Azi Paybarah

Fund-raising against a mayoral candidate with unlimited resources is a daunting task, but at least it provides an easy pitch to contributors.  read more »

Fred Hochberg, dean of the Milano the New School for Management and Urban Policy, is reportedly getting an appointment with the Obama administration as the head of the Export-Import Bank.  read more »

“Kennedy is the One!” says a headline in the Queens Courier.

Sarah Palin said the media is going easy on Kennedy, and that  it’s a class issue.  read more »

Jessica Lappin, who is considering joining the crowded race for public advocate, plans to change the name of her campaign committee from Lappin for Council to Lappin 2009, a person with knowledge of the ca  read more »

">The city’s Campaign Finance Board declined to offer a detailed opinion about whether they’d allow candidates to access money in a “frozen” account if, at a later date, they decide to run for higher office because an incumbent there suddenly decides to not seek re-election.  read more »

Minutes after Barack Obama spoke in Virginia urging congressional lawmakers to pass an economic stimulus package, Mayor Michael Bloomberg appeared on both CNN and later Fox Business News with some additional advice: send the money directly to cities.  read more »

David Paterson explicitly came out in support of the Ravitch Commission’s recommendations to fund mass transit by taxing business payrolls and tolling the East River Bridges.  read more »

If fund-raising is the main concern, Caroline Kennedy is not the only viable candidate.

Her rollout has “not been a profile in competence,” according to the American Spectator.  read more »

Hillary Clinton's confirmation hearing is Tuesday.

In his State of the State speech, David Paterson spoke of hate crimes.  read more »

Today is Elizabeth Crowley’s first day as a member of the City Council. After being sworn in in front of her new colleagues, Crowley said she knows what it’s like to be part of a big family.

 “My parents had 15 children,” said Crowley, whose father and mother both also served in the City Council.  read more »

Five City Council candidates filed petitions with the city Board of Elections to appear on the ballot for the special elections taking place on February 24.

Since special elections are nonpartisan, candidates also had to create a party name on which to run. Here they are so far:

In the 49th District on the North Shore of Staten Island, which was vacated by Mike McMahon:  read more »

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At a rally on the City Hall steps this morning, Bill de Blasio said the city buildings department is unfairly levying expensive fines to billboard owners for relatively harmless infractions, while more serious violations at construction sites often get hit with less expensive fines--providing little incentive to improve safety.  read more »

Democratic Senator John Sampson said the shape of the senate districts on Long Island will “change substantially” and predicted “there will be an African-American elected to the State Senate on Long Island.”  read more »

Errol Louis said Harry Reid has a “double standard” when it comes to blocking Roland Burris but seating Al Franken. “I think that is just such a crock,” said Louis.  read more »

The message accompanying the $400 rebate checks change every year, said a spokesman for the city's finance commissioner.

Jen Chung notes that Michael Bloomberg used to have his name all over the rebate checks.  read more »

This is the very terse note accompanying the $400 homeowners rebate checks that Michael Bloomberg reluctantly sent out after brokering a deal with the City Council on taxes.  read more »

Here's the literature I mentioned I picked up last night in Jackson Heights from the campaign of City Council candidate Francisco Moya. 

A very familiar slogan.  read more »

John Liu has signed Bill Lynch Associates to be the general consultants on his campaign for public advocate, a campaign aide confirmed.

“This is a very accomplished group of campaign strategists and partners who have signed on as a team for John Liu, the next public advocate,” said Chung Seto, a senior strategist on the campaign.  read more »

Thanks to the Manhattan Institute's Empire Center, the city’s payroll is now online, and searchable.

Here what a few of our civil servants make:

Deputy Mayor Kevin Sheekey:$196,574  read more »

The city’s fiscal crisis is the reason why John Tabacco said he won’t seek matching funds for his City Council campaign.  read more »

At a candidate forum in Jackson Heights last night, the former chief of staff to the recently arrested former City Councilman Hiram Monserrate, Julissa Ferreras, said she hasn’t been questioned by authorities about her role as head of a nonprofit group that can’t account for hundreds of thousands of dollars it  read more »

Michael Bloomberg hasn’t sought federal approval for his term-limits extension.

The latest state budget casualty: The Empire State Games.

Westchester officials are developing a wish list--before the budget fight gets rolling.  read more »

The head of a union representing 25,000 carpenters in New York City just issued a statement backing Caroline Kennedy for Hillary Clinton's U.S. Senate seat, saying she’s “intelligent, easy to communicate with and grasps our issues.”  read more »

Barack Obama will choose Leon Panetta to run the C.I.A., delivering a surprise "even to some Obama insiders."   read more »

At 9 a.m. this morning City Council candidate Ken Mitchell filed 2,000 signatures to get on the ballot for the February 24 special elections, his campaign announced in a public statement.  read more »

On Saturday, it was reported that the city granted Caroline Kennedy a waiver from disclosing her personal financial information during her two-year stint as the chief executive of the Office of Strategic Partnerships with the Department of Education.  read more »

Michael Bloomberg, fresh off his one-day trip to Israel, was in Sheepshead Bay Brooklyn this morning filling in a pothole.  read more »

Over the weekend, Michael Bloomberg put himself on the international stage with a one-day trip to Israel, where he met with Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, and distributed dolls to children injured by the week-old conflict between Israel and Hamas.

It was his first trip to Israel in two years.   read more »

Here’s video of former city official Tom Curitore, on Saturday, officially announcing his candidacy for the City Council seat on Staten Island being vacated by Representative-elect Michael McMahon.

Curitore was a police officer and later a first deputy commissioner in the Bloomberg administration.  read more »

"Some day we’re going to learn how to run a damn election," said Errol Louis on his radio show this morning, discussing the prolonged recount in Minnesota.  read more »

Michael Bloomberg announced that Feb. 24 will be the date for special elections for the City Council seats being vacated by Hiram Monserrate, Joseph Addabbo and Mike McMahon.

Monserrate and Addabbo, both of Queens, were elected to the State Senate. McMahon, of Staten Island, was elected to Congress.  read more »

RWDSU President Stuart Appelbaum emailed me to take issue with Kevin Sheekey's latest argument for appointing Caroline Kennedy to Hillary Clinton's Senate seat.  read more »

Michael Bloomberg visited two babies born in Queens and declared, officially, that they’re both the first babies born in 2009.

He joked, “Some of the papers will find problems with the mayor abusing his authority by doing this. But, you know, that’s what leadership is all about.”

And: “The City Council will hold hearings, I’m sure.”  read more »

Kevin Sheekey is making an argument for Caroline Kennedy in the Senate on the grounds that she endorsed Barack Obama, while the New York Democratic establishment "turned its back” on him.  read more »

Here’s a picture from Carl Heastie’s holiday party yesterday, the first he’s hosted since becoming the Bronx Democratic County Leader earlier this year.

Before the party, Heastie had lunch with two of the Democratic state senators who are refusing to support a fellow Democrat, Malcolm Smith, for Senate majority leader.  read more »

David Paterson just issued a statement defending Israel’s Gaza offensive, saying, “the Israeli people, under constant attack from the Palestinian territories, have a right to protect themselves and I stand with them as they fight to defend the basic rights of humanity.”  read more »

Yesterday the city Board of Election dealt a blow to Jim Gennaro's remaining hopes of catching incumbent State Senator Frank Padavan in a recount of their close election, voting "to uphold, formalize and finalize" a prior ruling that prevented about 2,000 ballots from being counted that might have overturned Padavan's lead in the race.

In a statement late yesterday, Republican spokesman Joe Conw  read more »

Michael Bloomberg “seems to be trying to bury his GOP past,” writes the A.P.

“What’s behind all this Democratic love?” asks Michael Barbaro.  read more »

After I tried to get a comment from Kevin Sheekey about the report that he's pulling away from the effort to make Caroline Kennedy the next Senator from New York, he had mayoral spokesman Stu Loeser reach out to me.  read more »

Caroline Kennedy's quip about the New York Times "crack political team" working for "women's magazine" spawns a defense of that genre of news outlets.
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Michael Bloomberg
" a>dismissed the idea that he’s deliberately been associating himself with major figures in the Democratic Party as he prepares to run for re-election.  read more »

A reader who attended Brooklyn Democratic leader Vito Lopez’s holiday party at Cono's last night told me that Lopez “took pains to introduce his co-leader Maritza Davila as his candidate against Diana Reyna, though he did not mention her by name.”  read more »

Michael Bloomberg appeared with the Israeli consulate general just now in City Hall, where the mayor showed a flash of anger in response to a question about whether Israel could conceivably have responded less forcefully to Hamas’ missile attacks on the southern part of the country.

“There’s no such thing as a measured response to terrorism,” Bloomberg said.

The city Independence Party - the faction aligned with the controversial Lenora Fulani – held its annual fund-raiser last week, and published a journal for the event.

Inside were a handful of ads from politicians who presumably had no qualms about being associated with the group.  read more »

Speaking to reporters in midtown yesterday, Michael Bloomberg said New York City will soon face a “reckoning,” fiscally speaking.

Smaller work forces, reduced services and higher taxes all seem to be in the works.  read more »

After Caroline Kennedy’s unsteady debut, I wondered how much it would help to remind some people that the incoming president had once referred to her as “one of my dearest friends.”  read more »

This advisory for Michael Bloomberg’s New Year’s Eve seems to fit with Wayne Barrett’s theory that the mayor is very publicly and deliberately putting his Republican phase behind him.  read more »

Departing representative Mike McNulty gavels out the congressional session.

Ne  read more »

Here’s Michael Bloomberg not being overly optimistic about all the federal money that may be coming to New York from Washington D.C.  read more »