4/30
Elected officials throughout the city admit
to having a great deal of difficulty in choosing
whom to endorse in this year's Democratic
primary for mayor. Most have good relationships
with all four candidates, and there is no
clear frontrunner. (NY Times)
Bronx Borough President Fernando Ferrer will
be on the steps of City Hall this morning
at 11:30 accompanied by Al Sharpton to condemn
the Bush Administration's decision to resume
bombing on the island of Vieques, a small
island off the eastern coast of Puerto Rico.
Over the weekend, Ferrer called on Public
Advocate Mark Green, City Comptroller Alan
Hevesi, and City Council Speaker Peter Vallone
to join him for another news conference later
this week condemning the action.
Michael Bloomberg may not yet be an official
mayoral candidate, but he is already traveling
with an entourage. At his first campaign-style
appearance last week, on Staten Island, the
billionaire businessman showed up with four
political aides in tow: spokesman Bill Cunningham,
a veteran political strategist; former Bloomberg
columnist Jonathan Capehart, now a campaign
issues adviser; ex-Vallone aide Kathy Cudahy,
also an issues adviser; and former Giuliani
political operative Vinnie La Padula, a field
coordinator. (Crain's NY Business)
4/29
With term limits remaking City Hall, labor
unions are mobilizing to play an unprecedented
role in this fall's municipal elections, seeking
to maintain and even increase their influence
over city government for years to come. (Daily
News)
Kenny Kramer, a former stand-up comic who
was the real-life inspiration for the character
from the sitcom Seinfeld, was nominated by
the Libertarian Party yesterday as their candidate
for mayor of New York. (NY Post)
City Councilmember Angel Rodriguez from Sunset
Park wants to succeed Peter Vallone as City
Council Speaker. So do Manhattan Council members
Bill Perkins, Phil Reed and Gifford Miller.
But people running for City Council are also
thought to be eyeing the Speakership, including
Bedford-Stuyvesant's Al Vann, Williamsburg's
Steve Cohn, Forest Hills' Melinda Katz and
Bayside's Arthur Cheliotes. They have to win
the race for City Council first of course.
(Daily News)
4/28
Public Advocate Mark Green says he's prepared
to scuttle any last-minute contracts Mayor
Giuliani signs that lock in the next mayor,
but aren't in the "public interest." Giuliani
said this week he's intent on signing contracts
with the Yankees and Mets, and possibly even
the Jets, for new sports arenas before his
term expires on December 31. Green conceded
it would be tough to overturn a legitimate
deal. (NY Post)
4/27
Mayoral candidate Mark Green gathers endorsements
from two police advocacy groups: 100 Latinos
in Law Enforcement and 100 Blacks in Law Enforcement.
(Daily
News)
It has been a quarter century since the office
of Brooklyn Borough President changed hands.
Finally, the Times says, we have a interesting
race. (New
York Times)
4/26
In one of the first direct clashes between
Democratic mayoral candidates, Council Speaker
Peter Vallone attacked Public Advocate Mark
Green for being too critical of police and
for trying to hide his "ultraliberal
roots." (New
York Times)
Peter Vallone has a new web site: www.mebq.com.
If that sounds familiar, it should: "mebq"
is his rival Alan Hevesi' slogan ("most
experienced, best qualified"). Hevesi's
campaign web site is at "www.mebq.org." (Daily
News)
4/25
Public Advocate Mark Green officially declared
that he will run for Mayor and promised to
cut school class sizes, create new jobs, and
advocate for public transportation. (New
York Times)
As the mayoral races heats up, the candidates
are finding that ethnic politics are growing
more complicated. (Village
Voice)
Three candidates‹Lew Fidler, Abraham Levy,
and Phyllis Taliaferro--set their sights on
district 46 City Council seat. (Daily
News)
4/24
After eight years in which he's had a close
relationship with the mayor, Liberal Party
leader Raymond Harding ponders how he can
wield power in the post-Giuliani era. (New
York Times)
4/23
Alan Hevesi seems to be everywhere as he campaigns
for mayor and tries to alter a perception
that he is too easy on Mayor Giuliani and
too indifferent to the demands and concerns
of the city's minorities. (New
York Times)
Michael Bloomberg has already made clear
that he will not participate in public financing.
Now, he says, if elected mayor, he will forgo
the $195,000 annual salary. "I've thought
about this, and if I were mayor, I wouldn't
take more than $1 a year from the city." That
is because he considers being mayor of New
York one of the four best jobs in the world.
The other three are president of the United
States, president of the World Bank, and secretary-general
of the United Nations, and those three are
taken. (Newsweek)
"After a decade of division by race, by class,
by ethnicity and by borough, it is now essential
we unite as a city," Mark Green told about
250 worshipers at St. Luke African Methodist
Episcopal Church on Amsterdam Avenue in another
busy Sunday for all four Democratic mayoral
candidates. "We have to cross racial and class
lines to speak to one New York." Green plans
to announce formally for mayor tomorrow. (NY
Times)
4/22
Mayor Rudolph Giuliani has touted workfare
as a way to "end welfare," and he has taken
pride that the number of New Yorkers receiving
assistance has fallen by more than 50 percent
since 1993, the year before he took office.
Under workfare, welfare recipients are required
to work part time at unpaid jobs for a few
months at a time in exchange for their benefits.
But the four leading Democrats vying to replace
Giuliani as mayor all agree the system will
not succeed in the long run unless it helps
people receive job training or education while
on welfare. All four said they would retain
workfare, but modify it in various ways, and
would let recipients substitute an internship,
vocational training or a part-time job for
a workfare stint. The Giuliani administration
forbids such substitutions in the belief that
workfare fosters a work ethic missing from
the lives of many welfare recipients. (Newsday)
The first Democratic debate in the Brooklyn
Borough president's race last Wednesday was
missing one of the candidates - Flatbush state
Senator Martin Markowitz, who didn't show
up until after Councilman Kenneth Fisher and
current Borough Hall aide Jeannette Gadson
had left the stage. Their one difference came
on the state transportation bond voted down
last November. Fisher opposed the measure.
(Daily
News)
4/21
Comptroller Alan Hevesi's efforts to appeal
to black voters got a boost yesterday from
Congressman Charles Rangel, who invited the
mayoral candidate to join him in a bash-the-mayor
session in Harlem. (Daily News)
Public Advocate Mark Green and his wife earned
$419,337 last year, according to tax returns
he released yesterday. The combined earnings
of Green and his wife, Deni Frand, a public
relations executive, top those of his three
main rivals for the Democratic mayoral nomination.
The Greens' earnings nearly match the $458,683
income reported by Mayor Giuliani and his
estranged wife, Donna Hanover. The reported
joint earnings of the other three Democratic
candidates and their wives are as follows:
Bronx Borough President Fernando Ferrer, $216,680;
Controller Alan Hevesi, $207,080, and Council
Speaker Peter Vallone, $173,755. (Daily
News)
4/20
For decades, political candidates have blurred
- if not crossed - the lines between their
dual roles as public officials and candidates,
using the clout and government resources at
their disposal to remind voters to keep them
in office. But nowhere, perhaps, has the distinction
between candidate and official become murkier
than in this year's mayoral race. In recent
weeks there have been staged events that clearly
stretch the boundaries of office duties, as
the candidates at times use city staff or
staff-prepared reports, mailings and other
city-financed products to help them get their
names out there at little or no cost to their
campaigns. (NY
Times)
Mayor Rudy Giuliani attacked mayoral candidate
Alan Hevesi for what the mayor said were attacks
on the Police Department, and for his ill-advised
refusal to rule out a tax increase to pay
for improvements in schools. Giuliani also
made it clear that his staff and supporters
were not to give Mr. Hevesi's campaign any
political or financial support. (NY
Times)
4/19
Trying to build backing for his likely mayoral
bid as a Republican, Michael Bloomberg has
been talking with associates of Lenora Fulani,
"Marxist perennial fringe candidate," about
landing the endorsement of the city Independence
Party, both camps confirmed yesterday. Three
of the four Democratic candidates (all but
Peter Vallone) have ruled out seeking the
party's endorsement, as did Hillary Clinton
during her campaign for senator. (Daily
News)
Mayoral hopeful Fernando Ferrer pledged to
cut working students' tuition by half at the
City University of New York's community colleges,
as he charged that Mayor Giuliani's reforms
have abandoned minority students. Of the mayor's
push to end open admissions and remedial education,
Ferrer said "I don't think he ever meant to
raise the standards. "I think he meant, 'Shut
the door.' " (Daily
News)
Mayor Giuliani lately has been attacking
the Democratic candidates for mayor, defending
his legacy, and hinting of his like for, and
likely endorsement of, likely Republican candidate
Michael Bloomberg. (Daily
News)
The mayor said yesterday that he would initiate
legislation to ban investment firms that handle
money for the city's pension funds from making
campaign contributions to political candidates.
The mayor's comments were a direct assault
on a favorite target, City Comptroller Hevesi,
who had approved just such an investment in
1998 from a fund controlled by the Fisher
real estate family. Last year alone, the family
gave Hevesi more than $92,000 in contributions
for his mayoral campaign. (NY
Times)
4/18
City Comptroller Alan Hevesi approved the
investment of $130 million in city pension
funds in a private equity fund controlled
by one of his top financial supporters in
1998, even though the company was only three
years old and had little in the way of a track
record. (New
York Observer)
As Fernando Ferrer takes on his second campaign
for mayor, he is using a far different approach
from his three main rivals for the Democratic
nomination. In his effort to become the city's
first mayor of Puerto Rican descent, he is
aiming squarely at what he considers the missteps
and missed opportunities of the Giuliani administration,
portraying it as tone deaf to the city's minority
and less-affluent residents. They are so left
out of the benefits of Giuliani's New York,
Ferrer says, that they make up a second New
York: "Measure what has happened during the
past eight years. Measure it by the deep divisions
in our city today - the divide between our
police force and the communities they serve;
the educational divide that robs our children;
the economic divide, prevalent in communities
of color, a divide widened by the injustices
and lack of opportunity in communities like
the Bronx all across this town." (NY
Times)
Alan Hevesi has spent so little on his campaign
that his rivals for mayor have asked the Campaign
Finance Board to scrutinize his finances.
Though by January Hevesi had raised a total
of $6.1 million, compared to only $3.5 million
by each of his three rivals, he reported spending
only $402,565 since the election cycle began
in 1998. Peter Vallone, by comparison, had
spent $996,665 by mid-January; Fernando Ferrer,
$894,408; Mark Green, $651,012 (NY
Times )
On Monday night at Gracie Mansion, Mayor
Giuliani, a Republican, flirted openly with
Michael R. Bloomberg, the billionaire Democrat-turned-Republican
who is in fervent pursuit of the mayor's support.
"Michael, welcome to Gracie Mansion," Giuliani
teased, singling out the likely candidate
from the crowd during formal remarks at a
reception. (NY
Times)
Opponents urge Al Vann to stay in the assembly,
and scrap his bid for City Council. (Daily
News)
4/17
RFK Jr. and Mark Green in Bed-Stuy. Green's
22-page report, "Community Entrepreneurial
Development," which was released yesterday,
called for spreading out economic development
dollars among all five boroughs. Government
money is concentrated in Manhattan, he said.
He proposed appointing a deputy mayor for
economic and community development and called
for job creation in neighborhoods such as
Bedford-Stuyvesant and East New York in Brooklyn
and Far Rockaway in Queens. (Daily
News)
After a month of considering a run for mayor
as the Conservative Party candidate, National
Review editor Rich Lowry, 32, told Conservative
Party leader Michael Long that he is not interested.
(Daily
News)
4/16
Fifty-eight percent of New Yorkers in a poll
conducted for the Post said they want the
next mayor to follow Giuliani's path, while
39 percent said they favor a change in direction.
(NY
Post)
No woman is running for mayor of New York
City this year; no woman has been mayor or
governor of the state. Hillary Clinton is
the first woman to be senator, and only Betsy.
Gotbaum and one of her many opponents for
public advocate, Councilwoman Kathryn E. Freed
of Manhattan, are trying for a citywide job.
New York has elected several women to Congress
and the State Legislature, two women are borough
presidents and more are seeking boroughwide
jobs and City Council positions. But when
it comes to the most powerful political jobs,
the city and state do not measure up. Chicago,
San Francisco and other cities have elected
women as mayors, and 41 women in 22 states
are considering running for governor. (NY
Times)
Thirty-five years after Senator Robert F.
Kennedy paid a famous visit to Bedford-Stuyvesant
and urged community economic development,
his son Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will return
for a tour of the neighborhood today. He will
be accompanying Public Advocate Mark Green,
who will hold a press conference in which
he lays out his plans for job growth in city
neighborhoods such as Bed-Stuy. These will
include tax incentives, public-private partnerships,
cutting red tape, and capitalizing on new
technologies.
Michael Bloomberg, this divorced billionaire
with an Upper East Side townhouse, an art-filled
London home, a house in Bermuda, a weekend
place in Westchester, a private plane, and
a company helicopter he flies himself, thinks
he should be the next mayor of New York. And
though it's hard to imagine a man who has
a box at Ascot and is driven around town in
a chauffeured gray Cadillac Fleetwood working
the kielbasa circuit, he insists he's looking
forward to visiting senior-citizen centers
in the Bronx and shaking hands on the Staten
Island ferry. Ask him if he ever rides the
subway, and he reaches for his wallet and
triumphantly pulls out a MetroCard. Michael
Bloomberg, regular guy? "I like meeting people,"
he says. "I love people. Although I'm sure
if I run, by the end of the summer, I'll say
I miss the old days, when I could play golf
on the weekend." Bloomberg's quest to be the
first billionaire ever to run an American
city is a civics lesson in how the rich do
things differently. (New
York Magazine)
4/15
Profile of Fernando Ferrer, who is positioning
himself as the "anti-Rudy" candidate (NY
Post)
The Kings Highway Democratic Club of Brooklyn,
which twice backed Giuliani for mayor, is
poised to back Mark Green. (Daily
News)
Candidates are busiest on Sunday, since it
is a slow news day (proven by the existence
of this article?) so they have more chance
of getting all-important media coverage -
even when they are just repeating plans and
reports they introduced mid-week, or months
ago. (New
York Times)
Victor Gotbaum, retired labor leader, spends
his time trying to help his wife Betsy Gotbaum
become the next public advocate. (New
York Times)
4/14
Errol Louis, a candidate for the City Council
seat in district 35, currently held by Mary
Pinkett, says Brooklyn Democratic leader Clarence
Norman suggested he drop out of that crowded
race in return for a possible job in a Hevesi
administration. Norman, whose candidate in
the race is Letitia James, denies he made
such an offer. (NY
Post)
4/13
Democratic mayoral candidate Alan Hevesi cut
his ties yesterday to Bruce Teitelbaum, Mayor
Giuliani's top political aide and a Hevesi
supporter who had suggested in The Jewish
Week that Jews would not be welcome at City
Hall if Bronx Borough President Fernando Ferrer
were elected mayor. (Daily News)
Hevesi to Bloomberg: Show us your taxes.
(NY
Times)
4/12
An aide to the mayor, Bruce Teitelbaum, said
that the election of Fernando Ferrer as mayor
would be bad for the Jews. 'I think what we're
seeing now is that if Ferrer wins, his administration
will be stocked with David Dinkins retreads,'
said Teitelbaum, Giuliani's former chief of
staff, who now runs his political action committee.
'If you ask leading figures in the Jewish
community who are engaged in social services
about how they were treated during the Dinkins
administration, they will say 'not well,'
' said Teitelbaum. 'Why would it be different
now that key players in the Dinkins administration
are rearing their heads in a possible Ferrer
administration?' (The
Jewish Week)
The Ferrer camp rebuked Teitelbaum for being
divisive, but so did Alan Hevesi, for whom
Teitelbaum has raised funds.(Newsday)
"Peter Fortunate Vallone's early strategy
is to present himself as the only candidate
who has the hands-on executive experience
for the job. He is the one, he says, who has
ruled 51 irascible City Council members with
a forceful hand, and who has at times managed
to calm down a high-strung mayor. He is also
the one, he says, who has been involved in
every important issue of city government for
the past quarter-century, and who has shepherded
crucial legislation, like the city's campaign
finance and antismoking laws, through a more
relevant Council." One big obstacle for Vallone
"may be proving that a man with a reputation
as a cautious, clubhouse- style politician
has the fire to do the job." He is certainly
capable of being not-so-nice when assessing
his rivals: On City Comptroller Alan G. Hevesi,
"What does Alan do besides paying bills?"
On Mark Green, the public advocate, whom Mr.
Vallone said he liked, "I'm probably the only
one who does." And later, "Mark just criticizes,
issues press releases, but is not involved
in day-to-day government." On Fernando Ferrer
of the Bronx, "I made Freddy borough president."
(NY
Times)
Green: Make downtown Brooklyn an economic
hub of New York. (NY
Times)
Donald Wooten, son of the outgoing incumbent
Patricia Wooten, faces strong competition
in district 42 (Daily
News)
4/11
This week, all four major Democratic mayoral
candidates have been trying to persuade voters
they would keep crime down while also easing
tension between the police and the public.
Yesterday, Saikou Diallo -- the father of
Amadou Diallo, the unarmed immigrant vendor
who died in 1999 after police fired 41 bullets
at him --appeared with Public Advocate Mark
Green to praise his record on speaking out
against police abuse and to support his plan
for reform. He said he was not there to endorse
his candidacy. "This isn't political." (Newsday)
(NY
Post)
Adolfo Carrion is going to leave the City
Council and run for Bronx Borough President.
(Crain's NY)
Women politicians say sexism in New York
political circles is virulent and pervasive
and undoubtedly a factor in why no woman is
running for mayor this year. (Village
Voice)
4/10
Former mayoral candidate Ruth Messinger and
one-time vice presidential nominee Geraldine
Ferraro endorsed Fernando Ferrer for mayor,
as did Congresswoman Nydia Velazquez and Hazel
Dukes, former New York chapter president of
the NAACP. Since Ferraro was once a Congresswoman
from Queens, her endorsement was seen as something
of a slap against Alan Hevesi. Messinger's
criticism of Hevesi was explicit, for not
giving her adequate support in her 1997 bid.
(Daily
News)
"The Mark Green who presents himself to voters
this time is not exactly the same Mr. Green
who has been such a provocative and colorful
- his critics would say abrasive - figure
in New York public life for so long, the proponent
of the liberal wing of his party, the inexhaustible
tormentor of Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani. In
a noticeable and what advisers say is a deliberate
way, Mr. Green, at the age of 56, is recasting
himself in this, his first campaign for mayor.
He is striving to come across as more mature
and measured in his temperament, and a bit
less liberal in his views" (NY
Times)
The sons of two well-known South Bronx Democrats
are carrying on their fathers' rivalries in
the 17th District City Council race. Incumbent
Pedro G. Espada, son of state Sen. Pedro Espada
Jr., will face a challenge from Jose Marco
Serrano, whose father is Rep. Jose Serrano.
The race promises to be yet another battlefront
in the war between the Espadas and the borough's
Democratic organization. (Daily
News)
Congressman Eliot Engel, in an act of revenge,
is backing one candidate after another against
the Bronx political machine that abandoned
him in his last election. (NY
Times)
4/9
Although he has been the city's chief fiscal
officer for the past seven years, Alan Hevesi's
mayoral campaign has given almost equal emphasis
to the 108 laws he passed in the state Assembly
during his 22 years there as evidence that
he's fit to succeed Mayor Giuliani. (NY
Post)
Fernando Ferrer announced a plan to keep
all of New York City 200 public middle schools
open until 6 p.m. every weekday for after-school
academic and recreational activities, at a
cost of about $100 million, a quarter of which
he would raise from private corporations and
foundations.
4/8
At least a dozen foreign- born candidates
are running for seats in the City Council.
Though many of their natural constituents,
other immigrants, are not yet citizens, this
is a situation that is changing. Spurred by
national laws that eliminated services for
even legal immigrants, a record number of
New York's immigrants, nearly 575,000, have
become citizens since 1996. (NY
Times)
Why should Brooklyn's Democratic organization
elders let something as trivial as a federal
court decision get in the way of knocking
insurgents off the ballot this summer? That's
the question party leaders asked after a ruling
no longer required people gathering nominating
petitions to live in the candidate's district.
The party simply ignored the decision and
passed its own rule requiring it. (Daily
News)
4/7
Michael Bloomberg inches closer toward a mayoral
run, leasing midtown office space for campaign
headquarters and registering an exploratory
committee with the Board of Elections.(NY
Post)
"Amid strong signs that next year's Democratic
primary for governor could be particularly
raucous, the state Democratic Party leader,
Judith Hope, announced yesterday that she
was creating a Committee on Primary Campaign
Conduct to monitor the behavior of Democrats
in primary contests in 2002. She said it also
would guard against attacks that she said
might harm her party's chances in the general
election." (NY
Times)
4/6
The leader of a New York abortion rights
group said yesterday that she might endorse
a candidate in the Democratic mayoral primary
this year, even though all four major candidates
have nearly identical positions on the issue.
Kelli Conlin, the executive director of the
New York affiliate of the National Abortion
and Reproductive Rights Action League said
she wanted to be sure, for example, that the
candidates were committed to ensuring that
medical residents at city hospitals were trained
in abortion procedures. (NY
Times)
All four major Democratic candidates for
mayor participated in Principal for a Day.
Would-be Republican candidate Michael Bloomberg
declined the invitation. Upon learning that
his rivals all accepted, his spokesman said
"The reading scores will go down again." (NY
Times)
4/5
Mayor Giuliani denounced Alan Hevesi for his
new television advertisement pledging to stop
racial profiling by New York police officers,
claiming it is factually incorrect and an insult
to the police department. (NY
Times)
A new poll by Quinnipiac College since Hevesi
has spent a million dollars airing commercials
shows a gain of five percentage points, though
he is still behind. Mark Green, 28 percent;
Fernando Ferrer, 19 percent; Alan Hevesi,
14 percent; Peter Vallone, 13 percent. (Daily
News)
Media mogul Michael Bloomberg has snared
one of Mayor Giuliani's top political operatives
for his possible campaign for mayor, Vincent
Lapadula, 29, chief of staff to Deputy Mayor
Joe Lhota and a veteran of two Giuliani campaigns.
(NY
Post)
4/4
The selection of a new president of the Board
of Education, scheduled for today and said to
pit Ninfa Segarra against Sandra Lerner, is
all wrapped up in mayoral politics. (NY
Times)
All four major Democratic mayoral candidates
are courting the black vote, which could be
decisive in the race. (Newsday)
Alan Hevesi charged that the Fire Department
deliberately flouted city contract rules when
it spent $33 million on a new radio communications
system that didn't work, and has halted payments
on the radio deal with electronics giant Motorola,
pending further investigation. (
Daily News)
4/3
At the urging of Public Advocate Mark Green,
he and the three other Democratic candidates
for mayor "each vowed yesterday to uphold the
spirit of the city's campaign finance law by
discouraging independent groups from paying
for television advertisements or other public
promotions on their behalf." (NY Times)
It was the same pledge that Hillary Rodham Clinton
and Rick Lazio made for last year's race for
the U.S. Senate (Daily
News)
4/2
Officially not yet announced as a candidate
for mayor of New York, Michael Bloomberg, media
mogul, is quoted as telling Israeli Prime Minister
Ariel Sharon on a current trip to Israel: "Am
I running? Probably. Will I win? Not a chance."
(Newsweek)
It was a busy Sunday of campaigning yesterday
for the four major Democratic mayoral candidates.
In various press conferences and appearances,
Alan Hevesi called on Congress to restore
funding to reduce class sizes; Peter Vallone
proposed a plan to subsidize drug prescriptions
for the elderly; Fernando Ferrer called for
a strengthening of the Civilian Complaint
Review Board; Mark Green called for a new
law to improve the way drug prices are posted
in pharmacies. (NY
Post)
4/1
Today is the deadline for the deputy borough
presidents of Staten Island and Brooklyn to
comply with an ethics-panel ruling that bars
them from raising money for campaigns to replace
their term-limited bosses, unless they resign.
Jeannette Gadson of Brooklyn has taken a demotion
to a non-policy slot that pays less than her
salary as deputy borough president of $120,707
a year, so that she can continue to raise
money. James Molinaro of Staten Island has
apparently decided to keep his job, stop fundraising,
but continue as a candidate, spending the
money he kept raising right until the deadline.
(Daily
News)
March
Campaign Trail