via City & State.

Manhattan State Sen. Adriano Espaillat is expected to announce that he will run for re-election to the state Senate this evening, at Fort Green Presbyterian Church in Manhattan at 6 p.m. Espaillat sent out an announcement to supporters last evening terming the announcement “Adriano’s next steps.” Espaillat is slated to face a primary challenge against Assemblyman Guillermo Linares, a longtime rival, who has been running for the Senate seat for months, and who is expected to have the backing of Rep. Charlie Rangel, Espaillat’s erstwhile primary opponent. A spokesman for Espaillat did not immediately return a request for comment.

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Synchronized Septuagenarians: The Harlem Honeys & Bears synchronized swimming team performs inside the Thomas Jefferson Park Pool to celebrate the expansion of the Senior Swim program to 14 outdoor public pools. The program runs through Aug. 24.

Espaillat Eyes Senate & Concedes to Rangel
City & State reports that State Sen. Adriano Espaillat, who conceded defeat on Monday in his contested primary race against Rep. Charles Rangel, declined to say whether he would run for re-election to the state Senate.

But Espaillat signaled that he would run for his seat, revealing at a press conference Monday that he had given district leaders permission to circulate petitions on his behalf after the June 26 congressional primary.

“I authorized some of the district leaders to begin circulating petitions after the 26th, after Election Day, and I will be considering my personal decision as to whether or not I will accept those signatures and move forward with re-election,” he told reporters outside his district office. “I promise you that in 48 hours, I will have that answer for you.”

Petitions to run for the state Senate and Assembly are due by Thursday.

A source close to Mark Levine, an Espaillat ally who had been planning to run for Espaillat’s seat, also confirmed the senator will run for re-election. The source said that Espaillat will use his own petition signatures and not get on the ballot through a Levine vacancy committee, as had been speculated.

During the campaign, Espaillat said he only had his sights on the congressional seat, not his own. Rangel, the longtime congressman who faced his toughest primary challenge in over four decades in office, seized on Espaillat’s comments, saying that he didn’t know where the senator would find a new job when he lost.

Whether he runs for re-election or not, Espaillat could be a serious candidate for Rangel’s congressional seat again in two years. Espaillat, who is Dominican, came within 1,000 votes of ousting the incumbent, capitalizing on changing demographics and redrawn lines that made Latinos a majority in the district.

“There’s no question I come out of this process strengthened,” Espaillat said. “I think two years down the line is a long time. I will not make a decision right here, but I feel very strongly that I have been strengthened in this process.”

Espaillat could also find himself taking on the state’s other leading Dominican elected official, Assemblyman Guillermo Linares. Linares said he would run for Espaillat’s state Senate seat after Espaillat announced his run for Congress, and reiterated his intention to run when Rangel initially declared victory.

The Nabe’s Bad Landlords
Public Advocate Bill de Blasio released his updated list of the city’s worst landlords last week, and four of the culprits are located on the Upper East Side.

The worst offender of the four is Golden State Holding, which according to de Blasio, operates a building at 408 E. 64th St. that has 16 units. The property has a total of 96 violations, placing it 38th on the list of the worst Manhattan buildings. The other locations on the list are M/S Capitol NY LLC, with an 81-unit building at 1531 York Ave.; 33-39 East 65th Street LLC, with a 48-unit building at 35 E. 65th St.; and 501 ½ East 83 Street LLC, with a building at the same address with 39 units.

“It takes years of neglect for a building to deteriorate to the point where it ends up on our Watch List. But with enough public pressure and strong tenant organizing, we can turn these buildings around and make life better for thousands of New Yorkers,” said de Blasio.
He began the list in 2010 in order to highlight repeat offenders and pressure landlords with dangerous conditions to make necessary repairs. According to de Blasio’s office, each entry on the list has a minimum of two hazardous housing code violations per unit, such as lack of heat or hot water, lead paint, toxic mold or broken plumbing.

For the Win For Now
While his lawsuit against Mayor Michael Bloomberg and the City Council is still pending, Assembly Member Micah Kellner is touting a temporary win in the fight against building a new marine waste transfer station (MTS) at East 91st Street. Attorney Michael Cardozo, serving as corporation counsel for the city, signed a stipulation last week that prevents the city from doing any construction at the MTS site, where a defunct station and a community recreation facility, Asphalt Green, currently sit, until the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers approves the permits needed to start the project.

“We don’t know the true environmental impact of this transfer station,” Kellner said of the reason for his lawsuit, which demands that the city submit and receive approval on a new environmental impact statement that takes a larger capacity for waste processing into account. “We’re going to let a jury decide who was right on the law.”
The Army Corps must issue permits in order for the city to start construction because the proposed facility sits on a body of water.

Disabling the Training Wheels
A special training camp for children with disabilities will be held in New York City for the first time this summer. Lose the Training Wheels, a nonprofit organization that teaches people with disabilities to ride two-wheeled bicycles, is holding a free camp for children Aug. 6–10 in Brooklyn sponsored by the National Down Syndrome Society and the Lyle Foundation. The event will be held at the Aviator Sports & Event Center in Floyd Bennett Field, at 3159 Flatbush Ave.

The program uses special adaptive bicycles to gradually transition kids to riding regular two-wheeled bikes without assistance.
Participants must be at least 8 years old and have a disability. They must be able to walk without an assistive device and sidestep to both sides, as well as be under 220 pounds and have a minimum inseam measurement of 20 inches. All participants must be able to attend a 75-minute session for each of the five days of camp. Those with their own two-wheeled bikes are strongly encouraged to bring them the first day.
Registration is limited; email bikecampnyc@gmail.com for more information or to sign up.

Stephanie Miner – Be honest. Before Tuesday, had you ever even heard of Stephanie Miner? Though Miner has long been acclaimed as a rising star in Central New York, where she’s been mayor of Syracuse since 2010, she was largely unknown across the rest of the state until Governor Cuomo plucked her from obscurity this week and named her co-chair of the NYS Democratic Party along with Manhattan Assemblyman Keith Wright. While even Miner admitted to being “a little bit” surprised by her high-profile selection, she won’t have a moment to catch her breath, taking the reins of the party in the height of campaign season, with critical electoral battles like the Buerkle-Maffei rematch going down in her backyard.

Mike Gianaris – Word on the street is the Democratic Senator from Queens got the most laughs at this year’s LCA show, with a bit making fun of the Senate Dems’ failed bid at an independent redistricting process this year. It’s not always easy to make fun of yourself, especially on an issue that wasn’t very funny to Gianaris when the gerrymandered district lines were being passed in the Senate during the Big Ugly. (Who can forget Gianaris telling Republican Sen. Mike Nozzolio to take his map and “shove it?”) The video itself, produced by the Parkside Group, was slick, funny, an appropriate length and it outshone the Governor’s video effort, leading everyone to wonder whether Parkside shouldn’t give up trying to elect Democrats to the Senate and just scoot on out to Hollywood instead.

Charlie Rangel – So what if Rangel was absent for another debate and his campaign flip-flopped on his lame excuse for ditching? The Harlem congressman made up for it with a strong showing in the endorsement race this week, racking up nods from key Latino leaders Rep. José Serrano and Assemblyman Guillermo Linares, not to mention scoring high-powered labor support from the UFT. The incumbent legislator even won over his erstwhile rival, Adam Clayton Powel IV, whose father Rangel defeated to first get to Congress way back in 1970. All in all, Rangel hasn’t been sitting this pretty since that Punta Cana Resort photo the Post loves running so much.

Solomon Kalish – The Post hed said it all: “Kruger Bag Man Gets Big Fat Break.” Kalish, one of former Sen. Carl Kruger’s co-conspirators in the wide-ranging bribery scheme, got a light sentence for his role in the scam this week, in inverse proportion to his size, which has caused him health problems in the past. The extra weight gutted Kalish’s prison term by half, Judge Jed Rakoff said during sentencing. We don’t envy anyone’s poor health, but it may make Kalish a free man faster than any of the other Kruger cohort.

Nik Wallenda – The death-defying Niagara Falls tightrope walk that funambulist Nik Wallenda planned became slightly less death-defying this week, after officials insisted he wear a harness to prevent him from plummeting to his death in the event of a misstep. This renders the feat less impressive we suppose, but we like to think he’s a winner because, hey, at least it’s less likely that he will plummet to his death.

LOSERS

John Sampson – What could be worse for John Sampson than The Daily News reporting that regardless of whether the Dems win or lose in December he’s out as Minority Leader? The follow-up article from Ken Lovett revealing that when Sampson brought up the piece in a closed-door meeting with his conference later in the day, not a single member stood up to defend him. In fact, according to Lovett, the criticisms of Sampson only grew more severe. With friends like that… Eh, John?

David Soares – There’s never a good time to be censured when you’re supposed to be the face of law and order, but when a State Appeals Court censured Albany County District Attorney David Soares yesterday for his mishandling of a 2010 case, it came at a particularly bad time, because Soares is facing his most credible threat in years in the form of Lee Kindlon. Soares is supposed to be watching Albany and its occasionally troubled politicians, but who’s watching him?

Michael Bloomberg -  At this point in his political career, it was already too late for Hizzoner to shake his reputation as an out-of-touch billionaire, but when it came out this week that the Mayor regularly flaunted the 34^th Street Heliport’s weekend curfew, the perception that Bloomberg is self-important was propelled to new heights. Shirking the rules once or twice – that’s understandable. But eight times in a single weekend? Even the Mayor’s top-shelf press team couldn’t explain that away. Kudos to the concerned citizens that exposed the chief exec’s excesses. We hope now you can finally get some peace and quiet.

Sheldon Silver — The Speaker staked this legislative session on the minimum wage hike, a measure he announced his hopes for quite specifically at the State of the State address earlier this year. And although the wage issue still seems dynamic, with several weeks left to go in the legislative session as scheduled, Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s suggestion that passing a $1.25 increase in the minimum wage would be more difficult than passing same-sex marriage was last year certainly tamped down expectations for Silver’s biggest gamble.

Richard Hanna – The Oneida County Rep. flew the Tea Party flag when he ousted Mike Arcuri in 2010 and has made “fiscal responsibility” his mantra over his first term in Congress. So how has Hanna been husbanding our precious tax dollars? Apparently, by sending 461,281 pieces of mail at the bargain price of $190,766. The freshman’s affinity for snail mail not only ranks him the #1 franker among the state’s congressional delegation, it stamps him as 25^th out of the nation’s 435 Reps. in abusing the system. Hanna’s spokesperson tried arguing that all those newsletters were essential for keeping up with his constituents, but that alibi was returned to sender when the numbers revealed that 7 of his fellow New York members (6 Dems and Republican Michael Grimm) spent a whopping $0 on franking.

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Bill Thompson is courting the Orthodox Jewish vote.

Queens

Joe Addabbo and Shirley Huntley aren’t getting campaign cash for supporting same-sex marriage.

Manhattan

Former Clinton and Obama aides are backing Clyde Williams over Charlie Rangel.

Rangel’s fellow House Democrats are not helping him out much either.

Clyde Williams told Errol Louis why he’s running.

Guillermo Linares is running for state Senate, even if he faces incumbent Adriano Espaillat.

Brooklyn

Charles Barron’s campaign manager makes the case for his candidate.

Stephen Levin weighs in on Jeffries-Barron and Dilan-Velázquez.

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