Not GSD

 

NY Post

It’s the late show, from City Hall!

A portal offering proactive public access to NYC government records has been inundated with late notices scolding agencies for failing to file reports on crime stats, infectious disease updates, and notifications about multi-million-dollar project cost jumps, the Post has learned.

The 762 late notices filed so far in 2022 are more than double the late filings during the same period in 2021, a spike the Department of Records has attributed to a “system flaw.”  

The findings are “disturbing,” and pose a “tremendous disservice” that leaves the public “in the dark,” said Paul Wolf, president of the New York Coalition for Open Government.

Late notices make up a staggering 29% of the total 2022 Department of Records filings. In 2020, its 632 late notices made up 15% of total filings. The agency filed 374 late notices during the first half of 2021, representing just 12% of total filings for that period, and filed just two additional late notices in the second half of 2021.

The Blaz walks while city plans and services get burned

 

NY Post

 The coronavirus is still gripping the city, a fiscal meltdown looms and New York has been rocked this year by civil unrest, but instead of stepping up, Mayor Bill de Blasio has been stepping out.

Hizzoner has taken to regularly walking off the job — literally — in the middle of his workday for meandering, sometimes hour-plus jaunts, generally in his old Brooklyn neighborhood, while the city remains in crisis, The Post has learned.

The mayor’s latest regimen of distractions — which comes after he temporarily swore off his well-documented Park Slope YMCA workouts when COVID-19 shut down all gyms — also includes morning constitutionals running into the start of his daily press briefings, according to city sources familiar with his routine.

“This is the height of arrogance,” said one insider, who noted that the aimless walks have been commonplace for months. “While the city is falling apart, he is … walking in the park with his head in the clouds.

“I wonder if he ever heard of Nero,” the source added, referring to the Roman emperor said to have fiddled while his city burned.

 THE CITY

A city Health Department annual report providing crucial insight into maternal deaths and health complications.

An update on Mayor Bill de Blasio’s five-year plan to combat homelessness.

Required biannual statistics on allegations of sexual assault against visitors to city jails and investigations of sexual abuse in local lockups.

These are among dozens of required statistical reports produced by city agencies that have failed to surface by recent deadlines, as flagged by the Department of Records and Information Services (DORIS).

The missing include periodic reports from the city Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, the Department of Homeless Services, Department of Corrections — and virtually every other city agency.

They also include the first progress report on de Blasio’s sweeping, self-proclaimed Green New Deal.

City Hall officials blamed the delays on the government response to the COVID-19 pandemic — including constraints brought on by remote work, layoffs and hiring freezes.

“Our city agencies have heroically worked to balance the urgent demands of the pandemic with non-COVID projects,” Avery Cohen, a de Blasio spokesperson, said in a statement on behalf of the mayor and the agencies. “In the interest of complete transparency, all agencies have been reminded to submit pending reports as soon as possible.”

The way he's eluding the press and also his job, The Blaz seems to be evolving (or devolving) into an urban Sasquatch. Or a Snuffleluffagus

Joe Crowley hooks up with Republican to form lobby firm while being courted by video game industry

Axios

Bipartisanship is tough to come by inside Congress, but two formerly powerful House members are finding it on the outside.

Former congressmen Bill Shuster of Pennsylvania and Joe Crowley of New York, who have known each other for about 20 years, plan to work together in lobbying and government-relations.

• Shuster, 58, who was chairman of the House Transportation Committee, retired.
• Crowley, 56, once seen as a possible successor to Speaker Nancy Pelosi, lost his primary to now-Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

The former congressmen are open to joining a firm, or starting their own.

 The Intercept

Joe Crowley, the longtime New York congressperson who was unseated in a primary by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, remains extraordinarily popular among both Democrats and Republicans in the House, making him K Street’s biggest whale for 2019. Among the closest to landing him, according to sources familiar with Crowley’s post-congressional employment journey, is the video game industry’s lobby group, known as the Entertainment Software Association.
 
Nintendo, Microsoft, Sony Interactive Entertainment, and Ubisoft are only some of the members of the ESA. Politico first reported on Monday that Big Console is among the potential landing spots for Crowley. The former New York congressperson has also had early discussions with two other groups, Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld and Hogan Lovells, according to the report.
A spokesperson for the ESA said that Big Console is “not commenting on the search process. 

However, we will make an announcement when the time is appropriate.” The video game industry’s top legislative concerns involve rules around data privacy — they collect an awful lot of data — as well as intellectual property, patent law, and net neutrality regulations.