Oliver Koppell

Unlike most public officials, New York’s hard-charging attorney general, Andrew Cuomo, doesn't keep a written daily schedule.

That's according to his office, which, after two separate Freedom of Information requests from The Observer, finally said that Mr. Cuomo simply didn’t have any pre-existing documentation of his day-to-day professional and political activities that he could make public.

It's the nature of his job, an aide explained.

"The vast majority of the attorney general's time each day is spent working on and being briefed on our cases and investigations," said Benjamin Lawsky, a special assistant and deputy counsel to Mr. Cuomo.

Mr. Cuomo’s office eventually did provide a reconstituted outline of his public schedule between January 2007, when he took office, and April 2008. It is five pages long, listing press conferences, public outings and political events. They said it includes everything of a nonsensitive nature.  read more »

This could be another tough day for Christine Quinn.

She's going to meet with the 47 other members of the Democratic conference in the City Council today at 4 p.m., which will be the first time she speaks officially with many of her colleagues about the accounting-practices scandal that she’s now spent the good part of two weeks trying to quell.  read more »

Within hours of the congestion pricing vote, a Bronx-based opponent of the plan, Ari Hoffnung, sent out an email announcing that he will run for City Council, again.  read more »

Councilman and all-but-announced city comptroller candidate Simcha Felder of Brooklyn hired another staffer: Eric Kuo, who will be the new new press person.

Kuo previously did press for Councilman Vincent Gentile, a Democrat in the conservative-leaning Bay Ridge section of Brooklyn (the same area that produced Democratic operatives George Fontas, Scott Gastel and Sam Cooper). He also worked for Councilman Oliver Koppell in the Riverdale section of the Bronx. (There are probably some notable operatives from there too, but I'll need some help on that one.)

More on Kuo after the jump.  read more »

The City Council has voted down a proposal to co-name four blocks of a street in Brooklyn after black nationalist Sonny Carson. The vote was 15 for and 25 against, with seven abstentions. Notable votes: Bill De Blasio, who worked on David Dinkins' mayoral campaign with Carson, voted no. Oliver Koppell, who voted no, said "we are not voting on the civil rights movement." Mathieu Eugene, in one of his first votes, abstained. Mike Nelson of Brooklyn voted no, and retold a story of how Carson came into the classroom where she was teaching and said he didn't want a white Jew teaching his children.

A Harvard-educated lawyer-turned-New York Attorney General who is not named Eliot Spitzer is about to be honored in Albany. 

On Monday at 5 p.m. in the capitol, an official portrait of Oliver Koppell will be unveiled. The painting will hang on the second floor of the capitol, down the hall from Spitzer's current office.

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Although Councilman Simcha Felder joined yesterday's rally criticizing the way the city's Board of Elections is testing new voting machines under the Help America Vote Act, he ended up protesting the rally itself.

HAVA is the federal law that funds upgrades in local voting machines so hanging chads and punch cards will be a thing of the past. Albany didn't agree on how exactly to comply with HAVA until recently. Now, some worry that the new voting machines will only face their first real test in 2008, during the presidential primaries.

At the rally, Felder and others said the upgrades in voting technology were desperately needed. Councilman Oliver Koppell took it one step further, connecting the need for new voting machines here to allegations that the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections were basically stolen in places like Ohio and Florida, which use not-so-tech-savvy voting machines.  read more »

Upon hearing this, Felder turned and walked away from the crowd, saying in a stage whisper, "I don't believe that."

His challenger is demanding that Koppell's campaign pay for the taxpayer-funded newsletter Giff sent to his district.

"The cost of possibly illegal literature authorized by City Council Speaker Gifford Miller and Councilmember Oliver Koppell, and mailed in the 11th District, should count towards the Koppell Leadership Committee threshold," Ari Hoffnung wrote to the CFB.

"Any fines levied against Gifford Miller for New York mailings to the 11th Council District should extend to the Koppell Leadership Committee."  read more »