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We need you and other New Yorkers who care about an essential source of local news to donate today so we can continue to publish into 2021.

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This is notice we’ve been trying to avoid for months, seeing revenue fall significantly due to the pandemic while trying to raise new funds and all the while continuing to produce important news reporting every day amid major crises facing New York City and State. We’ve actually increased both the frequency and impact of our reporting amid the pandemic and even before the end of November readership was up for the seventh straight year.

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The usual revenue that we count on to support our small but strong team has been drastically diminished by the pandemic, which has limited our usual fundraising events and led some large funders to cut back. While we’ve been able to hold on throughout 2020, we won’t be able to make it very far into 2021 unless we immediately raise the funds necessary to keep operating at this level from donors, including our regular readers, but also others who simply believe in the value of quality local journalism. Otherwise, we will have to cut back staff, publication cycles, and potentially worse. The future of Gotham Gazette is very much at stake, and in the hands of our fellow New Yorkers who we are asking to help us survive this terrible period in our city, state, and country. We know there are many people and organizations in need, and we wish we did not have to make this appeal.

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But now we desperately need your help. And we especially need it going into 2021, when New York City will face one of its most consequential election cycles in recent history, as we elect a new Mayor and see widespread city government turnover due to term limits. Gotham Gazette has already been covering the 2021 elections better than any other publication, and we hope to be there every step of the way to give you the kind of in-depth, insightful coverage of the 2021 races you won't get anywhere else. But we need financial support to be able to do that.

Our goal is to raise $100,000 this month from our readers and anyone else who hears our plea, appreciates the important work we do, and wants to see us stay in operation. If we achieve that goal, we can continue to operate, while we pursue other longer-term funding solutions, and we can continue to provide you and other New Yorkers with serious, in-depth, nonpartisan, nonprofit local journalism.

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With gratitude,

Ben Max
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Gotham Gazette Reimagined


Dear Gotham Gazette Readers,

We are thrilled to announce that on Monday, Feb. 25, Gotham Gazette, an independent publication of Citizens Union Foundation, will unveil a reimagined website combining award-winning coverage on city and state government with new interactive features to encourage civic engagement among New Yorkers.

Over the past several months, Gotham Gazette has slowly shifted from an online daily news site to a frequently published public interest platform for accountability journalism, with a focus on bringing New Yorkers illuminating analyses on policy, long-form interviews with thought leaders, underreported stories about the actions of government and its officials and investigative reporting. As part of our continued expansion, a dedicated City Hall reporter will be joining the Gotham Gazette staff, and we will also soon announce a new pool of contributing editors that includes veteran journalists and subject experts to help guide the publication.

In addition to a stepped up focus on accountability journalism, the new features of the website include simplified and integrated navigation, streamlined access to Gotham Gazette's 14-year archive of original content and reporting on New York policy and politics, as well as our popular database resources, such as Who's Running For What? Gotham Gazette will also feature a new online community platform, which will integrate a new commenting system to encourage interactions among Gotham Gazette readers using multimedia, as well as social media. The publication will also serve to showcase research reports produced by Citizens Union Foundation.

With this reimagining, Citizens Union Foundation is renewing its commitment to Gotham Gazette. An informed public is crucial to our essential work of holding government and elected officials to their promises and actions. And there has been no better platform than Gotham Gazette to do so. As the 2013 elections get underway, we will continue to be a premier source of insightful news and information about the issues shaping the city. 

More importantly, we aim to engage New Yorkers not only with the world of policy and politics, but also with each other, so that they can take action and make their voices heard in their democracy. On February 25, come join the conversation.

Sincerely,

Dick Dadey
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Cristian Salazar
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Gotham Gazette

 

A Note to Our Readers


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NEW YORK — A new mayor. A new public advocate. A new comptroller. At least 20 new City Council members. This year will bring a historic political shift in New York City that voters have not witnessed since at least 2001, when Mayor Michael Bloomberg first came into office.

Although only a small percentage of the voting public will likely turn out for the primary on Tuesday, Sept. 10, their ballots will determine the contenders for the November general election.

Defining this year’s race is the end of the Bloomberg era, and whether voters will signal a referendum of his 12 years in office by selecting a new mayor who will turn back some of his key policy fights, or by backing a candidate who would best keep the city on its current trajectory.

Bloomberg rose to power in the aftermath of 9/11, growing the city’s anti-terrorism efforts and strengthening the New York Police Department’s clout and influence — some say by too much. His rezoning of both residential and commercial areas as well as his incentivization for any number of industries brought about massive economic development. And yet almost half of New Yorkers are reportedly below the city’s own poverty threshold.

Bloomberg’s fight to rid the city of the illegal guns has helped lower crime to record lows, but not without raising the contempt and frustration of minority communities who argue that they are disproportionately stopped and frisked by police. Unprepared for Hurricane Sandy last October, entire neighborhoods and communities were devastated by the superstorm — a disaster that Bloomberg has since fought to prepare against.

Every single one of these concerns — the city’ resilience, the relationship between police and the communities they watch over and the systemic issues of inequality — are weighing heavily almost each and every race on Tuesday’s ballot.

 

THE EYE-OPENER

 

The Race To Replace Bloomberg

For the first time in 12 years, New York City will have a new mayor come January 1, 2014. The battle for whether the seat goes to another Republican Party-backed candidate is still a ways away. Before that happens, the city's Democrats and Republicans first have to pick their electoral champions. (The Independence Party candidate, Adolfo Carrion, is unopposed in the primary).

G.O.P. ON TOP?

Put in plain and simple terms: all three Republican candidates seeking their party nomination want to be the next Bloomberg. With almost nary a word of derision aimed towards the outgoing mayor, the candidates have each essentially promised to continue the Bloombergian vision of economic prosperity, public safety, arms-length (if not outright hostile) relationships with unions and an education policy focused on strong mayoral control and private-public partnerships.

That's not to say that there are no differences among the candidates.

Former Metropolitan Transportation Authority chief Joe Lhota has long been hailed as the frontrunner in this particular race, largely due to managerial experience at the MTA and during his time as a deputy for former Mayor Rudy Giuliani. He also scored points for overseeing the efficient turnaround of the crippled mass transit system following Superstorm Sandy.

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As a staunch advocate of the city's police force — his father was an officer — Lhota has focused much of his ire on the current Democratic leadership that threatens to reform the NYPD's controversial stop-and-frisk tactic. If anything, his biggest misstep in the race so far is an off-color comment where he compared Port Authority police as "mall cops," a comment that he apologized for but which is still being used against him by his chief competitor.

That would be billionaire supermarket magnate John Catsimatidis, an outsized character who has played up his Horatio Alger-like personal story and business acumen. His campaign has been marked by his colorful policy proposals, such as reviving the World’s Fair to reinvigorate the local economy and suggesting that police officers use “a bicycle or a tricycles.”

Rounding out the race is George McDonald, founder of the nonprofit Doe Fund, which helps give work to people who have been homeless.The key to solving issues like the education gap and stop-and-frisk, McDonald often argues, boils down to the same thing his group has advocated for years — jobs.

And yet polls show that few voters know much about McDonald if they know his name at all. If anything, he's best known on the campaign trail for getting into a terse exchange with Democratic candidate and serial sexter Anthony Weiner. While the unrequited public squabble stole a handful of headlines, they were almost always met by a live audience's displeasure — with McDonald.

DEMS THE BREAKS

Things are trickier on the Democratic side of things. With seven candidates to pick from, the word of the primary season has been "nuance."

Unlike the Republicans, most of the Democrats are trying to demonstrate to voters that they would represent a break from the Bloomberg years. They each have their own means but all have proposed plans to increase affordable housing options, update existing public housing plagued by disrepair, improve the city's much maligned education system and reform public safety to improve relations between police and all communities.

Observers have whittled down the race to three realistic candidates: City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, Public Advocate Bill de Blasio and former Comptroller Bill Thompson.

Quinn often calls upon her record of leadership on a number of issues as the reason she's the most experienced person to lead the city. She could be the city's first woman and openly gay mayor, a historic feat. But Quinn and Bloomberg’s amicable work relationship might get her into trouble with the most liberal of Democratic voters. And those who argue she prioritizes legislative pragmatism over idealist progressiveness already have their alternative: de Blasio.

If the key to winning the Democratic primary and runoff really is simply distancing oneself from Bloomberg, de Blasio seemingly has a lock on the nomination. Recent polls show him at about 40 percent — the magic number that would help him avoid a runoff.

The tallest candidate in the race by far, de Blasio currently enjoys the endorsements of some of the hard Left's loudest voices, both locally and nationally. Only recently breaking away from the pack, de Blasio became the outer-borough candidate everyone expected him to become, and has focused much of his campaign on painting himself as anti-Bloomberg on almost every policy point. Leading that list of grievances, however, is hiking taxes on the wealthiest to pay for education initiatives and changing stop-and-frisk as the city knows it.

Still, he's not the only one to make that promise. As Thompson has been keen to say, he's the only candidate in the race to argue that he's lived stop-and-frisk. Not only is Thompson the only black challenger for the Democratic nomination, but he's the only candidate to at one point directly challenge Bloomberg, coming a close second to him in the 2009 general election.

Unlike then, Thompson has the support of one of the city's largest and loudest unions: the United Federation of Teachers. What he gained in ground game might have cost him in establishment support. At least two of the dailies that supported Quinn said it was Thompson's ties to the union that dissuaded them from endorsing him. Even so, he's amassed support from groups that cut across racial, ethnic and religious lines.

It's unclear what role the other Democratic candidates will play in the primary. Recent polls show Anthony Weiner, Comptroller John Liu, former Councilman Sal Albanese and minister Erick Salgado below double digits.

Weiner's sudden, meteoritic rise met its resoundingly catastrophic fall once the most recent report of a sexual tryst came out. At one point leading the polls, the former Congressman's support seems to be largely divided between de Blasio and Thompson. None of this is to say he’s slowed down; with two policy books of ideas, Weiner paints himself as the independent voice the city needs, even if he’s a self-described imperfect messenger.

Liu has consistently struggled to break through, and the loss of matching funds from the Campaign Finance Board, because of what the agency alleged were possible improprieties in his fundraising, crippled any shot of reaching voters outside of his immediate base. However, he remains popular with that base and can point to concrete achievements as comptroller, chief among them his office’s discovery of the abuses behind the CityTime scandal. He also stands alone as the only candidate who promises to abolish stop-and-frisk.

This year is Albanese's second run for the mayor, the first being in 1997. Back then, he was called “Sal Quioxte,” but he ended up in third place with nearly 22 percent of the vote. A former Bay Ridge councilman, he celebrates his abstention from developer donations and paints himself not as the anti-Bloomberg but rather the anti-establishment candidate.

Salgado made much hay about being effectively excluded from the Democratic race. Polls and debates often exclude the Bronx-born Salgado, the only Latino in the race. His conservative background has gained praised largely from the Brooklyn Orthodox community, more so than the city's burgeoning Latino community. However, beyond some witty comments at forums and debates, Salgado has not stood out as a politically viable candidate for the Democratic nomination.

Citywide Contests

New York City might be one of the few cities where a mayor can so significantly influence not only its financial health but also urban policy. But despite the office’s power, it isn’t without its checks.

The public advocate and comptroller offices stand second and third in the line of succession, respectively, and were created by the City Charter to help balance the city’s executive branch. And whether or not their seat holders elect to admit it, the offices are a launchpad for higher office — just ask the outgoing Public Advocate de Blasio and Comptroller Liu.

THE NEXT PUBLIC ADVOCATE

Few people know what the public advocate does, or even who’s running to replace de Blasio.

The advocate stands to succeed the mayor if anything were to happen to him or her. The office of the advocate — who functions as New Yorkers’ representative at-large — is meant to be independent of the executive and legislative branches, with powers to track and investigate complaints of abuse or mismanagement by government. The advocate can also introduce bills into the Council despite not being able to vote, and has a degree of appointment powers.

And yet a recent Quinnipiac poll found that only 20 percent of likely Democratic voters could name one of the five candidates running in the primary.

Brooklyn City Councilwoman Letitia James currently leads in the race. A former public defender and assistant New York State attorney, James made a name for herself during the fight over Atlantic Yards in Brooklyn. She’s accumulated plenty of labor support, but it hasn’t translated into consistent fundraising. She might not need it, though: her advocacy for affordable housing, more local jobs and better relationships between police and the community seems to have helped her secure a tenuous lead.

Closing in right behind James is one of the year’s most surprising political upstarts: college professor Cathy Guerriero. Polling a close second to James — despite never holding any office and none of the political clout that some of her rivals hold over her — Guerriero is instead armed with support from multiple unions, including many of the city’s police groups who have taken a liking to her ardent defense of the working class and stop-and-frisk.

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The only other seasoned politician in the race is state Sen. Daniel Squadron.

Still in his first term in Albany, Squadron comes from the same political shop that birthed Anthony Weiner’s career. A former aide to Sen. Chuck Schumer, Squadron got a nod from his former boss for his work on the state’s gun control and ethics reform in a body all-too-often criticized for its lack of transparency. The candidate also enjoys support from two of the previous three public advocates since the office was created in 1990. De Blasio hasn’t weighed in on the race.

While the outgoing public advocate hasn’t endorsed anyone to succeed him, at least one candidate has positioned herself as his natural heir. Before creating nonprofit Girls Who Code, Reshma Saujani served under de Blasio as a deputy public advocate and as the executive director of the office’s offshoot nonprofit Fund for Public Advocacy. Her rivals often attack her over her previous career working for hedge funds on Wall Street. A daughter of immigrants, Saujani wants to be the city’s first ever South Asian elected to city-wide office.

Born in Sierra Leone, Sidique Wai thinks he can best represent not only the immigrant community’s needs but the city’s as a whole. An underdog if the race ever had one, Wai has worked as a community liaison to the Police Department for the last seven years. Like Guerriero, Wai supports the use of a tweaked stop-and-frisk and has come out against the City Council’s related bills, both of which de Blasio is a staunch supporter of.

Unless one of these candidates can score the 40 percent threshold needed for a clear path to victory on Tuesday — which look increasingly unlikely — voters can expect to vote in a second city-wide run off.

CLASH FOR COMPTROLLER

Unlike the cast of unknown players in the public advocate’s race, voters are quite familiar with at least one candidate vying for the comptroller’s office.

After a five-year hiatus from government, former Gov. Eliot Spitzer outraged the political establishment when he jumped back into the political fray to challenge the formerly uncontested candidate, outgoing Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer. It’s since become one of the year’s nastiest races and one of the few with stark differences between the candidates.

All that and there’s a Republican candidate in the running, John Burnett.

Functioning as New York’s chief financial officer, whoever wins will be responsible for the city's $137 billion pension fund, wield auditing power over most of the city’s agencies, manage the debt and review the city’s contracts. Like the public advocate, the comptroller can propose legislation to the Council, but the position has also traditionally commanded an influence over any social policy that relies on taxpayer money. Meaning, almost anything and everything.

Spitzer has spoken at length about the powers that the comptroller has over urban policy, and has vowed multiple times to exert those powers in ways that his predecessors have not. He hasn’t specified how, but he’s already promised to audit standardized testing and review the city’s public housing authority.

Running a largely populist campaign focused on his record and aggressive attitude towards Wall Street, the self-financed Spitzer is running independent of the Democratic establishment he once helped lead.

Stringer served 13 years in the state Assembly, some of which was while Spitzer worked as the state attorney general. Taking office as Manhattan Borough President in 2006, Stringer has the support of almost every Democratic mayoral candidate and countless organizations — many of whom are squarely opposed to Spitzer’s candidacy. As a result, the former governor paints Stringer as a beneficiary of the establishment; Stringer argues it shows he can play well with others, a trait he says will help him be a steward for the city’s pension fund.

With their barbs targeted squarely at each other, neither have said much about the man that one of them will face come the November general election.

Long since a bastion for Democratic candidates, the comptroller’s office might be more susceptible to a Republican win than it’s ever been with Burnett. Raised in Jamaica in East New York, Burnett has built his career in and around Wall Street — a record that he says suits him for the job. He’s already floated the idea of merging the city’s five pensions into one, and increasing support for minority- and women-owned businesses.

Down Ballot Boxing

A NEW CITY COUNCIL

Of the City Council’s 51 seats, at least 20 of them will be new faces. And that’s only if any one of the 26 incumbents don’t lose their seats to challengers in their respective races. Only five Council members are running unopposed.

In the first election since the Supreme Court ruled that independent expenditures by corporations and unions are protected speech, few races have borne the brunt of political action committee attacks like a handful of Council candidates. Most of those negative mailers are the result of the real estate industry-backed Jobs4NY, which has endorsed 19 Council candidates — only three of which are incumbents (Manhattan Council members Margaret Chin and Inez Dickens, as well as Brooklyn Councilwoman Sara Gonzalez.)

The PAC — created by the Real Estate Board of New York — and its messaging have been so controversial that a handful of candidates have distanced themselves from their endorsement. It hasn’t, however, stopped Jobs4NY from spending more than $1.34 million across the Council races.

But outside spending isn’t the only controversy plaguing the Council races. A number of individual races are mired in their own dramatic quandaries.

It’s hard to pinpoint any single issue that all if not most of the districts face. In a mayoral race where the zeitgeist boils down to inequality, many Council candidates are dealing with housing affordability, local job creation, support for small businesses, community-centric education reform and access to healthcare. They’re issues that working class New Yorkers looking for advocates in City Hall have always demanded, but a shift in political winds at the top of the ballot benefit some candidates more than others.

And while Council members will rarely be able to lead on resiliency individually, the anniversary of Superstorm Sandy might weigh heavily on some voters’ minds — particularly those in areas hit hardest by last year’s storm. At least one Council seat in Staten Island is entirely up for grabs this year, and almost every race in the neighborhoods affected by Sandy are in play.

And then there are some of the more controversial races. Six candidates are vying to replace Councilman Dan Halloran’s district in Queens after the embattled legislator announced he wouldn’t seek reelection on account of a federal investigation into bribery charges. A term-limited Diana Reyna opened up her Brooklyn district to a race between her chief of staff, Antonio Reynoso, and her one-time ally, the scandal-plagued former Assemblyman Vito Lopez.

On top of it all, Christine Quinn’s departure from the Council after her 14 years so she could run for mayor opens up the body’s top seat. A new Council speaker will likely mean a shift in priorities, if not at least a shift in the Council’s power structure. Names are already floating around: Dickens, Melissa Mark-Viverito, Dan Garodnick, Mark Weprin and Annabel Palma. All but one of them have to defend their seat first, though.

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DISTRICT ATTORNEYS

Almost all is quiet among the district attorney races around the city, four of five are uncontested, except in Brooklyn where a heated race has raged on throughout the summer.

Charles Hynes, a 23-year incumbent, is facing a tough challenge from former federal prosecutor and current lawyer Ken Thompson.

The two Democratic candidates have criticized each other throughout the campaign. Thompson, 47, has pointed to potential wrongdoing from members of Hynes staff. Hynes, 78, has mounted his own offensive, highlighting Thompson's perceived lack of experience.

Hynes has been criticized for a number of wrongful convictions which are currently being reviewed. He has also been attacked for failing to prosecute child molesters in the Orthodox Jewish communities.

Both candidates have lined up powerful endorsements. Hynes has been endorsed by a number of state legislators including Sens Eric Adams and Assemblyman Karim Camara. Thompson has the backing of the Working Families Party and Reps. Nydia Velazquez, Jerry Nadler, Hakeem Jeffries and Yvette Clark.

BOROUGH PRESIDENTS

Like the Brooklyn district attorney's race, the Queens and Manhattan borough president races will likely come down to the wire.

The race for the Democratic nomination for Queens borough president has seen four candidates drop out, leaving two top candidates, Councilman Peter Vallone Jr. and former Councilwoman Melinda Katz. Katz has garnered a lot of support from elected officials and unions, whereas Vallone leads the fundraising race and has raised nearly $400,000 more than Katz. However, the race may come down to the candidates’ stances on issues like stop-and-frisk that the borough president doesn't have any power over.

Another highly competitive race is for Manhattan borough president with four candidates that are similar: Democratic Council members Robert Jackson, Jessica Lappin and Gale Brewer, as well as former Community Board 1 chairwoman Julie Menin.

While the race has entertained policy ideas relating to bigger issues dealing with schools, jobs and housing, the key to all of these priorities is tied to the office’s influence over land use procedure. All of the candidates are critical of the Midtown East rezoning plan and its rapid pace, and they all want to diversify their appointments across community boards. Issues like the waste transfer station being built on the Upper East Side might sway some voters (currently, only Menin supports keeping the station), as might the legislative records held by the three outgoing Council members.

In the Democratic primary race for Staten Island borough president, lawyer Richard Luthmann is opposing former public school teacher Louis Liedy. Republican Councilman James Oddo is running unopposed for the Republican nomination and is favored to win the general election in November. There hasn't been a Democratic borough president in Staten Island in 24 years.

Like Oddo in Staten Island, Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr., is a heavy front runner in his race. Diaz announced his intention to run for re-election after dropping a potential bid for public advocate in November. He has over a million dollar fundraising edge against the other Democrat running.

State Sen. Eric Adams, who is running for Brooklyn borough president, looks to have the easiest path to Borough Hall. His only competitor, John Gangemi, was thrown off the ballot for petition irregularities.

State Races

City races will get all the glory this year, but residents in a Brooklyn and the Bronx district will get to send new representatives to the Assembly after scandal and corruption led to the resignation of the men who previously held the seats.

The Race to Replace Vito Lopez

After Assemblyman Vito Lopez was ousted from his seat in Albany, he turned his attention to getting a spot on the City Council.

Now three candidates are vying to replace him in the 53rd State Assembly District, but only one of those candidates appears to be free from Lopez’s influence.

Jason Otaño, a former lawyer for Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz, has the backing of reformers, progressives, major elected officials and good government groups across the city. Otano ran a failed state senate bid against Lopez ally Sen. Martin Dilan in 2012. Issues in the race that aren’t related to Lopez include affordable housing, public safety and education. Otaño has also raised lingering issues from the sexual harassment scandal that felled Lopez. He has said that he would “be hard pressed” to vote for Sheldon Silver as speaker because of how Silver managed the investigation into the Lopez matter.

Candidate Maritza Davila, who works for the Ridgewood Bushwick Senior Citizen’s Council that was founded by Lopez, has not been shy in supporting Lopez and touting his constituent services. Also running for the seat is Charvey Gonzalez, legislative director for Dilan.

The Race to Replace Nelson Castro

When former Assemblyman Nelson Castro resigned from the 86th State Assembly District seat this spring, revealing he had been acting as a mole for prosecutors, many figured it would be up to the Bronx Democratic Party to simply name his successor. That is how things have typically worked. Instead, Gov. Andrew Cuomo called for an election to fill the 86th district seat in September.

Bronx County Democrats may still get their man in office: Victor Pichardo, the man they endorsed, is also backed by U.S. Sen. Chuck Schumer and state Sen. Gustavo Rivera and has a major fundraising edge. Pichardo is an unknown in most Bronx political circles but worked for both Schumer and Rivera.

Concerns over corruption may have lead to Pichardo getting the nod from the county; other favorites for the nod were reportedly passed over because of concerns over their records. One of those candidates, Yudelka Tapia, has been in the race the longest out of any candidate and is well known in the community thanks to a failed bid for the City Council and her position as a district leader. But Tapia owes the city’s Campaign Finance Board over $100,000 in back payments and fines. Tapia’s fundraising for her bid for the 86th district has also been marred by questionable reporting.

Haile Rivera, another 86th district hopeful, is well known for his ties to the 2008 Obama campaign and his work with local nonprofits. Rivera has mostly waged his campaign online, trails in fundraising and has been relatively quiet about the fact that he worked as a staffer to disgraced former Sen. Pedro Espada.

A number of lower profile candidates also populate the race, including Keny Nuñez, a Dominican-born attorney who Castro put forward as his stand-in candidate. Nuñez missed two filing deadlines with the state Board of Election.

Voter Resources

New Yorkers can expect a blast from the past when they step into their voting booths on Tuesday.

The city has dusted off the old lever machines in anticipation of having to turn around the primary’s results quickly enough for a run-off. The Board of Elections sent out mailers to all registered voters on how to use the machines — which are older than any of the young voters that have grown up in the Bloomberg era.

All registered voters unfamiliar with the machines should have received instructions on how to use them on the day of the primary, and workers will be on hand to help those who need it. Any disabled primary voters who are unable to use the lever machines will be able to use the city’s electronic voting system.

In case you need a refresher, here are the Board’s instructions for the lever machines:

1. Pull the RED VOTING HANDLE from the LEFT to the RIGHT. Do not move it again until after you have completed your selections.
2. Make your selections by flipping the lever so that you can see the ⌧ next to the candidate’s name.
3. Once you have made all your choices, cast your vote by pulling the RED HANDLE from RIGHT to LEFT.

Be prepared to use the lever machines again for the Oct. 1 runoff, if there is one. For the Nov. 5 general election, however, the Board will bring back the paper ballot and scanning system used in the most recent elections.

If you experience any problems or irregularities in the voting booth or at your polling site (broken machines, missing registration records, etc.), the New York Public Interest Research Group and Common Cause will be running a non-partisan voter helpline on Election Day. You can reach them at 212-822-0282.

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State Government Editor David Howard King and City Government Reporting Intern Daniel Stein-Sayles contributed to this report.

About Gotham Gazette


Gotham Gazette is a pioneering nonpartisan New York City-based online watchdog publication that covers city and state government, and has a rich tradition of reporting on local elections as well as policy that affects everything from the spaces where New Yorkers live and play to police tactics and civil rights. It is published by Citizens Union Foundation.

Our overarching goal is to inform New Yorkers and enrich and enliven the debate over the decisions that affect everyone who lives or works here — or simply cares about America's largest city.

Published frequently throughout the week, Gotham Gazette is a public interest journalism platform that brings New Yorkers illuminating analyses and original investigative reporting on policy and politics, the actions of elected officials and long-form interviews with thought leaders. It is also a platform for citizen engagement — featuring tools for video, audio, text and social media interactions — and a nonpartisan forum for officials, advocates and thinkers to present their views on the issues New Yorkers face.

In all of this, we aim to provide coverage that is fair, informative, accessible and lively.

Formally launched in 2000, Gotham Gazette came to prominence with the 2001 city elections after term limits resulted in open seats in 36 of the 51 city council offices, four of the five borough president offices, and all three citywide offices — mayor, comptroller and public advocate. With its in-depth coverage and easily accessible material online, Gotham Gazette became the “go-to” source for information about the candidates and their campaigns.

It was among the first online news publications in the country to provide a daily aggregation of links to the morning news from various media sources, including all the major dailies. It also performed a valuable public service by being one of the definitive sources of information about the recovery and rebuilding of New York City in the aftermath of the 9-11 terrorist attacks.

Incorporating Citizens Union Foundation’s heralded coverage of City Council meetings under “Searchlight on the City Council," Gotham Gazette came to be known for its comprehensive reporting on city government. The issues and policies it covered were organized into twenty different topic areas, allowing readers to follow specifically what they were interested in.

In 2008, the publication expanded its coverage of city issues by adding reporting on state government issues that affect the City of New York by opening its Albany bureau.

Gotham Gazette has won many awards and much praise, including the the 2009 and 2003 Online Journalism Awards for General Excellence, given by the Online News Association, and the 2002 award for service journalism; the Innovator Award from the Pew Center for Civic Journalism; the Journalism Award from the New York chapter of the American Planning Association; and an honorable mention from the Games for Change News Game contest. We are the only publication to have won two Knight Foundation News Challenge grants — in 2007 and 2009. Our past contributors have gone on to work for The New York Times, Reuters, Newsday, Wall Street Journal, NY1, Next City and many other media organizations.

Columbia Journalism Review said this about Gotham Gazette in 2011:

“It’s no secret that many Americans are shamefully uninformed about their elected representatives, particularly at the local level. The blame for this can often go as much to local press as to citizens themselves, but thanks to Gotham Gazette, an online source for what’s happening in the world of NYC government, citizens of the nation’s largest metropolis will have to to blame something other than the media if they can’t name their borough president or the nuances of the latest bond issue.”

GOTHAM GAZETTE AND CITIZENS UNION

Gotham Gazette is published by Citizens Union Foundation of the City of New York, a nonprofit organization that conducts in-depth research on public policy and promotes public policy solutions. The foundation is affiliated and shares governance with Citizens Union, a good government group founded in 1897, which works to make democracy work for all New Yorkers. Citizens Union serves as a civic watchdog, combating corruption and fighting for political reform. It works to ensure fair and open elections, honest and efficient government, and a civically engaged public. Here is the latest annual report from the two organizations, describing their finances and Gotham Gazette’s.

Gotham Gazette is editorially autonomous from Citizens Union and Citizens Union Foundation, but the three organizations share budgets and resources. Gotham Gazette is an important part of the ideals of Citizens Union – as a watchdog publication committed to accountability journalism, its work helps to an informed and engaged public is crucial to the work of holding government and elected officials accountable to their promises and actions.

Gotham Gazette is a journalistic enterprise and, in no way, shape or form do our reporters or staff engage in lobbying activities on behalf of Citizens Union.

Gotham Gazette strives to be as transparent as possible in its reporting and, in the rare occasions when our journalists write about issues that Citizens Union is working on or when we quote Citizens Union staff directly, we make our affiliations known. We also strive to present more than one voice on every issue that we cover, even if it is one that Citizens Union has a vested interested in seeing pursued. In that regard, there may be times when the editorial goals of Gotham Gazette clash with the views of Citizens Union.

Gotham Gazette also makes space available on its website to Citizens Union Foundation in the form of “modules” to publicize their research reports and newsletter, The Reformer. These are clearly marked throughout the site, and are separately maintained by Citizens Union Foundation staff.

FUNDING

Gotham Gazette receives support from the Altman Foundation, the Fund for the City of New York, the Robert Sterling Clark Foundation, and readers like you. We also accept advertising, which you can learn more about here.

Beginning in 1999, the Charles Revson Foundation invested a series of grants in Citizens Union Foundation to create Gotham Gazette, the first website of its kind in the nation. Since then, Gotham Gazette has evolved into a model for nonprofit journalism across the country, particularly for online local news sites. The Gazette also has received significant grants from the John and James L. Knight Foundation to create policy games and other news tools.

Writer's Guidelines


Gotham Gazette is an online publication about the issues facing New York City and New York city and state policies and politics. All of our articles concern these subjects. We look for clear, compelling writing that will attract readers with an interest in New York but not necessarily any expertise in the topic being covered. As a result, we avoid jargon, go easy with technical details and shun acronyms.

The best source for how to write for Gotham Gazette is the website itself, but here are some basics.

We buy a limited number of freelance articles. Most are articles on a current topic of concern in New York that feature a policy angle, such as the debate over whether to close schools for Muslim holidays, proposals to preserve small businesses in the city, the debate over how to clean up the polluted Gowanus Canal, how public transportation is inaccessible to the disabled and controversies over installing bike lanes in some neighborhoods. While we do not usually cover breaking news, we are a news site and the article should reflect some current development or controversy. The articles tend to be around 1,250 words and we pay a limited amount for them.

We also publish commentary articles of about 1,000 words, taking a position on a current debate or suggesting a policy for the city. These articles should present a reasoned argument, bolstered by facts, and not be a harangue or a campaign speech. We do not pay for commentaries.

Pitching Stories

Send a brief summary of your article, explaining why it would be of interest to our site and why it is timely. Please tell us where your writing has appeared; we do not require a formal resume. Send this as an e-mail to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. We would also appreciate seeing samples of relevant work.

We will read unsolicited manuscripts but strongly advise sending a pitch before taking the time and effort to write a piece. Most of the unsolicited stories we have run have been commentary articles.

Writing for Gotham Gazette

We need clear writing in standard English that seeks to explain complicated issues and interest readers who may be unfamiliar with the subject at hand. Articles should make it clear how policy decisions affect ordinary New Yorkers and if possible include quotes or anecdotes documenting this.

Articles other than commentaries should present various sides of the story. All articles, including commentaries, should be fair and reasoned. They should meet the accepted standards of journalism in terms of accuracy, fairness and clarity.

Analyzing an issue often requires that a writer offer interpretations and opinions with which other people might disagree. We will not censor such views, but as a non-partisan site dedicated to the free exchange of ideas, we expect any opinions to be backed up by facts and, when possible, that credible alternative arguments be presented as well.

Because we are a Web site that serves as a portal site, we need links to other relevant sites and to reports and other material cited in the article. Articles should have quotes and include reporting. We do quote from other articles but cite the source and, if possible, link to it.

Once a story is accepted and a deadline set, we expect that deadline to be met. Finished stories should be e-mailed to the assigning editor in the e-mail, not as an attachment. To ensure the quality of our site, we edit vigorously and expect writers to be available during the editing process, responding to our editorial suggestions, rewriting when necessary and providing additional information that we request. Writers should be aware that changes in events may also require additional rewriting.

Writers will receive payment within a month of posting of the story on the site. We do not pay kill fees but work hard to try to make stories work on the site. We have killed very few stories since we began in 1999 but certainly cannot guarantee that a story will be posted.



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