Johnny vs. Tony

From City Limits:

The two men agree on most policy issues. They both disagree, for instance, with Mayor de Blasio’s bid to change the entrance process for the city’s specialized high schools. Voters will, of course, decide what the race is about, but if the candidates have anything to say about it, the contest will come down to whether the supposed practical benefits of Avella’s having joined the IDC outweigh the allege damage that did to the chances for a Democratic senate.

Both men appeared on Max & Murphy on WBAI this Wednesday. Below are each of their interviews:

De Blasio gets a concession from Preet

From the NY Times:

Mayor Bill de Blasio will probably be on familiar ground when he is questioned by federal prosecutors and F.B.I. agents in New York as part of a sweeping criminal investigation into his campaign fund-raising.

It was unclear when exactly the interview would take place, but it was expected to be conducted in a conference room at offices of Mr. de Blasio’s lawyer’s firm in Midtown Manhattan, people with knowledge of the matter have said, not in the offices of Preet Bharara, the United States attorney in Manhattan. It was expected that the interview would last about four hours, the people said.

The parameters of the session took shape after extensive negotiations between prosecutors and the mayor’s lawyer, Barry H. Berke, the people said, and it was possible that some details could change.

It is unusual for federal prosecutors to question a subject of a criminal investigation in the offices of the subject’s lawyer. Such sessions, which can become contentious, are almost always conducted in the prosecutor’s offices. It was unclear why the federal prosecutors agreed to hold the meeting at the Kramer Levin offices.

Let's hope it's because the case against him is so good that it doesn't matter where the inquiry is held. In the meantime, Emma Wolfe is absent and a lot of people at City Hall are shitting a brick.

DeBlasio and Preet to meet

From NBC:

NBC 4 has learned Mayor DeBlasio has agreed to discuss a corruption probe with federal prosecutors. Melissa Russo reports.

Tony Avella interview

You might as well bribe

From the Daily News:

Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. on Sunday slammed toothless laws that make it tough for state prosecutors to go after corrupt New York politicians.

They are “out of touch with the reality” compared with other states that make it easier to go after crooked officials, he said on John Catsimatidis’ radio show on AM 970.

“It’s more difficult in New York State to prosecute a politician or the briber for bribery than it is to prosecute a sports promoter for bribery,” he said. “We sort of have a carveout in New York State for political bribery, which makes it, I think, simply out of touch with the reality of statutes around the country.”

I'm sure the lawmakers will get right on correcting this.

Katz won't reveal what constituent cops think about this mess

From True News from Change NYC:

Katz dodges every question about the breakdown in police relationships, she gave the same talking points over and over about how she had a great relationship with the mayor and people are working to fix the problem. No specifics at all.

Click photo to watch video. Katz starts to spin like a top around 11:00.

Melinda talks tourism, Pavilion, transportation, development, Sandy and soccer

You'll notice that she talks about the Rockaways being vulnerable during future storms, but then says it's a great place for new development.

Do these people ever learn?

Could this be...an honest politician?

From The Observer:

As the new councilman for District 34, which includes Williamsburg and portions of Bushwick in Brooklyn and South Ridgewood in Queens, Councilman Antonio Reynoso personally understands the issues of his constituents.

He was born, bred and still lives in Williamsburg, a neighborhood he hopes never to leave. Plus, Mr. Reynoso spent seven years under the tutelage of his predecessor, Councilwoman Diana Reyna, working as her budget director, legislative director and, eventually, chief of staff until he quit to campaign for her seat.

Q & A

Mr. Lopez gave tax breaks to developers while he was an assemblyman and the chair of the assembly housing committee. How do you propose to get on the good side of developers?

I don’t really care to be on the good side of developers. If a developer wants to do right by a community, absolutely we can work with them. All these developers come in, build, sell and then go. They build condos, not rentals, so they have no long-term investments in any of these communities. When they come into any part of my district, I’m going to give them hell. I’m going to make sure I can get the most for my community.

What do you propose to do to limit the amount of influence real estate developers have in politics?

There’s very little we can do. [East Side Councilman] Dan Garodnick has a great bill when it comes to campaigns. He’s requesting that anyone who does any work in campaigns has to state who they are. For example, Good Jobs New York was the real estate companies’ independent campaign expenditure, [through which] they spent millions of dollars on candidates that they thought were going to be good for real estate.

I read that you are working on a proposal to rezone parts of the rapidly gentrifying neighborhood of Bushwick to make it harder to build massive towers. Tell us about this.

I’m looking to rezone Bushwick, but we’re going to look at it comprehensively. We’re going to sit with community groups, scholars, government [representatives] and residents and talk about how we are going to preserve the character—I mean physical character. Some people thought I meant I wanted to keep the Latinos in Bushwick, and that’s not what it’s about.

Bushwick is a beautiful, beautiful neighborhood. Right now, there are small mansions in Bushwick that are gorgeous, and none of them are protected. Rezoning would state that a developer can’t knock down one of these mansions and build a six-story building, for example.

Would you consider yourself anti-development?

No. I’m not anti-development. I’m anti-irresponsible development, which is what we see in Williamsburg.

How has it been dealing with developers?

All developers are — how do I say it? — don’t judge a book by its cover, for sure. They’re nice when they meet you. They promise you the world, but once they build, they’re gone. There’s no accountability to anyone in the community. The Edge may be the worst affordable housing project that I’ve seen in my time as a liaison and as a councilmember. The poor [were put in a separate building] on one side. They also did a terrible job with marketing, which is insane.

Queens Crap profiled by real estate website

From The Real Deal:

Queens Crap
(queenscrap.blogspot.com)
Neighborhood: Queens
Founded: 2006

Queens Crap chronicles the daily frustrations of residents, especially when it comes to real estate — the blog’s logo proclaims its focus on the “overdevelopment and ‘tweeding’ of a borough.”

The blog’s unpaid and anonymous founder told TRD that the site focuses on “what many would consider to be small issues, but are big issues to those affected by them, like missing lane markers on a repaved highway, or a developer tearing down a quaint old one-family home and replacing it with a multi-unit nightmare.”

But the site also covers large-scale developments, like the Bloomberg administration’s proposal for a new mall, tennis stadium and soccer stadium at Flushing Meadows Corona Park.

Queens Crap — where all contributors and commenters are kept anonymous to protect them from retribution — has no advertising or monthly site stats, though it has gotten 5.2 million page views since 2006, according to a tracker on the blog.

“I do it because I know many people throughout the borough are affected by the same issues, and in order to effect positive change, they need to know they are not alone,” the blogger told TRD in an e-mail.

Ackerman thinks his constituents are stupid

From the Daily News:

BBW: Congressman Ackerman, you’ve been here 30 years. Can you define comity as it existed when you arrived versus how it exists now?

ACKERMAN: Your premise is that comity exists now. It may not be entirely accurate. It used to be you had real friends on the other side of the aisle. It’s not like that anymore.

Society has changed. The public is to blame as well. I think the people have gotten dumber. I don’t know that I would’ve said that out loud pre-my announcement that I was going to be leaving. [Laughter] But I think that’s true. I mean everything has changed.

With liberty and free porn for all!

Here are some choice highlights of a NY1 interview Liz Crowley recently gave.

"We're out there everyday, mornings at train stops, afternoons at senior centers in the evening we're knocking on doors."

So she's out there spending all of her time running for congress (and apparently flying to Israel to study unemployment)? How much time is she spending at her city council job?

Around 5:08, she claims, "We want to be like the next Silicone Valley."

"Silicone Valley" is the nickname given to the San Fernando Valley in California, where the vast majority of our country's hardcore porn is created. I think the genius meant to say Silicon Valley.

The screenshot is from the precious moment when she proudly claimed, "I've worked with my hands in the past."

Yes, we know.

Here's Johnny!

From the NY Post:

Liu cheerfully admits: “The city is spending more money than it takes in.” But he won’t admit that the biggest reason is public-worker pensions and health benefits, which cost $16 billion a year. He’s mum about health benefits and on pensions insists everything is great.

He insists that new public workers don’t have to make any of the changes that Gov. Cuomo has suggested: working longer, contributing more or shifting to private-pension accounts. Instead, Liu claims we can fix the pension crisis with some housekeeping — saving money on fees to the managers who invest the city’s pension funds and getting better returns on those investments.

Cutting fees is fine. But chasing higher returns usually means taking greater risk — meaning taxpayers, who guarantee pension benefits, could pay even more in the future.

Nor does either move come close to solving the problem.

Liu wants to gamble with pension money in another way, too — by increasing the pension funds’ role as a political slush fund. The city already puts $1 billion in pension-fund money into “economically targeted investments” — such as “affordable” housing. Liu would expand such investments to small businesses — likely minting campaign donors interested in this cash.

His other big idea is taxes — raising them for people who make more than half a million dollars a year. In his speech, he said “equality” is just as important as economic recovery.

Yet the “top 1 percent” pays 43.2 percent of city income taxes, on earnings that comprise 33.8 percent of city incomes. If a few of these taxpayers leave town, New York would end up losing money, thanks to the tax hikes.