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Today's Lead: East Midtown Rezoning Tabled


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Mayor Bloomberg's plan to rezone 73 blocks of East Midtown Manhattan and allow buildings larger than the Chrysler Building fell apart yesterday when the City Council rejected it. He withdrew the proposal after Council members made it clear they were not satisfied with the plans. "We remain concerned with the price, methodology, and timing of the air rights to be sold by the city," said Speaker Quinn. "We are also concerned with the certainty and funding level of the needed infrastructure improvements, which includes both above and below grade needs." Developers would have poured hundreds of millions of dollars into transit improvements. Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio said he looks forward to rezoning the neighborhood in a way that ensures "real and fair benefits for the people of New York City." The stalled plans may be a boon for large projects in other neighborhoods like those in Hudson Yards and Lower Manhattan.

New in the Gotham Gazette

NY State Mulls Bill Requiring Videotaped Interrogations: Almost every major independent criminal justice group and association in New York state supports the videotaping of interrogations. By Chester Soria. READ MORE

Officials Claim Elections Victory, Look To 2014: A week after 1.3 million New Yorkers cast their ballots in the general election, the city’s Board of Elections celebrated the speed with which it had reported the results while also announcing it was making preparations for next year’s races. By Chester Soria. READ MORE

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Weisbrod Brings Long Resume To Advise de Blasio (NY Times)

Experience Taught Austin, de Blasio's Transition Co-Chair, Power Of Community (NY Times)

NYCHA’s Land Lease Plan Faces Another Legal Challenge (NY Observer)

Bloomberg Rips Scanner Voting Systems' Lack Of Privacy (Daily News)

Rising Deaths From Hepatitis C Spur City Action (City Limits)

Parents To Sue State Over Sharing Kids' Data With Private Firms (Daily News)

Ex-Bronx GOP Head Admits Taking Bribe, Spreads Blame (NY Post)

Bloomberg Touts Demand For Borough Taxis (Capital)

Advocates Push For Publicly Funded Campaigns (Associated Press)

Latest High Line Designs Feature 'Otherworldly' Garden (DNAinfo)

Bones From Historic Burial Grounds Reinterred In City Hall Park (DNAinfo)

Officials Claim Elections Victory, Look To 2014


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A week after 1.3 million New Yorkers cast their ballots in the general election, the city’s Board of Elections celebrated the speed with which it had reported the results while also announcing it was making preparations for next year’s races.

This year’s election on Nov. 5 was the first time that the board had used the USB devices — or PMDs — housed within the optical ballot scanning machine to report initial results. It was a major technological leap from the previous method of cutting and taping together paper rolls and counting tallies in election districts by hand.

That low-tech system got the BoE in trouble in 2012 when a number of districts in reported zero votes in the Congressional race between Rep. Charlie Rangel and state Sen. Adriano Espalliat.

“All of those zeroes on return of canvass sheets, all of those go away with the PMDs,” said BOE Executive Director Michael Ryan at Tuesday’s public meeting of the board’s commissioners.

{pullquote}All of those zeroes on return of canvass sheets, all of those go away{/pullquote}

He also praised the accuracy of the results returned through the devices, saying they “absolutely helped.”

The administration of last Tuesday’s balloting which led to the landslide victory of Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio was widely regarded as not-so-bad given the reputation of the BOE for Election Day blunders.

Some complaints this time around involved the excruciatingly small typeface on the ballot, which Ryan pledged to prevent from being used again.

“That clearly was one of the biggest problems we faced,” he said.

Double-sided in 6-point font with an unprecedented number of open seats, the ballots raised the ire of election onlookers and voters alike.

Ryan repeated an earlier promise to get a sample ballot for the 2014 gubernatorial race to the commissioners before February so they can avoid similar criticism over font size.

The early planning will theoretically put the board ahead of schedule.

Ryan also announced the board had been invited to speak at a public hearing on Dec. 9 organized by the Assembly’s election law committee, which is entertaining moving the state primary up in the calendar to June beginning 2014. The commissioners didn’t engage on the proposal.

The board was equally mum on a duo of elections reform bills being entertained by the City Council that would institute instant runoff voting for municipal races. One bill would offer instant runoff voting for absentee and military voters, the other would extend the policy citywide.

A committee hearing on the bills is set for Nov. 21. A board spokeswoman confirmed that the BOE had been invited to testify.

It’s unclear whether either bill will make it to a floor vote before the new administration is inaugurated. Outgoing City Council Speaker Christine Quinn previously supported instant runoff voting.

Mayor-elect de Blasio has only offered measured interest in the idea.

“I’m not comfortable with it at this point,” de Blasio told WNYC’s Brian Lehrer during the campaign. “It's, I think, an idea that is founded in good intent but there's a number of specifics that I can't agree with, as least as it's written now."

Today's Lead: De Blasio's Transition


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Labor activists, Democratic elected officials, nonprofit leaders, and political organizers met yesterday to discuss how they could make sure that Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio is able to deliver on his progressive campaign promises. “The administration needs our help,” John Mollenkopf, director of the Center for Urban Research at CUNY, said during opening remarks. But attendees agreed that de Blasio will have to keep the city running efficiently to build support for his vision. Part of that support may come from unions, which are calling for some $7 billion in retroactive pay raises for the city's 300,000 municipal workers. Meanwhile, after returning from Puerto Rico where he attended the Somos el Futuro political conference and took a couple days off, Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio evaded questions about who he would appoint as police commissioner and schools chancellor.

Other Stories We're Following

City Looks To Cut Emissions By Private Trash Haulers (NY Times)

A Grate Fix For Flooding (Wall Street Journal)

Con Ed’s 2012 Electricity Prices Were Among Nation’s Highest (Wall Street Journal)

Stop-And-Frisk Plaintiffs Protest To Appeals Court (Associated Press)

Layoffs For Those Who Fix City’s Bridges, Overpasses (Daily News)

Red Hook Community Court A Success For Defendants And Taxpayers (Daily News)

Mass Transit Tax Break Set To Expire (Crain's)

City Putting School Bus Routes Out For Bid (NY Times)

Is New York Now For Businessmen Only? (Salon.com)

Vallone Welcomes Oversight Of NYPD's Overseas Operations (Capital)

Today's Report

Spike In Heating Costs
A new national report by the AARP finds that the New York region could see heating bills spike upwards of 13 percent. The report also shows that the 30 percent of older individuals who have incomes under $20,000 will be hit the hardest, since this group spends the highest percentage of household income on heating bills. (read the full report)



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