| | | | | |  | | By Erin Durkin and Anna Gronewold with Jonathan Custodio | Presented by Opportunities for NY | The latest accusation of inappropriate behavior by Gov. Andrew Cuomo comes from a woman still employed in his office. Current aide Alyssa McGrath told the New York Times that Cuomo looked down her shirt, referred to her and a co-worker as "mingle mamas," and commented on her looks. McGrath also provides some backup for the most serious claims against Cuomo, that he groped the breasts of an unidentified aide at the governor's mansion. McGrath said that aide described the incident to her in detail after it was reported by the Times Union earlier this month. McGrath said Cuomo paid unwanted attention over the last three years to both her and the aide he allegedly groped. The investigation launched by the state attorney general into accusations against Cuomo has gone beyond the specific allegations of sexual harassment to look at whether his top aides enabled the behavior and if his team attempted to intimidate or retaliate against his accusers, women who have been interviewed told the Wall Street Journal. And the tough sexual harassment laws Cuomo himself championed could come back to haunt him. At a rally this weekend, Cuomo's first accuser, Lindsey Boylan, chastised Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie for not moving directly to impeach Cuomo, telling him to "do your job." As left-leaning protesters came out to demonstrate for the governor's removal, his supporters also rallied at his Manhattan office in his defense ( check out some of the signs, via the New York Post's Sam Raskin). There's still no sign the governor has any intention of resigning, but plenty of pols are eyeing his seat in 2022 (minus one: Rep. Tom Reed, who said Sunday night he won't run after facing sexual misconduct allegations of his own). Go ahead and place your bets: one online gambling site is putting the odds on Cuomo not winning a fourth term next year. 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? No public schedule available by press time. WHERE'S BILL? Appearing on CBS This Morning, holding a media availability, and appearing on NY1's Inside City Hall. | | | | A message from Opportunities for NY: New York needs to fund a $15 billion budget gap by the end of March. We can choose a bold solution: expand downstate gaming through an open and transparent process for ALL THREE downstate casino licenses. THREE licenses will spark 200,000 new jobs and an immediate revenue infusion of $1.5 billion. Visit opportunitiesforny.com to learn more. | | |
|  | WHAT ALBANY'S READING | | "CUOMO'S office is making available lawyers that represent the executive chamber to staffers who might be called into to speak with investigators. The offer has stoked concerns that the governor is effectively seeking to place lawyers hired by his office into the inner sanctums of the investigation. For staffers, critics say, the choice of whether to accept the promise of aid is a Catch-22: they can either be observed answering questions by an attorney who works for the governor's office or be seen turning down the proposition, which might be read as a red flag by Cuomo's team. "State Sen. Andrew Gounardes, a Democrat who has called for Cuomo to resign, told CNN he was stunned when he first read a news report about the offer and worried it would create a 'chilling effect' among potential witnesses and victims. 'I think it is meant to intimidate and tell people that you either stick with the company scripts or you don't speak at all,' he said. Gounardes suggested that lawyers from the attorney general's office, who are not involved in any facet of an investigation that is already being run by outsiders Kim and Clark, should be made available to the governor's staff to head off any conflict of interest. But as it stands, he added, Cuomo staffers are being placed in an untenable position. Besieged over the past month with talk of impeachment and legal action involving subpoenas, Gounardes is concerned that some might view the executive chamber's lawyers as their only port in a violent political storm." CNN's Gregory Krieg and Kara Scannell — There are no signs state lawmakers will be pulling Davis Polk from the high-stakes impeachment assignment for the Assembly, which involves conducting the inquiry into accusations which threaten the embattled governor's hold on the office. NYT: '30 Years After Anita Hill, We Should All Know What Sexual Harassment Is': "Governor Cuomo championed the laws that made it easier to punish workplace harassment. Why is he unclear about them?" Ginia Bellafante writes. "CHAD CAMPBELL has spent his entire adult life behind bars after committing a grisly double murder in 1990 when he was 14. He is serving 18 years to life for stabbing to death 15-year-old Cindy Lewis and 17-month-old Curtis Rizzo — a child Lewis was babysitting — on Aug. 1, 1990, behind the middle school where the young teens were classmates in Palmyra, a village east of Rochester. A jury in Wayne County found Campbell guilty of two counts of second-degree murder...Campbell has been denied parole seven times. Attorneys and advocates say his case highlights many of the core questions embedded in New York's parole system : Is redemption possible? Who do we decide to give second chances to? And are some crimes so heinous that no matter the circumstances, no matter the passage of time, they can never be atoned for?" Times Union's Amanda Fries and Edward McKinley "EMERGENCY ROOM nurse Kerita Jackson has been looking for ways to help ease the stress and sadness she has struggled with since the COVID-19 pandemic turned her community hospital into a war zone last year. Gardening helps a little. So do hugs from her toddler son. But like many nurses, Jackson, of Centereach, has been unable to shake the scenes of death and feelings of helplessness she experienced during the peak of the pandemic last spring working at Long Island Jewish Valley Stream hospital. 'We were doing everything we could, but the patients were not getting better,' said Jackson, 39, who has been a nurse for more than 12 years. 'I would sit in my car in the driveway and I would just cry for maybe an hour. I couldn't talk to my fiance … Nobody is really going to understand until they saw what you saw.' Experts say it is too soon to determine the pandemic's long-term impact on the physical and mental health of nurses. Many have sought out therapy, medicine and the support of peers to help them cope. Others, however, have been reluctant to seek assistance." Newsday's Lisa L. Colangelo #UpstateAmerica: Carl Reiner's archives will be donated to the National Comedy Center in Jamestown. Reiner died last June at the age of 98. | | | | SUBSCRIBE TO "THE RECAST" TO JOIN AN IMPORTANT CONVERSATION : Power dynamics are shifting in Washington and across the country, and more people are demanding a seat at the table, insisting that all politics is personal and not all policy is equitable. "The Recast" is a new twice-weekly newsletter that breaks down how race and identity are recasting politics, policy, and power in America. Get fresh insights, scoops, and dispatches on this crucial intersection from across the country, and hear from new voices that challenge business as usual. Don't miss out on this new newsletter, SUBSCRIBE NOW . Thank you to our sponsor, Intel. | | | | |
| | WHAT CITY HALL'S READING | | | 
Photograph by Sarah Blesener | BY THE END OF MARCH last year, New York City had been transformed from a teeming metropolis with a booming economy, to a city gripped by pandemic and in economic free fall. On March 22, 2020, Gov. Andrew Cuomo's order shuttering all non-essential businesses and encouraging residents to avoid leaving their homes took effect after a month of misleading and progressively dire warnings from city and state leaders. Hospitals were overrun, bodies piled up in makeshift morgues and residents abandoned the city in droves. One year later, more than 30,000 New Yorkers have died, close to 800,000 have been infected and much of the city's economy remains in peril. Restaurants and theaters are on the brink of insolvency. Hotels are largely empty of the tourists that poured money into the city's economy. Hospital and health care workers are still reeling from the onslaught of Covid victims. Most students are still not in classrooms. And the city's commercial real estate and retail sectors are facing foundational changes with the forced adoption of remote working that may alter the city's landscape forever. With federal relief and more vaccines on the way, New Yorkers have begun to crawl out of the darkness of the past year, but a POLITICO review of the hardest-hit sectors of the city shows that much of New York is still waiting to recover and bracing for what could be permanent changes to the biggest city in America. POLITICO NYC Staff — "The first New York case of the Brazilian coronavirus variant was found in an elderly Brooklyn resident , Gov. Cuomo said Saturday. The Brazilian variant is more easily transmitted and can cause more severe illness in those who are infected, researchers say. The Brooklyn patient is in their 90s and has 'no travel history,' Cuomo said. The case was discovered at Mount Sinai Hospital." — "Not everyone agrees that reopening is safe, partly because the presence of variants that are more contagious, and possibly deadlier, complicate the short-term outlook." — Pharmacies are now authorized to vaccinate people with underlying medical conditions. IT WAS AT THE height of the pandemic in New York City — restaurants were hemorrhaging cash and restless residents were getting sick of their tiny apartments — when a few organizers in Prospect Heights had the idea to close off the busy thoroughfare of Vanderbilt Avenue to traffic. "It was conceived as an economic lifeline to a sector of the economy that was really, really badly hit by the pandemic," said Gib Veconi, one of the residents behind the effort. "But it took off and became more than the sum of its parts." For more than three months between August and November, the five blocks of wide open space were used by residents to set up outdoor dining. Musicians held impromptu shows, kids played pick-up games. One couple even got married. And then, it shut down — as organizers were overwhelmed by the idea of finding volunteers to manage it during the Thanksgiving and Christmas holiday seasons, when demand for outdoor space is lower. "It's just a tremendous amount of labor," Veconi said of the street's closure. "The idea of running a street event on a single day is a lot of work." The open stretch of Vanderbilt Avenue is just one of the roughly 22 miles of asphalt throughout the five boroughs the city opened to pedestrians and restaurants during the public health crisis that have since closed — either permanently or temporarily. POLITICO's Danielle Muoio "IT'S BEEN A year since COVID-19 really hit New York. But some of the first locals to catch the virus are still experiencing debilitating symptoms that have made it impossible to live life as they were — leading to job loss and an inability to read or study, let alone exercise. 'We don't understand why the body is responding in this way,' said Dr. David Putrino, Director of Rehabilitation Innovation for The Mount Sinai Health, who researches these so-called 'long-haul' patients. He estimated that about 90 percent of participants in the hospital's long-hauler program, which has a median age of 42, didn't require hospitalization while they had COVID." New York Post's Doree Lewak and Zachary Kussin "NEW YORK CITY'S pre-K and elementary school students who are learning at home full-time will get another chance this school year to sign up for in-person instruction , Mayor Bill de Blasio announced Friday. The window for opting into school buildings will open next week and applies to children in pre-K through grade five. Students will be allowed to return over the course of April, de Blasio and schools Chancellor Meisha Porter told reporters. While the city has 'more questions' to resolve before inviting back middle and high school, de Blasio is asking those students during next week's opt-in window to indicate their interest in returning to buildings to help schools understand how many children are clamoring to be in-person...The announcement came hours after the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention eased guidelines, from 6 feet to 3 feet, for what's considered safe for physical distancing in schools." Chalkbeat's Reema Amin — High schools are reopening today. "MAYORAL CANDIDATE Scott Stringer unveiled an ambitious education plan Friday that aims to put two teachers in every elementary school classroom and provide affordable childcare to families with children aged 3 and under. The plan, which Stringer, the city comptroller, announced Friday to the Association for a Better New York, would build on what arguably has been Mayor de Blasio's signature policy achievement — free pre-k for all — by focusing resources on early childhood education. Stringer also laid out a possible path forward to desegregating schools — and went on the offensive against rival Andrew Yang, who's leading in polls, but has come under fire for decamping to a second home upstate while others struggled in cramped city apartments...He laced into Yang for blaming the UFT for schools re-opening in-person learning too slowly." New York Daily News' Michael Gartland | | | |   | | |
| | FROM THE DELEGATION | | REP. TOM REED will not run for governor or for reelection next year, saying that he accepted "full responsibility" for inappropriate behavior involving a lobbyist in 2017. The six-term Republican congressmember from Corning had been open about his interest in seeking the Republican gubernatorial nomination against embattled Gov. Andrew Cuomo in 2022. He had previously promised to limit himself to six terms in the House. The Washington Post reported on Friday that former lobbyist Nicolette Davis alleged that Reed had unhooked her bra and touched her thigh while the two were in a Minneapolis pub in 2017. Reed told the paper that the account was "not accurate." Read the full statement here. POLITICO's Bill Mahoney "AS THE VACCINATION push continues across the country, Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer announced that New York will get its 'supercharge' of vaccine doses in weeks. According to Schumer, 1.65 million doses of vaccines will arrive in New York each week by the end of April , which is a 33% increase of what the state is currently getting. At a news conference outside Ryan Health on the Upper West Side, Schumer, who was joined by White House COVID Vaccine Coordinator Jeff Zients, said the supercharge effort will be bolstered by 'a massive expansion of federally-funded vaccine sites that will utilize New York's existing Community Health Centers (CHCs) — like Ryan Health here — to help get them into arms.'" Gothamist's Jen Chung — A quarter of all New York state residents have now received at least one dose of a coronavirus vaccine. | | Biden and the Boroughs | | THE PANDEMIC is giving new life to plans across the U.S. to charge drivers a European-style toll to drive into congested downtowns, in hopes of boosting Covid-starved transit systems. New York has gotten the Biden administration's promise to expedite a proposal that would charge motorists when they enter an urban core..."Given the severe financial damage the pandemic-related deficits are for the MTA … the availability and presence of congestion pricing has never been more critical," said Pat Foye, chair and CEO of New York's Metropolitan Transportation Authority. "I think that other states and cities and transit agencies around the country are watching New York and the MTA, which are leaders on this." POLITICO's Tanya Snyder, Danielle Muoio, and Debra Kahn "WITH THE PASSAGE of the American Rescue Plan — a $1.9 trillion federal relief package in response to the fallout from COVID-19 — Washington lawmakers are infusing state and local economies with billions of dollars intended to support everything from emergency pandemic responses to poverty reduction. New York is slated to receive an estimated $100 billion for government budgets, vaccination efforts and other services, schools, businesses, individuals and families, and more — an influx of funds that experts in a number of sectors say will be transformative, especially if used strategically." Gotham Gazette's Ethan Geringer-Sameth | | | | Did you know that POLITICO Pro has coverage and tools at the state level? All the state legislative and regulatory tracking, budget documents, state agency contact information, and everything else you need to stay ahead of state policy movement integrate into our smart and customizable platform. Learn more and become a Pro today. | | | | |
| | AROUND NEW YORK | | — The state income tax filing deadline has been pushed back to May 17. — Five people were arrested for violating Covid-19 regulations after sheriff's deputies busted an illegal party in Tribeca on Friday night, the second party at the same location shut down this year. — Protesters rallied against Cuomo's proposed budget cuts to public hospitals outside Elmhurst Hospital, which bore the brunt of the pandemic. — The delayed 181st St. busway is set to launch in late April. — Developer Two Trees is proposing a beach as part of a Williamsburg waterfront development. — More than 1,500 phone calls from city jails between defendants and attorneys were improperly recorded. — City Council Member Brad Lander's campaign for city comptroller is getting the backing of safe streets advocates , despite Council Speaker Corey Johnson's entry into the race. — The closure of the U.S.-Canadian border has cost Erie County businesses about $1 billion. — The Children's Home of Poughkeepsie is being sue over accusations of sexual abuse. — Four City Council Members said they are bringing back participatory budgeting for their districts after it was suspended last year because of the Covid-19 pandemic. | | SOCIAL DATA BY DANIEL LIPPMAN | | HAPPY BIRTHDAY: Wolf Blitzer is 73 … The Economist's Daniel Knowles … Emily Shippee … NBC's Ali Vitali … Lyzz Schwegler … Jonathan Greenspun … Ben Fractenberg … David Portnoy ... Kathryn Jean Lopez … MSNBC's Joshua Johnson … The Daily Show's Matt Negrin … (was Sunday): The Dispatch's Jonah Goldberg turned 52 … CNN's John Berman turned 49 … Dan Wilson, SVP at Mercury, turned 38 … (was Saturday): Kevin Hassett … Hamilton Place Strategies' Elliott Owensby … NBC News' Benjy Sarlin … MSNBC's Jack Bohrer … Edelman's Ryan Zimmerman and Amy Nunn | | | | A message from Opportunities for NY: New Yorkers need job opportunities NOW that put food on the table. Our State can fund a $15 billion budget gap with massive cuts to services OR expand downstate gaming through an open and transparent process for ALL THREE remaining licenses. New York State voters already approved the THREE remaining downstate licenses back in 2013. The hard part is done, New York State simply needs to release the bids which will:
- Generate 200,000 new jobs, including 70,000 local union jobs;
- Bring $1.5 billion in immediate state revenue; and
- Achieve $900 million in recurring revenue for our State.
To learn more, visit opportunitiesforny.com | | |
| | REAL ESTATE | | "MEGHAN MCCANN, a sales representative for a wine and liquor company, has spent more than a year looking for a house in Columbia County, in the northern Hudson Valley, where she was born and raised. Ms. McCann, 39, who grew up in Copake Falls, less than 10 minutes from the town of Hillsdale, where she currently rents with her fiancé, Joseph Walters, said she was preapproved for a $270,000 mortgage, but 'it wasn't enough.' Every house she and Mr. Walters looked at sold within two weeks for prices that beggared belief...As the real estate market remains on a boil in New York's Hudson Valley, heated in large part by second-home buyers re-evaluating their commitment to urban living, longtime residents are experiencing both prosperity and pain. A wave of newcomers, drawn by the painterly beauty and burgeoning craft and food culture of this region, are helping to sustain local businesses, allowing bars and shops to flourish, and keeping construction companies and maintenance crews active. At the same time, they are vacuuming up much of the available housing, leading to bidding wars and inflated prices." New York Times' Julie Lasky | | | | 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 | | | | |
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