Team CoJo scrambling to pass his bad development plan

You may recall the post here where Paul Graziano analyzed NYC Council Speaker Corey Johnson's "Planning Together" legislation to change the NYC Charter to favor developers and remove community input. This past Monday, Graziano went head to head with Annie Levers, Assistant Deputy Director, New York City Council Office of Strategic Initiatives, at Community Board 8's Land Use Committee. You can watch the debate yourself. It's worth the time invested so you can clearly see what is going on:

The legislation was then voted on and unanimously rejected. Last night, the full board met and it was again unanimously rejected.

Earlier in the day, a rather long-winded and inappropriate email was sent out to Council Members to refute the information presented, which will no doubt result in a deluge of Community Board rejections. (Click to enlarge each segment)

The final insult came when Council Members - but not Community Boards - received word of an official public hearing on the legislation that was hastily scheduled for February 23rd.

So folks, you better get off your keysters and sign the petition in the sidebar and provide testimony at this "public" hearing (that they don't want you to know about), and make it clear to your City Council representatives that they are to vote no on this bill.

Corey is not an AirBnB fan

From the Daily News:

Council Speaker Corey Johnson is vowing to crack down on home-sharing site Airbnb — a favorite foe of the hotels union that helped boost him in the speaker’s race.

“The Council is going to continue to lead on cracking down on illegal hotels and illegal Airbnb warehousing of apartments,” Johnson told the Daily News in an interview, promising to beef up budgets for enforcing existing laws, hold oversight hearings and draft new legislation.

Johnson said the proliferation of illegal listings — it’s against the law in New York to rent an entire apartment out for fewer than 30 days, or even to just advertise it for rent — is one of the biggest complaints his constituents have.

But making an anti-Airbnb push one of his earliest policy proposals is sure to raise some eyebrows from those who might see it as a reward to the Hotel and Motel Trades Council — whose politically influential union is rabidly anti-Airbnb and which helped Johnson become speaker.

Spotlight on the Speaker

From CBS 2:

Corey Johnson, the new speaker of the New York City Council, vows to be independent and mount his own investigations of city agencies.

And if Johnson does not agree with mayoral policies, he says he will challenge them.

CBS2 Political Reporter Marcia Kramer said Tuesday that there is a new wind blowing at City Hall.

As the stomach turns...

We suggest that you read this informative expose on Kings County Politics so you can get an understanding of how we ended up with Corey Johnson as City Council Speaker and what Joe Crowley is up to these days. It really is an interesting read, even if you aren't into politics all that much. The entire city is at the mercy of congressional members' political ambitions.

Corey Johnson has friends in the real estate industry

From Crains:

Several high-powered real estate firms invested heavily in the political fortunes of Greenwich Village Democrat Corey Johnson, who emerged Wednesday as the apparent next speaker of the City Council.

Officials of the Related Cos., DDG Partners, the Property Markets Group and others gave generously to Johnson's campaign. (Corporate entities cannot contribute directly to candidates.) Johnson secured the support of the majority of his peers by courting the Democratic Party bosses of Queens and the Bronx, and by winning the endorsement of the powerful Hotel Trades Council. The city's legislature wields vast influence over zoning and land-use decisions, and the speaker controls the body's affairs.

To win the necessary backing to lead the council, Johnson donated heavily to his colleagues' campaigns and to the coffers of Bronx and Queens power brokers, and for that purpose he amassed $505,818 this election cycle. Crain's found that more than $63,000 came from real estate interests. Additional funds flowed in from figures in the construction and hotel industry.

Questions about Van Bramer's fundraising

From Progress Queens:

For this report, Councilmember Van Bramer's communications director, Sean Butler, did not answer on the record questions submitted in advance by Progress Queens. A request for an interview was also not answered about the top 40 days when donations were clustered. If Councilmember Van Bramer's committee to reelect did not use more intermediaries to raise the $520,000 that was reported to have been directly raised by committee officials, then the coordination that took place was done by the committee. As noted by the activism group Queens Anti-Gentrification Project on a post on the group's blog, more than $100,000 of the money raised by Councilmember Van Bramer during the recent Municipal election cycle came from the real estate industry. Councilmember Van Bramer has not publicly opposed large real estate industry-backed projects -- such as the proposed rezoning of Long Island City, the proposed trolley service that would run through the Brooklyn and Queens waterfronts, known as the Brooklyn-Queens Connector, and the proposed development of Sunnyside Yards -- that Queens activists say will spread gentrification into the City's second-most populous borough. Activists have charged that Councilmember Van Bramer was "firmly aligned with a real estate industry that shows no regard for the working class." In an editorial published by the nonprofit news Web site City Limits, a member of the Queens Anti-Gentrification Project also questioned the direction of Queens under Councilmember Van Bramer's leadership.

For this report, neither Councilmember Van Bramer nor Communications Director Butler disclosed whether Councilmember Van Bramer had formed a dedicated campaign committee for his speakership race or when Councilmember Van Bramer began his Council speaker campaign. A source familiar with the Campaign Finance Board's regulations directed Progress Queens to the list of declared campaign committees when asked whether Councilmember Van Bramer had formed a dedicated campaign committee for the Council speakership. A review of the list showed that Councilmember had not appeared to have formed a dedicated campaign committee for his speakership race that was registered with the Municipal campaign finance regulatory authority. A separate review of State campaign committees registered under Councilmember Van Bramer's last name showed no change from a prior list of registered campaign committees generated online by Progress Queens on or about the time the complaint was filed with the Federal prosecutors' office.

So you think you have talent? - Speaker edition

It's Friday. The City Council Speaker candidates didn't have a care in the world (except jockeying for position to kiss the king's ring) when they boogied down at Joe Crowley's holiday party. You might hit the eggnog extra hard yourself when you realize what we're in store for over the next 4 years. Go ahead and caption this photo.

Sliwa has plan to reform City Hall

From the Daily News:

Guardian Angels founder Curtis Sliwa, who also heads the state Reform Party, wants to give voters a chance to abolish the city public advocate office.

Sliwa, who also hosts a daily radio talk show, is set to call Wednesday for a public referendum to eliminate the advocate position and have the City Council speaker elected by voters, not the council members.

With no oversight or subpoena power, “it is clear by now that the public advocate position has just become a taxpayer-funded method to run for mayor of the city of New York,” Sliwa said.

Making the council speaker a publicly elected position would take the power away from the party bosses who currently control the process, he said. Sliwa added that the speaker should also have increased oversight functions.

By law, the council could vote to put the measure on the ballot or the mayor could appoint a charter revision commission to do it.

Doubting that will happen, Sliwa said the state Reform Party and its allies are prepared to try to collect the necessary signatures needed to put it up for a citywide election.

Speaker race campaign finance shenanigans questioned

From Progress Queens:

Because Election Day is four (4) days away, on Tuesday, 07 November, Progress Queens is publicly releasing a civilian crime report filed by the publisher of Progress Queens with the U.S. Attorney's Office for New York's southern district.

The complaint outlined how the eight (8) candidates for New York City Council speaker have been making donations to other Councilmembers out of their committees to reëlect to win support for the speakership campaign ; have been having meetings, including with U.S. Rep. Joseph Crowley (D-Queens) ; and have been preparing for debates or holding debates before the November general election. The Council speaker candidates are: Councilmembers Robert E. Cornegy, Jr. (D-Brooklyn), Corey Johnson (D-Manhattan), Mark Levine (D-Manhattan), Donovan Richards (D-Queens), Ydanis Rodriguez (D-Manhattan), Ritchie Torres (D-The Bronx), Jimmy Van Bramer (D-Queens), and Jumaane D. Williams (D-Brooklyn).

These speakership campaign activities have been taking place in the apparent absence of dedicated campaign committees for the speakership race. Four years ago, the Municipal campaign finance regulatory authority reportedly provided advice to Councilmember Melissa Mark-Viverito (D-Spanish Harlem) that using a committee to reëlect for the speakership race was prohibited, forcing her to form a separate, dedicated campaign committee for the speakership race.

A review of information about campaign committees tracked online by the New York State Board of Elections did not identify which campaign committees were designated for the speakership race. For this report, attempts were made to reach the Council speaker candidates, or their representatives, but no response was received to a request made late Thursday evening. The Federal complaint alleges that Council speaker candidates, who do not presently have a dedicated campaign committee for the speakership race, are violating campaign finance laws, because the absence of a dedicated Council speakership race campaign committees implies that campaign consultants are working for free, a violation of law.

Speaker candidates will be tougher on the mayor

From Crains:

The eight city councilmen running to succeed Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito vowed to further democratize the body—and some said they would be tougher with the mayor.

The speaker candidates—Manhattan Councilmen Corey Johnson, Mark Levine and Ydanis Rodriguez, Queens Councilmen Donovan Richards and James Van Bramer, Bronx Councilman Ritchie Torres and Brooklyn Councilmen Robert Cornegy and Jumaane Williams—made the remarks at a Crain's forum in Midtown. As speaker, Mark-Viverito has instituted reforms such as distributing discretionary money based on district need, but some members have chafed that she bottles up legislation unless she has negotiated a deal for the mayor's approval.

This has spared Mayor Bill de Blasio, who helped engineer Mark-Viverito's election as speaker in late 2013, from having to veto even a single bill after nearly four years in office. Torres decried as an "embarrassing months-long spectacle" the ill-fated agreement between Mark-Viverito and de Blasio to curtail the horse carriage industry in Central Park.

"Instead of representing the weight of the members, I thought the leadership of the council was effectively doing the bidding of the mayor," said the Bronx lawmaker, viewed generally as an underdog in the speaker's race.

He asserted that bills with a veto-proof "supermajority" of 34 or more sponsors should receive a vote regardless of the mayor's or speaker's feelings, even as he argued the speaker should provide some kind of "quality control."

Several of Torres' colleagues noted that the council bucked both the mayor and the speaker on the carriage deal. Van Bramer, Johnson and Levine praised Mark-Viverito for overcoming the mayor's initial resistance to more NYPD hires, to a new legal defense fund for all undocumented immigrants fighting deportation and to closing the Rikers Island jail complex.

Still, they called for rules changes that would stop a future speaker from continuing Mark-Viverito's tack of blocking bills that she or the mayor dislikes. Johnson suggested new mechanisms that would ensure a hearing on bills with majority support (at least 26 sponsors) and a vote on bills with 34 members signed on.

Council speaker rides float with terrorist

From the NY Post:

Controversial onetime convicted terror leader Oscar Lopez Rivera may have declined the Puerto Rican Day Parade’s “National Freedom Award,” but he was still at the head of the event Sunday — with the City Council speaker right by his side.

Lopez Rivera — who did 35 years behind bars for his ties to the Puerto Rican terror group FALN — was on the first float out of the gate at the Manhattan parade, and speaker pal Melissa Mark-Viverito hopped on to join him at 62nd Street.

Speaker is full of herself, among other things

From the Observer:

The speaker of the New York City Council, Melissa Mark-Viverito, has an unusual strategy for solving city problems. When she came upon a broken Walk-Don’t Walk sign, she didn’t call 311 to report it. Nor did she shoot an email to the Department of Transportation’s chief to convey the importance of fixing this particular safety device—perhaps more quickly than normal. Instead, Mark-Viverito tweeted about it.

Surprisingly, a staffer at DOT saw Mark-Viverito’s tweet. But this on-top-of-it staffer almost immediately responded in kind—via Twitter—and informed the speaker that the most effective way to get fast action was to call the 311 hotline.

Mark-Viverito responded in full huff: “whaaaat???” she tweeted. “This a joke? Or an auto response? Or maybe even an intern? Not a response for an elected.”

Unfortunately, Mark-Viverito made it all about her: you don’t know who I am? Is an “elected” a new protected class? Is her sense of self-importance so out of control?

If Mark-Viverito had called 311 or emailed the DOT commissioner and not gotten results, a tweet would certainly have been appropriate. But we’d like to suggest to Mark-Viverito that a public servant—yes, that is the more appropriate word for an “elected”—is here to serve, not to huff or berate. And that includes disparaging interns.

2 Queens pols jockeying for speakership

From NY1:

Just two and a half years ago, half a dozen candidates slugged it out to become the next speaker of the city council.

It was a hard-fought race that captivated City Hall in late 2013, but Melissa Mark Viverito emerged as the victor.

Now, a year and a half before the 51 members vote on her successor, the race to replace her is underway behind the scenes.

"Anybody who tells you that they aren't interested in speaker in this very aggressive, passionate council is being disingenuous," Brooklyn City Councilor Robert Cornegy said outside City Hall.

At least eight council members have emerged as possible speaker candidates: Jimmy Van Bramer and Julissa Ferreras-Copeland, both Queens city councilors; Manhattan Councilors Ydanis Rodriguez, Mark Levine, and Corey Johnson; Vanessa Gibson of The Bronx; and Brooklyn Councilors Cornegy and Jumaane Williams.

But none of them has declared that he or she is officially seeking the spot.

Because money grows on trees

From NYC Council Watch:

Does the Council imagine that the good times will roll on and on? When a downturn hits, it will be interesting to hear the cries of pain when these social service programs are forced to scale down.

Your Watcher was fascinated last February by the tremendous effort and resources that the Speaker’s office poured into her egregious “State of the City” address. As you may (or probably don’t) recall, she built an extremely elaborate website to livestream her speech, which was branded with a special “Lift Every Voice” theme, very much like a political campaign.

As I wrote then, there is no reason for the Speaker of the Council to give a “State of the City” speech. The mayor is supposed to give one, according to the Charter, but there is no such obligation for the speaker. Think about it: does Carl Heastie give a “State of the State” address? No. Did John Boehner give a “State of the Nation” speech? How absurd.

In any case I FOILed the Council to get information on the cost and planning of Melissa Mark-Viverito’s speech. Building fancy websites is not cheap, and livestreaming an event costs a lot too. The Council’s FOIL officer took nine months to answer my request, and what she gave me makes the release of Hillary Clinton’s emails seem like the epitome of transparent, open government. I received scores of pages of emails that were entirely redacted except for the “From” line. About twenty pages were totally black: it was only just possible to see that these pages were nothing more than screenshots of the website. So why were they blacked from view?

So much for the openness Mark-Viverito promised upon her election. Her office’s answer to my simple request to see emails pertaining to the production of the exercise in vanity that was her “State of the City” speech is an embarrassment.

Van Bramer ok with massive LIC upzoning; wants to be speaker

From Crains:

The city is planning to rezone LIC. What's the plan?

Long Island City is the epicenter of growth in Queens, and the administration sees an opportunity. Rather than one-off developments and individual variance requests, the idea is to bring in parts of Northern Boulevard, Queens Plaza and all of Jackson Avenue and some adjoining streets, and have a master plan.

How many units altogether could be built as a result of the rezoning?

Thousands of units of additional housing, and if you allow for 25% to 30% to be affordable, you’re talking about a significant number.

What is the timing?

By mid- to late 2016, they will move to certify. They have to get East New York’s rezoning out of the way, and then Long Island City is next.

What kind of infrastructure are you asking for?

Schools and parks and transit improvements. We can’t have the rezoning without a firm commitment in writing from the Department of Education that we’re building at least two new schools. And we need a park. There’s potentially a very exciting park plan out there that could involve MoMA PS1 and create a High Line-type of public park. It’s the vision of the museum to deck over a portion of its courtyard and have a cascading staircase. That would be the entrance to the park that comes down the front of the museum.

Would you like to become speaker of the council?

You can’t be in leadership or the majority leader without having an interest in the speaker’s role. I look forward to hopefully being re-elected to the City Council for another four years in 2017, and then we’ll see what happens.

Notice how he mentions "transit improvements" but then doesn't say what those will be. More trains on the 7 and E lines is not even possible.

Heastie scored big off mafia guy

From the NY Post:

The state’s newly minted Assembly speaker, Carl Heastie, accepted cash from a mobster convicted of racketeering and steered thousands more to a man who did time for manslaughter, records show.

Between 2003 and 2008, more than $2,800 flowed into the Bronx Democrat’s campaign coffers from Tri-State Employment Services and its top executives, including reputed Bonanno associate Neil Messina, who was sentenced to 18 years in prison last April in connection with a 1992 home-invasion murder.

Heastie also directed at least $250,000 to the Bronx Business Alliance. The now-defunct nonprofit’s head, John Bonizio, was convicted of manslaughter in 1982 for bludgeoning a man to death with a baseball bat. Bonizio also made a plea deal after being indicted in the same year for trying to bribe an NYPD detective.

“Associations like these seriously undermine his attempts to show that the Assembly Democrats have turned the page,” a Democratic operative said of Heastie.

“As someone who is totally undefined in the public eye, this is a troubling first impression.”

Melissa not keen on housing in IBZs

From Crains:

In her State of the City speech Wednesday, Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito called for increased protections for the city's dwindling industrial and manufacturing zones, putting her on a collision course with Mayor Bill de Blasio, who is eyeing those zones for housing.
Ms. Mark-Viverito said the City Council would work to implement recommendations laid out in a report issued last November to "protect industrial space and support growth in the city's traditional manufacturing sectors, like furniture and ethnic food, and also nurture growing creative-sector industries."

Ms. Mark-Viverito's speech came amid tension between the council and Mr. de Blasio over the future of the city's 21 industrial business zones. The mayor is looking for ways to add apartments to the IBZs, which former Mayor Michael Bloomberg shielded from residential rezoning but largely ignored during his final years in office. Critics sense a similar lack of enthusiasm from Mr. de Blasio, whose first budget slashed funding for the IBZ program and whose aides talk of putting "workforce housing" in industrial areas to advance the administration's goal of creating 80,000 affordable units.

Silver gone as speaker by Monday

From CBS News:

Embattled New York State Assembly speaker Sheldon Silver has agreed to step down by Monday of next week, in the wake of federal corruption charges.

As CBS2’s Jessica Schneider reported, Democratic leaders met for two days, and finally decided Tuesday night to force the powerful assembly speaker to step down.

“I don’t know what decision my colleagues made,” Silver said. “I made a decision that I will not hinder this process.”

Assembly Majority Leader Joseph Morelle (D-Rochester) announced the move Tuesday. Morelle will serve as acting speaker until a new one is elected by Feb. 10.

Sources told CBS2 Silver will step down from the speaker post, but will remain a member of the Assembly.

As majority leader, the No. 2 post in the chamber, Morelle will be the interim speaker from the moment Silver resigns until the lawmakers formally convene again Monday. At that point, they plan to amend their rules to keep him as interim speaker until Feb. 10. That’s intended to give any other member a chance to express interest and explain how he or she would lead, said Assemblyman Thomas Abinanti.

Cathy Nolan, Madame Speaker?

From the NY Observer:

Top officials with the Queens Democratic Party are calling Assembly members in Queens, Manhattan and Nassau County about the possibility of supporting Assemblywoman Catherine Nolan, a Queens Democrat, for speaker if Mr. Silver resigns or is forced out of office after his arrest on federal corruption charges, sources say.

Ms. Nolan, first elected in 1984, chairs the powerful Committee on Education.

“Queens is calling around, taking the temperature. They’re pushing Nolan,” said an Albany Democratic source. “They are floating her in case Shelly is no longer speaker so there’s a quick transfer of power and the body can move on.”

Sources say the Queens machine’s three top deputies–Michael Reich, Frank Bolz and Gerard Sweeney–are calling legislators to figure out what kind of support exists for a potential Nolan candidacy. Ms. Nolan, who did not immediately return a request for comment, defended Mr. Silver in the Daily News.

“They feel he’s taken a lot of criticisms for reflecting the views of a hundred very disparate people,” Ms. Nolan said. “It’s not an easy thing to do and he has done it very well.”

Melissa under investigation

From Crains:

New York City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito and one of her former political consultants are subjects of a city ethics probe, Crain's has learned.

The noncriminal investigation, which is being conducted by the city's Conflicts of Interest Board, centers around Ms. Mark-Viverito's acceptance of free assistance during her 2013 race for council speaker, according to two sources with knowledge of the matter.

The speaker recently paid $20,000 in campaign cash to a law firm to represent her in the investigation. In November 2014 and again this month, Ms. Mark-Viverito's campaign fund made $10,000 payments to Ballard Spahr Stillman & Friedman. The Conflicts of Interest Board has been deposing figures in the investigation.

In the midst of the competition to succeed Christine Quinn as speaker, the Daily News reported that Ms. Mark-Viverito's acceptance of pro bono help from the Advance Group—a prominent Manhattan lobbying and campaign consulting shop—could run afoul of a city ethics regulation. Good-government group Citizens Union called for the Conflicts of Interest Board to investigate.

The Advance Group had helped Ms. Mark-Viverito prepare for debates and to network with council members and county leaders, who behind closed doors helped decide the internal leadership race. Though Ms. Mark-Viverito's speaker bid had advantages, including the support of Mayor Bill de Blasio, she was not especially popular at the time among many of her council colleagues, from whom she needed 26 votes, or county bosses, who controlled many members' votes.

The ethics question arose because as a public servant, Ms. Mark-Viverito is prohibited by the City Charter from taking a "valuable gift" from a firm that intends to do business with the city. Lobbyists are also prohibited from providing such gifts. The Advance Group has extensive lobbying business before city government, including the powerful speaker.

A public official found to have violated the rule can be fined up to $25,000, and someone providing improper assistance up to $5,000.