Latest news with #deBlasio
Politico
13-07-2025
- Politics
- Politico
De Blasio sets an example as Mamdani thinks about staffing up
The former mayor's message was echoed across conversations with six former de Blasio administration officials, who were eager to share advice. Focus on the big jobs first, they counseled, like police commissioner and schools chancellor. Be humble and don't underestimate how sprawling city government is. And for that matter, don't micromanage agencies. 'One of the biggest de Blasio mistakes was he spent a lot of time worrying about the commissioners and what was going on outside the building, and he didn't spend time thinking about how to run his City Hall,' said another former aide who was granted anonymity to speak freely. Mamdani's campaign declined multiple interview requests, and he has spoken very little about who he'd hire if elected mayor — saying it would be 'premature to make any personnel commitments at this time' at a press conference Thursday. In a statement, Mamdani campaign spokesperson Lekha Sunder said the candidate has continued to meet with city government officials 'whose leadership he admires' after winning the Democratic primary. 'Zohran knows that the key to be a successful mayor is to build a team of competent, committed and innovative professionals — and looks forward to doing so once he enters office in January.' Mamdani has shown an interest in looking outside his ideological cohort. After railing against billionaires on the campaign trail, he said he'd consider asking NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch, a scion of one of the city's richest families, to stay on the job. 'I need not agree with each person I hire on every single issue,' he told The New York Times before the primary Naturally, power players — many that Mamdani doesn't agree with on every single issue — are already lining up trying to give him advice. Attorney General Letitia James and Partnership for New York City President Kathy Wylde both encouraged Mamdani to keep Tisch, The New York Times reported. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez told the Times she'd be leaning on him to hire an administration 'of extraordinary expertise and experience.' And Assemblymember Rodneyse Bichotte Hermelyn told POLITICO she hopes to make suggestions too. 'I've been around for Eric (Adams), I've been around for Bill de Blasio. So I would definitely like to play a role in recommending people,' she said. The Brooklyn Democratic Party leader, who endorsed Cuomo in the primary, shifted her support to Mamdani for the general election and downplayed political labels. 'Whether you're a socialist, whether you're a centrist, moderate, whatever — people are going to be coming to his City Hall to work on how we're going to make these things affordable,' she said.
New York Post
12-07-2025
- Politics
- New York Post
Bill de Blasio and his former aides are advising Zohran Mamdani — and clamoring to get back to City Hall
Former Big Apple Mayor and groundhog killer Bill de Blasio and his aides are clamoring to become relevant again — by sucking up to socialist and Democratic nominee Zohran Mamdani in the hopes of scoring a position in his potential administration, The Post has learned. The three-term ex-mayor — a vocal supporter of the Queens assemblyman — has been whispering in Mamdani's ear as an informal adviser, sources said. Blaz's former influential aide, Patrick Gaspard, has also carved out a role in the millennial candidate's campaign, helping him to navigate the various voter blocs unsettled by his nomination in the shocking primary upset. 3 Ex-Mayor Bill de Blasio wants to be relevant again in City Hall. Andrew Schwartz / However, insiders say that the advice and guidance is more a play by de Blasio and crew to become 'relevant' — and they don't wield much influence over Mamdani's campaign. 'My understanding is that the Mamdani people are letting anyone chime in, and the de Blasio people are providing advice, but they aren't really making campaign decisions, seemingly just trying to get their names in the paper, make some calls, be relevant,' one source told The Post. 'Technically, they are advising, but not to the extent they are boasting.' Still, Gaspard was the key architect in arranging Mamdani's appearance at the National Action Network with Rev. Al Sharpton after his stunning win over former Gov. Andrew Cuomo — a noted foe of de Blasio, whom the former mayor vowed to do everything in his power to stop. Gaspard — who also served as a political director of the influential SEIU 1199 union, a US Ambassador to South Africa and as Obama's White House Director of Political Affairs — has deep ties with the Big Apple's black communities, labor unions and the larger Democratic Party. Sources told The Post that Gaspard has been pushing hard for a job in the potential administration as he carves himself out a role in the campaign. Camille Rivera, another former adviser to de Blasio who runs the political firm New Deal Strategies, has also been pitching in. Meanwhile, other cronies of the failed presidential candidate that have either been advising Mamdani or have been floated as potential campaign or administration aides include former Deputy Mayor Emma Wolfe, former city council legislative director and universal pre-k architect, Josh Wallach, and former deputy director of the New York City Census office, Amit Bagga. 3 de Blasio's aides have now sucked up to Democratic nominee Zohran Mamdani in the hopes of getting a political position in his administration. Christopher Sadowski But Big Apple political operatives are warning that welcoming de Blasio's former aides back into City Hall could derail his pledge to remake the Big Apple. 'They need to be careful about measuring the drapes too early,' a source quipped. 'He has a real opportunity to bring in fresh energy and thinking to build a more modern government for NYC. That will never happen with de Blasio retreads.' De Blasio, who Mamdani praised as 'the best mayor in his lifetime' in a New York Times interview, did not respond to multiple requests for comment. Both the ex-mayor and his girlfriend, Nomiki Konst, a political commentator and former candidate for public advocate, have been vocal about their support for the upstart socialist on social media. 'If they want to remind everyday New Yorkers that @ZohranKMamdani is on their side, this is the PERFECT way to do it,' de Blasio recently posted on X, in response to a Wall Street Journal article about Big Apple financiers trying to stop the lefty pol. Konst also scoffed at a New York Times article questioning the 33-year-old Mamdani's resume and experience. Keep up with today's most important news Stay up on the very latest with Evening Update. Thanks for signing up! Enter your email address Please provide a valid email address. By clicking above you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Never miss a story. Check out more newsletters 'At this point in the race, anyone in this piece quoted is only helping Cuomo, who has no ideas and a horrible track record with people [and] should be nowhere near government ever again,' she wrote on X. 'At least Zohran has a vision and has confirmed he'll bring in folks who've been successful at Gracie.' The quest for relevance for some of de Blasio's former aides comes as Mamdani's team scrambles to beef up its ranks for the coming general election, where he will square off against Mayor Eric Adams, GOP nominee Curtis Sliwa, Jim Walden, and Cuomo. 'They're overwhelmed right now,' one source close said. 'Very reminiscent of de Blasio.' 3 The former Big Apple mayor has been a vocal supporter of Mamdani with sources saying he's been acting as an informal adviser. Matthew McDermott The campaign, meanwhile, recently made a huge shift in leadership, moving communications director Andrew Epstein to oversee video and replacing him with Jeffrey Lerner, a former aide to Cuomo and political director to the Democratic National Committee. In the final stretch of the primary and the days that followed, Epstein had struggled to keep up with the deluge of media requests from local and national media looking to cover the massive upset. Other City Hall hawks have also been pitching in to help as a go-between for the campaign to connect with business communities, including Kathy Wylde, president and CEO of the non-profit organization Partnership for New York. Wylde is one of the city's most powerful power brokers and has spoken more positively about the candidate in recent weeks. 'His qualifying comments have identified the capitalist system as promoting income inequality. A lot of people in business agree with him on that,' Wylde said in a recent interview with the Wall Street Journal.
New York Post
10-07-2025
- Business
- New York Post
Adams positions himself as pro-education mayoral candidate, announcing $80M funding surge
Mayor Eric Adams is spotlighting his child care accomplishments, in an apparent attempt to position himself as the pro-education candidate ahead of the general election by revealing a new $10 million pilot program that would expand free child care to low-income families. Hizzoner touted his commitment to continuing former Mayor Bill de Blasio's legacy to bring free universal child care to New Yorkers with less cash to spare — as child care and education become central to the race to City Hall, 'For years, the cost of living has driven many New Yorkers out of the five boroughs, but our administration has been taking action because we understand the best way to make the American Dream a reality for New Yorkers is by making our city more affordable for working-class families,' Adams said. Advertisement 3 Adams was joined by Schools Chancellor Melissa Aviles-Ramos on Thursday to tout his recent childcare accomplishments. Paul Martinka The mayor — who's running for reelection as an Independent — drew special attention to a $10 million pilot program the city will begin rolling out in January of 2026 to expand access to infant and toddler care for kids up to 2 years old. The program will be free to low-income families throughout the city. 'This will be the beginning steps of ensuring universal child care for low-income families,' Adams said at a press conference Thursday. 'No one works harder for this city than parents who are attempting to raise their children under some difficult and economical challenges. And so we believe if we can continue to expand this universal child care for low-income families, it will send a clear, loud message that we are investing in these children at an early age.' Advertisement He also announced $70 million in funding to support pre-K special education students by increasing access to speech, occupational and physical therapy for preschoolers in need of such intervention. 'Far too often, universal pre-K wasn't fully universal, since it left out children with special needs. But our administration has changed that,' Adams said of the funding increase. Universal Pre and 3-K was the crown jewel of de Blasio's lefty administration and an initiative that Adams has consistently championed. During April's budget season, the unlikely pair joined forces to further highlight their accomplishments to the press. Advertisement In one cringe-worthy interview, though, de Blasio – who leans far more liberal than Adams – refused to endorse the current mayor for reelection on Dana Bash's CNN show Inside Politics. 'I don't have any intention to get involved in any way at this point, but I'm going to watch really closely,' said de Blasio, who still has yet to officially endorse in the NYC Mayor's race, though he's come to the defense of Democrat nominee Zohran Mamdani. 3 Adams has been positioning himself as the pro-childcare and education candidate since officially announcing his re-election. Bloomberg via Getty Images Mamdani, who won the Democratic primary by a landslide last month, recently told the New York Times, de Blasio was the best NYC mayor to ever have the job, despite his rather polarizing tenure. Advertisement The socialist hasn't made education a central platform of his campaign, but has promised to implement free childcare for New Yorkers 6 weeks to 5 years old, in line with Adams' plan – though he doesn't support full mayoral control of the school system, opting instead for co-governance. The Queens assemblyman also recently snagged a major endorsement from the city's teachers' union, the United Federation of Teachers, undermining Adams' position. 3 Paul Martinka The group applauded his pledge of 'revamping mayoral control [of schools] to give more say to educators and parents,' in a resolution recommending the endorsement. New York City currently has 71,349 Pre-K seats for all eligible 4-year-olds and 48,000 for eligible 3-year-olds.
New York Post
02-07-2025
- Business
- New York Post
Zohran Mamdani's rent freeze will warp NYC's housing market — and hurt us all
The city's Rent Guidelines Board boldly embraced common sense Monday by voting to permit rent increases for the city's nearly one million rent-stabilized apartments — modest ones of 3% for one-year and 4.5% for two-year leases. It was a courageous move in today's political climate. Of course, struggling property owners should be able to collect enough rent to cover their rising expenses — insurance, property taxes, utility costs, not to mention sheer overall inflation. Advertisement Yet Zohran Mamdani, city Democrats' mayoral nominee, is only doubling down on his promise not to raise, but to freeze regulated rents. We've seen this rent-freeze movie before, though — and we should be grateful to the RGB for not green-lighting a sequel. Former two-term Mayor Bill de Blasio, who has endorsed Mamdani's rent-freeze pledge, did just that three times during his eight years in office, and throughout his tenure his RGB appointees never approved an increase of more than 1.5%. Advertisement As a result, the city reaped a whirlwind of deferred maintenance and health hazards. In 2021, the federal Census Bureau's New York City Housing and Vacancy Survey told the de Blasio era's sorry housing story: It found — in its understated bureaucratic language — 'a higher prevalence of most individual maintenance deficiencies relative to earlier cycles.' Translation: Freezing rents resulted in crumbling apartments. The report compared the condition of rent-stabilized units with those that are unregulated — and its results should be eye-opening for those wanting to follow in de Blasio's footsteps. Advertisement As de Blasio left office, 33% of rent-stabilized units (316,000 apartments) had rodents, twice as many as unregulated ones. Roughly twice as many regulated apartments were found to have leaks, heating breakdowns, broken plaster or peeling paint, toilet malfunctions, elevator outages and mold. As much as progressives may want to blame greedy slumlords for all these woes, the reality is that squeezing rental income — for property owners who must pay banks that certainly won't freeze mortgage payments — means repairs and improvements are more likely to be put off. Advertisement Something had to give, and under de Blasio, it did. The 2021 report also pointed to what has since become an increasing trend: 'ghost apartments' — units simply held off the market because the cost of repairing and operating them makes them money-losers. In 2021 more than 28,000 units were off the market because they were 'awaiting renovation,' as the Census Bureau report optimistically put it. Another 27,000 were off the market for 'other' reasons. Even as overall housing supply increased, under de Blasio the city saw 'a continued net loss of the lowest-cost units and a net increase of higher-cost units relative to 2017.' In other words, high-end units not subject to rent stabilization were increasing. The mayor so intent on addressing inequality actually ushered in the opposite. This is what a rent freeze leads to: Apartments that are pest-infested and shabby — or simply not on the market at all. Under Mayor Eric Adams, whose signature 'City of Yes' initiative seeks to increase housing construction rather than freeze rent, the city has seen an increase of 275,000 occupied housing units (153,000 rentals and 123,000 owner-occupied). That's not been nearly enough to loosen a super-tight housing market with a vacancy rate of just 1.4% percent — and it reflects developers' reluctance to build, for fear that even new units might become subject to rent regulation, as federally subsidized units are. Advertisement Developers have been put off as well by the end of a state property-tax abatement law that meant to encourage more residential housing. The replacement law allows fewer of the higher-income units that help projects make economic sense. And, as always, low turnover in rent-regulated units — where residents stay put because they've got such a good deal — increases the demand for non-regulated apartments, pushing up their rents. There's little doubt a Mayor Mamdani would appoint a Rent Guidelines Board friendly to his rent freeze. After all, it's his signature issue. Advertisement He'll have to ignore what that board has been told by Mark Willis of the Furman Center on Real Estate at NYU: that owners of rent-stabilized properties in The Bronx are, on average, losing a stunning $120 per month on every apartment, leaving 200,000 units, concentrated in that borough, under 'severe distress.' If you think we can't return to the bad old days of 'The Bronx is burning,' think again. And don't buy city Comptroller Brad Lander's snake-oil claim that regulated landlords are making a killing. Yes, they earned a 12% return this year — but only after four years of zero net operating income. New Yorkers can see for themselves the damage wrought by a combination of artificially low rents and deferred maintenance. Advertisement Just look at the city's 177,000 public housing units, where chronic elevator breakdowns trap residents in their homes and constant heating outages leave them shivering. A rent freeze will bring us housing equality, all right — if you define that as equally poor conditions in both public and private rent-regulated apartments. Howard Husock is an American Enterprise Institute senior fellow and author of 'The Poor Side of Town — And Why We Need It.'
New York Post
02-07-2025
- Business
- New York Post
Why Mamdani's rent freeze means disaster for NYC tenants
New York City's rental housing market is teetering on the edge of disaster — with a Mamdani mayoralty poised to push it off the cliff. His success running as a 'freeze the rent' candidate has already moved the Rent Guidelines Board to OK dangerously low hikes for rent-stabilized units: 3% for one-year lease renewals, 4.5% for two-year ones — far less than what RGB staff report those landlords' costs are rising at. Zero and near-zero rent hikes in the de Blasio years — RGB rents are up just 20% these last 12 years, vs. overall inflation of 36% — followed by widespread rent nonpayment during COVID (plus state 'reforms' that make it unaffordable to renovate units vacated by longtime tenants), already has many rent-stabilized landlords, especially smaller ones, on the brink of having to abandon their buildings altogether. Others have no choice but to stint on maintenance, letting buildings and units deteriorate; everyone loses as these apartments grow shabbier and more scarce. If Mamdani wins and sticks to his vow to appoint RGB members who'll freeze rents, the bottom is all too likely to fall out. And the new mayor's fans will have a far tougher time finding a decent apartment in New York. By the way, how many Zohran supporters realize that he can't freeze most rents? The rent-stabilized units that the RGB governs are less than half the city's formal rental market, and at most a third of the full city housing supply, once you count coops and condos (even if sublet) and actual houses. And a shrinking of the rent-controlled market is sure to push up prices of market-rate units, big time, because even more people will be chasing a smaller total supply. Incidentally, this effect explains the 'record landlord profits' that Mamdani ally Brad Lander has been thundering about: It's landlord income from rents the city doesn't control. Small, mom-and-pop landlords, who own about two-thirds of city's rent-stabilized units, are the ones who'll get reamed by the freeze (even though they're the little people that lefties claim to care about). Tens of thousands of units are in dire shape in The Bronx alone. Economists almost universally acknowledge that rent control is ruinous to housing markets; ones on the left mostly just don't talk about it, lest it make it harder for 'their side' to win elections. The rent-freeze advocates have no idea how they're destroying New York's housing market — for the very people most desperate for apartments. They're also likely ignorant about who benefits from below-market rents — i.e., folks who, like Mamdani, scored a rent-stabilized apartment, which is actually easier if you're wealthy (as he is). One more irony here: The Supreme Court last year nixed New York landlords' claim that the rent laws violate the Constitution's 'takings' clause. Thing is, that ruling relied on the assumption that the RGB has real independence — a fiction that will collapse if Mamdani wins on promises platform of 0% hikes and then delivers.
