By Nora Bosworth

“Ken told me that he has not seen a room this crowded since the anti-war debates of the sixties,” announced Jason Haber, Chair of Community Free Democrats, who co-sponsored the democratic mayoral debate on Thursday night.
Ken Sherrill, Professor Emeritus of Political Science at Hunter College, moderated the panel of five candidates: Sal Albanese, Public Advocate Bill de Blasio, Comptroller John Liu, Council Speaker Christine Quinn, and former Comptroller Bill Thompson.

Photo by Steven Barall

The event filled the Goddard Side Community Center to its capacity, with an estimated 300 to 350 people, according to Joan Paylo, District Leader of the 69th Assembly District, Part B.
There were “huge numbers of people turned away,” she added. Many attributed the debate’s great turnout to the Upper West Side’s history of passionate advocacy and political awareness.

“The Upper West Side has a long and proud tradition of progressive activism,” said Assemblywoman Linda Rosenthal. “This district more than any other, I believe, is the embodiment of democratic values.”
Rosenthal added that her district always votes “in droves.”
Excitement reverberated throughout the Community Center as hundreds of local New Yorkers waited to hear the mayoral candidates address issues close to the residents’ hearts. Topics ranged from proper budgeting, to which Bloomberg policies the candidates would change first, to which borough the potential mayors know best. (Albanese, de Blasio, and Thompson said Brooklyn; Liu said Queens and Quinn said Manhattan).

After a series of playful questions, (when was the last time the candidates paid rent, and how much did they pay?), shouted an audience member: “Let’s ask some real questions!”

Quickly, the conversation turned to housing.

“Can you represent the interests of tenants when you take money from developers?” came the next question.

Applause erupted throughout the room.

Liu reminded everyone that the question did not apply to him, saying, “Sal and I are the only ones who do not accept contributions from people who do business with city.”

Albanese came out more aggressively, per usual, against his opponents.

“If you think [accepting contributions] has no influence, I can sell you the Brooklyn Bridge,” he growled. He added that he alone would not be “wearing handcuffs” if elected mayor.

Thompson said his actions spoke louder than any accepted donations. He spoke to his years as comptroller, in which time he brought a spotlight to the failings of the Mitchell-Lama programs, which provides affordable middle-income housing.

“We worked to make sure people weren’t pushed out of Mitchell-Lama,” he said.

Quinn touted her record as Council Speaker, saying, “I can tell tenants I can deliver as mayor, because I’ve delivered as speaker.”

She cited her passing of the Safe Housing Act, which gives the city power to repair New York’s worst buildings, and then bill the landlords for the work. She also praised the Tenant Protection Act that she passed, the first law the city has seen that grants tenants the right to sue landlords over harassment.

“The law was so good it was sued by the landlord lobby,” she said, half-joking.

De Basio came out strongest against private developers.

“The real estate industry thinks it has tremendous power in the election and has played favorites over the years,” he said. He lauded one of his creations as Public Advocate, The Worst Landlords Watchlist, an online tool that reports and allows one to research the landlords with the most violations in the city. De Blasio said the webpage has helped “thousands and thousands of tenants,” and gotten some buildings “out of private hands and into non-profit hands.”

“That’s the kind of leadership I believe in,” he declared.

But perhaps the most fiery housing issue discussed was the New York City Housing Authority’s plans for building market-price condominiums on public housing project land. The Upper West Side’s Frederick Douglass housing would be particularly affected if the plans are realized; the Authority intends to erect four new buildings in that area alone.

The Housing Authority states that by leasing such prized land to private developers, some fourteen parcels in eight different public housing units, they could pay for the thousands of repairs needed throughout the various projects. The deal would grant the private developers access to the land for 99 years.

Among the many concerns voiced by the community and their mayoral candidates was a pervasive skepticism that the Authority is hurting as badly financially as they claim. Adding to this doubt was last year’s discovery that the organization was sitting on almost one billion dollars while petitioning the government for more funding.

In light of this scandal, their upcoming project, widely known as the “infill plan”, has encountered harsh criticism.

“NYCHA was sitting on a billion dollars of capital funds,” said Liu. “Now they’re claiming poverty, that they need a revenue stream; they shouldn’t keep piles of money lying around under the proverbial mattress while they go out and ask citizens to pay more.”

De Blasio, on the other hand, does not doubt that NYCHA is suffering economically. (In his testimony to the New York State Assembly this month, NYCHA Chairman John B. Rhea announced that the organization is currently stuck with “6 billion dollars in unmet capital needs.”)

Nonetheless, De Blasio stated that the proposal “can’t be trusted,” and that “people worried about losing housing have every reason to be worried.”

“Let’s call this for what it is,” said Thompson, echoing his opponents’ views. “A sham.”

Quinn also voiced her agreement, calling the auctioning off of Housing Authority property to the highest bidder “a terrible idea.”

“Stop this proposal and stop it right now,” Quinn exclaimed, “because we will never get that land back!”

The agency plans to sign with developers by November 2014, according to a recently released report.

Based on the Upper West Side’s history of activism, however, it’s safe to say there is more resistance to come.

“I think our school system is largely stalled right now,” asserted New York City Public Advocate Bill de Blasio, one of the forum’s three undeclared Democratic candidates along with City Comptroller John Liu and City Council Speaker Christine Quinn. “We need a very serious reset.”

De Blasio focused on the importance of early childhood education throughout the discussion, an issue which all potential candidates supported. He called for universal pre-kindergarten programs and expanded extracurricular activities across the city, arguing “that’s the kind of investment we need to make, or we’re not serious about turning the corner with our school system.”

Liu emphasized the necessity of preparing students to not only enter college, but to graduate from it as well. To keep students on track, he proposed hiring more guidance counselors and reducing the current system’s heavy focus on standardized testing—another issue that the potential candidates uniformly agreed needs to be addressed—as well as cultivating better communication with students’ families, whose voices, he argued, are too rarely considered.

“We need to engage the public more in terms of what the schools need, what communities need, what families and parents need,” he said.

Quinn, who is considered an ally of current Mayor Michael Bloomberg, agreed that the current administration still has many shortcomings that need to be overcome. She supported an evaluation system that would weed out bad educators, and argued that reducing testing would grant teachers more freedom and creativity in their lesson plans. “For a child who might not learn in the traditional way,” she said, “having that level of attention on standardized testing significantly reduces or eliminates the moments where that child’s mind might get passion or a spark might get set off.”

She noted, “Clearly progress has been made, but not enough.”

Tom Allon, CEO of the forum’s sponsor Manhattan Media and a declared Republican candidate, advocated what he called a “medical model” of teacher training to ensure that they have proper experience before taking over a classroom. Through a tier-track system and mandatory three-year in-class training period, the city would boost its low teacher retention numbers, he asserted.
“What [the Bloomberg administration] has missed is the fundamental problem of education,” said Allon, “which is that we’re just not properly training teachers before they get into the classroom, and we’re not giving them proper instructions once they get into the classroom.”

The only declared Democratic candidate, former city comptroller and 2009 mayoral candidate Bill Thompson, focused his criticism on chronic school closures, the root of a tension between public and charter schools. He spoke of the particular difficulties of the recently popular “co-location” of public and charter schools in the same buildings, where public schools are often inferior in resources and appearances. “The children feel as if they’re second-class citizens,” he argued, which creates disruptive rifts in what is supposed to be a mutually beneficial approach to learning.
Thompson agreed that early childhood education is essential, and that teachers need more professional development opportunities and support. “Education is collaborative,” he said. “The schools that do better are the schools that have individuals who work together with one teacher to help improve another teacher.”

The forum, held at Fordham University, was the first joint appearance of the five mayoral hopefuls since the presidential election earlier this month, and also since Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer, a presumed mayoral candidate, announced that he would run for city comptroller instead. The forum was considered an unofficial and symbolic start to the 2013 race, which will conclude next November.

Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Council Speaker Christie Quinn announced on Tuesday that a study by the City Clerk’s office  and NYC & Company, the city’s tourism agency, estimated that same sex-marriages have contributed $259 million to the city’s economy since New York passed the Marriage Equality Act one year ago on July 24.

“Marriage equality has made our City more open, inclusive and free – and it has also helped to create jobs and support our economy,” Bloomberg said in the statement. “New York has always been a great place to get married and since the passage of the Marriage Equality Act, we’re welcoming more and more couples, their families and friends from around the country and the world.”

According to the survey, over 201,000 same-sex wedding guests visited from outside the city. They booked over 235,000 hotel rooms at an average rate of $275 a day, as well as paid for dining, celebrations, gifts and various other wedding-related purchases. Add this income to at least 8,200 gay-marriage licenses that were purchased in the last year (couples are not required to disclose their sexes) and $16 million in tax revenue from the marriages, and you start to get a sense of the same-sex wedding business’s size.

“Thirteen months ago our legislators did the right thing and voted to make same-sex marriage a reality, ensuring that New York State was among the leaders in equality,” said City Comptroller John Liu in a statement. “Today’s announcement is simply the icing on the wedding cake.”

In addition to New York, same-sex marriage is legal in Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont and the District of Columbia. Massachusetts led the charge in 2004, and found similar economic growth: gay marriage added an estimated $111 million to the state’s economy in five years.

via Wiki Commons

2013 Mayoral Race

Anthony Weiner’s wife is reportedly urging him to give a tell-all interview, amid rumors that he’s considering a run for mayor or public advocate.

John Liu raised $600K despite his fundraising scandal.

Tom Allon himself raised $250K.

Christine Quinn is already focused on fundraising for a possible general election.

Queens

One of the contenders for Assemblywoman Grace Meng’s seat runs prostitution ads in his Korean-language newspaper.

The state GOP infused cash into Councilman Eric Ulrich’s Senate bid.

State Senate

Democratic State Sen. Jeff Klein is surprisingly running with the support of the Bronx GOP.

Dean Skelos now has a war chest of more than $2 million.

Suffolk County GOP State Sen. Owen Johnson suddenly decided to retire.

David Valesky surprisingly has no GOP challenger.

To read more campaign coverage from City & State click here.

Jenny Hou. Photo via Facebook.

In Manhattan federal court today, Judge Richard Sullivan set a date  for the government’s case against former John Liu campaign treasurer Jia Hou to begin on February 4th, 2013, less than a year before the first primary election in Liu’s presumed bid to become New York City’s next mayor.

Hou, the 25-year-old former treasurer, is accused of helping accrue illegal campaign donations for the City Comptroller, through a system of straw donors, and is also accused of failing to fully disclose the names of the campaign’s intermediaries.

Lefcourt said Hou’s defense team needed much more time to review the government’s case against her, which includes more than 1,100 conversations recorded through government wiretaps, Hou’s emails and instant messages.

“We are dealing with a monumental problem here,” Lefcourt said, as he asked for the government to disclose more information about their case against Hou. “I’ve tried to get the government to tell us whether they are going to introduce evidence from a large number of wiretaps. They have refused to tell us whether they are going to,” he said.

Lefcourt also asked the government to identify which intermediaries and straw donors Ms. Hou refused to produce. “You say that they are straw donors. Well who are the straw donors? They won’t tell us,” he said.

Judge Sullivan, explaining to Hou and her co-defendant Xing Wu Pan why the government would push the trial date further into the future and closer to the mayoral primary election, said Hou and Pan’s interests outweighed the need for a speedy trial. “Some cases are more complicated than others,” he said.

To read the full article at City & State click here.

Photo courtesy of Wiki Commons

Manhattan

Guillermo Linares is in for a Senate run against Adriano Espaillat, while Mark Levine appears to be dropping his candidacy.

Charlie Rangel issued a statement congratulating Espaillat.

U.S. Senate

Wendy Long challenged Kirsten Gillibrand to a series of five debates.

2013 Mayoral Race

John Catsmatidis doesn’t think Christine Quinn is a lock to get Mayor Bloomberg’s endorsement.

Queens

Jerry Iannece hired the Parkside Group and picked up John Liu’s backing.

Staten Island

An Assembly candidate is trying to make hay of Marty Golden’s “feminine presence” class.

Elsewhere

After getting ballot status in 2010, the Green Party is having an easier time than usual this year.

Maggie Brooks’s fundraising haul kept her competitive with her opponent, Louise Slaughter.

To read more from City & State click here.

UPDATE:

Chris Shelton, a CWA vice president for District 1, sent us the following statement:

“Through countless lies, high-pressure meetings, and underhanded tactics, Cablevision illegally created a climate of such fear and intimidation that a free and fair election was impossible. James Dolan personally came to theBronxnot once but twice to play intimidator-in-chief. We are confident that federal investigators will find Cablevision’s shameful conduct was illegal, and Cablevision workers across the region will continue their fight for justice and respect on the job.”

UPDATE x2:

In yesterday’s election, the Bronx Field Technicians and Audit Technicians voted 3-1 against CWA representation.

To read more from City & State click here.

She was barely soaking in her victory — having addressed the crowd at Williamsburg’s East River Bar shortly before 11 p.m. — and was piling her plate with meatballs, roast chicken, fried fish, pasta salad, rice and some kind of lasagna at a buffet set up in the bar’s backyard.

“We beat him in his own district! In his base! Cypress Hills!” she said. “The question was turnout and how well we would do in the Hasidic community. But I’m going to work and represent the entire community.”

Her campaign manager, Anthony Thomas, said the keys to victory were decisive wins in Brownstone Brooklyn and the Lower East Side, and keeping pace with Dilan in Hasidic Williamsburg, where Velazquez picked up about 40 percent of the vote.

Turnout had indeed been low throughout the district.

Poll watcher Dorothy Siegel said that voter turnout in Brooklyn Heights was the lowest she had ever seen. And voters were slow to get to the polls in parts of southside Williamsburg and Bushwick.

Councilwoman Diana Reyna, who herself enjoyed a raucous primary night three years ago after defeating a Vito Lopez-backed candidate, said that she believed the Brooklyn Democratic chairman had been counting on a low turnout to help Dilan, but that even he thought Nydia was going to win.

“Vito approached a volunteer at my polling site and said, ‘Of course she’s going to win, she had eight pieces of mail and three negative pieces in the final days of the campaign,’” said Reyna.

Just after midnight, City Comptroller John Liu stopped by to congratulate Nydia and pose for a half-dozen photographs.

“I’ve been on the campaign trail with a lot of people and it’s really hard to keep up with Nydia,” he said. “Congratulations to Nydia and congrats to all of us. This is Nydialand!”

To read more from City & State click here.

TV Still Courtesy of NY1

New York City Comptroller John Liu is calling for a rent freeze in the city. Liu, who is running for mayor, attributes his proposal to “economically challenging times” and delays in building affordable housing, Capital New York reports.

In his June 15th letter to the Rent Guidelines Board, Liu cites the City’s 9.7 percent unemployment rate and the fact that a large percentage of New Yorkers spend more than one third of their income on rent. Liu’s proposal comes on the heels of the Board’s preliminary decision to increase the cost of one- and two-year leases for rent-stabilized apartments.

Liu says: “Rent stabilized housing is one of the few alternatives left for these low- and middle-income New Yorkers.”

The preliminary proposal would raise one-year leases between 1.75 and 4 percent, while two-year leases could jump between 3.5 and 6.75 percent, according to NY1. 

Liu also cites the fact that those living in rent-stabilized conditions have “been hit especially hard by the economic downturn.” The city has nearly one million of these rent-regulated apartments, NY1 reports.

The board will vote on the increases on June 21.

—Alissa Fleck

Photo by Andrew Schwartz

The six 2013 New York City mayoral candidates appeared together on stage for the first time this afternoon at a forum sponsored by City & State — and were largely in agreement that the Bloomberg administration had failed in its efforts to provide more city contracting opportunities to women and minority-owned businesses. The forum was part of a morning-long series of panels on MWBE (Minority and Women Business Enterprise) issues in New York City, which also included opening remarks by Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

Sitting side-by-side in a packed auditorium at New York University, the rivals often clapped for one another, though they did have some minor policy disagreements. In the forum’s most poignant moments, debate moderator David Chen, the City Hall bureau chief for the New York Times, prodded the various candidates to assign a letter grade to Bloomberg’s efforts to give more contracting opportunities to MWBEs. All the candidates agreed that Local Law 129, passed in 2005 to provide those businesses with more city contracts, had not been implemented particularly well, and had not gone far enough, but differed in the degree of their critiques.

Comptroller John Liu and Public Advocate Bill de Blasio, historically strong critics of the mayor, both gave Bloomberg F’s.

Council Speaker Christine Quinn gave Bloomberg, a close ally, a “C or C-minus,” after some prompting from Chen for a specific grade.

Tom Allon, the president of Manhattan Media (which owns City & State) gave the mayor a B-minus for effort and a C-minus for the oversall results. Meanwhile, Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer, though critical of Bloomberg, refused to assign a grade, as did ex-Comptroller Bill Thompson, who simply said the administration’s MWBE efforts were “failing.”

To read the full article at City and State click here.