Latest news with #MetropolitanTransportationAuthority
NDTV
a day ago
- Politics
- NDTV
What Makes Zohran Mamdani, New York Mayor Candidate So Appealing To Voters
Zohran Mamdani has shaken up New York politics by winning the Democratic nomination for mayor. The 33-year-old Indian-origin assemblyman defeated former governor Andrew Cuomo on Wednesday. "Tonight, we made history," he told supporters after his win. "I will be your Democratic nominee for the mayor of New York City." Powered by a bold, left-wing agenda and grassroots energy, here are five key pillars of his platform that have fuelled his rise: Housing And Rent Reform Housing is Zohran Mamdani's priority. He promises an immediate freeze on rent-stabilised units and stricter enforcement against negligent landlords. His boldest proposal is the creation of a Social Housing Development Agency to build 2 lakh publicly owned affordable homes over the next decade, funded by higher taxes on millionaires and large corporations. "It's a city that is in danger of losing that which makes it so special," Mr Mamdani said at a BBC event. For Working-Class New Yorkers Zohran Mamdani has promised to make New York more affordable by taxing the rich. His fiscal plan includes a 2 per cent income tax on individuals earning over $1 million and increased corporate taxes, measures he says will raise $20 billion. These funds would be funnelled into universal childcare (starting from six weeks of age), free public college, fare-free public transit, and subsidised grocery stores in low-income areas. He has also called for a $30 minimum wage by 2030. Free Public Transit And Climate Action Mr Mamdani's transit plan is one of the most ambitious in recent history. He advocates making all Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) buses permanently free and freezing subway fares. He pairs this with a pro-climate transportation vision, i.e, congestion pricing, expanded bike lanes, and better cross-borough transit access to fight car dependency and reduce emissions. Community-Centered Public Safety Rejecting the traditional police-heavy approach to public safety, Mamdani proposes creating a new Department of Community Safety. This agency would focus on housing, mental health, and outreach rather than arrests and enforcement. He also calls for an 800 per cent increase in funding for anti-hate programs, specifically targeting Islamophobia, antisemitism, and anti-Asian hate crimes. Rights For Immigrants And LGBTQ+ Communities As the son of Ugandan-Indian immigrants, Zohran Mamdani's platform puts immigrant and marginalised communities front and centre. He has pledged full sanctuary protections for undocumented New Yorkers, expanded legal aid and improved language access, particularly for Muslim and South Asian populations. He also champions expanded gender-affirming care, the creation of an LGBTQIA+ Affairs Office, and protections against discrimination.
Politico
5 days ago
- Politics
- Politico
Cuomo's management of the MTA was fraught — and offers a look into how he would lead NYC
NEW YORK — One of Andrew Cuomo's testiest exchanges with a campaign rival offered a revealing look into how the former governor ran the nation's largest transit system. During the final debate in the Democratic primary for New York City mayor, Brad Lander claimed that, as governor, Cuomo had 'screwed' and 'cheated' immigrant workers who washed subways during the pandemic. In batting down the allegation, Cuomo reminded New Yorkers that sometimes he acknowledges he's a micromanager — and sometimes he doesn't. 'They should never have hired illegal immigrants — if it is true,' Cuomo said of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. 'But obviously I had nothing to do with them hiring anyone.' Lander balked at Cuomo's use of the term 'illegal immigrants' and fired back, saying the orders for the cleaning service 'came from on high.' 'Oh, I see,' Cuomo said. 'So every contract that the MTA contracts, you want me to be held responsible? Come on.' The idea for the cleaning was something Cuomo announced in late April 2020, prompting an unprecedented overnight closure of the subway system. And for anyone familiar with his reputation as a micromanager, it's not a stretch to think Cuomo could actually be responsible for the contract. After all, as governor, Cuomo involved himself in rethinking how to repair the tunnel that carries the L train, picking the color of subway tiles and pressing the MTA to spend a quarter billion dollars to decorate a bridge with colorful, pulsating lights. At other times, though, Cuomo has claimed the MTA wasn't his thing. 'I have representation on the board,' the then-governor said in 2017, downplaying his role. 'The city of New York has representation on the board, so does Nassau, Suffolk, Dutchess, Putnam, Rockland, other counties, OK?' His rivals aren't buying it. According to them, the former governor's rollercoaster leadership of the MTA informs how he would helm the country's biggest city. Lander, Zohran Mamdani and the alliance of progressives seeking to block Cuomo from winning the Democratic primary have tried to capitalize on every perceived weakness, from his treatment of women who accused him of sexual harassment to the nursing home Covid-19 deaths during his tenure. Cuomo has denied wrongdoing. Some of his MTA controversies — especially his redirecting of transit funds to struggling state-run ski resorts and his mixed messaging about who runs the agency — have been part of the battery of campaign attacks against him. 'The first thing that New Yorkers deserve out of a leader is an acknowledgment of their own responsibilities,' Mamdani, the state assemblymember eating into Cuomo's lead, told POLITICO on Saturday. 'There were years where he tried to tell New Yorkers that the MTA was actually under the auspices of Bill de Blasio, and what we need is someone who owns up to the scale of the crisis at hand.' Cuomo campaign spokesperson Rich Azzopardi responded by ticking off the former governor's list of accomplishments. 'Governor Cuomo increased MTA operating funding by $2 billion a year, passed the largest capital plan in history, increasing it 125 percent to $54.8 billion, and he proudly finished the Second Avenue Subway and Moynihan Train Station — two projects generations of politicians talked about but didn't have the slightest clue how to actually build,' Azzopardi said. He pointed to the L train tunnel project and the East Side Access project, which connected the Long Island Rail Road to a newly opened Grand Central Madison terminal. 'The advocates and the far left didn't support that nor did they support hiring 500 MTA police to combat subway crime — history has borne out both those decisions,' Azzopardi added. That isn't nearly all there is to Cuomo's track record when it comes to the MTA, though. To understand Cuomo's role with the MTA, it's important to know who's actually in charge. The agency's board has a complex balance of power, with the New York City mayor, suburban county executives and state Senate having some say over its voting members. The governor, though, controls the nominating process, has more board representatives than anyone in the state and picks its chair and CEO. Early in his administration, Cuomo was so notorious for keeping his distance from the agency's problems that John Raskin, the former head of the Riders Alliance, made it his mission to get straphangers to understand the power Albany had over their commutes. In the summer of 2015, the group took a cardboard cutout of Cuomo on a tour of the subway system to make its case. That hands-off approach made Cuomo's exchange with Lander all the more galling to the transit advocacy group. 'He's still running away from the major responsibility he had to New York City as governor,' said current Riders Alliance spokesperson Danny Pearlstein. At City Hall, Cuomo would have far less power over the MTA than he did as governor, but as governor, in one of many clashes with Mayor de Blasio, he called it the 'city subway system.' 'As governor, he defunded and badly weakened the subway system and caused the summer of hell,' Lander said Saturday as he campaigned outside an Upper West Side subway station. The so-called summer of hell was an infamous series of transit problems in 2017 that began with Amtrak's Penn Station but also included MTA infrastructure breakdowns that left its customers suffering from the worst on-time performance of any major rapid transit system in the world. As that hell was beginning, Cuomo said his responsibility for the MTA merely consisted of appointing a few people to its board. But during his tenure, he also exerted control. In 2016, he was publicly reported to be 'hands on' and fretting about details like circuits that were complicating work on the Second Avenue subway. In early 2019, he was hailed for avoiding a shutdown of the L subway line. By the time a new subway boss, Andy Byford, arrived at the agency in 2018, Cuomo was 'sinking his hands deeper every day,' according to the late New York Times reporter Jim Dwyer, a legendary observer of the subway system. By spring 2019, another local news outlet had enough fodder to compile a list of Cuomo's 'greatest MTA micro-managing hits.' Out on the campaign trail, Cuomo has pointed to an unsafe subway system as one of the reasons he's running. In the speech launching his bid, he talked about an era when 'government worked and the subways were safe. But today people stand with their backs against the walls, away from the tracks and away from each other, wary, on guard, afraid they might be the next victim, afraid of New York at its worst.' Cuomo has run his campaign for mayor on a platform of experience and competence, including his three terms as governor, as New York attorney general and as U.S. secretary of Housing and Urban Development. 'The mayor of the city of New York — we have to understand that that is basically a management job,' the former governor told a Brooklyn megachurch Sunday. His opponents contend that's the point and have mocked him for precisely that when it comes to the MTA. Mamdani submitted bids for equipment once purchased to fulfill Cuomo's dreams of a choreographed, colored light show on the MTA's bridges, and he criticized the multimillion-dollar check Cuomo's administration once had the MTA cut to bail out upstate ski resorts. Homelessness in the subway, by Cuomo's own account, worsened during his and de Blasio's tenures: In 2019 — more than eight years after he took office — Cuomo said the homeless problem in the train system was 'worse than ever.' The pandemic accelerated that. Because of lost ridership during the pandemic, the MTA was facing the worst financial crisis in its history when Cuomo resigned in August 2021 following the sexual harassment allegations. There was turmoil at the top, too, after Cuomo's repeated spats with MTA leaders, including Byford, who resigned amid feuds with Cuomo. Before stepping down in 2021, Cuomo attempted to change how the agency was run by proposing a leadership structure that would give him even more say, echoing a move his father had tried four decades earlier. None of this appears to be forgotten under Gov. Kathy Hochul. During her time in office, there have been occasional indirect shots at how things once were under her predecessor. MTA CEO Janno Lieber recently thanked Hochul and state lawmakers for signing off on a budget deal that helps fund a $68 billion multi-year capital plan, the largest in the agency's history, but one focused primarily on repair work. Lieber said the deal acknowledges that the MTA needs money for repairs and isn't 'some weird bailout' to invest in essential infrastructure. 'We're not waving around a ton of shiny baubles,' he said. 'We love new projects — no secret they have helped to transform and grow the system — but we must maintain, we must preserve this system.' After leaving office, Cuomo changed his position on at least one important MTA-related policy: the congestion pricing tolls he signed into law to fund subway upgrades. Last year, as he was pondering his political future, he and his former aides criticized Hochul's handling of congestion pricing — first for embracing it, then for temporarily tanking it. With the midterm elections looming and Republicans critical of the policy, Cuomo questioned in March 2024 whether 'now is the right time to enact' the tolls; that June a top adviser criticized Hochul for pausing the program before it went into effect. For his transit critics, Cuomo did everything wrong, except for congestion pricing; while Hochul did everything right for the MTA, except for the five-month period where she paused congestion pricing. Now, Hochul is one of the program's biggest champions, in part because it's shown she can stand up to President Donald Trump, who has opposed the toll. Hochul has shown a willingness to take ownership of issues plaguing the MTA. She pushed plans to redevelop Penn Station, struck a funding deal with New Jersey on new train tunnels under the Hudson River, advanced plans for a new transit line between Brooklyn and Queens and agreed to fund increased police patrols in the subway system amid a major crime spike. Within months of winning a full term, she had filled the MTA's budget gap. And she hasn't burned through MTA leaders, instead having remarkable stability after years of tumult. Even when congestion pricing went off the rails, she and Lieber stood together. If Cuomo wins the primary and goes on to be elected mayor, advocates who did battle with him over his MTA management are bracing for the worst and hoping for the best. 'The hope is that Cuomo grew a lot as a person and manager and can actually delegate because, if he can't, then the city is going to be dysfunctional in a different way than it was under Eric Adams,' said John Kaehny, executive director of the government accountability group Reinvent Albany. 'But if the MTA is your only basis of comparison, then it bodes very poorly for the city.' Jeff Coltin contributed to this report.
Politico
20-06-2025
- Business
- Politico
America's biggest rail service faces peril from both parties after years of ‘Amtrak Joe' Biden
BENEATH THE EAST RIVER, New York — Twelve years after Hurricane Sandy's brackish floodwaters poured into some of the Northeast's busiest rail tunnels, the damage is still apparent from pooling water and crumbling casing. Political leaders who mattered most — from former President Joe Biden to the region's governors — all backed a $1.6 billion repair of the Amtrak tunnels connecting Manhattan and Long Island. But now Donald Trump is president and New York is taking a more adversarial approach to Amtrak. Even though repair work started last month on the Sandy-damaged tunnels beneath the East River, Democratic New York Gov. Kathy Hochul and members of her administration threw intense last-minute shade on the project. They suggested Amtrak cannot be trusted, doesn't care about its customers and compared its officials to a used car salesman. The sharp elbows suggest a new peril for the national railroad following the 'Amtrak Joe' Biden years, when the administration showered billions of dollars on the railroad and New York rail projects, including the separate $16 billion project to build new tunnels beneath the Hudson River connecting New Jersey and New York. Amtrak's leader recently stepped down in a peace offering to Trump and the railroad is facing major layoffs and renewed pressure to turn a profit. If Amtrak doesn't have the confidence of Northeastern Democrats like Hochul, whose state is home to the flagship New York Penn Station and its busiest passenger routes, it's not clear who Amtrak can count on. 'Am I confident?' Hochul said during a recent press conference. 'I don't know.' Hochul's recent criticism of the East River rehab, paired with open hostility toward Amtrak from officials at the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, are yet another sore spot between the Democratic governor and the Trump administration over transit — one among many. Trump is trying to kill New York's signature congestion pricing program. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy recently seized control of the high-profile overhaul of Penn Station and handed it to Amtrak, under the supervision of former MTA head Andy Byford. But the tunnel clash adds animosity to what was once widely regarded as a slam dunk repair project by Amtrak to its own tunnels. Sandy flooded two of four East River train tunnels, leaving behind a salty residue that's eating away at the concrete casing. Since then, Amtrak has been working on a plan to fix the century-old tubes by closing them one after another for two-and-a-half years of repair work. The closures could prompt delays for Long Island commuters if something goes wrong in any of the other tunnels. Hochul worries those delays could shred public confidence in transit after the state is 'finally getting our footing.' 'The last thing I want to do is have a setback that can go on for years,' Hochul said. 'So I was very clear in my messaging to Amtrak: Don't screw this up.' As the tunnel repair project loomed, Hochul and the MTA asked Amtrak to rip up its closure plans and take a different approach known as 'repair in place,' which would shift the work to nights and weekends and keep the tunnels open during peak commuting times. In doing so, she and her allies have used rhetoric that would have been hard to imagine when Biden was president. 'Amtrak's track record for us is a little terrifying,' MTA CEO Janno Lieber said, citing unrelated problems with Amtrak's system that caused massive headaches for New Jersey commuters last summer. Lisa Daglian, the head of the Permanent Citizens Advisory Committee to the MTA, cited a history of Amtrak system problems to suggest that if something went wrong with the East River tunnels, the 2017 'summer of hell' transit crisis in New York City would look like a 'warm spring day.' In New Jersey, Gov. Phil Murphy and members of the state's congressional delegation have expressed frustration with Amtrak, but for other reasons and in more muted terms. Murphy, a Democrat, stepped in to broker a peace between Amtrak and NJ Transit last summer after the two railroads got into a spat over who was to blame for massive delays for Garden State commuters. Now, every few months, Murphy gathers NJ Transit and Amtrak leaders in front of cameras to field reporters' questions about their joint work. Not so in New York. New York's criticism of Amtrak intensified shortly after Duffy announced in mid-April that it would be in charge of Penn Station, a move that sidelined the MTA and Lieber, who has his own particular vision for what should happen there. It's hard to know if the tunnel flare up aimed at Amtrak is part of a tit-for-tat, but it's a theory few people are discounting given that the MTA and Amtrak had been talking about the tunnel work for years. 'We were surprised by this sudden disavowment of a plan that we had worked together on for a long time,' said Laura Mason, Amtrak's executive vice president for capital project delivery. New York contends it has long harbored worries about Amtrak's plan to close one tunnel for 13 months of repairs, reopen it and then close the other for 13 more months. The East River tunnels are used by Amtrak, the MTA's Long Island Rail Road and NJ Transit, which sends trains to Queens so they can be ready to head back to New Jersey during rush hour. NJ Transit has not raised a ruckus over the tunnel project. But LIRR, which is part of the MTA, is the biggest user of the tunnels. And its leader, Rob Free, is worried because it sends more than 450 trains and 125,000 customers through them each day. In early May, Amtrak handed LIRR an easy anecdote to bash it with even before repairs began: Poor quality control meant one of the tunnels wasn't ready to go after an overnight outage, inconveniencing tens of thousands of Long Island commuters. If another tunnel had been closed for repair when that happened, there would have been even more delays and cancellations. 'The governor of New York seems to be more concerned about Amtrak customers than they do,' Free, the head of LIRR, said during a press conference in remarks that echoed Hochul's own. Mason of Amtrak responded that the critique 'didn't hurt because it wasn't true,' but she was frustrated by Free 'misrepresenting the collective effort that went into these plans.' Mason said that while the MTA has had concerns, it has been part of the project for years — the MTA has helped get the money for the project, signed off on the design and participated in the procurement. But there's been a bipartisan group of New York members worried about Amtrak for a while, including everything from Amtrak's service cuts to the full closure of the tunnels. Former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo's ideas about how to run a railroad also loom over the dispute. To avoid a shutdown of the L subway line in 2019, Cuomo's administration instead shifted most of the work to nights and weekends. He was hailed as a sort of hero at the time and wanted to use that same repair-in-place approach on other projects, including Gateway. Now Hochul wants to use the idea for the East River tunnels. Amtrak recently fought back against it by offering a rare media tour of one of the East River tunnels to show just how fragile the tunnels are and why it considers repair-in-place unworkable. The tour began on a recent Thursday with a descent into Tunnel 2 at 1 a.m. Down there, travelling on the back of a truck in an otherwise empty tunnel dozens of feet below Manhattan's 1st Avenue and the East River itself, Amtrak officials pointed to the extent of the damage done by time and Sandy. Rickety catwalks meant for escape in an emergency seemed questionable at best. Water dripped from the ceiling, pooling near tracks in a way that could force trains to slow or stop. Cast-iron casing crumbled in one Amtrak worker's hand. The tunnel repairs Amtrak is making should ensure people can escape in an emergency. It won't stop all the dripping, but it's expected to prevent puddles from shutting down service and will upgrade the tunnel's interior and electrical work. 'What we're designing is a tunnel that helps itself,' said Liam McQuat, Amtrak's vice president of engineering services. 'This has been 12 years in the making.' The biggest impression Amtrak made was just how hard it would be to cram in work on nights and weekends: It seemed hard enough to get a gaggle of reporters in and out of the tunnel — no trains could travel in the tunnel that had to be blocked off and powered down for safety. The message Amtrak sent was that trying to get hundreds of workers and all their equipment in and out of the tunnel each night and have the tunnel reopened in time for the morning commute would be challenging and inefficient. It could also triple or quadruple the time it would take to make the repairs. In a press conference the next day, Free dismissed Amtrak's tour as the work of a car salesman. 'The salesman pulls the car up, you sit in the car, pulls at your heartstrings, pulls at your emotions,' Free said. 'But at the end of the day, it's about the details, it's about what's the bottom line.'
Yahoo
13-06-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Cuomo and Mamdani tear into each other in final New York City mayoral debate
Andrew Cuomo and Zohran Mamdani bitterly clashed over age and experience Thursday in the final debate before New York City's Democratic mayoral primary, as Cuomo warned that the progressive state assemblyman is unprepared for the job and Mamdani hammered the former governor over scandals during his time in Albany. Cuomo, Mamdani and five other candidates squared off just before Saturday's start of early voting ahead of the June 24 Democratic primary. The fiery exchanges between the universally known Cuomo and fast-rising Mamdani reflected how many see the race as increasingly competitive — and how the two view each other as a threat. Cuomo said it would be 'reckless and dangerous' to elect a 33-year-old state assemblyman to a role that requires negotiating with city, state and federal lawmakers, standing up to President Donald Trump, responding to natural disasters and more. Mamdani retorted with a laundry list of the 67-year-old Cuomo's scandals in the governor's office, including the sexual harassment allegations that forced him out of office in 2021. 'I've never had to resign in disgrace,' Mamdani said, while also taking shots at Cuomo's handling of Medicaid and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. 'I have never hounded the thirteen women who credibly accused me of sexual harassment. I have never sued for their gynecological records. And I have never done these things because I am not you, Mr. Cuomo.' Cuomo shot back: 'Mr. Mamdani is right. He's never done anything, period.' 'He's accomplished nothing,' he said, criticizing Mamdani's four years as a state assemblyman. 'He has zero accomplishments, and now he thinks he's going to be ready to be mayor of the city of New York. It is laughable. It is laughable and it is dangerous.' Earlier Thursday, Cuomo's campaign had launched a television advertisement pointing to Trump sending troops to Los Angeles amid protests over deportations, and portraying Mamdani as 'dangerously inexperienced' and unprepared to take on the president. Mamdani, meanwhile, ripped Cuomo for repeatedly mispronouncing his name and spelled out his last name to make the point. Former New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, a longtime Cuomo rival, said on X during the debate that Cuomo 'is REALLY scared' of Mamdani. 'He's not even faking it,' de Blasio said. 'And Andrew is REALLY disrespecting all the New Yorkers who support Zohran.' In deep-blue New York City, the primary is often the decisive contest. This year, incumbent Mayor Eric Adams, who was elected four years ago as a Democrat, will be on the ballot in November as an independent. Curtis Sliwa, who lost to Adams four years ago, is again the Republican nominee. Other candidates sought to offer Democratic voters a path besides Cuomo and Mamdani. New York's primary is a ranked-choice contest, which means candidates are also competing to be voters' second- or third-favorite contender, even if they don't win their first-place votes. New York City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams, who largely sought to remain above the fray, also questioned Mamdani's experience. She pointed to her experience crafting the city's budget and leading the council. 'Given what I've just laid out, do you think you're more qualified than me to lead the city?' she asked Mamdani. Scott Stringer, a former New York City comptroller, said Cuomo has experience and Mamdani has vision — but 'my experience and my vision, when you combine it, is the third lane to win this race.' New York City Comptroller Brad Lander might have landed the sharpest blows on Cuomo. He highlighted the specifics around Cuomo's resignation and the findings of the attorney general's office's investigation that concluded he sexually harassed multiple women and violated state law. Lander said he wouldn't want to have to tell college students, 'Don't go work at city hall because the mayor is a sexual harasser.' Cuomo responded that five district attorneys investigated the allegations against him and 'nothing has come of them whatsoever.' 'This is disqualifying. The man resigned. It should be obvious. The problem is that we do not get to address the issues that New Yorkers care about because we're talking about his past,' said state senator Zellnor Myrie. The candidates also clashed over police and public safety, as Cuomo described New Yorkers as 'afraid on the streets.' 'They feel unsafe,' he said. 'You can quote statistics all day long, they get afraid walking into the subway, they get afraid walking down the street when they see a mentally ill homeless person.' Cuomo sought to use his tough talk on public safety, much like Adams did in 2021, to differentiate himself from the Democratic field. He pointed to a 2021 plan to cut $1 billion in police funding from the city budget and accused his rivals of supporting efforts to 'defund the police.' 'That was the chant, and $1 billion was taken from the police department,' Cuomo said. He touted a proposal to add 5,000 police officers to the NYPD. Mamdani said he wants more social workers so that the NYPD can focus on serious crime but does not want to slash police funding. 'I will not defund the police. I will work with the police,' he said. Mamdani is running to be the city's first Muslim mayor. He was sharply attacked over his criticism of Israel's war in Gaza – which he has called a 'genocide' – as well as his support for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement and his calls for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's arrest. Former hedge fund executive Whitney Tilson accused Mamdani of being a leader 'inciting these mobs' at Columbia University, where he said protests disrupted students' educations. 'When you use words referring to the only Jewish state in the world like 'genocide' and 'apartheid,' when you call for divestment and all, that is inciting these mobs,' he said. Mamdani said he is being 'smeared' and 'mischaracterized' for positions with which he says many Jewish voters agree. 'I say these things because far too often, we take what can be a place of disagreement and start to broach beyond that,' he said.
Yahoo
09-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Cuomo's bridge lights hit the auction block
ALBANY, New York — The saga of former Gov. Andrew Cuomo's bridge-lighting boondoggle is finally drawing to a close — and from a financial perspective, the end is shaping up to be dim. Cuomo, who's now running for New York City mayor, first signaled in 2016 that he would spend hundreds of millions of dollars to decorate the city's bridges in flashing lights as a way to boost tourism. A year later, subway delays plagued the city in what came to be known as the 'Summer of Hell,' prompting critics to question the wisdom of forcing the financially stressed Metropolitan Transportation Authority to spend an estimated $250 million on a decorative lighting project. Cuomo, though, did not give up on his 'Harbor of Lights' vision. All told, the state and the New York Power Authority spent at least $108 million on bringing it to life — all to no avail. Now, years later, the power authority is finally auctioning off the lights after POLITICO inquired about their fate. The minimum bid? $25. So far, there are no takers — a far cry from what Cuomo had hoped for nearly a decade ago. 'They'll all be synchronized, they can all be the same color, they can operate in series — I mean it is really limitless,' he said at the time. The Kosciuszko Bridge linking Brooklyn and Queens got the light show treatment — and a Mother's Day 2017 unveiling — that Cuomo heralded as the first stage of his grand plan. 'Harbor of Lights' was to be choreographed together, synced with other iconic city landmarks and set to a soundtrack, making for an 'international tourist attraction," Cuomo promised. The plan was shelved soon after, but the power authority had already spent $106 million, including on the lighting equipment and design costs. The authority was ultimately reimbursed by taxpayers. But it held onto the lights and equipment needed for the pet project — and that has come at an additional cost. The authority has paid $300,000 annually — at least $2.1 million — over more than 7 years to store the lights, according to power authority spokesperson Lindsay Kryzak. Days before Cuomo resigned as governor in 2021 due to sexual harassment allegations he denies, his spokesperson said the bridge lighting project would still move forward. That spokesperson, now working for Cuomo's mayoral campaign, declined to comment for this story. A government watchdog said Monday that the saga of the lights highlights a need for more oversight of the governor's office and state authorities. 'It's a complete fiasco,' said John Kaehny, executive director at Reinvent Albany. 'This is a case study in abuse of power and gaping holes in transparency and accountability.' Cuomo officials offered shifting explanations of how the bridge lights would be paid for as public scrutiny mounted. The MTA wouldn't be paying, a Cuomo spokesperson said, after the power authority's board had been told otherwise. At one point, the administration suggested the state's economic development agency would provide the funding. It wasn't unusual for Cuomo to focus on the aesthetics of infrastructure projects — he added millions of dollars in costs for blue and white tiling in tunnels. While governor, he also tapped the state power authority to support various projects, including the lighting and display screens at the Moynihan Train Hall. The power authority finances energy efficiency projects, and customers — public entities like the MTA — agree to reimburse the authority. But the bridge lights were such a large expense — without a clear path to reimbursement — that they prevented the authority from issuing long term debt for years. Then-power authority president and CEO Gil Quiniones told the governor's office at the time that the shortfall would have to be disclosed ahead of a planned bond issuance, according a person familiar with the situation who was granted anonymity to speak with POLITICO about sensitive details. To avoid that public disclosure, a deal was reached for the state to reimburse the authority. The last payment from the state was made in 2021, as POLITICO reported at the time. Most of the lighting equipment — which cost about $37 million, according to public records — has remained in storage since it was purchased in 2017. Power authority officials did not believe it could be sold since the state paid for it, according to the person who was granted anonymity. In 2021, a spokesperson for the authority said it would seek to use the lights for other projects. More recently, after POLITICO inquired about the fate of the bridge lights, the authority listed them for auction. 'As you know, we have tried to repurpose these lights,' power authority spokesperson Kryzak said in a statement. 'Despite these efforts to identify new uses across the State, demand was not what was expected, so the next logical step is to auction the lights." Kaehny recommended that voters take this 'escapade' into account when voting in the Democratic mayoral primary, where Cuomo is the leading candidate. 'He's not been held accountable in part because they were able to keep this a secret for so long,' Kaehny said. 'This is a great example of governance by whim and ego storm.'
