businesses at As the Get Stuff Done administration, we Risk: Impact of Covid-19 on NYC Firms — are always aiming to think and go big. showed how the Covid-19 crisis “exacer- Over the last fiscal year, we broke records bated persistent and deep inequalities im- that put us on the right track, awarding pacting women and people of color.” more than $6 billion in total to MWBEs. According to their survey of more than 500 The new city MWBE figures include

more than $1.4 billion in contracts awarded to MWBEs under the Local Law 1 program — setting a record in MWBE contracts since the program’s creation in 2013 — and tied the city’s highest-ever MWBE utilization rate.

To build on that success, we have to understand how we achieved it.

These wins are a collaboration among the mayor, our administration and partners in Albany like Assembly member Rodneyse Bichotte-Hermelyn and Sen. James Sanders Jr. Earlier this year, due to the mayor’s success in petitioning the state Legislature, city agencies gained even more independent discretion, unleashing millions of dollars in additional contract awards to MWBEs. Using that expanded authority, the city awarded a record-setting $175 million in contracts to MWBEs — a 60% increase over the last fiscal year, by utilizing the “discretionary” procurement method.

In addition to new legislation, Adams also signed key executive orders. My team directed city agencies to prioritize currently under-engaged ethnic or gender

GETTY IMAGES

Adams administration is making progress on MWBE contracts

categories, standardize performance data collection among city-affiliated agencies and de-bundle larger contracts to create more opportunities for MWBEs. These efforts are wielding legislative and executive power to achieve equity.

The work is never done. We must still address the disparity within the disparity — ensuring that we narrow the ethnic and gender utilization gap among our MWBE vendor pool.

Entrepreneurship is part of the American Dream, and New York City is no exception. But we still have more work to do to turn that dream into a reality for all. The Adams administration is proud of our efforts to deliver for MWBEs, and the local economies they support, and remain focused on hitting that ambitious $25 billion goal by 2026. Together, we can realize the full promise of MWBEs first laid out over 30 years ago by former New York City Mayor David N. Dinkins.

PERSONAL VIEW

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ew York has one of the largest and tional, vocational and rehabilitative promost expensive prison systems in grams by reducing their sentences for the country, thanks to outdated good behavior and program participation. laws that saddle people with long sentenc- These programs — including ones that es and little opportunity to participate in provide certification for electrical and rehabilitative programs and earn release. construction work, college degrees, and GEDs — prepare people for sucThis ineffective system undercess in the workforce. Many emmines our state’s economy and ployees at my small business, costs taxpayers billions of dollars Tech Valley Shuttle, received their to maintain. And contrary to commercial driver’s license while what some may think, evidence incarcerated, better enabling shows longer prison sentences them to begin successful careers. don’t help public safety.

The classes I took in prison During an ongoing labor shorthelped me start my business and age, there are thousands of incarlearn how to mentor other juscerated New Yorkers who could tice-impacted individuals. But fill voids in our workforce if given Trent Griffinnot all facilities have the prothe opportunity. Our economy Braaf is the grams my employees and I benewill never reach its full potential founder and fited from, and our state laws without making changes to our president of don’t offer many incentives for sentencing laws that give people Tech Valley prisons to offer programs nor for a fair shot to earn time off their Hospitality incarcerated people to participrison sentences. A package of Shuttle, a laws up for consideration — The transportation pate.

Earned Time Act, The Second company that Look Act and The Eliminate Man- aims to combat People can change datory Minimums Act — is our poverty opportunity for state leaders to through Despite the proven benefits of make commonsense sentencing expanded expanding prison programs, New reform happen. transportation York law severely restricts senThe Earned Time Act incentiv- solutions and tence reduction for participation. izes incarcerated people to follow options for the Research from multiple states rules and participate in educa- underserved. shows that increasing program

incentives reduces recidivism. Kansas’ incentive program saw a 35% decrease in new crimes committed by program participants. In Minnesota, participants were 17% less likely to go back to prison and almost twice as likely to find work after release.

I and countless others are living examples of how people can change, but our current sentencing laws do not consider or incentivize rehabilitation. New York’s law requiring decades-long sentences, despite mitigating circumstances, fails to acknowledge rehabilitation and ignores that incarceration doesn’t make us safer. The End Mandatory Minimums Act expands judicial discretion so judges can make individualized sentencing decisions that prioritize public safety and rehabilitation.

The Second Look Act is an opportunity to address the harm of our outdated sentencing laws. It would allow judges to review sentences after someone has served a portion of their time to determine if it should be reduced. Passing this bill would acknowledge not only that people can grow while incarcerated, but also that many should not have been sentenced so harshly to begin with.

GETTY IMAGES

How sentencing reforms can address New York’s workforce shortage

I am a different person than when I entered prison. Without the opportunity to take classes and learn about business, I likely wouldn’t have started my company, had a beautiful family and helped others return to their communities and the workforce.

It’s up to our elected leaders to give people a meaningful chance and pass the Earned Time Act, the Second Look Act and the End Mandatory Minimums Act. With this policy package, we can reunite families, improve the economy and strengthen the workforce without compromising public safety.

Trent Griffin-Braaf was recognized as the 2023 Small Business Association Upstate New York Small Business Person of the Year and helps mentor justice-impacted workers.

December 18, 2023 | CRAIN’S NEW YORK BUSINESS | 9

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Gaming Facility Location Board taps Ponce Bank CEO to help decide who gets a downstate casino license Carlos Naudon is the fourth addition to the five-member board charged with choosing who builds in New York City

By Nick Garber

The head of a bank that caters to New York City’s communities of color is the latest appointee to the state panel that will decide who gets a lucrative downstate casino license, officials announced Dec. 4 — marking another small sign of progress in the sluggish sweepstakes.

Carlos Naudon, the president and CEO of Ponce Bank, was approved by the state’s Gaming Commission as the fourth member of the Gaming Facility Location Board. The board, which is supposed to have five members

Commerce; and Stuart Rabinowitz, an attorney and former president of Hofstra University. All were appointed last year, and it has been unclear why the remaining two seats were not filled.

Closer to opening up bids Eventually, perhaps by next year, the board will get the final say over which applicants get the three casino licenses, choosing among whichever bids have survived a tough community review process. The board must rely on a weighted formula that requires them to consider factors like each project’s economic development potential and its commitment to diverse hiring.

“Mr. Naudon’s vast expertise and knowledge of finances, along with his commitment to his community, makes him an outstanding choice for the Gaming Facility Location Board,” Gaming Commission chairman Brian O’Dwyer said in a statement. A resident of East Harlem and Prospect Heights, Naudon was an accountant, attorney and consultant before taking the reins at the Bronx-based bank in 2015.

No casino applications have been submitted yet, but state officials revealed Dec. 4 that they are a bit closer to finally opening up

Each new casino could generate as much as $2 billion in revenue annually, according to some estimates. but until now has had only three, will be charged with choosing which developers and gaming companies — if any — receive the three licenses to open casinos in the city and its immediate suburbs.

The board’s other three members are Vicki Been, a New York University faculty member and former deputy mayor for housing; Quenia Abreu, the head of the New York Women’s Chamber of

bids. The Gaming Facility Location Board has prepared answers to 450 questions that casino applicants submitted in the second of two rounds of questions they were allowed to ask; once those answers are sent out sometime after the holidays, the applications themselves will finally be due within 30 days, commission executive director Robert Williams, said during a public meeting.

An initial set of 613 questions, which officials anticipated responding to within weeks, instead took the state about six months to answer over the spring and summer.

Once applications are in next year, the state will form six-member “community advisory committees” to review each bid, composed of local officials that represent each project’s territory.

Those groups will wield significant power, able to shut down any casino project that lacks support from two-thirds of its members.

In their meeting on Dec. 4, gaming officials alluded to another recent development: the move by Mayor Eric Adams’ administration to bring future casinos into compliance with the city’s zoning code by proactively legalizing them in commercial and manufacturing districts.

City officials revealed details recently about that proposal, which must be approved by the City Council. Although framed by the

Carlos Naudon, the president and CEO of Ponce Bank, is the fourth appointee to the five-person board that will award a lucrative downstate casino license. | BUCK ENNIS

administration as a procedural move that will allow the state process to play out as intended, some criticized the open-ended nature of the plan, which would put no limits on casinos’ size and allow them to tack on “related” facilities like hotels.

11 known contenders There are 11 known contenders for a downstate casino license, including nine in the city and one each in Nassau and Westchester counties. Those planning to apply

include New York Mets owner Steve Cohen, who is partnering with Hard Rock on a casino proposal next to Citi Field; SL Green and Caesars, which are pursuing a Times Square project, and other giants of real estate and gambling.

Each new casino could generate as much as $2 billion in revenue annually, according to some estimates. Two of the new licenses are expected to go to existing smallscale racetrack casinos in Queens and Yonkers, leaving just one license up for grabs among the other nine bidders.

Ex-Hearst chair and schools chancellor Cathie Black unloads uptown penthouse for $9.6 million after 2 years

By C. J. Hughes

Cathie Black, a former chair of the Hearst magazine empire and a short-lived schools chancellor under Mayor Michael Bloomberg, has turned a page uptown.

Black and her husband, attorney Thomas Harvey, have sold

fireplace, a formal dining room and an eat-in kitchen as well as a 100-square-foot staff room on a separate floor.

Despite sitting atop one of the Upper East Side’s power addresses — residents of the 35-unit tower at East 81st Street have included Goldman Sachs’ Lloyd Blankfein, newscaster Tom Brokaw and developer Lloyd Goldman—the apartment struggled to sell, a problem plaguing other high-priced co-ops in recent months.

Indeed, Black and Harvey first listed the unit in 2021 for $12 million but found no takers until two years later, at a price that is 20% less than what they originally sought. Black and Harvey reportedly bought the apartment in 1996, but it wasn’t immediately clear from property records what they paid.

After an early gig as the advertising manager of the pioneering early 1970s feminist title Ms., Black soared to one of the most powerful

A filing indicates that Eric Randall and James Wyper were the purchasers of the four-bedroom duplex co-op. their penthouse at 941 Park Ave. for $9.6 million, according to a tax record that appeared in the city register Dec. 5.

Power address The filing indicates that Eric Randall and James Wyper were the purchasers of the four-bedroom duplex co-op, which features four and a half baths, a living room with a beamed ceiling and a

perches in publishing by becoming chair of Hearst’s far-ranging magazine division— household brands including Elle, Cosmopolitan and Esquire were her responsibility — in 2010.

Boosted profile But it was a position Black assumed the following year, as a Bloomberg-appointed city’s Cathie Black; 941 Park Ave. | GETTY IMAGES; CHRISTIE’S INTERNATIONAL REAL ESTATE schools chancellor, that boosted her profile beyond about just three months on the of Coca-Cola and IBM. In recent years she’s worked as an investor Hearst Tower, and probably not job.

Critics said she appeared tone- in woman-led startups, according for the better.

During her controversial stint in deaf to a system in which the ma- to a LinkedIn profile.

Brian Meier, the agent who mar2011 running New York’s public jority of students were poor schools, Black, who had no formal enough to qualify for free lunch, keted the property when he was background in education, openly quite a different demographic with Christie’s International Real Estate (though he currently works sparred with parents at board than her elite social set.

Once serving as the publisher of for Berkshire Hathaway HomeSermeetings while her approval ratings plummeted. Black stepped USA Today and New York maga- vices), did not respond to a redown in April of that year after zine, Black also sat on the boards quest for comment on the deal.

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Hochul administration plans more than 2,800 new homes at Creedmoor Psychiatric Center in Queens

By Eddie Small

Gov. Kathy Hochul’s administration wants to bring more than 2,800 housing units to the Creedmoor Psychiatric Center campus in eastern Queens.

The new residences are the crux of her master plan for the sprawling site, which she unveiled Dec. 6.

Empire State Development and Queens Borough President Donovan Richards had launched a public engagement process for the campus, which stretches out over more than 50 acres, at the beginning of the year with the goal of developing a master plan for it.

of affordable senior housing, 431 units of supportive housing and 432 units of affordable housing without age restrictions. The homeownership units will be “heavily targeted” to homes earning up to 100% of the area median income, or $113,000 for a family of two. Hochul’s administration did not specify income levels for the rental units but said they would be for low- and moderate-income households.

Next steps The plan also sets aside about 14 acres for open space and includes space for a recreation center, a day care, a school and retail.

The administration does not yet have an estimated cost for the project.

Creedmoor has served as a mental health center since 1912 and hit its peak population of patients in 1959, at more than 7,000. The number of patients dropped after that, although part of the site is still used for mental health treatment today.

Next steps for the project include launching an environmental re-

The plan also sets aside about 14 acres for open space and includes space for a recreation center, day care, a school and retail.

More than 55% of the housing units, or 1,633, will be opportunities for homeownership. The plan will also include 1,240 units of rental housing, split between 377 units

view process and finding development partners.

A coalition of activist groups had been pushing for the Hochul administration to turn Creedmoor into a completely affordable housing development with about 3,000 residential units, arguing that the large size of the campus and the fact that it is state-owned land make it a unique opportunity for New York to significantly increase its affordable housing supply.

Members of the coalition, called Public Land for Public Good, described the governor’s plan as a starting point but stressed the importance of moving quickly The Creedmoor Psychiatric Center in Queens | WIKIMEDIA and committing to more afIncreasing the state’s housing fordability.

“The plan we were shown today supply has been a major goal for is a good start in scale, affordability Hochul, and she has lately focused and homeownership,” said the Rev. on doing so through executive acPatrick O’Connor, co-chair of the tions after failing to pass a more advocacy group Queens Power. “To comprehensive package through begin to meet the needs of the the Legislature. Her administration worst affordability crisis in de- also announced this month that it cades, more work is needed to en- had chosen a development team to sure all 2,800 units are affordable, turn the Lincoln Correctional Faand the first phase must create cility, a shuttered prison in Harlem, into an affordable homeownership hundreds of units.”

building with 105 units.

But the Creedmoor plan may still face at least some neighborhood opposition. Corey Bearak, a member of the local community board, blasted the proposal as out of character for the otherwise low-density area.

“We do not want to lose people who seek a low-density lifestyle to Long Island, Westchester, Rockland” and other suburbs, he said.

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12 | CRAIN’S NEW YORK BUSINESS | December 18, 2023

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Effort to loosen New York’s street vendor rules sets up pushback from storeowners, business districts City Council members want to lift a longstanding cap on licenses and eliminate criminal penalties for vending

By NICK GARBER

City lawmakers introduced bills on Dec. 6 that would significantly loosen restrictions on street vending, proposing to eliminate criminal penalties for illegal selling and to get rid of longstanding caps on licenses.

The legislation, if passed, would greatly expand on other vending reforms the city has enacted in recent years. But the four bills will face opposition from storeowners, business improvement districts and other groups. Opponents have long seen street vendors as competing unfairly against brickand-mortar businesses and accused them of clogging sidewalks and creating unsanitary conditions.

The most ambitious bill targets the caps on both food and general vending licenses. The number of general licenses, required to legally sell merchandise, has been capped at just 853 since the 1970s, while the number of food vending licenses has been stuck at around 3,000. Food licenses were supposed to be expanded by 445 each year under a 2021 law, but the city has made slow progress and only awarded about a dozen so far.

A waitlist for general vending licenses contains nearly 12,000 people and is now closed.

Current system is ‘broken’ The cap-lifting bill, which is supported by 17 of the council’s 51 members, would allow the city to issue hundreds of new food and general vending licenses each year for five years, then lift both caps entirely starting in 2029.

Pierina Sanchez, a Bronx City Council member who is sponsoring the cap-lifting bill, describes herself as the daughter and granddaughter of street vendors. In a rally outside City Hall on Dec. 6, Sanchez called the city’s current system “broken” for both street vendors, who are disproportionately immigrants, as well as the businesses who see them as

New legislation in the City Council would eventually eliminate caps on street vendor licenses and remove criminal penalties for illicit selling. | BUCK ENNIS

competitors.

“The solution lies in business licensing, it lies in decriminalization,” Sanchez said. Rather than encouraging more vending, Sanchez argued that expanding licenses would simply allow the city to regulate a market that already exists.

But the bill received immediate pushback from the association that comprises the city’s 76 business improvement districts, which represent local landlords and tend to push for stricter regulations on vending.

“We are concerned about any wholesale lifting of the vending cap meant to maintain our streets without clearer rules and enforcement in place,” the NYC BID Association said in a statement shared-

by spokesman James Ansorge. “As we’ve seen with an explosion of unregulated cannabis stores, decriminalization and new licensing efforts with the best of intentions can lead to business enterprises openly flouting various laws to the public’s detriment.”

The most ambitious bill targets the caps on both food and general vending licenses.

Randy Peers, president and CEO of the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce, also harshly criticized the legislation, likening it to an “attack on brick-and-mortar small businesses.”

A second bill, led by Queens Council member Shekar Krishnan, would scrap the misdemeanor criminal penalties now imposed on people convicted of vending offenses, replacing them with fines.

The NYPD issued about 900 criminal summonses related to vending through the first nine months of this year, according to police data, and high-profile instances of police arresting and confiscating wares from churro sellers and fruit vendors have inflamed tensions in recent years.

Two other bills introduced Dec. 6 would allow vendors to place pushcarts as much as two feet away from the curb — wider than the 18-inch margin they are currently given, which vendors complain puts them uncomfortably close to oncoming traffic — and would create a division within the Department of Small Business Services focused on helping street vendors.

‘Long road ahead’

Bronx City Council member Pierina Sanchez (left) and a vendor at the Brooklyn Bridge (right) | GETTY IMAGES, BUCK ENNIS

For now, support for the bills is mostly confined to the council’s more left-leaning members, and it’s unclear how the package will ultimately fare. Council Speaker Adrienne Adams has not signed on, and some lawmakers have long called for more, not less, enforcement — Sandra Ung, a Democrat from Flushing, has repeatedly joined that neighborhood’s BID in calls to crack down on a proliferation of vendors there.

Sanchez, in an interview, conceded that the legislation has “a

long road ahead,” but added that she has had “surprisingly positive” conversations with groups such as supermarket owners who would usually be inclined to oppose the bills.

Mayor Eric Adams’ stance is also not yet clear. Since taking office last year, his administration has moved to ban street vending on the Brooklyn Bridge and shifted street-vendor enforcement to the Sanitation Department, angering advocates who wanted it to remain under the Department of Consumer and Worker Protection.

He also presided over the July dismantling of a popular, largely unlicensed food market at Corona Plaza in Queens, which has since been brought back at a more limited scale.

Brad Lander, the city’s comptroller, supported the 2021 law expanding food-vending licenses while he served in the City Council. But he called that law inadequate in remarks on Dec. 4, saying the new legislation would succeed where the prior council “failed.”

Among the vendors who spoke in support of the bills on Dec. 6 was Ibra Diagne, who has sold merchandise in Lower Manhattan since shortly after emigrating from Senegal in 2005. Six years after joining the wait list for a license, Diagne is still in line behind more than 7,000 people.

“I’m trying to do everything right, get my own license, and run my own business,” said Diagne, adding that he has never sold counterfeit goods. “I have been arrested for not having the very license I am on a waitlist to get.”

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City eliminates red tape for climate-friendly building, energy projects with package of zoning changes The City Council approved the initiative on Dec. 6, making it easier for property owners to embrace green technologies

By Caroline Spivack

Property owners can soon more easily embrace green technologies in their buildings and on their land with the passage Dec. 6 of several zoning changes by the City Council.

In a 38-to-8 vote, the council approved a package of zoning changes, put forward by Mayor Eric Adams’ administration, known as the City of Yes for Carbon Neutrality to peel away red tape that often makes it needlessly daunting to pursue climate-friendly projects.

The changes promote the buildout of solar panels and offshore wind manufacturing, electric vehicle

cy changes is to move the needle on the city’s target of reducing its carbon emissions by 80% as of 2050. The city seeks to do so, in part, by updating and streamlining a variety of regulations that have not been amended since they were originally crafted in 1961.

City of Yes vision

Those measures include rewriting strict rules on where highperformance walls can be added to better insulate buildings and reduce emissions; a measure that broadens limits on the number of solar panels that can be installed on a roof; and opening up swaths of the city to electric charging infrastructure simply by tweaking zoning classifications.

After a review, the — Dan Garodnick, director, Department of City Planning City Council made a handful of minor, technicharging infrastructure and the cal tweaks to the new zoning lanelectrification of buildings, among guage. The proposal began a gauntlet of reviews this spring by all 59 other efforts.

“Removing barriers to creating a city community boards, the city’s greener, more sustainable city is borough presidents — all of whom vital to fighting climate change except for Staten Island’s endorsed and preparing our city for the the changes — along with a City long-term future,” City Council Planning Commission vote.

The carbon neutrality initiative Speaker Adrienne Adams said in Dec. 6 remarks on the zoning is one of three citywide zoning text changes. The eight lawmakers amendments the Adams adminiswho opposed the climate-friendly tration is pursuing as part of its measures are among the Council’s City of Yes vision. The passage comes as the next two proposals right-leaning wing.

The ultimate goal of the 17 poli- — “City of Yes for Economic Op-

“These changes will unlock a massive increase in green infrastructure...”

Solar panels on the rooftop of a Bronx apartment building. | BUCK ENNIS

portunity” and “City of Yes for Housing Opportunity” are in the midst of public and environmental reviews.

The climate-friendly zoning changes were set to take effect five days from the Council’s approval, that is to say, early last week. Dan Garodnick, director of the Department of City Planning, whose agency spearheaded the effort, touted the package as getting rid of barriers to forward-looking decisions by the city’s property owners.

“This is the most ambitious, far-reaching initiative in the history of New York’s zoning to combat climate change,” said Garodnick in a statement on the City Council

vote. “These changes will unlock a massive increase in green infrastructure in all corners of our city.”

DCP projects that the zoning changes would open up more than 8,500 acres of city parking lots for potential solar panel use. Electric vehicle charging will be possible on 400 million additional square feet of the city, and carbon-cutting retrofits would be easier at over 50,000 buildings, which helps give building owners a clearer path to compliance with the city’s decarbonization law that begins to take effect next year: Local Law 97.

Environmental advocates and the business community have overwhelmingly supported the measure and lauded its passage by

the City Council.

“Building climate solutions, like solar power and battery storage, often comes down to the nuts and bolts of permitting and zoning,” said Anne Reynolds, executive director of the Alliance for Clean Energy New York. “We need to overcome the barriers to deploying clean power solutions, and [the Dec. 6] passage is a great step.”

Kathryn Wylde, president and chief executive of the Partnership for New York City, described the zoning as key to “facilitate efforts by government and the private sector to address the rapidly shifting demands that climate change is placing on the city, its residents, and businesses.”

Madison Square Garden at risk of losing its liquor license after appeals court ruling on SLA investigation has not acted in excess of jurisdiction by applying the ‘open to the general public’ standard.”

By AARON ELSTEIN

The state can proceed with an investigation that could cost Madison Square Garden its liquor license, an appellate court ruled late last month. The decision is a victory for the State Liquor Authority in its fight with James Dolan, the MSG chairman who described the agency as a “gangster-like governmental organization.”

The brouhaha began 13 months ago, when reports came out showing the arena used facial-recognition technology to deny entry to lawyers working at firms that filed lawsuits against the building’s owner. SLA began looking into whether MSG was no longer open to the general public, a violation of the terms of its liquor license.

In a January appearance on Fox 5, Dolan held up a sign showing the picture and contact information of SLA CEO Sharif Kabir and urged fans to tell him to “stick to his knitting.” A month later MSG enlisted attorney Randy Mastro, a former deputy mayor to Rudy Giuliani,

Fight goes on

A court ruling says the state can proceed with an investigation that could cost Madison Square Garden its liquor license. | GETTY IMAGES

and sued to stop the investigation.

The Garden argued in court papers that its ban affects “less than one half of a percent of lawyers in New York” and “less than one onehundredth of a percent of New

York State’s population.”

But booze investigators aren’t out of bounds in looking at the Garden, the New York Supreme Court First Appellate Department said in a unanimous Nov. 28 rul-

ing. The ruling means SLA’s administrative process continues.

“We reject petitioners’ contention that SLA lacks authority to revoke their special on-premises licenses,” the judges wrote. “SLA

The ruling upheld an April decision by state Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron, who is hearing the attorney general’s case against former President Donald Trump.

In a statement, MSG Entertainment said the fight goes on.

“This decision will not deter us from fighting an administrative agency that has run amok. We intend to appeal. If we cannot get the relief we deserve in the state court, we will turn to the federal courts,” MSG said. “The SLA has been trampling over small businesses for decades, including through systemic corruption. No business — large or small — should have to endure these abuses. This time, the SLA picked the wrong victim.”

SLA didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

14 | CRAIN’S NEW YORK BUSINESS | December 18, 2023

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PEOPLE ON THE MOVE To place your listing, visit www.crainsnewyork.com/people-on-the-move or, for more information, contact Debora Stein at 917.226.5470 / dstein@crain.com FINANCIAL SERVICES

LAW

J. P. Morgan Private Bank

Tannenbaum Helpern Syracuse & Hirschtritt LLP

Frank Mason has joined J.P. Morgan Private Bank in New York City as an Executive Director and Banker.

Frank specializes in advising ultra-high-net-worth families, entrepreneurs, senior executives and foundations. A trusted steward of his clients’ wealth, Frank prioritizes their financial well-being and strives to make a meaningful impact on critical causes and mission-driven work. Most recently, Frank joins the firm from Goldman Sachs.

FINANCIAL SERVICES

Northern Trust Northern Trust has appointed Wing Wilson as Chief Fiduciary Officer, East Region, where she will lead a team in the delivery of fiduciary and advisory services to families, individuals and foundations. In this role, Wilson, who will be based in New York City, will have fiduciary oversight across Northern Trust’s East Region, spanning from Florida to New England. She will lead the strategic direction and execution of these services while accelerating growth. Wilson earned her Bachelor of Science Degree from Mercy College and received the Trust School Certification from the American Bankers Association.

Tannenbaum Helpern is pleased to announce the expansion of its Securities and Commercial Paradise Litigation and Regulatory and Compliance capabilities with the addition of lateral partners Steven Paradise and Mark D. Shaffer, respectively, Shaffer to the Firm. Steven represents companies and individuals in trials in State and Federal Courts and in AAA, FINRA and JAMS arbitrations.

He has extensive securities litigation experience and frequently leads government and regulatory and internal investigations.

Mark has a long history of representing a range of financial industry clients including brokerdealers, banks, investment advisers, cryptocurrency businesses and FinTech companies, which is complemented by his tenure as an in-house counsel and CCO.

LAW

LEGAL

PROFESSIONAL SERVICES

Windels Marx Lane & Mittendorf, LLP

Benesch

EisnerAmper

Timothy P. Heaton has joined Benesch as Of Counsel in the firm’s Intellectual Property Practice Group.

Heaton Timothy’s practice focuses on all aspects of intellectual property litigation and counseling. He has extensive experience preparing for and conducting trials in Rosenberg district courts nationwide, both asserting and defending against allegations of patent infringement for over 20 years.

David Zev Rosenberg has joined Benesch as an Associate in the firm’s Real Estate Practice Group.

David is an experienced attorney specializing in commercial real estate transactions, specifically acquisitions, dispositions and financing.

EisnerAmper announces

John J. Tepedino focuses on bankruptcy litigation, including representing the SIPA Trustee for the liquidation of Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities. He’s led dozens of adversary proceedings resulting in recovery of millions of dollars for Madoff fraud victims.

He’s also handled Chapter 7 and 11 bankruptcies; and has litigated complex commercial disputes. He has a JD, cum laude, from the Univ. of Michigan Law School (2004), and an AB, cum laude, in government from Harvard (1995).

LEGAL

Becker Michael J. Burwick has joined Becker, a leading national multipractice commercial law firm, as a Shareholder in the Corporate Practice in New York City. With nearly 30 years of expertise in corporate, tax and securities law, Michael specializes in tax deferral, mitigation, and minimization. He joins a roster of more than 300 lawyers, lobbyists and other professionals across Becker’s 18 U.S. offices. Prior, Michael held partner positions at two AmLaw 200 firms.

LEGAL

Benesch

LAW

Vinson & Elkins

Vinson & Elkins

Caitlin Turner has

Patrick Whelan has

been elected partner at Vinson & Elkins in New York. She advises private equity sponsors and their portfolio companies, other public and private borrowers, agents, lenders and underwriters in complex acquisition and leveraged financings as well as on commercial lending, direct lending and other financial transactions.

been elected partner at Vinson & Elkins in New York. He advises private and public companies, private equity funds, family offices and management teams with respect to corporate matters, including mergers and acquisitions, leveraged buyouts, joint ventures, and other financing transactions.

Maureen Paradine has been named Chief Morgan Human Resources Officer. Matt will be responsible for overseeing firm operations, including systems, processes and technology, to achieve the firm’s strategic goals.

Paradine Matt previously held COO and other roles in industryleading professional services firms and began his career as an Army intelligence officer.

Maureen will be responsible for all professional development, compensation/benefits, talent acquisition, HR operations, employee engagement and diversity initiatives. She has 20+ years of experience as a senior human resources executive with companies such as Barnes & Noble Education and 1800flowers.com.

Nathan H. Trunnell has joined Benesch as an Associate in the firm’s Corporate & Securities Practice Group. Nathan represents public and private companies and financial advisor clients in all aspects of corporate transactions, including mergers, acquisitions, minority investments, and divestitures.

NONPROFIT

LAW

Matthew Morgan has been named Chief Operating Officer and

The Center for Family Support Alicia McGrath has joined The Center for Family Support (CFS) as their new Chief Executive Officer. Alicia is coming to CFS with over 25 years of experience working in Social Service organizations, most recently serving as Executive Vice President of Mission Programs at Goodwill NY-NJ. Alicia’s focus will be expanding the organization’s impact and ability to deliver innovative person-centered programs to those with intellectual and developmental disabilities in NY and NJ.

HOSPITALITY & TOURISM NONPROFIT

COMPANIES ON THE MOVE To place your listing, visit www. newyorkbusiness.com/companymoves or contact Debora Stein at 917.266.5470 / dstein@crain.com MERGERS & ACQUISITIONS

Weaver New York, NY 212-486-5500 weaver.com Weaver, a national accounting and advisory firm, announces a transaction with New York-based Buchbinder Tunick & Company, LLP effective January 1, 2024. This deal significantly expands Weaver’s East Coast presence to five offices, including two in New York City, one on Long Island, one in New Jersey and one in Washington, D.C. It also adds 125 audit, tax and advisory professionals, including 16 partners, to the firm.

LaGuardia Gateway Partners NPower

Klaudia FitzGerald has been named Chief Operating Officer of LaGuardia Gateway Partners (LGP), the manager and developer of the new LaGuardia Terminal B. Klaudia joins LGP’s now majoritywomen-led leadership team following a 12 year tenure with the operator of JFK Airport’s Terminal One. A seasoned operations leader in the NYC aviation market, Klaudia will oversee LGA Terminal B’s commitment to outstanding safety, security and operational performance in delivering stellar guest experiences.

LAW

LAW

Vinson & Elkins

Vinson & Elkins

Dora Georgescu has

John Goodwin has

been elected counsel at Vinson & Elkins in New York. She focuses on securities and commercial litigation in federal and state court, as well as internal and government investigations.

been elected counsel at Vinson & Elkins in New York. He provides strategic advice in complex commercial trials and appeals, arbitrations, government investigations, and prelitigation disputes.

Stephen C. Ragan joins NPower, a national tech training nonprofit, as Chief External Relations Officer. As CERO, he will lead fundraising and donor engagement, as well as NPower’s growing partnerships with local, state, and federal agencies. Ragan was previously SVP for External Relations at College Possible. He received his bachelor’s degree from the University of Michigan and is a graduate of Harvard University’s Institute for Management and Leadership in Education.

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MTA tests out hard-to-jump fare gates at Queens station

By Caroline Spivack

Transit officials are testing out wider, hard-to-jump fare gates at a subway station in Queens as part of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s strategy to curb fare evasion.

The MTA unveiled a new array of gates Dec. 4 at the Sutphin Boulevard-Archer Avenue station, where many riders transfer to the AirTrain JFK or the Long Island Rail Road. The gates feature chesthigh paddles that swing open when the fare is paid instead of a set of rotating arms. The gates are also intended to more easily accommodate wheelchair users or those with luggage or strollers.

“I don’t think I’ve seen technol-

help our customers get through and also ensure that folks are paying.”

The design will make it more of a challenge for people to jump over or duck under a gate to evade paying the $2.90 fare — a rampant issue that cost the MTA an estimated $690 million last year, with $285 million in lost revenue specifically from subway rides.

Next up Outfitting the subway system with new fare gates is costly. The MTA says it spent some $700,000 to install the new gates at the Queens station. Cubic, the firm that developed the OMNY tap-topay system, built and installed the new gates, the authority said.

The MTA has not shared estimates of how much it anticipates converting all 472 subway stations to new fares gates could cost.

In the coming weeks, the 8th Avenue-Penn Station subway stop will be the next to get the fare gates, according to Quemuel Arroyo, the MTA’s chief accessibility officer.

“You’ll be seeing more gates like these rolling out in the months ahead,” said Arroyo. “We’re on the

Fare evasion cost the MTA an estimated $690 million last year, with $285 million from subway rides. ogy that’s perfect in any city, frankly, but this is obviously going a long way to improving our current turnstile system,” said Richard Davey, president of New York City Transit at a Dec. 4 event. “We are evaluating these turnstiles to see if there are modifications that would

New fare gates at the Sutphin Boulevard-Archer Avenue station in Queens. | MTA

hunt for the latest and greatest technology that the industry provides as we look for a broader rollout.”

In May the MTA held a showcase in Grand Central Terminal featuring a mix of entry gates intended to combat fare evasion and prioritize accessibility.

None of the four companies involved in the showcase — Conduent, Scheidt-Bachmann, Easier and Thales — are participating in the MTA’s initial fare gate pilot.

Shanifah Rieara, the MTA’s acting chief customer officer, said the authority is still in the midst of “unpacking” the recommendations the authority received from a May report from a blue-ribbon panel on fare evasion.

“We are going to put a lot of those new suggestions and provisions in place while still talking internally about what more we can do,” said Rieara. “It is something that is top of mind.”

Revenue lost from unpaid rider-

ship especially plagues the city’s bus system: 41.6% of bus riders did not pay the fare this past quarter, MTA data shows.

So far, the MTA has turned to increased enforcement on buses by deploying unarmed agents, known as EAGLE teams. They’ve been distributing information on fare payment options and issuing tickets ranging from $50 to $100 to riders who can’t prove that they’ve swiped a MetroCard or tapped to pay on an OMNY reader.

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16 | CRAIN’S NEW YORK BUSINESS | December 18, 2023

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Area’s hospitals see financial improvements but ‘still underperforming nation as a whole,’ consultant says

By Amanda D'Ambrosio

Enduring labor shortages and inflation have led to financial challenges for hospitals nationwide, but experts say that local facilities are having a particularly hard time finding their footing post-pandemic.

“The tri-state and New York City, they’ve been experiencing improvements generally on a monthover-month basis,” said Erik Swanson, senior vice president of data analytics at the consulting firm Kaufman Hall. “However, they’re still underperforming the nation as a whole.”

region have not reached profitability.

Recent quarterly reports filed by hospitals in New York City illustrate that increases in costs for salaries and wages as well as medical supplies have consistently outpaced revenue growth in recent months — despite patient volume upticks from the pandemic.

Supply costs Quarterly earnings are a snapshot of a hospital’s year-to-date financial performance, and are influenced by seasonal trends.

However, the interim reports show how revenues and costs have shifted over the last year — and paint a picture of the fiscal challenges that persist.

High costs at local hospitals have put many at a loss, with some systems facing lower margins than others. The safety-net system Maimonides Health has fared worse than other health systems with a 12% operating loss, due to what management says are structural funding issues. The health system treats a high proportion of patients on Medicare and Medicaid.

But some hospitals have bilked trending losses — NYU Langone ended its fourth quarter with a whopping 9% margin. NYU re-

While there are variations in hospital margins, all facilities face similarly high costs for labor.

The year-to-date median operating margin for hospitals in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut was -3.1% in October, according to the most recent data from Kaufman Hall.

The -3% margin does indicate that tri-state hospitals are moving out of a negative financial position, Swanson said. “But that’s still pretty solidly negative,” he added, noting that many hospitals in the

ports on a slightly different fiscal calendar than other hospitals, so the health system’s financial performance is not an apples-to-apples comparison. But NYU has reported consistently high margins across the last year.

While there are variations in hospital margins, all facilities face similarly high costs for labor. Swanson said that one aspect of slower improvements in the tri-state region is that area hospitals face a disproportionate share of labor expenses.

“In large urban areas and New York City in particular, the cost of labor is very, very high,” Swanson said. “A tight labor market, coupled with a highly population-dense area where the area wage index is quite high — that leaves hospitals particularly vulnerable to increases in labor expenses.”

The same concept applies to supply costs. As vendors in the region raise their own rates to cover high costs, hospitals get stuck paying higher prices for medical supplies and equipment, Swanson said.

Expenses tell one side of the story. As hospital volume picks back up, more patients are seeking services in outpatient settings. Yearto-date outpatient revenue among tri-state hospitals rose more than

GETTY IMAGES

Higher costs for labor and medical supplies have resulted in a lagging post-pandemic recovery for tri-state and city hospitals

10% this year from October 2022, data shows. Inpatient revenue increased as well, albeit only by 5%.

The shift to outpatient care settings “is generally beneficial for hospitals and others that have that footprint,” Swanson said. “However, for those that don’t, it poses a threat because that is also the area where there are a lot of new market entrants.”

As hospitals finish out the fourth quarter and look to the new year, Swanson said he expects continued growth in 2024 but is cautious about predicting a full recovery.

Labor expenses are not likely to abate, and hospitals will continue to face competition from ambulatory surgery centers, urgent care settings and concierge medicine, Swanson said. That could put hospitals that are not prepared to adapt in a vulnerable position, he added.

“While we’ve begun to see some improvement and stabilization in many of these metrics, I think the upcoming year is going to be the year that highlights those who are able to perform . . . and those who are unable to,” Swanson said.

New York freelancers will enjoy expanded rights as Hochul signs bill into law after vetoing a version of it last year

By Nick Garber

A bill that will significantly expand the rights of some 2 million freelance workers across New York was signed into law by Gov. Kathy Hochul on Nov. 22, a turnabout from last year when she vetoed the same legislation over cost concerns.

The “Freelance Isn’t Free” law aims to address independent workers’ widespread complaints of missing and late payments by requiring employers to provide contracts for any freelance work worth more than $800 over a fourmonth period. Employers must also make payments by the due

“This is really a game-changer.”

— State Sen. Andrew Gounardes date listed in the contract — or within 30 days of work being completed when no date is specified.

If employers break the law, freelancers will be entitled to bring complaints to the state at-

torney general’s office or go to court to seek damages worth double the amount they were owed. The state law is based on a law enacted at the city level in 2017, which has resulted in at least $3 million in recouped wages stemming from more than 700 complaints from stiffed freelancers.

Andrew Gounardes, the Brooklyn state senator who sponsored the state bill, said he was “ecstatic” about the governor’s approval.

“This will help protect more than 2 million freelancers across the state and give them peace of mind knowing that they’ll provide a service and actually be able to get paid for it,” he said in an interview. “This is really a game-changer.”

A recent survey of 400 freelancers nationwide found that nearly three-quarters said they do not get paid on time, and nearly 60% are owed more than $50,000 for unpaid work, according to the Independent Economy Council, a workers’ advocacy group.

When Hochul vetoed the bill last December, she cited con-

cerns that the state’s Department of Labor lacked the resources to investigate complaints. This time around, Hochul and lawmakers agreed to put the enforcement burden under the attorney general’s office instead.

Second state Another provision in the law will bar employers from offering less money than promised in exchange for a quicker payment — a bait-and-switch that freelancers describe as all too common.

New York is the second state in the country to enact such protections for freelancers, following Illinois, which passed a similar law in August.

Labor groups including the Freelancers Union and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters supported the New York bill.

The National Federation of Independent Business lobbied lawmakers on it, but records do not specify their position.

Although the city law has resulted in millions of dollars in repayments, Gounardes said that understates its success. In the city

State Sen. Andrew Gounardes (center) was a lead sponsor of the “Freelance Isn’t Free” act, which Gov. Kathy Hochul signed into law last month after vetoing a previous version last year. | NYS SENATE MEDIA SERVICES

already and now statewide, he predicted, employers will take note of the new protections and pay workers on time in the first place.

“What’s been so successful about the city is not the number of cases that have been litigated, but the number of cases that have been avoided,” he said.

Other significant labor legislation passed by state lawmakers this year is still up in the air, with Hochul having until Dec. 31 to sign or veto bills. Most prominent among them is a bill that would ban employers from using noncompete clauses, which has aroused staunch opposition from business groups.

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PENSION From Page 1

Crain’s New York Business. “What I saw was senior leadership that was extractive and exploitative and knew how to take advantage of a board that didn’t know what they were doing because they hadn’t signed up for this assignment.”

The dubious situation at BERS isn’t unusual among the city’s pension funds, a collection of five separate fiefs with hundreds of employees that administer retirement benefits for 750,000 city workers and control more than $250 billion in assets.

Last fiscal year, the funds shelled out $1.7 billion in fees to Wall Street asset managers, a 10% yearover-year increase, even as overall plan assets grew by 6%. Administrative costs across the five plans reached nearly $280 million last year.

Paying for New York’s pension system, where overlap and waste are endemic, ranks as one of the city’s biggest expenses. Pensions chew up 10% of the city budget and 10 times more than spent on libraries and parks combined.

Taxpayers contributed nearly $10 billion to the pension plans last fiscal year, a sum that has quintupled over the last two decades.

Last month Mayor Eric Adams proposed to reduce the city’s police force, trash pickups, and library services as part of a $4 billion budget cut. With revenues under pressure, pensions risk crowding out his other priorities because benefits are not only guaranteed but rise with the cost of living.

All the big money flying around has a way of luring bad actors, and the annals of mischievous behavior are long and sometimes reach criminal levels. In 2018, for instance, the executive director of the Fire Pension Fund, Stephen Cassidy, pleaded guilty to driving under the influence after steering his city-paid Toyota Prius onto a Manhattan sidewalk drunk and with cocaine in his wallet. In 2006 BERS’ top lawyer, Todd Rubinstein, was forced out after investigators learned he helped place a phony job ad to try to get a green card for an employee from India.

for a $28,000 raise to for financing terrorist acBY THE $255,000 — more than the NUMBERS tivities, its powers of enmayor’s salary at the time. forcement over BERS are If he didn’t get it, Miller “fairly limited” and it has threatened to accept a job “no authority” to sanction Administrative offer from an Ohio teachor remove board memcosts per ers pension fund. BERS bers. year for the Executive Director SanBERS’s mess was years Board of ford Rich approved the in the making but new to Education hefty raise and then, acthe comptroller, the city’s Retirement cording to the inspector chief oversight officer.

System general report, sought his That’s because although own so he would be paid the comptroller’s office more than Miller. has served on the city’s In fact, Miller hadn’t other pension boards for Percentage ever been offered another decades, it was excluded pension job and provided “false from the BERS board until funding information” under oath last year. chews up in to investigators, accord“It’s a rogue little city budget. ing to a confidential remessed up fund,” Compport delivered in August troller Lander told Crain’s 2022 by the inspector general for over the summer. A few weeks ago, BERS. Rich was accused in the re- he added: “BERS represents 3% of port of “egregious misconduct.” the New York City pension funds The inspector general recom- total assets under management mended the trustees of BERS dis- and 100% of the headaches. I do miss Rich and Miller and referred not trust the leadership.” the matter to the Manhattan disBERS declined to comment on trict attorney’s office.

Lander’s assessment.

“Rich simply took Miller’s word as gospel, with no due diligence, Lack of accountability essentially an act of negligence,” the report said. “Rich then used BERS manages retirement savthis unverified information to jus- ings for people like Millie Santos, a tify a request to enrich himself.” parent coordinator who has But the board of BERS declined worked for 22 years at P.S. 178, an to take any action. Rich and Miller elementary school in Upper Manstill have their jobs today. The D.A. hattan named for Juan Bosch, the hasn’t filed charges because the first democratically elected presipay-raise episode doesn’t violate dent of the Dominican Republic. A any laws, a former legal director at fifth of students are English-lana different pension fund said. guage learners but 94% pass sixthNeither Rich nor Miller would grade English, math, science and talk to Crain’s, but in response to social studies because teachers written questions BERS’ general know how to prepare them for counsel said Rich asked the board middle school. Santos declined to for more money “because he be- disclose her salary, but the averlieved that his performance justi- age wage for female workers with fied such a request.” her length of service is $57,000, according to BERS documents. Santos helps 250 families fill out kinLight regulation dergarten applications, serves as The story of BERS isn’t just one liaison to the principal, and works of bad oversight or bad manage- nights and weekends as necesment. It is also a story of regulatory sary.

“I have a hand in everything,” ineptitude.

The agency responsible for said Santos, who plans to retire in overseeing BERS, the New York five years and start collecting her State Department of Financial pension. The average BERS retiree Services, hasn’t completed an au- gets a monthly benefit of $1,300.

New York has offered city workdit of the pension fund and made recommendations since 2014, ers pensions since the 19th centueven though state law calls for an ry, and for nearly that long budget audit every five years to be shared watchdogs have warned the city’s with city officials. This sort of sloth commitments will be costly to susisn’t unusual. DFS’ last tain. A decade ago the city pension audit of the largest city system had only about 60% of aspension plan, the New sets needed to meet future obligaYork City Employees tions, but over the past 20 years Retirement System, was mayors have raised taxpayer conpublished in 2009 for a tributions from less than $2 billion a year to nearly $10 billion, acperiod ending in 2003.

DFS “failed to adhere cording to the Independent Budto pension audit report- get Office. Today the city pension ing schedules,” spokes- system is in much sounder finanwoman Ciara Marangas acknowl- cial shape, holding more than 80% edged. Under Superintendent of assets necessary to meet obligaAdrienne Harris, who ascended to tions to retirees — ahead of the her position in 2021, the agency 73% average for city and county has “engaged in a wholesale re- pension plans, according to a view of all audit processes and has Wilshire Advisors estimate.

It will be challenging for Mayor now also begun posting reports as Adams to maintain pension fundmandated by law.”

The shenanigans at BERS were ing in light of the city’s difficult detailed by City Comptroller Brad revenue outlook. He can’t count Lander in a letter to Harris earlier on accommodating markets, this year. In her reply, obtained by which last fiscal year lifted the Crain’s, Harris said she shared the pension system’s investment recomptroller’s concern for “the turn to 8%, including an 8.6% gain welfare” of BERS members and, at BERS, higher than the 7% longeven though her agency has fined term average targeted by the global banks hundreds of millions funds. One thing he could do is

Paying for New York’s pension system, where overlap and waste are endemic, is one of the city’s biggest expenses.

At BERS, the fund serving public-school workers, payroll expenses have doubled since 2017, to $20 million a year for 166 fund employees, according to data released under the state’s Freedom of Information Law. In a statement to Crain’s, BERS attributed the increase to infrastructure investments to better serve its members, such as a new call center with 15 staffers in the Financial District.

Green Giles contends that’s only part of the story. She alerted the pension plan’s inspector general in 2018 after BERS Deputy Executive Director Daniel Miller asked

$35M

$10%

Millie Santos is a parent coordinator who has worked for 22 years at P.S. 178, an elementary school

squeeze costs out of the pension system.

New York’s five different pension plans are the legacy of labor agreements reached generations ago. Teachers have a separate plan from substitute teachers. Police and firefighters have their own plans; clerks, sanitation workers, and prison guards are housed in another. Each pension fund hires its own staff, rents its own space and has its own board composed of union leaders and city officials who represent management.

Former New York City Employees Retirement System executive director John Murphy said the pension system can be understood as five different fiefs each controlling billions of dollars: “Everyone is protecting their turf,” Murphy said. “The city pension system is where accountability goes to die.”

Bad behavior flourishes at this intersection of politics and big money. In 2018, state pension official Navnoor Kang was sentenced to 21 months in prison for taking bribes in exchange for steering trades to select brokers. In 2016 a former CEO of the California Public Employees Retirement System, Fred Buenrostro, was sentenced to 54 months in prison for corruption and fraud involving a New York private equity firm. Former New York State Comptroller Alan Hevesi in 2010 pleaded guilty to pocketing millions in bribes from “placement agents” representing asset managers that invested the state pension plan’s money. In 2005 Murphy, the former NYCERS chief, was pushed out after investi-

gators found he promoted his mistress to a $96,000 supervisory job.

The last attempt at an overhaul came in 2011, when Mayor Michael Bloomberg and City Comptroller John Liu tried to consolidate investment decisions into the city’s Bureau of Asset Management while maintaining the five separate pension boards. Liu said the plan would cut at least $1 billion annually in investment costs — more than half last year’s sum and serious savings considering a 2015 study found that most investment gains at city pension funds were wiped out by fees paid to money managers. But unions and their allies in Albany didn’t want to cede control over the pension funds, and Liu said Bloomberg wouldn’t fight.

“He never used any political capital to build support,” said Liu, now a state senator.

Bloomberg declined to comment. But his former press secretary, Marc La Vorgna, said it was Liu who yielded to pressure from unions whose support he needed for his unsuccessful mayoral campaign in 2013.

“Hopefully the idea can be resurrected,” La Vorgna said. “It was a good idea then, and it would still be a good idea today.”

One reform that Bloomberg did succeed in getting led directly to the mess Green Giles found at BERS. In 2002, Bloomberg persuaded state lawmakers to give him mayoral control of the city’s 1 million-student school system. The New York City Board of Education was replaced with a less powerful

18 | CRAIN’S NEW YORK BUSINESS | December 18, 2023

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body controlled by the mayor called the Panel for Educational Policy.

“PEP was relegated mostly to setting policy rather than operations,” said David Bloomfield, a professor of education leadership, law and policy at Brooklyn College.

But PEP did inherit one important power from the Board of Education: Control of BERS. PEP holds 23 of 27 BERS board seats, and because it’s considered a management representative it has the votes to approve budgets over the objections of other trustees, so long as one union representative goes along. On other city pension boards, power is more balanced between management and labor interests. BERS co-chairman Donald Nesbit is a former cook at a Brooklyn high school and the other co-chair, Thomas Sheppard, serves on a Community Education Council in the Bronx, a parent-led group that advises schools on policy matters. The more than 20 other trustees are volunteers including PTA leaders, retired principals, and a block association president.

“They’re public education advocates, not fiduciaries expected to be making billions of dollars worth of investment decisions,” Green Giles said.

Another quirk: Under the original legislation giving Bloomberg control of schools, the PEP didn’t include the city comptroller’s office, which serves on all the other pension boards. Lander told Crain’s this decision was “an oversight” but the former top lawyer of another city pension plan disagreed.

“Nothing is ever an oversight when it comes to the pension funds,” the official said.

Critical benefit When Mayor de Blasio appointed her to the PEP, Green Giles didn’t know she’d also been installed on the BERS board.

“I was like, ‘Huh, did I somehow join a pension board?’” she said, and missed her first two meetings.

The board’s job was to supervise BERS Executive Director Rich, who before running the fund starting in 2016 was chief negotiator at the federal agency overseeing pension plans of failed businesses and, previously, a junk-bond salesman at Merrill Lynch. In a statement, Rich said in his seven-year tenure he’s made “significant improvements in the operations and culture at BERS,” including installing a leadership team, improving technology and back-office functions, and leasing 51,000 square feet of Lower Manhattan office space at a monthly rent of just $3.25 per square foot.

After granting the raise making his deputy better-paid than the mayor, Rich’s request for his own pay increase was denied by the board. Although Rich was snubbed, he stayed on the job that pays $236,000 a year because “he remains committed to this agency and its mission, and is convinced that he still has more to contribute to BERS and its membership,” BERS said. The board cut Deputy Executive Director Miller’s pay to $200,000 last March for reasons BERS wouldn’t explain.

In addition to his duties at BERS, Rich has simultaneously been a director for nearly 12 years at Aspen Group, the Midtown-based owner of Aspen University, a for-profit school that trains nurses.

Since 2014 Rich has been awarded more than $300,000, mainly in shares and stock options, for serving on the Aspen board’s executive, regulatory and audit committees. Aspen’s stock reached more than $12 a share in 2020 but now trades for just 17 cents a share; the school was booted off Nasdaq this year after the Arizona State Board of Nursing said Aspen failed to meet “basic standards of educational practice,” according to a securities filing. It didn’t proctor exams adequately, the nursing board alleged, and counted clinical hours for students when they weren’t in facilities. Aspen consented to heightened oversight, the filing said. Rich referred questions to Aspen.

BERS trustees continue to protect their executive director — and their turf.

In October 2022, the board considered a motion to terminate Rich for his role in the pay-raise matter and to demote Miller. The matter came up four months after the comptroller’s office was finally given a board seat last year, as part of the legislation reauthorizing control of schools for Mayor Adams.

In executive session so the matter could be discussed privately, Comptroller Lander’s representative asked about additional investigations concerning Rich, Miller and other senior leaders. Other trustees wouldn’t let General Counsel Alexander Kazasis answer the question, according to the comptroller’s letter to DFS. Back in public session, with the cameras on, trustees talked about instead removing the comptroller from the board.

“To kick the comptroller off this board is a disservice to the beneficiaries of BERS and to the New York City taxpayers,” said his representative, Alison Hirsh. “It is at best short-sighted and at worst a purposeful attempt to prevent accountability and oversight.”

BERS co-chairman Nesbit, an executive vice president at the city’s largest public employee union, DC 37, told Hirsh her comment was “unfair” and his proposal was “not an official document.”

“Your position is the comptroller should be on there. Everyone doesn’t believe that,” said Nesbit, who didn’t reply to Crain’s request for comment. “The comptroller was not a member of this system for over 100 years.”

The board took no action.

Green Giles hopes the legislature will further reform the BERS boardroom next spring, when mayoral control is due for another reauthorization. Service on PEP must be separated from service on BERS, she said, and, although the fund’s investment returns are solid, the board should have more members with financial experience. BERS declined to comment on Green Giles’s remarks.

“Pensions are such a critical benefit for city workers,” she said.

“BERS members deserve the same level of care and consideration as everyone else.”

City allots $12M in opioid settlements to Staten Island in effort to rectify shortfall

By Amanda D’Ambrosio

Mayor Eric Adams allocated $12 million in opioid settlement funds to Staten Island addiction providers Dec. 6 — less than a year after City Hall acknowledged that officials did not equitably distribute money earmarked to mitigate the opioid crisis to one of the city’s hardest-hit boroughs.

The new funding, which will be dispersed over four years, will go exclusively to Staten Island’s provider organizations, a departure from the city’s previous distributions of opioid settlement money.

The city’s initial $150 million share of settlement funds, which come from lawsuits filed by New York State Attorney General Letitia James against opioid manufacturers and distributors, was dispersed solely to city agencies. The city had not made any settlement funds available to organizations outside of government as of September; this allocation marks a potential change in its distribution strategy.

Providers who offer addiction treatment, harm reduction, recovery services and employment or housing assistance will be eligible to receive up to $3 million each year over a four-year period, according to a source familiar with the situation.

It’s not clear how the money will be allocated, but the city is planning to work with providers and local officials in the coming months to ensure that the funds are distributed equitably and efficiently.

No timeline revealed The mayor’s office did not respond to inquiries from Crain’s about how the city plans to allocate opioid settlement funds to Staten Island or its timeline.

The new funding comes less than a year after the city acknowledged that it did not grant a fair share of opioid settlement funds to Staten Island. City officials allocated the first tranche of funds in June 2022, dedicating a combined $30 million a year to the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, New York City Health + Hospitals and the Office of Chief Medical Examiner. Officials allocated the first round of funds over five years.

The decision sparked outcry from Staten Island officials and provider organizations, who said that the city did not fairly fund the borough — primarily because it does not have a public hospital.

Although Staten Island has other H+H facilities, including a Gotham primary care site and mobile units, providers and advo-

Mayor Eric Adams announced new opioid settlement funds for Staten Island providers at Richmond University Medical Center on Dec. 6. | ED REED/MAYORAL PHOTOGRAPHY OFFICE

cates said that the nearly $75 million dedicated to H+H clinician training and emergency room support would not benefit its residents.

‘Serious gaps’ Local officials pressed City Hall on this issue to the point that officials recognized that the allocation to Staten Island was inequitable. Diane Savino, senior adviser to the mayor, said at a news conference in April that the city acknowledged “serious gaps . . . in Staten Island not being treated equally compared to the other four boroughs,” adding that the mayor was “very concerned” and working towards a solution.

The city’s allocation points to a lack of transparency in its settlement fund distribution process, meant to rectify harm and suffering of the opioid epidemic. Staten Island has been hit hard by the opioid crisis, and had an overdose death rate of 38 per 100,000 residents in 2022, the most recent year that data is available. The borough is second only to the Bronx, which had an overdose rate last year of 73.6 per 100,000 residents — nearly double that of Staten Island.

Providers and elected officials in Staten Island have called for more opioid settlement funding amid a record-breaking citywide overdose crisis. Overdose deaths in New York City surpassed 3,000 last year, with more than 80% of those deaths involving fentanyl, a synthetic opioid that’s 50 to 100 times more potent than morphine.

Behavioral health providers say that the worsening overdose crisis is compounded with low reimbursement rates and staffing challenges that have made it difficult for providers to keep up with demand. The settlement funds could fill some of those gaps.

New York City will receive a total of $286 million in opioid settlement money. The city has yet to allocate the remaining funds.

December 18, 2023 | CRAIN’S NEW YORK BUSINESS | 19

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PUBLIC & LEGAL NOTICES Notice of Formation of 1314 CAFE LLC Arts of Org filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 6/27/2022.

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Notice of Formation of WORLDS GREATEST ENTERTAINMENT LLC Arts. of Org. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 10/6/23. Office location: NY County. Princ. office of LLC: 228 PARK AVE S #340569, NEW YORK, NY 10003. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to the LLC at the addr. of its princ office. Purpose: Any lawful activity

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Associate (The Carlyle Employee Group Co., LLC – New York, NY); Mult. pos. avail. Rspb for evltng new invstmnt opps, transaction exec., portfolio mntrng of existing invstmnts, dsngng invstmnt solutions & structures for institutional invstrs. Contribute to the due diligence prcss, engagement w/ int. & ext. stakeholders, fin mdlng & valuation, & drafting of materials and invstmnt committee memos. F/T. Position based in New York, NY. Offer’ng salary range of $150,000 $160,000 per year. Telecommuting permitted up to 1 day per week.

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Data Management Technical Analyst (Citadel Enterprise Americas Services LLC – New York, NY); Mult. pos. avail. Leverage innovative techs to streamline ops & create new data flows by conduct’g analytics & automation work. Perform data analysis by building scripts & dashboards to surface critical metrics & KPI. Offering a salary range of $110,000 to $175,000 per year. F/T. Apply w/ resume to citadelrecruitment@citadel.com.

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AMAZON

Amazon is spending at a rate of 1.5 times its rivals Lobbying spend in New York state from January-October 2023

From Page 1

Lobbying total $671K

$600K $444K

$400K

$403K

$379K

$354K

$315K

$283K

$90K

$75K TikTok

Apple

Oracle

IBM

Airbnb

Microsoft

Uber

0 Google

Amazon has invested $30 billion in the city since 2010 through jobs and offices, added $25.1 billion to the state’s GDP, created 41,000 jobs and hosts 40,000 independent sellers, many of which are small and medium-sized businesses, according to Amazon spokeswoman Heather Layman.

“Given our commitment to New York, our policy team is focused on ensuring we are advocating on

Risk for startups

$208K

$200K

Lyft

Return on investment

$800K

Amazon

Specific targets include a bill that takes aim at monopolies (S6748), a requirement that online sellers notify consumers which books are created using generative AI (A8098), and beefed-up benefits for warehouse workers hurt on the job (AB3309). In all the firm has targeted about a dozen bills so far in 2023.

SOURCE: Crain's analysis of data from the New York State Commission on Ethics and Lobbying in Government

anaris, a Democrat who represents western Queens and was a vocal opponent of Amazon’s HQ2 in Long Island City, says that tech firms bringing economic opportunity to the city “doesn’t justify allowing them to — Rachael Fauss, senior policy adviser, Reinvent Albany abuse their workers, their competitors or issues that are important to poli- the public in general.”

“Any time we try to regulate that, cymakers, our employees and our they’re concerned about their decustomers,” she said.

New York state Sen. Michael Gi- sire to make more money and

“It’s good business to lobby and get your voice out there. . . .”

their belief that they are rulers of the universe, creating this environment where they spend money to try and control the outcome,” he said.

While Amazon’s total is the highest, plenty of other tech firms have spent considerable sums on lobbying.

“It’s good business to lobby and get your voice out there because the laws and regulations — and there are more and more of them — will impact these businesses’ bottom lines,” said Rachael Fauss,

icy,” he said.

Many are joining forces on bills that are industry-agnostic. One bill (S365), which has been targeted by Amazon, Microsoft, Google, TikTok and Lyft among others, seeks to require companies to disclose how they de-identify personal information, safeguard consumer data and let consumers know how their data is being shared.

senior policy adviser with government watchdog Reinvent Albany.

“They see it as a good return on investment.”

There’s another major upside of trying to sway New York lawmakers: As a large policymaking jurisdiction, it can set the tone nationally, according to Gianaris.

“If New York or California enact a law that is relevant, very quickly other states and sometimes even the federal government follow suit because we are very forward-thinking in terms of our pol-

However, in some instances, firms may not necessarily be after a certain outcome, but rather one that is consistent with other states’ guidelines, Samuels explained, saying that inconsistent data privacy guidelines can quickly drive up compliance costs.

Such legislation has an even higher risk for startups that are tasked with scaling their businesses at a much lower budget, Samuels noted, adding that “a startup is not going to be able to pay to comply with 40 different privacy regimes in the United States.”

“Tech companies, they will go where the people they want to hire are, and we have seen companies pick up and leave places when it’s not working for them,” Samuels said. “I hope that New York legislators can find a way to pass impactful legislation, but impactful legislation that companies will be able to comply with without undue burden.”

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Real estate leader shares 2024 predictions James Whelan, president of the Real Estate Board of New York, offered his outlook for next year and dished on the state’s elected leaders in a wide-ranging interview with Crain’s New York Business in early December. He expects a soft landing for the economy, the Fed to start cutting interest rates and a gradual improvement for the office market. On the other hand, he’s less optimistic about a much-needed boost for housing development, blaming legislators in Albany who he says don’t grasp Photography by Buck Ennis the urgency or mechanics of the issue.

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