| | | | | |  | | By Erin Durkin and Anna Gronewold with Jonathan Custodio | Presented by New Yorkers for Responsible Gaming | Mayoral hopeful Scott Stringer, the would-be darling of the progressive left, is running as a candidate hostile to the real estate industry. He's made a point of refusing donations from developers, and proposed mandating affordable housing in all projects, even if they don't require city zoning approval. In his campaign kickoff speech, he declared: "When I'm mayor, we're going to end the crushing cycle of speculation, eviction and displacement — no more giving away the store to developers." The real estate industry itself and its allies, though, do not seem entirely convinced. Witness what real estate players tell our Sally Goldenberg and Joe Anuta: "He's in campaign mode now," says Real Estate Board of New York president Jim Whelan. Partnership for New York City president Kathy Wylde adds that real estate most needs a mayor who understands the constraints they are dealing with. "And Scott does," she said. Indeed, a review of Stringer's history shows that the last time he had an actual role in the city's land use process, when he was Manhattan borough president, he was not terribly hostile to development: He gave approval, albeit with recommended changes, to sweeping rezonings in Hudson Square, Midtown East and at Columbia University's Manhattanville campus. And while he swore off contributions from developers two years ago as the pledge gained popularity on the left, his coffers remain fat with gifts from luxury condo developers made before that. Given the balancing act, what will a Stringer City Hall look like if he does win the race? It's impossible to know. But Stringer is quietly telling developers he will work with them if elected, according to people with knowledge of the conversations. One person summed up his private message: "He tells them, 'Don't worry — it'll be different when I'm mayor.'" IT'S MONDAY. 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? Holding a Covid-19 briefing. WHERE'S BILL? Holding a media availability and appearing on NY1's Inside City Hall. ABOVE THE FOLD: "A NEW YORK JUDGE ruled Friday that Republican Claudia Tenney defeated U.S. Rep. Anthony Brindisi by 109 votes in the nation's last undecided congressional race. The ruling by Judge Scott DelConte could clear the way for Tenney to be sworn in as the representative for central New York's 22nd Congressional District, barring emergency intervention by a state appeals court. She previously was the district's representative for one term, until she was defeated by Brindisi, a Democrat, in 2018. DelConte's ruling came after he spent three months reviewing ballot challenges and trying to fix a myriad of problems with vote tabulation. He rejected an argument by Brindisi's lawyers that certification of the election results should be delayed until an appeals court had a chance to review the case. DelConte's order directed New York to certify results immediately." Associated Press's Marina Vilanueve — "Observers said it has already shown the need to rethink how New York administers elections and handles paper ballots, which were cast at an unprecedented number last year because of state policy changes prompted by the new coronavirus pandemic. 'It went horribly,' said Luke Perry, a professor of political science at Utica College." Wall Street Journal's Jimmy Vielkind MORE NY PLAYBOOK: Look for the new New York Playbook PM in your inbox starting Feb. 22. Just like you read our morning Playbook, Playbook PM by Anna Gronewold in Albany and our top-notch political team in the city will bring you the news you need to know from the Capitol and New York City Hall. It will publish at the height of the legislative session and the New York City mayoral race, telling you the latest political news from around the Empire State. | | A message from New Yorkers for Responsible Gaming: Throughout this unprecedented health crisis, Resorts World New York City's commitment to their employees, community and New York State has not wavered. Expansion of existing facilities will allow them to continue to build on their track record of creating good-paying union jobs with full-service employer paid health care, while generating critical resources for education in New York State. Learn more about how Resorts World is supporting its employees and investing in New York's future. | | |
|  | WHAT CITY HALL'S READING | | "WHEN FIVE OF the leading mayoral candidates show up on the same Zoom screen, it's usually for one of the countless forums where they present their individual policy platforms ahead of the June primary. This week, they joined in common purpose to call on Mayor Bill de Blasio and Governor Andrew Cuomo to eliminate the need for ballot access petitions as the pandemic continues to ravage the city and state. 'We've got over 40 mayoral candidates and over 300 city council candidates that would require at least a half a million New Yorkers' signatures and much more individual contact to collect those signatures,' said mayoral candidate Dianne Morales. 'That's a super spreader disaster lying in wait.' It was the second event in less than two weeks urging city and state officials to come together to find a work around to the traditional ballot access process. After last week's event, Cuomo signed a bill that would reduce the number of signatures required, delay the start of the petitioning process and shorten the length of it." WNYC's Brigid Bergin "AT FIRST, the offer seemed generous. Erica Sklar was in a homeless shelter and needed a more stable place to live. Victor Rivera, who oversaw a network of shelters, including the one where she was staying, said he had a solution: a spare apartment for her at his home in the Bronx. But after Ms. Sklar moved in, she said, she realized that Mr. Rivera, whose nonprofit organization is one of the largest operators of homeless shelters in New York, had other intentions. In December 2016, he asked to see a leaking ceiling in her bedroom, then turned off the lights, pushed her against a wall and began fondling her, according to Ms. Sklar and two friends in whom she confided. He demanded she give him oral sex, suggesting he would evict her if she refused, she said. Desperate to hold on to her apartment, she complied. Ms. Sklar is one of 10 women who said they had endured assault or unwanted sexual attention from Mr. Rivera, The New York Times found. Even as some women have sounded warnings about Mr. Rivera — including two who were given payments by his organization that ensured their silence — his power and influence have only grown during New York's worst homeless crisis in decades." New York Times' Amy Julia Harris — De Blasio on Sunday ordered a sweeping review of the nonprofit organizations that run the city's $2 billion network of homeless shelters in response to the allegations. "IT WAS A RARE sight to see: Mayor Bill de Blasio, a staunch Boston Red Sox fan, finally wearing a New York Yankees cap as he ushered the opening of a 24/7 mass vaccination site at Yankee Stadium on Friday. 'This is such an important day. The Yankees stepping up to save the lives of Bronxites, to save the lives of New Yorkers that for one day only I will declare myself a Yankee fan,' de Blasio said at a news conference before putting on a Yankees cap — a sight as rare as an NYC visit of the snow owl. De Blasio, flanked by Yankees management and top doctors at SOMOS Community Care health network, opened the doors to the House That Steinbrenner Built." Gothamist's David Cruz "MORE THAN THREE dozen New York City mayoral candidates are vying for one of the toughest jobs in the country: leading the nation's largest city back to pre-pandemic employment levels while trying to find the funding to do so. In the run-up to the June 22 primary, candidates have been detailing their visions for the city's economic recovery from the Covid-19 crisis, which wiped out nearly 878,000 jobs in the second quarter of 2020, according to the city's Independent Budget Office. Although an estimated 20% of those jobs returned by the third quarter, pre-pandemic levels of employment might not return for years, the IBO says." Wall Street Journal's Katie Honan "YVONNE PARSON wasn't in the room when her father died. Like millions of people with relatives inside one of the country's many nursing homes this past year, she couldn't be. James Hutcherson, a 93-year-old resident of New York State Veterans' Home at St. Albans, had been living in the state-run Queens facility for four years, after being diagnosed with Parkinson's disease and dementia. Parson says she visited him twice a week, paid his medical bills and oversaw his care, communicating regularly with the nursing staff. By March 2020, however, those communications became more difficult. Gov. Andrew Cuomo ordered all nursing facilities closed to visitors and, soon after, COVID-19 infiltrated St. Albans. On April 8, Parson got the call she never wanted: Her father had died, a doctor explained. Weeks later, Parson received her father's final medical bill in the mail. Scanning the list of prescriptions, she paused on two drugs she didn't recognize: hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin. She had known everything about his medical treatment. Why didn't she know about this? … The state, which licenses and inspects all 613 nursing homes in New York, allowed the facilities to administer hydroxychloroquine to patients exposed to the virus, even after public health experts cautioned against its use in non-hospital settings or for elderly and vulnerable patients." The City's Dean Russell | | | | THE INDISPENSABLE GUIDE TO CONGRESS: Looking for the latest on the Schumer/McConnell dynamic or the increasing tensions in the House? What are the latest whispers coming out of the Speaker's Lobby? Just leave it to Beavers... New author Olivia Beavers delivers the scoop in Huddle, the morning Capitol Hill must-read with assists from POLITICO's deeply sourced Congress team. Subscribe to Huddle today. | | | | |
| | WHAT ALBANY'S READING | | "THE DEMOCRATIC-RUN state Senate is preparing to pass a package of 10 bills to bolster accountability and oversight of nursing homes — and the health department — after an investigative report revealed Gov. Andrew Cuomo's administration misled the public about the total number of nursing home residents killed by the coronavirus. One bill would require the reporting of all COVID-19 fatalities of nursing home residents, whether they died in a nursing facility or a hospital." New York Post's Carl Campanile and Bernadette Hogan — "The death toll in New York's long-term care facilities jumped by another 1,516 this weekend as the Cuomo administration adjusted its reporting on adult-care facilities to include residents who died after being transferred to hospitals. The newly disclosed deaths represented an almost eight-fold increase for assisted living and other adult-care facilities, which provide non-medical services for their elderly and disabled residents. When combined with the recently revealed count of nursing home residents who died in hospitals, the publicly reported toll in New York's long-term care facilities had increased by almost 5,800, or 63 percent, over the past 10 days. The Cuomo administration stresses that its new accounting of long-term care residents who died in hospitals does not represent a change in the state's overall death toll." Empire Center's Bill Hammond — "During the midst of the pandemic, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo found time to write a 300-page book about his administration's response to COVID-19. But Cuomo's office — citing constraints caused by the pandemic — for months, in response to a Freedom of Information Law request, has refused to provide a few pages of paperwork confirming whether the governor followed state ethics rules before striking his book deal. It's one of many examples of the Cuomo administration's long-standing practice of stonewalling or delaying requests for information . That alleged practice was arguably revealed on Jan. 28 when state Attorney General Letitia James' office issued a report finding that Cuomo's administration had under-reported COVID-19-related deaths at nursing homes by 50 percent... When Cuomo ran for his first term in 2010, he promised to operate 'the most transparent' administration in history." Times Union's Chris Bragg "NEW YORK RESIDENTS with underlying health conditions ranging from cancer, diabetes and obesity will be eligible to get a COVID-19 vaccine beginning Feb. 15, Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced Friday. Cuomo announced the change during his coronavirus briefing at the state Capitol, marking the second time this week he had expanded eligibility after previously cautioning against it. The Democratic governor has been facing pressure from those with underlying health conditions to expand vaccine eligibility to help people who could face a greater likelihood of death should they become infected with the virus." USA Today Network's Jon Campbell A HOT TAKE ON V-DAY PLANS — The Indoor-Dining Debate Isn't a Debate at All : "The arguments for actually taking a seat inside are more inward-facing, and emotional: we're bored of eating at home, we miss being social, we miss being served; it's my birthday, it's my anniversary, it's Valentine's Day and Andrew Cuomo told me to do it. All these reasons, at their core, come down to the same thing: I really want to… Given where we are right now, though, in New York and in the country as a whole, 'I really want to' doesn't feel like enough.'" New Yorker's Helen Rosner #UpstateAmerica: Viggo Mortensen says his new film is a tribute to upstate. #UpstateAmerica, Bonus Edition: Winners of the 2021 Saratoga Chowder Tour have been announced. | | | |   | | |
| | FROM THE DELEGATION | | "ON A RECENT Sunday evening, about a dozen liberal housing activists from New York gathered for a virtual meeting with Senator Chuck Schumer. Though the newly anointed majority leader had served in Congress for four decades, a number of participants had scarcely interacted with him before, and some regarded him as an uncertain ally. But Mr. Schumer was eager to offer reassurance. At one point, he described himself as a former tenant organizer who was now in a position to deliver on housing issues on a grand scale, several participants recalled. 'He had done a bunch of homework and knew everything that we were going to ask about and made a bunch of commitments with us to make it happen,' said Cea Weaver, a strategist for New York's Housing Justice for All coalition. 'He was like: I'm talking to Ilhan Omar, I'm talking to Bernie Sanders, I'm talking to A.O.C.' "The January meeting was one in a series of steps Mr. Schumer has taken to win over leaders of the left in New York and Washington ahead of his campaign for re-election in 2022. Armed with a sweeping set of policy promises, he is courting the activists, organizers and next-generation elected officials in New York who would likely make up the backbone of an effort to dethrone him, should one ever arise." New York Times' Alexander Burns "A POT OF $350 billion in President Biden's $1.9 trillion COVID-19 recovery package will be split evenly between cash-strapped state and local governments — meaning half will go to Gov. Andrew Cuomo and the other half to Mayor Bill de Blasio and other municipalities, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said Friday. Schumer (D-NY), appearing in a Zoom conference before the Association for a Better New York, said it was important that funding be distributed fairly to both state and local governments. New York Post's Carl Campanile EDITORIAL: "Our congresswoman, Elise Stefanik , has condemned as 'inexcusable' statements made by her fellow Republican congresswoman, Marjorie Taylor Greene. But she has refused to do anything about them, because, she says, Congress has no right to overturn the decision of the people of Georgia, who elected Greene. We're tempted to end this editorial right here, and let that paragraph, which takes irony to its peak, speak for itself. A month ago, Stefanik was abetting an effort to overturn the decision of the people in several swing states, including Georgia, in the November election. She stood up in Congress during its certification of state electors and objected to the results in Pennsylvania. She wanted to object to results in other states, too, including Georgia, but her plans were stymied by the second thoughts of several Republican senators. They had decided that, perhaps, Jan. 6 was the wrong day to undermine democracy with false claims." Glens Falls Post-Star Editorial Board | | Biden and the Boroughs | | "ROUGHLY 25,000 immigrant New Yorkers with temporary legal status could gain permanent residency — and a clear pathway to citizenship — under a new immigration plan proposed by President Joe Biden on Inauguration Day. But the bill's passage is anything but certain and those with so-called temporary protected status (TPS) — many of them serving as essential workers amid the pandemic — are reminded of broken promises from the past. Wary TPS holders told THE CITY that, after living for years with the looming threat that their protection would expire, they're only cautiously optimistic on Biden's push after five presidential administrations have failed to grant them a path to citizenship." The City's Eileen Grench and Christine Chung | | | | TRACK THE FIRST 100 DAYS OF THE BIDEN ADMINISTRATION: President Biden's cabinet is getting confirmed, bringing change to agencies and departments across the Executive Branch. From the West Wing to Foggy Bottom, track the first 100 days of the Biden administration with Transition Playbook, our scoop-filled newsletter that chronicles the policies, people, and emerging power centers of the new administration. Subscribe today. | | | | | | | AROUND NEW YORK | | — UFT's Mike Mulgrew: 'New Federal Aid Can't Diminish New York State's Responsibility to Our Children' — The Albany city police department lost all digital copies of its 2018 internal affairs files in a 2019 ransomware attack on city servers, potentially dooming some criminal cases. — An independent expenditure group spent big on negative ads in last week's City Council special election in Queens. — "The state Board of Elections has a new website for analyzing campaign finance data but good government groups say it is so plagued by "glitches, errors, and bugs as to be practically unusable by the public." — An NYPD officer accused of arranging a hit man to kill her husband is expected to plead guilty. — Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer is asking the city to let the Central Park Conservancy operate Wollman Rink, after terminating a contract with former President Donald Trump's company. — The MTA tweeted that it removed subway station benches to prevent homeless people from sleeping there, then deleted the message. — Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams has accepted travel freebies from China, Turkey and Azerbaijan. — It snowed a bunch, again, and there will be more snow throughout the week. — Embattled Rochester Mayor Lovely Warren received the endorsement of Rochester's City Democratic Committee in her bid for a third term. — A bipartisan band of Western NY lawmakers are backing the NY Hero Act to create permanent standards in workplaces for infectious diseases, the Western New York Council on Occupational Safety and Health said in a statement. | | SOCIAL DATA BY DANIEL LIPPMAN | | HAPPY BIRTHDAY: Ted Koppel … Hudson Institute's John Walters, Michael Pillsbury and Sarah May Stern … Morning Consult's Samantha Smith … Will Levi … Alexandra Brodsky … Anthony Paranzino … Vox's Zack Beauchamp … ... (was Sunday): Gay Talese turned 89 … Dave Levinthal … Veronica Molina … Bloomberg's Jeff Kearns and Colleen Murphy … former Rep. Michael Grimm (R-N.Y.) … Cameron Langford … Mitch Silber ... … (was Saturday): Tom Brokaw … WSJ's Jerry Seib … The Daily Beast's Lloyd Grove … Eric Weiner … C. Boyden Gray … CBS News' Fernando Suarez … Fox News' Kevin Corke … ABC News' Amy Robach … Justin Pope … Alexa Cassanos … Michael Pollan … Helaine Klasky MEDIAWATCH — "Journalists at The Daily News, the 101-year-old New York tabloid that has fallen on hard times after an ownership change, pay cuts and sweeping layoffs, said on Friday that they had formed a union . Newsroom employees at the paper, once a significant voice for the city's working class, have not had representation since the mid-1990s, when its owner, Mortimer B. Zuckerman, effectively broke their affiliation with the Newspaper Guild of New York. Workers at The Daily News said they had secured the signatures of more than 80 percent of newsroom staff members and had organized under the same union, now called the NewsGuild of New York." New York Times' Marc Tracy MAKING MOVES — Max Burns will be the new communications director for Assemblymember Yuh-Line Niou. He is the founder of Third Degree Strategies. | | A message from New Yorkers for Responsible Gaming: Since opening its doors in 2011, Resorts World New York City has created thousands of good paying union jobs for New Yorkers and generated more than $3 billion for education for New York schools. As the state's largest taxpayer, they're proud of the investments made to revitalize their community and provide meaningful careers to so many.
Last year, when the pandemic struck, their commitment to their employees and the community never wavered. They provided employees with full employer-paid healthcare, supported their neighbors most in need by contributing to different community based organizations, and opened up their facilities for COVID testing.
As the state continues to recover from the worst economic crisis in decades, expansion of existing facilities will allow Resorts World NYC to create thousands of union jobs for New Yorkers, while generating desperately needed revenue for schools and surrounding communities. Learn More. | | |
| | REAL ESTATE | | "WHEN HUDSON Yards opened in 2019 as the largest private development in American history, it aspired to transform Manhattan's Far West Side with a sleek spread of ultraluxury condominiums, office towers for powerhouse companies like Facebook, and a mall with coveted international brands and restaurants by celebrity chefs like José Andrés. All of it surrounded a copper-colored sculpture that would be to New York what the Eiffel Tower is to Paris. But the pandemic has ravaged New York City's real estate market and its premier, $25 billion development, raising significant questions about the future of Hudson Yards . Hundreds of condominiums remain unsold, and the mall is barren of customers." New York Times' Matthew Haag and Dana Rubinstein "IN 2019, Clarence Hamer bought a house and moved to upstate Harriman, turning the two-family home he had owned in Brownsville since 2007 into an investment property that he could one day leave to his son and daughter. His plan blew up when the tenant who had moved into the unit he formerly occupied stopped paying rent in the summer of 2019. With the eviction moratorium in place, Hamer hasn't been able to collect rent or proceed through the courts to have the tenant removed. He isn't paying his mortgage on the Brooklyn building and says he expects to be foreclosed on when his bank eventually moves to collect what it is owed. 'I know I am in jeopardy of losing my home,' said Hamer, 46, 'a home I was going to be turning over to my kids and it doesn't seem like I am going to do that.' While the plight of New Yorkers who have lost their jobs and have been unable to pay the rent has been in the spotlight of coverage of how the pandemic has upended the New York City economy, less attention has been given to the plight of small landlords, many of them people of color." The City's Greg David
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