| | | | | |  | | By Erin Durkin and Anna Gronewold with Jonathan Custodio | Presented by Noom | As nurses have been on the front lines fighting the Covid-19 pandemic, the union that represents them is locked in an internal war . The dispute within the 42,000-member New York State Nurses Association threatens to cost the union its clout in Albany, squandering gains for its members at a time when nurses are being praised as heroes, our Amanda Eisenberg reports. "They're eating their own," a Cuomo administration official told POLITICO. "They went from being major players to bit players because their leadership does one thing and their membership does the other." The rift centers around a leftward shift in the union, as the New York City chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America attempts to build a stronghold within the labor movement. The ideological push under union president Judy Sheridan-Gonzalez has meant a more militant approach toward politicians the union doesn't consider progressive, including Gov. Andrew Cuomo. That shift hasn't sat well with some NYSNA staffers, who prefer a more conciliatory approach to deliver concrete benefits for union members. While that dynamic plays out, fifteen NYSNA members, including two board members, signed off on a complaint to federal regulators accusing Sheridan-Gonzalez and executive director Patricia Kane of "receiving improper financial benefits in the forms of 'salaries', stipends, or other remuneration, which they have arranged for themselves, with zero oversight or accountability." "This conduct is injurious to the organization because it not only misappropriates union funds, unfairly utilizes the resources of the organization, and compromises the judgement of the leadership, but it has also tarnished the reputation of the organization," according to the 8-page complaint shared with POLITICO. The union president says complaints within the group are the natural byproduct of an evolving mission. NYSNA's convention will take place today, allowing members to vote on bylaw changes and adopt new rules — an occasion some members fear will further fuel the union's leftward swing. "NYSNA has built itself into a fairly powerful political organization," said one former staffer. "It was — I fear it is no longer." IT'S TUESDAY. Got tips, suggestions or thoughts? Let us know ... By email: EDurkin@politico.com and agronewold@politico.com, or on Twitter: @erinmdurkin and @annagronewold WHERE'S ANDREW? In Albany with no public events scheduled. WHERE'S BILL? Holding a media availability. | | | | A message from Noom: Introducing Noom, the last health and wellness program you'll ever need. They know the power to build life changing habits comes from within. Their online support system includes a personal goal specialist and support from real people trained in psychology, fitness and nutrition to help users reach their goals. Start your journey today. | | |
|  | WHAT CITY HALL'S READING | | SHUTDOWNS ARE likely to remain in place in some of the coronavirus hot spots in Brooklyn and Queens beyond this week, Mayor Bill de Blasio said Monday. But neighborhoods in a central Queens red zone that includes Kew Gardens Hills and Rego Park have made the most progress in reducing their infection rates and could be the first to see their restrictions loosened. "The fact is we need to see some more progress in most of these areas, in red and orange zones," de Blasio told reporters. "I think it's going to be a few more weeks in most areas." Gov. Andrew Cuomo ordered nonessential businesses to shut down and banned gatherings in red zone neighborhoods — restrictions that would last at least two weeks, a mark that will be hit on Thursday morning. The state has the final say on whether the restrictions will continue, be modified or be ended. POLITICO's Erin Durkin — Local officials in other potential trouble spots are struggling to get reliable information after the city stopped releasing daily infection data by zip code. — A rabbi who urged Brooklyn's Orthodox community to abide by coronavirus safety measures has died from the virus. "NEW YORK CITY'S government, the largest employer in the city, is developing a plan to bring back 25% of its workers to offices by the end of the year, according to a person familiar with the matter. The plan comes as most city workers have continued to work remotely since the coronavirus pandemic struck in March. City officials are still developing the plan, which could be adjusted if New York sees a large resurgence of the virus, the person said. A spokesman for Mayor Bill de Blasio, a Democrat, declined to confirm the timeline for the city work force's return. New York is working out individual plans for each city agency's employees, the spokesman, Mitch Schwartz, said in a statement." Wall Street Journal's Katie Honan "CITY HALL'S embattled plan to move hundreds of homeless New Yorkers from a controversial Upper West Side hotel to the Financial District remained in limbo Monday after shelter residents won an emergency court ruling that temporarily blocks their relocation downtown. The initial victory came just hours after three hard-luck New Yorkers staying at the shelter operating inside of the Lucerne Hotel intervened in a lawsuit already filed by residents who live near the Wall Street lodging, the Radisson Hotel on Williams Street." New York Post's Nolan Hicks, Sam Raskin, Julia Marsh and Priscilla DeGregory WHEN A ROUTINE tally of New York's top 50 political operatives was published over the summer, a group of Black consultants immediately took note of the list's lack of racial diversity. Some of them made the grade, but felt they were ranked unjustifiably low, given their professional success. Others weren't listed at all. So they reached out to the publisher of the news outlet, City & State, to air their concerns. Last week, after the same publication ran a story claiming a sitting Black female lawmaker "crashed, burned and flamed out," the consultants said they'd had enough. Despite several apologies and swift corrective action from the publisher, Tom Allon, they are forming an advocacy organization to force change in how they are depicted in media coverage. The nascent group, Association of Black Lobbyists and Political Consultants, launched with a letter to Allon on Monday demanding sustained improvements. POLITICO's Sally Goldenberg "ZACH ISCOL, a combat veteran who helped lead the city's COVID-19 response from an emergency field hospital at the Javits Center, officially entered the crowded Democratic primary field for the 2021 mayoral race Monday promising to banish 'special interests' from City Hall. 'It's time for change,' Iscol says in a video announcing his campaign. 'That starts with bringing competency, leadership and a mayor who actually cares more about outcomes than special interests and campaign donors to City Hall,' Iscol says in a jab at the building's current occupant Bill de Blasio. The 42-year-old ex-Marine filmed his launch video in front of 1180 President St., a Crown Heights, Brooklyn building purchased by the city for a premium last year for affordable housing despite a heap of serious housing code violations." New York Post's Julia Marsh FIRST IN PLAYBOOK: Family members of three men killed by police are endorsing Lucy Lang for Manhattan district attorney. Lang, a former Manhattan assistant DA, is one of nine candidates vying for the seat held by Cy Vance. She'll get the backing of Valerie Bell, the mother of Sean Bell, who was shot to death by the NYPD; Victoria Davis, the sister of Delrawn Small, who was killed by an off-duty cop during a traffic dispute in Brooklyn; and Valerie Castile, whose son Philando Castile was killed in Minnesota. "Lucy is a tireless force in the fight for police reform. I am proud to stand beside her as we work to hold law enforcement accountable and build a justice system that works for all New Yorkers," Davis said. | | | | THIS WEEK - NEW EPISODES OF POLITICO'S GLOBAL TRANSLATIONS PODCAST : The world has long been beset by big problems that defy political boundaries, but many of those issues exploded over the past year. Are world leaders and political actors up to the task of solving them? Is the private sector? Our Global Translations podcast, presented by Citi, unpacks the roadblocks to smart policy decisions and examines the long-term costs of the short-term thinking that drives many political and business decisions. Subscribe now for Season Two, launching Oct. 21. | | | | |
| | WHAT ALBANY'S READING | | MORE THAN a million people living or traveling in New York, New Jersey and surrounding states have signed up to be notified when they've come into close, prolonged contact with Covid-19-infected individuals who report their cases to new mobile contact tracing apps. The programs have been rolled out in Pennsylvania and Delaware as well as New York and New Jersey in recent weeks, and they will soon begin in Connecticut. They utilize Bluetooth technology, not location data, to communicate with nearby users and send alerts of possible Covid-19 exposure. The apps, which work hand-in-hand with those developed by the partner states, mark the latest step in the regional effort to contain the virus as cases continue to tick up across the U.S. "I don't know of anywhere else in the country where you have four or five states in a cluster working together," Larry Schwartz, the former secretary to the governor and a member of Gov. Andrew Cuomo's Covid-19 task force, said in an interview. POLITICO's Shannon Young "NEW YORK may have to consider changes to its quarantine rules for out-of-state travelers now that two of its closest neighbors, Connecticut and New Jersey, are on the brink of getting added to the list of places subject to the restrictions. The three states announced earlier this year that they would jointly require people traveling from states with higher rates of transmission to isolate themselves for 14 days after their arrival. About three dozen states are now on New York's must-quarantine list. Both Connecticut and New Jersey were poised to join them based on the current threshold of targeting states averaging 10 or more new cases per day, per 100,000 residents. The latest data shows that Connecticut hit that threshold Monday, with 11.2 new cases per 100,000 residents. New Jersey and Massachusetts are both above nine cases per 100,000 residents, while New York is at seven per 100,000, twice what it was at the end of August." Associated Press' Marina Villeneuve "GOVERNOR ANDREW CUOMO says his vaccination plan for New York, released over the weekend, is preliminary, and that much more information is needed to finalize the distribution of the vaccine to New Yorkers, when it becomes available. Cuomo says his plan, which the federal Centers for Disease Control required all states to submit, is just a first draft of what could happen when the vaccine is finalized. He hopes that will occur over the winter. Cuomo says, more than seven months into the pandemic, New York has conducted 12 million coronavirus tests. But it's possible that a vaccine could require two doses per person, and it's estimated that around 20 million New Yorkers will want it. That's a total of 40 million injections, in what will hopefully be a very short amount of time. 'I believe this is going to be the hardest operational challenge that we've faced since Covid began,' Cuomo said , in a conference call with reporters on October 19th." New York State Public Radio's Karen DeWitt "THE NEW YORK STATE LIQUOR AUTHORITY has appealed a State Supreme Court ruling from last month that halted the state's pandemic-related ban on advertised and ticketed shows at the Sportsmen's Tavern and other licensed bars and restaurants across the state. Justice Frank Sedita III, in his ruling, called the regulations 'not only excessive but also irrational' and he ordered the SLA to stop enforcing its incidental music guidelines. In its appeal to the Appellate Division in Rochester, filed Thursday, the authority said its 'appeal is taken from each and every part of that order.'" Buffalo News' Patrick Lakamp "AN ORGANIZATION that represents hundreds of New York supreme court justices may soon sue top court administrators over their decision to terminate nearly every judge over 70 in the state. The Association of Justices of the Supreme Court of the State of New York has reached out by email to 46 judges whose careers will come to an end Dec. 31 to see if they are interested in becoming plaintiffs in an Article 78 lawsuit against the Office of Court Administration's administrative board, which chose not recertify them to the bench last month. 'The Association's Executive Board is having discussions whether to proceed against the Administrative Board with an Article 78 proceeding and would appreciate your input,' Association President Charles Merrell wrote to the judges in an email shared with the Eagle. Merrell is a supreme court justice in Lewis County." Queens Eagle's David Brand #UpstateAmerica: Thieves stole $5,000 worth of THE BEST apples from a secluded area of a Porter farm. "I'm not going to lie — it is a very unusual case — we're talking $5,000 worth of Honeycrisp Apples. They're very expensive to manufacture, Honeycrisp apples," said Trooper James O'Callaghan, PIO, Troop A. | | | |   | | |
| | TRUMP'S NEW YORK | | THE JUSTICE DEPARTMENT said on Monday that President Trump should not be sued personally for having denied a rape allegation because he made the statement while acting in his official capacity as president. Lawyers for the government made the argument as they defended Attorney General William P. Barr's decision to intervene in a defamation lawsuit filed in a New York court against President Trump by E. Jean Carroll, the writer. Ms. Carroll has said that Mr. Trump raped her in a department store two decades ago and then falsely denied the attack, branding her a liar and harming her reputation. But Justice Department lawyers say that even though the allegation concerns an incident that occurred decades before Mr. Trump became president, his denial was still an official act because he 'addressed matters relating to his fitness for office as part of an official White House response to press inquiries.'" New York Times' Benjamin Weiser and Alan Feuer | | ... 2020 VISION ... | | A REMATCH FOR a volatile upstate House seat is growing exponentially contentious as the race tightens in the campaign's final weeks. Three-term Republican John Katko and his Democratic challenger Dana Balter spent the noon hour on Monday arguing about the needs of the Syracuse-area district, with both attempting a delicate dance to avoid ties to the more extreme wings of their parties. The two candidates, who battled each other in 2018, agreed on just one item: The new roof of Syracuse University's iconic Carrier Dome is a vast improvement from the old one. The debate — the first for the candidates this cycle — was in many ways an opportunity to air grievances from campaigns that have devolved into aggressive character assaults, with Katko alleging that Balter is lying about how much her policies will cost voters and playing "holier-than-thou" in her campaign finance practices. Balter, in turn, assailed Katko's attack ads while insisting that her messaging is entirely policy-driven. POLITICO's Anna Gronewold "IN THE SHARP-elbowed contest for the 11th Congressional district, Rep. Max Rose and Assemblywoman Nicole Malliotakis have traded blows over Bill de Blasio, Mitch McConnell and Nancy Pelosi. They've argued over whether Rose has supported defunding the police (he hasn't) or whether Malliotakis once directed a PAC to fund de Blasio's campaigns (the allegation is a stretch, at best). They have not discussed Rose's proposal to track foreign white supremacists operating in the United States, or Malliotakis' call for stricter animal welfare rules. Those are, however, among the topics on which the two have worked in their careers as legislators—Rose in Washington for the past 33 months, and Malliotakis in Albany for nearly a decade … City Limits analyzed the candidates' records as authors of legislation and found that both are fairly prolific authors with distinct philosophies and personal priorities, with Rose having the larger set of concrete legislative accomplishments." City Limits' Jarrett Murphy FIRST IN PLAYBOOK: The Eleanor's Legacy Action Fund is launching a new voter education effort with Hillary Clinton urging voters to make a plan to cast ballots, not only in the presidential race, but for "local offices, state Assembly, state Senate, and Congress." Clinton, in a new digital ad going live at 1 p.m. today, calls on eligible voters to vote "like our lives and our rights depend on it, because you know what? They do." Some studies have shown that in 2016 nearly 100 million eligible voters did not cast a vote for president and non-voters are more likely to say it is because the system is rigged, the fund says. Eleanor's Legacy is also using text, phone bank, and social media to reach out to more than 400,000 voters across the state. ELECTIONLAND: POLITICO is partnering with Electionland , a ProPublica project that works with newsrooms to track voting issues around the country. The Electionland project covers problems that prevent eligible voters from casting their ballots during the 2020 elections. Tell us here if you're having trouble voting. | | | | GLOBAL PULSE, GLOBAL PURPOSE: At a high-stakes moment when global health has become a household concern, it is pivotal to keep up with the politics and policy driving change. Global Pulse connects leaders, policymakers and advocates to the people and politics driving global health. Join the conversation and subscribe today for this new weekly newsletter. | | | | |
| | AROUND NEW YORK | | — Melanie Hartzog has been named the city's new deputy mayor for health and human services, while her former job as budget director will be filled by Department of Finance Commissioner Jacques Jiha. — A former aide to Assemblymember Felix Ortiz in Brooklyn was sentenced to two years' probation Monday for stealing more than $80,000 from his old boss. — The cash-strapped MTA is moving out of two office spaces it leases in Midtown Manhattan and downtown Brooklyn, relocating those operations to its main headquarters in Lower Manhattan. — A 73-year-old woman was pushed onto subway tracks in Brooklyn by a stranger who had been smoking marijuana on the platform. She's in stable condition. — Two more Albany County residents have died from Covid-19. — The Bethlehem school board is again fielding requests to remove former NBC talk show host Megyn Kelly's photo from Bethlehem Central High School's Hall of Fame. — "The future Legoland New York is steadily progressing toward a 2021 opening, even as the park's parent company negotiates with regulators over new penalties for serial pollution and the pandemic wallops its finances." — Counties received millions more than expected in fourth quarter sales tax returns, but will still be unable to reverse a year of falling sales-tax returns. — Anthony Weiner promised never to run for office again as he discussed his new job running a countertop company in an interview with NBC New York. — A group pushing for more women on the City Council endorsed 32 female candidates for next year's election. — The chaotic energy in New York City subways is now subdued to just a handful of mask-clad workers tunneling their way through the dingy underground corridors. — This Queens neighborhood is home to a bastion of Trump supporters in the heavily Democratic New York City. | | SOCIAL DATA BY DANIEL LIPPMAN | | HAPPY BIRTHDAY: NYT's Matt Apuzzo is 42 (h/t Tim Burger) … Greg Lowman, VP of digital advocacy and policy comms at Fidelity … Christie Boyden … NBC's Caroline Modarressy-Tehrani … Bart Marchant … Webber Xu … Eliza Relman … Evan G. Zuckerman MAKING MOVES — Julia Arredondo, Mayor Bill de Blasio's deputy press secretary, will leave and become a senior associate at SKDKnickerbocker. This will be her last week at City Hall. … Leila Borzog, former deputy commissioner at the Department of Housing Preservation and Development, has joined NYC Kids RISE as chief of strategy and policy. … Michael Mulraney will lead a new Albany office being launched by Rhode Island-based communications firm Duffy & Shanley. He was previously a press secretary and social media manager at the state Assembly. … Chris Mahl is the new EVP of Brooklyn-based life science company Opentrons. MEDIAWATCH — The New Yorker has suspended staff writer Jeffrey Toobin because of an incident in which he was seen masturbating while on a work Zoom call. — Per Digiday: "Jim Cooper has taken on the role of Digiday's editor-in-chief. 'Jim has been working with us since June of this year as our managing editor for Digiday. In his new role, he'll lead and honor our tradition of high quality, honest and independent journalism for the media and marketing industry,' said Digiday Media CEO Nick Friese." — Per Talking Biz News: "Katrina Lewis is now an equities reporter at Bloomberg covering equities with a focus on technology, media and telecom companies. She joined Bloomberg last year as a corporate finance news intern and then was a rotating reporter." | | | | A message from Noom: Noom is different, it is a new way to get healthy and lose weight that uses psychology and behavior change. Designed by psychologists to prioritize you and your brain, Noom is dedicated to teaching you how your mind works, and why you make the decisions you do, so it is not a temporary fix. Take a quiz at Noom.com to start your health journey today! | | |
| | REAL ESTATE | | "THE CITY OFFICIALLY delayed Mayor Bill de Blasio's plan for opening new jails to replace Rikers Island — but the project is moving full steam ahead in Manhattan, despite a judge's ruling barring construction. New lockups to be built in every borough except for Staten Island are now projected to be complete in 2027, a year after City Hall's original goal, according to an update presented Monday to the City Planning Commission. Meanwhile, the city plans to solicit design and construction proposals this month to replace the Manhattan Detention Complex, known as The Tombs, on White Street, according to the presentation." The City's Rachel Holliday Smith "A REAL ESTATE developer has temporarily eliminated one of Mayor de Blasio's NYC Ferry stops. Boats weren't making stops at the ferry's Greenpoint stop in north Brooklyn Sunday or Monday due to a dispute with the private owner of the pier, the NYC Ferry announced in a tweet. NYC Ferry, which is managed by the city's Economic Development Corporation and operated by the company Hornblower, has operated out of Greenpoint since the service launched in 2017. The private firm LendLease purchased the pier and nearby waterfront site earlier this month for $111 million. EDC spokesman Chris Singleton said the company has barred the ferry from operating along its property until insurance issues are resolved, and said there was an issue with the transition of paperwork from the old owner to the new one." New York Daily News' Clayton Guse | | | | Follow us on Twitter | | | | Subscribe to the POLITICO Playbook family Playbook | Playbook PM | California Playbook | Florida Playbook | Illinois Playbook | Massachusetts Playbook | New Jersey Playbook | New York Playbook | Brussels Playbook | London Playbook View all our political and policy newsletters | | Follow us | | | | |
No comments:
Post a Comment