| | | | | |  | | By Erin Durkin and Anna Gronewold with Jonathan Custodio | Presented by Harry's | The beginning of the end began on Monday in Queens. A nurse at Long Island Jewish Medical Center became the first person in the United States to receive the newly approved coronavirus vaccine. Sandra Lindsay, a critical care nursing director who worked through the worst of the pandemic, didn't flinch as she got the shot with the first dose of the vaccine, joined on a livestream broadcast by Gov. Andrew Cuomo. "I feel like healing is coming," she said. "I hope this marks the beginning of the end of a very painful time in our history." The initial vaccinations mark the first step in a massive, monthslong push to get New Yorkers inoculated against a virus that has killed more than 35,000 in the state. Giving out some 40 million doses will be necessary. And they come against the backdrop of a second wave of the pandemic that is growing steadily worse, with 5,700 people hospitalized in the state and leaders warning of a possible return to a full shutdown. "This is the light at the end of the tunnel. But it's a long tunnel," Cuomo said. The first doses of the vaccine , rushed into action after arriving in New York by air early Monday morning, are going to the highest-risk health care workers — doctors and nurses who may be exposed to Covid-19 while treating patients on the front lines. Ten thousand such workers across the state were set to be given the vaccine on day one. High-risk nursing home staff and residents will also be in the first phase. After that, things will get a bit murky: First responders, essential workers, people over 65, and people with medical conditions are set to be prioritized in phases, but many details about who will qualify as part of each group and when they'll get their shots still have to be filled in. In the city, five hospitals began giving Pfizer's vaccine on Monday, also including NYU Langone, where Mayor Bill de Blasio visited health care workers getting their inoculations. A bigger group —- 37 hospitals — are expecting shipments today, and two more will get them Wednesday. Over the first three weeks of distribution, the city expects to have 465,000 vaccine doses delivered. 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 Harry's: Introducing Harry's new, sharper blades: From past experience with other brands, we've grown used to razor innovations often leading to higher price tags. Not this time around. Men's grooming startup Harry's just came out with their sharpest blades ever—without raising prices, breaking the traditional pattern of upcharging used by many razor companies. Learn more about Harry's new, sharper blades and how you can give them a try, 100% risk-free. | | |
|  | WHAT CITY HALL'S READING | | NEW YORK CITY primaries are usually afterthoughts for most voters: Mayor Bill de Blasio clinched victory in 2013 with just 22 percent of registered Democrats casting ballots. Now a Manhattan resident with an interest in voter turnout and ties to the city's deep-pocketed real estate industry wants to reverse that trend. Lisa Blau, an angel investor whose husband runs the towering development firm Related Companies, is launching a project to lure New Yorkers to the polls in the upcoming primary next June. She recently registered the Be Counted NYC committee with the state Board of Elections to raise money for the effort. "This is the crisis of a generation that we're experiencing right now, and so my concern is really about civic engagement and connecting the dots and making sure people vote," Blau, who has raised money for Democrats and Republicans nationally, said in an interview on Tuesday. POLITICO's Sally Goldenberg — More than 20 women running for City Council sent a letter backing ranked-choice voting amid efforts to delay it. NEW YORK CITY's public and private unions are joining forces to influence the makeup of the next City Council — a new association that's formed in lieu of their previous involvement in the Working Families Party. Five unions that comprise more than 360,000 employees are announcing a partnership called #LaborStrong2021 on Tuesday. In the coming weeks, they will roll out 26 Council endorsements — enough to influence the speaker's race if they're successful at the polls. The organization includes building service workers union 32BJ SEIU; the relatively small but influential Hotel Trades Council; the city's largest public union, District Council 37; the New York State Nurses Association; and the local branch of the Communication Workers of America. "We want the first thing on their minds to be, how do we help working people? How do we make sure working people are doing good in this economy?" Candis Tolliver, political director of 32BJ, said in an interview on Monday. POLITICO's Sally Goldenberg "NEW YORK CITY Mayor Bill De Blasio on Monday urged residents and businesses to brace for a possible second shutdown amid a citywide surge in coronavirus cases. 'What is increasingly clear is that all forms of restrictions have to be on the table at this point,' De Blasio said in a press conference from City Hall in Manhattan. 'At the current rate we're going, you have to be ready now for a full shutdown — a pause like we had back at the end of the spring.' Another lockdown is 'increasingly necessary just to break the back of our second wave, to stop the second wave from growing, to stop it from taking lives, to stop it from threatening our hospitals,' added De Blasio … The decision whether to impose tighter restrictions in New York rests with Cuomo. But De Blasio urged businesses and workers to prepare to start working remotely if they're currently reporting to physical workplaces." CBS News' Megan Cerullo — Restaurants are bracing for a brutal winter with indoor dining shut down. And they'll have to close outdoor dining for snowstorms. — How the New York City Sheriff has become the city's pandemic restriction enforcer and chief party crasher. JANOS MARTON, one of the nine candidates running to be the next Manhattan district attorney, has dropped out of the race . Marton, who was a leader in the push to close Rikers Island and worked at the ACLU, announced Monday he is ending his campaign, citing his low fundraising numbers. "Unfortunately, at this moment I am no longer able to continue my campaign for Manhattan District Attorney," he said in a statement. "Given the political implications of our fundraising disadvantage, at this time we do not have a viable path to victory. While we have the energy to press on, I cannot ask our team and supporters to continue devoting themselves to a race we cannot win," Marton said, blaming his "lack of large donations from rich donors" in a state race where candidates don't qualify for the city's taxpayer matching funds. POLITICO's Erin Durkin "IN A SHARP reversal, the MTA board this week will hold off on approving a budget that includes thousands of layoffs and draconian cuts to transit services, according to sources with knowledge of the decision. The agency last month proposed a 40% cut to weekday subway service, the elimination of entire bus routes and the reduction of 9,367 jobs to plug a massive deficit caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority board was slated to approve the budget on Wednesday, but will instead approve a budget that assumes Congress will sign off on federal aid to balance a $4.5 billion gap. The budget will at least temporarily prevent the cuts to NYC Transit — but officials still plan to slash some LIRR service... If the aid doesn't come through by the end of January, the MTA would begin implementing the painful cuts to subway and bus service in May, according to documents obtained by the Daily News." New York Daily News' Clayton Guse | | | | BIG SCOOPS IN TRANSITION PLAYBOOK: In the runup to Inauguration Day, president-elect Joe Biden's staffing decisions are sending clear-cut signals about his priorities. What do these signals foretell? Transition Playbook is the definitive guide to one of the most consequential transfers of power in American history. Written for political insiders, this scoop-filled newsletter is breaking big news and analyzing the appointments, people and emerging power centers of the new administration. Track the transition and the first 100 days of the incoming administration. Subscribe today. | | | | |
| | WHAT ALBANY'S READING | | "NEW YORK's top Democrats gathered in the Capitol on Monday to cast their Electoral College ballots in a ceremony that was both more upbeat yet more subdued and rushed than their gathering four years ago... State law says the Electoral College meeting shall be held in the Capitol. Cuomo has broad powers to change laws like this one at will, but he declined to let electors meet remotely, with his administration citing the 'high risk of litigation' from President Donald Trump if the process was changed by executive order. Electors were thus forced to gather in person. The 29 members used the spacious Assembly chamber, which can fit more than 1,000 people, rather than the gilded yet relatively cramped Senate room they've used in the recent past. Most of the electors avoided speeches during the hurried proceedings. And unlike the day that Trump won in 2016, many of them were not eager to linger around the building and talk to the press. Electors Bill and Hillary Clinton, for example, avoided speaking on the floor and kept their comments brief as they quietly exited one of the Capitol's back exits. 'I'm really looking forward to the Biden-Harris administration, it's going to be great for the country,' said Hillary Clinton. 'We're going to have a president and a vice president who are going to work for all the people and make a real difference for everybody.'" POLITICO's Bill Mahoney "ASSEMBLY Speaker Carl Heastie said Monday that negotiations are underway with the Senate and Gov. Andrew Cuomo on potential tax increases on the ultra-wealthy in New York, and that lawmakers could still return to Albany before the start of the year to act on such a measure. Heastie, D-Bronx, said it would be ideal to approve tax hikes on the rich before the start of the year instead of waiting to address the issue as part of the state budget in March. 'I think you put in jeopardy doing an income tax that starts in 2021, in 2021,' Heastie said. 'So, if you want that measure, I think it would be safest to consider it before the change of the year.' Heastie told reporters at the state capitol in Albany Monday that the state could open itself up to a legal challenge if lawmakers approved a tax hike for the wealthy in March and tried to make it retroactive back to January." New York Now's Dan Clark "GOV. CUOMO flatly denied accusations that he sexually harassed a former top adviser, calling the allegations 'simply not true.' In a virtual briefing from Albany Monday, the governor said he believes 'a woman has the right to come forward and express her opinion,' but that the allegation from ex-aide Lindsey Boylan was inaccurate. 'I heard about the tweet, and what it said about comments that I had made, and it's just not true,' Cuomo said. 'The tweets were simply not true.' Boylan, a candidate for Manhattan borough president, did not immediately return a request for comment." Daily News' Chris Sommerfeldt "ON DEC. 2 Cuomo's office unveiled a COVID-19 public service announcement that made a bold claim: 'Over 70% of cases can be traced to your households and small gatherings.' The data released Friday shows that claim isn't quite true . Of the 46,000 cases with known sources of exposure, 73.84% were connected to households or social gathering, according to the state. But that stands to reason: Cases spread through households and small social gatherings — a wife who catches it from her husband, or a group of friends who all test positive after a dinner party, for example — are the easiest to contact trace. It's relatively simple to trace an exposure to someone living in your household; it's far more difficult to trace it to, say, an interaction in a grocery store. Since the pool is limited only to those with a known exposure source — which, again, is only about one-fifth of the total cases — the data is heavily skewed toward households and small gatherings. When including the huge number of cases where there is no known source of exposure, the percentage of cases that can be traced to households and small gatherings is actually closer to 15%." USA Today's Jon Campbell "IN THE EARLY 1980s, David Burgos was sent to Pleasantville Cottage School, a group home for troubled youth in Westchester County. Soon after his arrival, an assistant teacher asked him to stay after class to clean the blackboards. The teacher sexually abused him, Burgos said in an interview. He never actually cleaned the blackboard, but no one ever said anything. "He told me that he had the power of whether I go home to my mother or not," Burgos said. According to a lawsuit Burgos filed last week, he was 13 when the abuse occurred. Of the nearly 5,000 lawsuits filed since August 2019 under the provisions of New York's Child Victims Act, those alleging abuse at the hands of institutions such as the Catholic Church or the Boy Scouts have drawn the most attention. But another significant category of cases exists, brought by plaintiffs who say they were abused in New York's foster care system. Child welfare advocates and experts said the rates of abuse in the foster care system are likely significantly higher than among the general population of children, and existing academic studies seem to back that up. But clear answers are hard to come by: Experts uniformly said that data collection is murky, and what information is collected is often shielded from public view for privacy reasons." Times Union's Edward McKinley #UpstateAmerica: Albany mayor Kathy Sheehan wants the Capital Holiday Lights moved out of Washington Park because they are too disruptive. | | | |   | | |
| | ... 2020 VISION ... | | "JOE BIDEN's victory in the 2020 presidential election brought the collective nightmare of the Democratic Party to an end after four years. But the celebration was muted given the party's majority in the House of Representatives diminished and, more importantly, the fate of the U.S. Senate remained undecided despite grand Democratic hopes for taking the chamber. The near- and long-term implications for New York are immense given the size of the federal aid package that it — including state and local governments, especially New York City, governmental authorities like the MTA, businesses, nonprofits, and people — is hoping for from a President Biden and Democratic Congress. So much, including the success or failure of Biden's broader, ambitious agenda, which will have major ramifications for New York, hinges on the results of two simultaneous Senate runoffs in Georgia, which has for many years elected Republicans to the upper house of Congress, that will be decided in early January, just days before Biden is inaugurated. It's not an exaggeration to say that tens of billions of dollars in pandemic-related aid to New York, and much more in terms of policy and future appropriations, could be on the line in Georgia, and it appears many New Yorkers are well aware and are taking action." Gotham Gazette's Samar Khurshid | | | | JOIN THURSDAY - CLOSING THE HEALTH CARE GAP: Another Covid-19 outbreak is taking a significant toll on the health of the Latino community. As President-elect Joe Biden prepares to assume office, how will his administration address the disproportionate impact of the pandemic on communities of color, particularly Latinos? Join POLITICO for a virtual conversation on the policy, economic and cultural barriers Latinos confront in accessing quality health care and how the pandemic can create an opportunity to identify solutions. REGISTER HERE. | | | | |
| | AROUND NEW YORK | | — Port Washington has elected its first Black police commissioner. — The Port Authority is still reeling from the pandemic , with airport traffic and PATH ridership still a fraction of its pre-pandemic levels. — Despite promises to cut New York City's controversial DNA database, city authorities have barely made a dent in reducing its scope. — The Board of Regents voted Monday to advance a state aid proposal that would funnel $1.8 billion more into schools. — New York has quietly told a federal appeals court they will not be enforcing two key capacity restrictions on religious institutions following a Supreme Court ruling. — Sandra Lee has packed up the Mount Kisco home she shared with the governor. — New York City transit officials launched a study seeking to find out how to reduce the spread of Covid-19 on buses and trains. — Public housing tenants have had to cope with poor living conditions and NYCHA's backlog of repairs has skyrocketed during the pandemic. — The city passed a five-year, $890 million school bus contract with a controversial nonprofit. | | SOCIAL DATA BY DANIEL LIPPMAN | | HAPPY BIRTHDAY: Donna Brazile … Alison Omens … Fox News' Griff Jenkins is 5-0 … Kristen Scholer, senior anchor at Cheddar … Meridith Webster … Raquel Zaki … David Adler, chair of BizBash … Katie Hunt … Oliver Koppell is 8-0 MEDIAWATCH — Janell Ross is joining Time as a senior correspondent covering race and identities. She previously covered race and politics for NBC News Digital. | | | | A message from Harry's: Harry's just came out with its sharpest blades ever. But what do sharper blades mean for you? Well, guys who shave four times a week say that, with Harry's new blades, their eighth shave is as smooth as their first. And yet, Harry's didn't raise prices—not even a little. Harry's new, sharper blades are (still) just $2 each for an 8-pack. But you don't have to take our word for it. Snag a Trial Set and decide for yourself. (And remember: if you don't love your shave, just let them know and get a full refund. That's their 100% Quality Guarantee at harrys.com). | | |
| | REAL ESTATE | | "ONE THING that didn't change in New York City in 2020 was its worst landlords. Public Advocate Jumaane Williams revealed Monday that the two worst landlords in the city are still Jason Korn, who amassed an eye-popping 1,822 violations across 10 buildings this year, and the New York City Housing Authority. Korn topped the list as the worst individual landlord in 2019. And NYCHA has earned the dishonorable distinction atop the overall list for three straight years. Williams also for the first time cited Mayor de Blasio's administration as one of the worst landlords in the city. 'When New Yorkers are largely confined to their homes, facing a deadly pandemic and an economic crisis, the worst landlords in New York City continue to take advantage of New Yorkers in need, neglecting emergency repairs and allowing dangerous conditions to go unchecked,' he said." New York Daily News' Michael Gartland
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