Gotham Gazette

The Place for New York Policy and politics

Tony Avella

Tony Avella

  • A Step Into the 2023 City Council Elections as Campaign Finance Board Approves First Public Funds Payment of Cycle

    Tony Avella at City Hall (photo: NY City Council)


    The 2023 City Council election is kicking off, as the New York City Campaign Finance Board approved its first public funds payment to a single campaign on Thursday and announced a series of completed campaign audits from the previous election cycle.

    The upcoming elections are taking place just two years after all 51 City Council seats were on the ballot in 2021 because of the decennial redistricting process. Based on the 2020 Census, City Council districts were redrawn to

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  • Max & Murphy Podcast: Queens State Senate Rematch Features Different Kinds of Democrat

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    Ben Max, left, of Gotham Gazette, and Jarrett Murphy, right, of City Limits


    August 8, 2018 - Max & Murphy Podcast: Queens State Senate Rematch Features Different Kinds of Democrats, with Senator Tony Avella and challenger John Liu

    tony avella john liu wbai 277 bState Senator Tony Avella says he decided to become part of the Independent Democratic Conference, which entered into a

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  • The July Financial Picture for Former Breakaway Democrats and Their Primary Challengers

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    John Liu and Jessica Ramos (photo: @JessicaRamos)


    The deadline for candidates for state office to file their latest campaign finance disclosures with the state Board of Elections was Monday, July 16. The disclosures show candidate fundraising and expenditures from the last six months, from January to July.

    All 213 seats in the state Legislature -- 150 Assembly and 63 Senate -- are on the ballot this year, but few incumbents face competitive races. The state Assembly is overwhelmingly composed of Democrats, most of whom do not have a

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  • Running Without Establishment Support, IDC Challengers Show Initial Fundraising Strides

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    Zellnor Myrie at a campaign event (photo: @zellnor4ny)


    Despite a tentative unity deal between the Senate Democratic conference and the breakaway Democrats in the Independent Democratic Conference (IDC), a number of progressives are pushing forward in their bids to unseat the so-called “turncoat Democrats.”

    Challengers of the eight-member IDC, which forms a ruling coalition government with Senate Republicans, say they have drummed up broad grassroots support, as evidenced by pulling impressive fundraising numbers over a short period of time, with

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  • For Election Year, De Blasio Moves to Eliminate ‘Distractions,’ Except the Gym

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    Mayor de Blasio (photo: Ed Reed/Mayor's Office)


    Heading into 2017, his re-election year, Mayor Bill de Blasio moved to eliminate several “distractions,” as he called them, attempting to clean up potentially self-sabotaging messes of his first term so that he can make as clear a case as possible for a second.

    De Blasio came under fire -- and law enforcement investigations -- for behaviors that he has largely eliminated in the run-up to his re-election bid. While he can’t make the investigations, and resulting grand juries, go away by changing

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  • 2016 A Far Different Election Year for Independent Democrats

    John Nilson

    Sen. Jeff Klein (photo: John Nilsen/Governor's Office)


    The five-member Independent Democratic Conference was under siege. Mainstream Democrats, liberal activists, and the Working Families Party were out to punish IDC members for having empowered Senate Republicans and for preventing a progressive agenda from advancing in the New York State Senate. In 2014, the groups fielded candidates to challenge Bronx Senator Jeff Klein, head of the IDC, and newly-minted IDC member Tony Avella, senator of Queens, in party primaries. It began as an aggressive attempt to oust two of the five members of the IDC,

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  • New York’s Next Climate and Community Protections

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    A major shift in the climate debate is taking place across New York and a new front in the discussion is emerging. No longer faraway images of drowning polar bears and epic glacial melt, climate change has moved into our own backyards, devastating our local neighborhoods. And no one knows this better than New York’s working families.

    Extreme weather destroys upstate farmers’ crops and keeps hourly employees from getting to work. Air pollution exacerbates chronic health conditions, triggering asthma attacks and other health problems, such as heat exhaustion and heatstroke.

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  • Why Don’t We Ever Hear About Commercial Rent Policy?

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    Council Member Levine & co outside an evicted business (photo: @MarkLevineNYC) 


    Mid-June, it was a block in Washington Heights that was poised to be the next to close up shop. The landlord, Coltown Properties, looked to evict the mostly Latino-owned stores on the street, which included a barbershop, restaurant, and income tax service. The store proprietors faced the same issue as many other small business owners in New York — there was nothing they could do.

    “Collectively, the businesses on

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