Gotham Gazette

The Place for New York Policy and politics

Bill de Blasio

Bill de Blasio

  • De Blasio Pushes 'Yes' Vote on 3 Ballot Proposals

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    32BJ's Hector Figueroa, with Mayor de Blasio and others (photo: @32BJSEIU)


    Mayor Bill de Blasio on Thursday continued his eleventh-hour push for the ballot proposals put forth by his Charter Revision Commission, with a rally at the headquarters of labor union 32BJ SEIU, where he was joined by other unions, elected officials, and advocates in favor of the three reforms that will appear on New York City voters’ ballots on Election Day.

    De Blasio, who announced the commission in his 2018 State of the City address to examine and propose revisions to the

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  • What's the [DATA] Point? 3, with Cesar Perales, Charter Commission Chair

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    What's The [Data] Point? Episode 58 -- 3, Cesar Perales, chair of the mayor’s 2018 charter revision commission [You can download What's The [Data] Point? wherever you get your podcasts, including on iTunes]

    cesarpicCesar Perales, chair of Mayor Bill de Blasio's 2018 Charter Revision Commission, joined the podcast to discuss the commission's work and the three ballot proposals it put forth that go

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  • Prominent Elected Officials Oppose De Blasio Charter Revision Proposals

    Mayor de Blasio

    Mayor de Blasio (photo: Benjamin Kanter/Mayor's Office)


    Mayor Bill de Blasio is seeking to make a lasting impact on city governance through a charter revision commission that would transform the city’s campaign finance system, promote greater civic involvement in city affairs, and inject new blood into local community boards. But prominent elected officials, most of whom are Democrats like de Blasio, don’t agree with the proposals the mayor’s commission has put on the November 6 ballot and are urging New Yorkers to reject them.

    The mayor’s commission put ...

  • De Blasio Names New Chief Analytics Officer

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    Kelly Jin (photo via the mayor's office)


    After a yearlong vacancy in the position, Mayor Bill de Blasio named Kelly Jin as the city’s new Chief Analytics Officer and Director of the Mayor’s Office of Data Analytics. Jin, who started in her new position on Monday, replaced Amen Ra Mashariki, who left the position in 2017 to work in the private sector at mapping firm Esri.

    While tasked with helping the mayoral administration effectively use data in governing, the position’s most notable concrete responsibility is managing the city’s open data program, wherein city agencies upload

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  • What's The [Data] Point? 45, with Deputy Mayor for Operations Laura Anglin

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    What's The [Data] Point? Episode 55 -- 45, Deputy Mayor for Operations Laura Anglin [You can download What's The [Data] Point? wherever you get your podcasts, including on iTunes]

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    Laura Anglin was named Deputy Mayor for Operations by Mayor Bill de Blasio, who reestablished the position for her at the start of 2018 after he

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  • Law Department Issues Warning as Community Boards Consider Charter Commission's Term Limits Proposal

    Mayor town hall

    (photo: Benjamin Kanter/Mayor's Office)


    One of three questions placed on this year’s general election ballot by Mayor Bill de Blasio’s charter revision commission would, if approved by voters, impose term limits on community board members. Though the proposal has left many community board members fuming about the potential impact, the city’s Law Department has sought to remind the boards that they cannot pass official resolutions taking a position on a ballot question.

    In a September 13 memo sent to the director of the Mayor’s Community Affairs Unit,

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  • Mayoral Charter Revision Commission Puts Three Questions on November Ballot

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    The Charter Revision Commission (photo via Charter Commission)


    After months of meetings and deliberations, thousands of suggestions and dozens of hours of public hearings, the charter revision commission created by Mayor Bill de Blasio voted to put three broad questions on the ballot in November. If approved by voters, the proposals would significantly reduce campaign contribution limits in city elections, create a new agency to civically engage the public, and apply term limits and appointment reforms to community boards.

    De Blasio created the commission to

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  • What's The [Data] Point? 5,000 with Liz Glazer, Director of the Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice

    whats the data point


    What's The [Data] Point? Episode 52 -- 5,000, with Liz Glazer, Director of the Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice [You can download What's The [Data] Point? wherever you get your podcasts, including on iTunes]

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  • Promising Efficiency and Performance, Molinaro Releases MTA Turnaround Plan

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    Marc Molinaro on the subway (photo: @marcmolinaro)


    Republican gubernatorial candidate Marc Molinaro said that his plan to fix the state’s ailing subway system is “not sexy,” but argued Tuesday that he will fix the MTA by doing away with what he said is Governor Andrew Cuomo’s approach, marked by uncontrolled spending, prioritizing “vanity projects” over key improvements and frequent fighting with Mayor Bill de Blasio.

    For Molinaro, the chief problem facing the subway system is not lack of funding, but out-of-control costs allowed by bad management. His ...

  • At Brooklyn Forum, Nixon Pitches Policy, Criticizes Cuomo and Distances from De Blasio

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    Cynthia Nixon greets a voter (photo: @CynthiaNixon)


    Cynthia Nixon, the actor and activist challenging Governor Andrew Cuomo in the Democratic primary for governor, laid out much of her campaign platform at a gubernatorial forum in Sunset Park on Tuesday, for which her opponent declined to participate. Over the course of nearly an hour, Nixon tore into the governor, insisted primary challenges are good for the party, and said she isn’t actively seeking the endorsement of New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, a close ally for whom she has in the past campaigned and corralled

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  • Working Families Party Puts It All On The Line

    Cynthia Nixon, Jummane Williams, and Alessandra Biaggi

    Cynthia Nixon (left), Alessandra Biaggi (top right), Bill Lipton & Jumaane Williams (bottom)


    The Working Families Party celebrated its 20th anniversary last month at Brooklyn Bowl in Williamsburg, with its rank-and-file cheering on a line up of politicians that have served as standard bearers, past and present. But it’s the future of the party that is especially uncertain as the upstart liberal organization lays it all on the line in backing insurgent candidates in state elections this year.

    In doing so,

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  • What's The [Data] Point? 7.42%, with Labor Commissioner Bob Linn

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    What's The [Data] Point? Episode 48 -- 7.42% with Bob Linn [You can download What's The [Data] Point? wherever you get your podcasts, including on iTunes]

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    Bob Linn

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  • Key Question in Closing Rikers: How to Design Replacement Jails

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    Jail space rendering via "Justice in Design"


    The first part of the plan is clear: the jails on Rikers Island will be closed. Less

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  • City Awaits State Permission to Open ‘Overdose Prevention Centers’

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


    More than 1,400 New Yorkers died of drug overdoses in 2017, most of them the result of opioid abuse, and one of the next steps the administration of Mayor Bill de Blasio plans to take in fighting rampant opioid addiction is to open safe injection sites, which the administration is calling “overdose prevention centers.” There is currently no timeline for the four planned pilot sites to open, the city’s health commissioner said ...

  • Mayoral Charter Revision Commission Releases Preliminary Report

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    Mayor de Blasio votes (photo: Samar Khurshid/Gotham Gazette)


    With less than two months left to complete its work, Mayor Bill de Blasio’s charter revision commission released a preliminary report on Tuesday outlining five broad issue areas -- campaign finance, municipal elections, civic engagement, community boards, and redistricting -- that it will continue to explore in public hearings and community events over the next two

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  • Scott Stringer on His ‘Agency Watch List,’ De Blasio’s Housing Plan & Restructuring NYCHA

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    Comptroller Scott Stringer and Deputy Comptroller Marjorie Landau (photo: @NYCComptroller)


    Comptroller Scott Stringer, the city’s chief fiscal officer who placed three city agencies on a new “watch list” in February due to concerns about their escalating spending and questionable return on investment, said recently that his office will be holding public hearings to provide stronger oversight, better transparency, and more urgency for reforms.

    “We need more robust public hearings to the agencies, we need to demand more accountability from our

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  • De Blasio ‘Jails to Jobs’ Program Launches

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    On Rikers Island (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayor's Office)


    Judith is a newly-minted head chef. She had previously been a line cook, and was nervous about interviewing for a job running her own kitchen, but decided to take the plunge after some convincing. When it came time to speak to the hiring manager, Judith, in her own self-assessment, “killed it.”

    Before Judith was head chef, before she was a line cook, before she knew kitchen skills, she was incarcerated. But it was her time in “Rosie,” the Rose M. Singer women’s jail on Rikers Island, that placed

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  • City Council Push for Budget Transparency Falls Far Short

    De Blasio City Council members

    Johnson, de Blasio, Dromm (l-r) (photo: John McCarten)


    At several budget hearings earlier this year, New York City Council Speaker Corey Johnson took a hard line on transparency. He insisted that Mayor Bill de Blasio’s administration was being less than forthcoming on how money is spent and was hampering the Council’s charter-mandated authority to review and approve the city’s spending plan. To wit, in its official response to the mayor’s preliminary budget in April, the Council proposed adding 123 new units of appropriation -- budget lines that explain

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  • New Deputy Mayor Phil Thompson Outlines His Portfolio, Which Includes Everything

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    Thompson, with the Mayor and First Lady (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayor's Office)


    Bill de Blasio and Phil Thompson go back decades, working together in the administration of Mayor David Dinkins, but they spent many years apart before rejoining the same team earlier this year, when de Blasio announced the appointment of Thompson as the new Deputy Mayor for Strategic Policy Initiatives.

    Replacing Richard Buery in the role, Thompson begins his tenure in the de Blasio administration for the start of the Democratic mayor’s second and

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  • De Blasio and City Council Agree on $89.2 Billion Budget, Funding Key Council Priorities

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    De Blasio & Johnson shake on it (photo: William Alatriste)


    Mayor Bill de Blasio and City Council Speaker Corey Johnson on Monday announced an agreement on an $89.15 billion budget for the 2019 fiscal year that includes key Council priorities that the mayor had been hesitant to fund for months.

    “This budget is profoundly responsible, it is balanced, it is progressive and it is early,” de Blasio said at the ceremonial budget handshake with Johnson and other Council members at City Hall on Monday evening, about three weeks before the

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  • New York City Must Protect Due Process for All in The Trump Era

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    (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office)


    Under the Trump administration, we are seeing escalated attacks against immigrant communities across the country. Raids, workplace sweeps, and the detention of Dreamers, asylum seekers, and other immigrants have led to the daily separation of families.

    More than any other city, New York City has been proactive in responding to these attacks. At the center of our efforts to support our immigrant community is the New York Immigrant Family Unity Project (NYIFUP) — the nation’s first

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  • What's The [Data] Point? 2020, with Deputy Mayor Phil Thompson

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    What's The [Data] Point? Episode 43 -- 2020, with Deputy Mayor Phil Thompson [You can download What's The [Data] Point? wherever you get your podcasts, including on iTunes]

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    Phil

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  • Former Top DOE Official: Time to Move Beyond ‘Relic’ of Specialized High School Test

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    Shael Polakow-Suransky, right, with Carmen Farina (photo: Bank Street College)


    Mayor Bill de Blasio announced a plan earlier this week to diversify the city’s elite specialized high schools through changes in admissions policies. The schools currently enroll very few black and Latino students, while, relative to their numbers in the larger school system, white and Asian students

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  • New York City Doesn’t Have a Comprehensive Plan; Does It Need One?

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    Mayor de Blasio (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayor's Office)


    New York City is the only major city in the country that has never had a comprehensive development plan, according to Tom Angotti, professor of urban policy at Hunter College.

    Facing major, city-wide challenges now and into the coming decades, the city’s approach to development and planning is byzantine, narrow, and somewhat haphazard. The vast, diverse city of 8.5 million residents and millions more visitors every day is often looked at by neighborhood, legislative district,

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  • City Council Pushes Property Tax Rebate as De Blasio Continues Stall on Broader Reform

    Corey Johnson City Council hearing

    Speaker Johnson & Council members (photo: John McCarten/City Council)


    The New York City Council has been pushing for temporary relief for lower- and middle-class homeowners in this year’s budget, calling on Mayor Bill de Blasio to fund a one-time $400 property tax rebate that would cost about $187 million in total. Council Members, some of whom are homeowners themselves and could potentially qualify for the rebate, say it’s a much needed measure that could help thousands of New Yorkers reduce their annual tax burden.

    The

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