NYC COMPTROLLER | Chief Economists

Frank Braconi (L) and John Tepper Marlin, Chief Economists to Five NYC
Comptrollers, 1992-2017. Note piñata at upper left.  It did not survive
unscathed. Photo by Alice Tepper Marlin.

In 1989, New York City elected David Dinkins Mayor and Liz Holtzman Comptroller. 

It also approved a thoroughly revised New York City Charter, eliminating the historic Board of Estimate.

The NYC Comptroller lost some powers but gained a new responsibility – it must report on the NYC economy every December and must submit to the NYC Council annually its independent tax-revenue estimate based on the Comptroller's economic outlook.

To carry out this and other tasks, the Comptroller created the position of Chief Economist. It has been filled by five economists, all male. Over the 28 years of the title, three economists have held the job for four years. One has just started working in the title under Comptroller Stringer, one is Commissioner of Finance for Mayor de Blasio and the third became economic adviser to former Governor Pataki.

The other two Chief Economists met recently. I was one, the second Chief Economist, having served for 13 years, under Comptrollers Holtzman, Alan Hevesi and Bill Thompson. Frank Braconi was the other, my successor, who served for ten years as Chief Economist, under Comptrollers Thompson, John Liu and Scott Stringer. You might say it was an informal meeting of FOCEA, the Former Office of the (New York City) Comptroller Employees Association.

We met up yesterday evening at a post-election celebration hosted by a Suffolk County gadfly group (Resist & Replace) and the local Democratic party. We are united in getting behind a Democratic candidate in 2018 to defeat Lee Zeldin, a Tea Party incumbent Congressman from New York's District 1.

An early order of business at the event was to tackle the Trump piñata, which may be seen to the upper left in the photo.

Between us, my years and Frank Braconi's at the Comptroller's Office add up to a quarter century and take us through two attacks on the World Trade Center and four Mayors – Dinkins, Giuliani, Bloomberg and de Blasio.

106th Mayor	David Dinkins (b. 1927) Comptroller Holtzman	January 1990 to December 1993	4 years	DEM
107th	Rudy Giuliani (b. 1944) Comptroller Hevesi	January 1994 to December 2001	8 years	GOP
108th	Michael Bloomberg (b. 1942) Comptrollers Thompson, Liu	January 2002 to  December 2013	12 years	GOP
				NO PARTY
109th	Bill de Blasio (b. 1961) Comptroller Stringer	January 2014 to  Incumbent	4 years & Counting	DEM

Postscript, January 28, 2018: Meanwhile, Eric Wollman visited Vero Beach, Florida, and we had our third annual Florida meeting of FOCEA. 

NYC COMPTROLLER | Eric Wollman of FOCEA

Eric Wollman
Not an ol' man.
On way to Delray
Via A1A.
Clerihew by JT Marlin;
Eric is dubious.

January 31, 2016–I am down in Florida for a few weeks and had the pleasure of a visit today from Eric Wollman, Esq., on the road, traveling from a convention in Titusville, Fla. to see a relative in Delray Beach. Our location is en route, if you go the scenic route on  A1A.

That's Eric on the left, in front of where we are staying. He drives the activities of the Former Office-of-the-Comptroller Employees Association (FOCEA). The Comptroller in this case is the Comptroller of the City of New York.

As the holder of the CEO spot and (so far as I was able to elucidate) every other office at FOCEA, Eric's responsibilities are to notify former employees of the Comptroller's Office when retirement parties are happening.

FOCEA operates on the motto: "No dues, no rules, no meetings." You could count retirement parties as meetings, but FOCEA adheres rigorously to its announced mission by restricting itself to publicizing these meetings, not organizing them.

Eric and your Blogger. Selfie by JT Marlin.

I have occasionally posted on the activities of the Comptroller, where I worked in 1992-2006 as Chief Economist (and for a time Senior Policy Adviser) to three elected Comptrollers–Liz Holtzman, Alan Hevesi and Bill Thompson, who served concurrently with Mayors David Dinkins, Rudy Giuliani and Mike Bloomberg.

On length of service, Eric has me beat by a wide margin because he was an attorney in the Comptroller's Office before I arrived, working for Jay Goldin, who was Comptroller when the late Ed Koch was Mayor; Goldin is still alive and active, and still sends a card with a holiday poem every December. After I left the Comptroller's Office, Eric has worked under John Liu and now Scott Stringer.

Here is a list of all these NYC Mayors, #105 to #109, because sometimes I forget some of the dates and maybe you do too. The terms of the Comptrollers were coterminous with the Mayors except for Michael Bloomberg, who had Bill Thompson as Comptroller for his first two terms and John Liu as Comptroller for his third term.

105		1977 12 Years	The late Ed Koch January 1, 1978 – December 31, 1989 Comptroller: Jay Goldin		Democratic
106		1989 4 Years	David Dinkins January 1, 1990 – December 31, 1993 Comptroller: Liz Holtzman		Democratic
107		1993 8 Years	Rudy Giuliani January 1, 1994 – December 31, 2001 Comptroller: Alan Hevesi		Republican
108		2001 12  Years	Michael Bloomberg January 1, 2002 – December 31, 2013; Comptrollers: Bill Thompson and John Liu		Republican (until 2007)8
					Independent (from 2007)
109		2013 2 Years so far	Bill de Blasio January 1, 2014 – Present Comptroller: Scott Stringer		Democratic

Postscript:  Eric contacted me to say that all this is true, but his civil service career goes back even further, to the administration of NYC Mayor #103, John Lindsay, under whom he took his civil service exam. He was then "picked up"–hired off the list of successful exam-takers–under Mayor #104, Abe Beame. He first worked for the Department of Finance starting in 1970 and then moved over to the NYC Comptroller's Office in 1974 under Comptroller Goldin; he was hired by Steve Newman.

See also (more posts in preparation; click on number):
Holtzman Era 1
Holtzman-Hevesi Era 1
Hevesi Era
Hevesi-Thompson Era
Thompson Era

NYC - Manhattan Tops 2.5 Million Jobs in 4Q13

Manhattan Jobs Passed 2.5 Million in 4Q13

Manhattan jobs grew 2.4 percent between the fourth quarter of 2012 and the fourth quarter of 2013, the Bureau of Labor Statistics announced this morning.

The base of 2.5 million jobs will be a marker for Mayor Bill de Blasio.

The Manhattan (aka New York County) growth rate was among the 100 best of the 335 largest counties in the United States.

The best-performing borough in New York City was Brooklyn, with 4.5 percent growth, followed by Staten Island with 4.4 percent and the Bronx with 2.9 percent. Queens trailed with 1.5 percent growth.

The average weekly wage in Manhattan fell 3.3 percent over the year, to $2,041, trailing San Mateo, Calif., which was $2,724 in 4Q13.  San Mateo's income fell even more than Manhattan's, as did that of Washington, DC and Tulsa, Okla.

What Mayor de Blasio Could Do About Snowstorms

First, shovel a path from your door.

January 25, 2014—Mayor Bill de Blasio and John Doherty, who is in charge of the snow plows, have been unfairly castigated for their handling of the snowstorm.

I don’t claim inside information about what happened on the Upper East Side of NY, but consider this:

• When the temperature remains well below freezing, plain salt doesn’t work. New York has suffered an unusually long spell of sub-freezing weather, with temperatures commonly below the level where salt on the street would melt the ice.
• When traffic is at a standstill, snow plows can’t get through.

The good news is that it is still nearly four years until the next mayoral election. The bad news is that Superbowl week is upon us.

Implement a Snowstorm Traffic Flow Plan. The Mayor needs a plan from the NYPD, as well as the Department of Sanitation, for keeping traffic moving so that snow plows can do their work at all times. If it is freezing weather, traffic police are more, not less, necessary. Gridlock is disaster in a snowstorm, because it prevents remedies.

Involve the Public. If NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton doesn’t want to tie up his force on traffic control, one idea is to reach out to the public and ask them to avoid certain parts of New York City - and announce plans to back up this request. Boston, which is no stranger to snow, has a map of all the fire hydrants and catch basins and urges the public to “adopt” them on a neighborhood basis and keep them clear in a storm.

Implement a New York City Storm Severity Index. The City has had an emergency rating that ranges from Phase 1 to Phase 3. The rarely used Phase 3 was invoked for the Blizzard of January 7-8, 1996. This blizzard, and the one that occurred in March 1993, are also rated by the National Weather Service as the only two storms that reached the top category 5 on the NESIS scale, which was developed in 2004 – and also on the more recent RSI scale. But the scales are not useful as guides for action in a storm – the NESIS and RSI scales only consider snowfall and population affected. In 1996, the NYC Comptroller’s Office recommended that the City develop its own Storm Severity Index. Here’s an example of how such an Index would work:

NYC Storm Severity Index = (S - 2)n*d

where S = expected number of inches of snow or water-equivalent ice in the first 24 hours
n = expected number of days of continuously freezing (below 32 F) weather
d = expected average number of degrees below freezing over the n days
If projected snowfall is eight inches, and five days of continuously freezing weather are expected, and temperatures are expected to average 17 degrees, the Index becomes 6*5*15=450. Now the Mayor has an idea of how badly the storm will slam the City.

From a Jobs POV, Keep Manhattan Open.  Brooklyn has been insulted often since it was consolidated with New York City in 1897-98. It doesn't have a baseball team any more, but it has a million more residents than Manhattan. It would rank fourth after NYC (4 boros), LA and Chicago, if it were still independent. But Manhattan accounts for at least 70 percent of the New York City economy, and commuters from the other boroughs need those jobs.

Close the Schools on the Severest Storm Days. School buses clog traffic and stop snow plows going through. It’s a problem for parents who work, but if school buses are blocking traffic, the parents won’t get to work anyway. Only half of teachers showed up at the schools on the first full day of the storm. Offices are more likely to close when schools are closed.

Consider Alternatives to Plain Salt, Which Doesn’t Work Well Below 15 F. U.S. airports watch snowstorms like hawks. They use de-icers and anti-icers that work down to -20 F. Glycol and urea are bad for the environment but the EPA has approved potassium acetate based (KAC) liquid E36. It takes just 10 minutes to go to work. There is also an additive to salt that lowers the temperature at which salt water melts.

Voting - GOTV for deB in Chelsea NYC

GOTV volunteers for Bill de Blasio making phone calls from NY State Sen. 
Brad Hoylman's Office at 14th St. and 8th Ave. Photo by JT Marlin.

Political upsets are most likely to occur in races where the turnout is low and one side has a better GOTV operation.

GOTV is both the first and the last phase of all political campaigns.

In the first phase of GOTV, names and contact information of supporters are sought, to:
- raise money,
- recruit volunteers and
- generate a list of people to call on election day, to remind them to vote and offer a lift to the polls.

The first volunteer-led computer database for a presidential campaign was I believe by the Gary Hart techies in 1987-88. I contributed my own Kaypro to the effort and I wrote an article on the innovative campaign for a local newspaper. If anyone who reads this is interested, I will be glad to hunt down the article.

In the final GOTV phase, the fundraising and volunteers are in place and the main remaining task is to remind people to vote and either take them to the polls or obtain commitments from them that they will go there on their own.

In the New York City mayoral election, what has been happening this past weekend is the culmination of the GOTV effort, namely getting commitments to vote and reminding people to vote.

Information on Campaign Organization and Issues

FYI, Wikipedia has the equivalent of a short course in political campaigning, under the following headings:

• Campaign Finance - Grassroots fundraising
• Management - Oppo(sition) research - Consultation
• Message - Advertising -  Canvassing  - Election promise - GOTV - Lawn/store signs
• Negative campaigning - Attack ad - Fear mongering - Push poll - Smear campaign - Voter suppression

The Get-Out-The-Vote effort has an important side benefit for pollsters in helping to ensure that their predictions are accurate. Pollsters ask respondents questions to determine both "How likely are you to vote?" and "How likely are you to vote for Bill de Blasio?" and they weight responses accordingly. The more likely a respondent is to vote, and the more certain the respondent is that he-she will vote for de Blasio, the more confident the pollster is in the results.

But in the end, the voter has to make it a priority to vote on election day, and without a strong internal conscience or an external reminder, an election that is expected to have a small turnout could end up being a tossup.

Chelsea, NYC, 2013

As a chronicler of political activity in the Chelsea neighborhood, I have participated in the GOTV effort today. I was invited by de Blasio headquarters to contact the Chelsea district campaign office to help them in the area where I live. This is a phone bank and rallying point for canvassing operations in the area. One chooses a time slot such as 10 am to 1 pm or 1-4 pm or 4-7 pm). Then one shows up at the office, where one is either sent out to do canvassing with a list of apartments in a building to call on, or one is given a list of phone numbers to call. (The local club, the Chelsea Reform Democratic Club, chose to show its presence by setting up at Eighth Avenue and 23rd Street. It had campaigned for Christine Quinn in the primary.)

Mary Duggan, my GOTV partner canvassing

Penn South for de Blasio et al..

Mary Duggan and I were sent up to a building in Penn South, where I discovered for the first time after living in the neighborhood for 42 years that some of the numbers on the Penn South buildings are based on their position on the cross streets and others on their position Eighth or Ninth Avenue. That's why 280 Ninth is north, not south, of 365 (which is on Ninth, but takes its address from the nearest cross street).

The building we were assigned to has eight apartments per floor. About half of the apartments were designated pro-deBlasio based on prior phone calls. The landslide Democratic primary victory for de Blasio was organized almost totally from Brooklyn headquarters because the Manhattan clubs were working for Quinn, Thompson or (in the case of the Village Independent Democrats) Liu.

On each floor, at least one person answered the doorbell. In the other cases, we left literature promoting de Blasio for Mayor, Letitia James for Public Advocate, Scott Stringer for Comptroller and Gale Brewer for Manhattan Borough President. Someone already seems to have left literature on de Blasio in the building, but a second flyer lets the occupants know that they were visited again.

At the end of the building canvass, we had a few names of additional people who might be volunteers, and some commitments to vote on Tuesday. I brought back the detailed report on our canvass for use in phone calling on the day of the election. I volunteered to canvass the building where I live if the de Blasio campaign is able to get to me the same information that we were given for the Penn South canvass. I just don't want to knock on GOP doors.

The other thing I have volunteered to do is observe poll-opening as an official inspector from the local club or the de Blasio campaign on Tuesday morning.

This is democracy where the wheels hit the road.

Voting - Last-minute donors are buying "stock at 52-week high"

De Blasio and Early Supporters, Brooklyn. Photo by JT Marlin.

Crains Insider has an inform-ative story by Andrew Hawkins about real estate developers resignedly writing checks, for the max allowable, to mayoral candidate Bill de Blasio -- even though it is late, one week before the election and de Blasio is a shoo-in with a 45-percentage-point spread between him and Joe Lhota.

What impressed me most about the article was a campaign contributor's acknowledging that late giving to a candidate was not buying much, that it was like "buying a stock at its 52-week high", as opposed to important early volunteering and money that paid for de Blasio's advertising campaign. The EMILY in "Emily's List" stands for "Early Money Is Like Yeast."

Both labor unions and real estate contributors mostly put their early bets on Christine Quinn or Bill Thompson. Polls as of February showed Quinn ahead three to one, with de Blasio just one percentage point behind Thompson, and I noted that de Blasio had the advantage of incumbency. But then Anthony Weiner shot into first place, showing that enthusiasm for front-runners Quinn and Thompson was weak. So when Weiner's campaign faded, de Blasio's ad featuring Dante Blasio and his Afro provided the boost for de Blasio to take Weiner's place in the lead. After de Blasio won the Democratic primary outright, it became clear that Joe Lhota was battling against a huge spread in the polls. Lhota's attack ad on crime got nothing for him, as de Blasio added five percentage points to his lead. So the campaign cash is now flooding in to de Blasio's campaign.

The final debate between de Blasio and Lhota is on Wednesday evening (sandwiched between the anniversary of Sandy on Tuesday and Halloween on Thursday) from 7 to 8 pm on NBC-TV.

De Blasio v. Lhota - The Issues, 2 weeks before Election

At the Harvard Club of New York yesterday, two surrogates for the mayoral candidates battled it out. Both were Democrats, and both are crossovers from other candidates, selected by the two campaigns.

Senator Brad Hoylman

Senator Brad Hoylman. Speaking for Bill de Blasio was NY State Senator Brad M. Hoylman, a 1989 Rhodes Scholar from West Virginia who went on to Harvard Law School after receiving his M.Phil. from Oxford. Hoylman is a past President of Gay and Lesbian Independent Democrats, picking up Sen. Tom Duane's seat when Duane resigned. Hoylman previously served as Executive Vice President and General Counsel of the New York City Partnership. Hoylman supported Christine Quinn in the Primary, and is supporting de Blasio as the choice of the Democratic Party in New York City.

Randy M. Mastro, Esq.

Mr. Randy Mastro. Mastro is 11 years senior to Hoylman based on college graduation and is a New York City native. Mastro supported both Thompson and Lhota in the two party primaries, although he identifies himself as a Democrat. He is co-chair of Gibson Dunn’s Litigation Practice Group, named “The Litigation Department of the Year” by the American Lawyer. Comments from peer reviews: Mastro “deserves an Academy Award” for “bringing a sense of drama and theater to his courtroom appearances.” “You REALLY don’t want to meet him in a lighted courtroom." In 1994-1998, Mr. Mastro served as Mayor Rudolph Giuliani’s Chief of Staff and then Deputy Mayor for Operations. He oversaw all of the City’s operating agencies and budget, and served as the Mayor’s chief liaison with elected officials. Previously, in 1985-1989, Mr. Mastro served as Assistant U.S. Attorney and Deputy Chief of the Civil Division. He graduated cum laude from Yale College and the University of Pennsylvania Law School, where he was the school’s moot court champion. Mr. Mastro served as law clerk to Justice Alan B. Handler of the New Jersey Supreme Court. In 1982-1985, he was a litigation associate at Cravath, Swaine & Moore. He chaired two New York City Charter Revision Commissions.

The Issues

The following issues are in the order they were brought up at the Q&A session after the two surrogates for de Blasio and Lhota made introductory remarks.  Some of the arguments below showed more sophistication than the exchange in the NY Times at the end of August.

Charter Schools.  Hoylman - Mr. de Blasio is on record as wanting to charge the charter schools rent for use of the public schools. Charter schools disrupt the public schools they operate in sometimes, and some of them take bathrooms, for example, out of commission for the public school students. They take resources away from public schools. Mastro - Mr. Lhota wants to double the number of charter schools. Bill de Blasio shows lack of support for the charter schools experiment.

The Debt and the Budget.  Hoylman - Mayor de Blasio would meet the City's fiscal obligations; he has to balance the budget. Mastro - Would de Blasio be able to look the unions in the eye after they have worked to elect him? Lhota could be tougher because he owes the unions nothing. Bloomberg has just kicked the union issue down the road. Right now they have zero increases. When the percentages are written in, there will be a huge retroactive budget increase, which means less money for other services or higher taxes.

Climate Change (Hoylman Scores Big).  The environmental questions were about siting of a marine transfer station on the upper west side and the mayor's position on fracking.  Hoylman - It's time that Manhattan took on some of the burden of its own garbage - for too long garbage has been trucked to Staten Island and the other outer boroughs. On fracking, we need a study to investigate the safety of the process and in the meantime we need a moratorium. Mastro - There are limits to what a mayor can do for the environment. Bloomberg has certainly been in the vanguard, with new bike paths and parks and riverfront amenities. However, a marine transfer station next to Asphalt Green would affect the ability of poor kids to use the sports amenities in this area. On fracking, a "study" is a euphemism for doing nothing. Cuomo did the studies. Lhota won't feed voters with euphemisms. He is a straight talker. Besides, fracking is an upstate issue, isn't going to happen in NYC.  Hoylman - Upstate issue? Where, Mr. Mastro, do you think New York City's water comes from? We need a mayor who understands this, and respects upstate water if only because we drink it. We have enough natural gas to carry us through another look at what fracking is doing to our water table.

Sandinistas. Someone asked a leading question about de Blasio's support of the Sandinista rebels in Nicaragua many years ago. Hoylman - His visit to Nicaragua shows his concern with equality. He is still concerned with inequality in the United States and the fact that it is growing. It speaks to Bill de Blasio's character. Mastro - Yes, it speaks to de Blasio's character.

NYPD "Stop and Frisk" Policies (Mastro Scores).  Will your candidate abandon successful stop-and-frisk procedures because of the new court finding against it? Hoylman - a Federal judge says that the stop and frisk procedures need to be fixed. Mastro - Stop and frisk is perfectly constitutional.Giuliani's  NYPD did it. Now a federal judge wants to run the NYPD? Bill de Blasio says he won't appeal? It looks like we are going to go back to the days of consent decrees. But we are also going to have an independent inspector. And police officers are now subject to law suits if they make the wrong call on an arrest. Hoylman -  Mr. de Blasio supported the program that New York City was preparing to monitor the stop-and-frisk procedure. It might have obviated the need for the federal judge's decision. Mastro - Why is he saying he won't appeal the decision, when NYC has its own inspector? Why another? Why isn't he saying - This is my city and I don't need a judge trying to second-guess me and my police chief?  Hoylman - de Blasio would work with the judge. [Update: Mayor Bloomberg's appeal was heard and at he end of October the appellate court transferred the case to another judge, on the basis that the federal judge on the case had engaged in misconduct.]

Should We Worry That NYC Will Be Democrats All Round?  Hoylman - No. Equality of parties doesn't guarantee anything. The New York State Senate is balanced and the deadlock means nothing gets done. The last Democratic mayor was 20 years ago, before the Internet was invented. Mastro - We don't want deadlock but it is helpful to have tension. It generates debate. I am concerned that we have made so much progress since the 1990-1992 era that we forget what it was like when the Democrats had complete control.

Afterwards I joined a few people from the audience for dinner. I figured they were three-to-one Republicans. None of them appeared to be involved, or likely to be involved, in the election beyond voting. Two of them asked questions that were critical of de Blasio. I asked them why they weren't going to put their money or time behind Lhota.

"Too late. It's a done deal. What, a 50 percentage point lead, in the polls? We will have to live with Mayor de Blasio for four years." They drowned their sorrows, the Democrats celebrated, and the Harvard Club got some unexpected bar revenue on a Sunday evening...

JOE LHOTA | Why Is NYC Deaf to Tough-on-Crime Tune?

Giuliani Endorses Lhota

Rudy Giuliani in 1993 and 1997 campaigned brilliantly on the issue of public safety, picking up on a theme that Richard Nixon hammered at, mashing up student protests with a rise in crime to argue that lawlessness was undermining New York City.

I was the Chief Economist for the New York City Comptroller's Office for the entire eight years of Giuliani's mayoralty. I remember leaning forward with anticipation when a reporter struggled to get Giuliani to move on from"law 'n order" to his economic-development strategy.

Rudy replied something like this: "As long as corporations are moving out of New York City because of crime, as long as property values are threatened by crime in the streets, my economic-development strategy is to reduce crime." So there.

This tough-on-crime electoral strategy worked from the 1960s through the 1990s. It worked for Nixon, for Ronald Reagan, for George H. W. Bush, and for hundreds of candidates in state and local elections. Even a supposedly liberal Republican like Nelson Rockefeller signed onto a draconian drug law.

The conservative mantra was:

• Liberal police chiefs would not let the cops do their jobs.
• Liberal judges would let criminals back onto the street.
• Liberal parole boards would grant parole too easily.  

Joe Lhota saw how this worked for Giuliani. He is piping the same tune. But this time, no one is dancing, or joining in, or even listening. De Blasio continues to ride high in the polls despite Lhota's soft-on-crime ads.

Why isn't the music working any more? Lhota has a new attack ad suggesting that de Blasio would bring New York City back to the high-crime days of the 1960s and 1970s. De Blasio spokesman Dan Levitan said:

Lhota is right that we can’t go back. We shouldn’t return to the days when Republicans like Giuliani used fear tactics to divide New Yorkers against each other.

Well, here are pieces of a counter-mantra that might explain New York City's deafness to the issue:

• Crime is down in New York City and everywhere in the United States. There are lots of explanations. Here's one I like: The civil rights movement of the 1960s has calmed down groups in the cities that were hostile to the police.Having a black president surely helps establish that the country offers opportunities for black citizens.
• Police work has gotten better in NYC and all over the country. Cops are being managed more efficiently. Crimes are tracked minute by minute and are analyzed. Task forces are sent to hot spots. 
• Tough on crime means more people in prison, which is costly.  Three percent of the American population is behind bars or on parole and probation – U.S. prisons hold 20 percent of all the people incarcerated in the world. Conservatives and libertarians are increasingly about the cost of this. Legislators are showing rare unanimity on this topic. In 1994, Newt Gingrich's Contract with America promised to put more people in prison. But now he is concerned about the huge costs of the large prison population, "in dollars and lost human potential".  
• Some rehabilitation programs work. There are some successful programs to prepare ex-offenders for return to the workforce. The 2012 Republican platform called for prisons to "attempt to rehabilitate and institute proven prisoner reentry systems to reduce recidivism and future victimization."

NYC | Protecting against Future Hurricanes

NYC from POV of a Hurricane Heading North.

My Chelsea friend Bob Trentlyon, former publisher of our neighborhood newspaper, this week sent me his latest thoughts on the New York Bight.

The Bight is the large area of water encompassed within the two arms of Long Island and the New Jersey Coast, which make an angle slightly more obtuse than 90 degrees (see map at right).

As Trentlyon says:

These two arms ... have helped guide major storms to New York City, whether Northeasters or hurricanes, that have traveled north on the gulf stream from the Caribbean. Storms have descended on NYC since the last ice age. They have become fiercer and more frequent. NYC, located between Long Island Sound and the Atlantic Ocean is practically defenseless. 

Trentlyon passes along a long list (prepared by John Rentoff) of serious hurricanes that have swept down on New York since the year before the founding of Harvard College:

August 1635, August 1638, October 1723, August 1788, September 1815, September 1821, November 1861, September 1869, September 1874, August 1879, September 1882, August 1893, October 1894, September 1904, September 1938 Long Island Express, September 1944 Great Atlantic Hurricane, August 1954 Carol, September 1960 Donna, August 1976 Belle, September 1985 Gloria, 28 August 1991 Bob, 16 September 1999 Floyd, 27-28 August 2011 Irene, 28-29 October 2012 Sandy. 

What lessons does Trentlyon have for us?

• Don't build on the flood plain. Build on higher ground away from the shoreline. Much of NYC is high enough above the water level not to be affected for a very long time, possibly forever. However, he says, the waterfront is extremely vulnerable.
• Protect Manhattan. Trentlyon thinks "it would be smart to protect much of Manhattan, Brooklyn and parts of Queens by building a five-mile storm surge barrier from the Rockaways to Sandy Hook." He also favors a smaller surge barrier at Throgs Neck to protect from flooding and storm surges in the East River.
• He thinks that closing off the entryways when storm surges or flooding threaten makes a lot more sense than building endless miles of walls.

Earlier reports by Trentlyon are here and here.

I hope that Bill de Blasio, once he is elected Mayor, will obtain the advice of the Army Corps of Engineers and local environmental experts to build on the hurricane planning of the Mayor Bloomberg to consider carefully the most cost-effective way of  reducing the risks to NYC of future hurricanes.

NYC | Money > 2:1 for de Blasio

Bill de Blasio with an early campaigner. Photo

 by JT Marlin.

Once it was clear that Bill de Blasio had come from way behind to be the favorite in the NYC mayoral primary, the conventional wisdom was that de Blasio for Mayor would be a hard sell to the NYC establishment and that business money would flow to his opponent, Joe Lhota.

That seemed to be the pattern for the first two weeks after the primary on September 10. Lhota raised more money than de Blasio during that period. It wasn't clear where the Thompson and Quinn votes would go. A report came out saying that one-quarter or more of the Quinn votes would go to Lhota.

But two things happened next:

(1) By September 24, polls were out from the NY Times/Siena College and Quinnipiac pollsters that both gave de Blasio a three-to-one advantage. If Quinn votes were going to Lhota, they were thin on the ground.

(2) During the next two weeks, de Blasio has been raising more than twice as much as Lhota, as the table below shows.

	de Blasio	Lhota
Dem, GOP primaries, 9/10	$6,800K	$3,800K
First 2 weeks after primary	$153K	$156K
Since polls showed 3-1 deB	$635K	$280K

Source: NYC Campaign Finance Board filings

The latest poll in October shows deBlasio's advantage has climbed to 3.5 to one. Lhota has become a long shot. De Blasio's campaign team and consultants, having pulled off an upset, are not likely to be caught napping in the short campaign before the general election.

The wild card will be the independent messages from donors to Citizens United-type campaign funds trying to influence the election without having to reveal their identity. While these messages are a potential menace to any candidate, they are less targeted because they are prohibited from engaging in "express advocacy" for a client against another candidate -- and they are therefore likely to be less effective than direct campaign messages.

NYC | $ per Vote–de Blasio Lowest, $24

Bill de Blasio is the most efficient campaign spender so far this year, based on figures provided by Sam Roberts on p. A20 of today's New York Times, supplemented by my own historical investigation.

De Blasio spent $24 per vote (the same amount that Peter Minuit paid the Lenape or Canarsee Indians in goods for all of Manhattan, Battery not included) to campaign for the Democratic nomination for Mayor from the office of Public Advocate.

Thompson, two-time former City Comptroller, spent $36 per vote. Quinn spent $60 per vote. The Democrats were all more efficient in their spending than the Republicans, except for Anthony Weiner.

	Party	$ Million	$ per Vote	Votes
de Blasio	D	6.8	24	283,333
Thompson	D	6.6	36	183,333
Quinn	D	6.6	60	110,000
Liu	D	3.2	68	47,059
Lhota	R	3.8	119	31,933
Bloomberg, 2009	R	102.0	174	586,207
Weiner	D	6.6	190	34,737
Lauder, 1989	R	13.0	352	36,908
Catsimatidis	R	10.4	419	24,821

John Catsimatidis now outranks Ronald Lauder on spending per vote. Catsimatidis may be the biggest NYC mayoral campaign spender in history based on results, $419 per vote.

Ronald Lauder's 1989 primary campaign, costing $352 per vote, was at the time described as the most expensive campaign per vote in U.S. history.

The high cost of Mayor Bloomberg's 2009 campaign is also clear from this table - $174 per vote, $102 million total - 15 times the total amount that Bill de Blasio spent becoming the Democratic nominee for Mayor this year.

But Linda McMahon spent $454 per vote in the 2010 Connecticut GOP primary for U.S. Senate. She won it but then lost the general election with spending of $95 per vote - the most spent in any state or local general election in 2010.

In New York State, the most costly primary was the $3.1 million battle between Chris Cox and Randy Altschuler in NY District 1. Altschuler won, spending $191 per vote (Cox spent $195 per vote), but went on to lose to incumbent Tim Bishop, spending another $2 million for a $23-per-vote cost in the general election.

The success of the de Blasio primary campaign, if followed up by similar success in the faceoff with Lhota next month, will boost the already-strong credentials of de Blasio's campaign consultants -

• John de Cecato of AKPD Message and Media, founded by David Axelrod (de Cecato prepared the famous ad featuring Dante and his Afro). 
• Anna Greenberg of Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research, which did the polling for the de Blasio campaign. 
• Joe Rospars of Blue State Digital, the people who were brought together for the Howard Dean campaign in 2004, got behind Barack Obama in 2008 and signed up 13 million supporters for him online, raising $500 million via Quick Donate.

Of course, the campaign consultants should not get all the credit for the success of the candidate. Some of that should go to Mr. de Blasio himself, his Wellesley College wife Chirlane McCray, and their two impressive children.

NYC | Lhota v de Blasio on the Economy

Joe Lhota (L) and Bill de Blasio (R).

In preparation for the Primary, City Limits magazine collected the views of mayoral candidates on economic development.

Given that the two main candidates are now facing off in the General Election in less than five weeks, these views are worth consulting again, this time more attentively.

Joe Lhota (Republican nominee for Mayor of New York City)

• "Diversify our economy and provide an environment conducive to job creation and the elevation of the standard of living in all five boroughs."

• "Create a climate that will encourage and sustain job growth, including reducing burdensome regulations and taxes that stifle private sector growth."

Bill de Blasio (Democratic nominee for Mayor of New York City)

• Reform or eliminate corporate tax breaks to save the city $250 million and devote it to CUNY

•  Form cohesive system from currently disjointed job training and placement programs, especially for less-skilled workers

• Expand CTE high schools

• Use better zoning enforcement and infrastructure investment to promote manufacturing

• Strengthen “neglected" sectors by building economic development hubs in each neighborhood and launching loan and investment funds to provide capital to local start-ups

• Reduce fines on small businesses and increase their chances of landing city contracts

• Expand sick day coverage, push for higher wages through city contracts and provide better work-rights enforcement

Bill de Blasio, Joe Lhota, and the Future of NYC

Bill de Blasio with neighborhood friends from Brooklyn, 

November 24, 2013. Photo by JTMarlin.

New York City has been blessed with a succession of strong mayors, and now we have two strong candidates for mayor - the "second-toughest job in America," as the late Mayor Koch used to say.

Mayor Bloomberg will be a hard act to follow. Coming in right after 9-11, he was a godsend and must be considered one of the great mayors of the city. Having a mogul as Mayor was a signal that the city is likely to be safe for other moguls, and gave them confidence to stay, to visit and move in. The steady aggregation of wealth in Manhattan keeps the NYC brand strong, even if Wall Street's rep is in the gutter. NYC is still the safest big city.

Adolfo Carrion (L) and Joe Lhota (R) at AARP Mayoral

Forum. Photo by JTMarlin.

But, lucky as we are to have had him lead the City, Mayor Bloomberg is leaving behind some big problems for de Blasio or Lhota to deal with. For starters:

• The NYPD's "stop and frisk" hunts for illegal weapons or other contraband have been deemed unconstitutional by a Federal judge because they have had insufficient cause. Race is not enough of a reason to stop someone. The judge says a cop has to have a reason for stopping someone. That doesn't mean crime rates are going to have to soar again.
• The labor unions are chomping - no, foaming - at the bit for long-delayed collectively bargained contracts. The new agreements could be budget-busters. Depends on how the revenues come in and the U.S. economy is still recovering from 2008-09.
• The people Mayor Bloomberg chose to turn the school system around, and the methods they are using (such as constant testing) have been strongly criticized. Needs some re-thinking. 
• His economic development programs have been heavily real-estate-oriented and involve unprecedented levels of new property-tax abatements that will pinch the budget as more services are required for new areas of development.
• The late-in-the-game tech initiative, a Cornell campus on Roosevelt Island, may disappoint for the very reason that was its impetus - the City's interest in making use of property on Roosevelt Island.
• The Mayor's ability to fund his own election campaigns has meant that he is not forced like other politicians to hunt for contributions - which has kept him above interest-group pressure, great, but also has kept him detached from the hoi polloi.    

Both Bill de Blasio and Joe Lhota are capable of running  New York City. The major differences between them are ones of personality and policy.

• Personally, de Blasio is warm, enthusiastic, and neighborly, whereas Joe Lhota is tense, combative, and remote (when he is under stress, his eyelids come together as if he seems to want to shut out all the rest of the world).
• On the policy front, de Blasio wants to level the playing field for NYC's middle class and poor people, which means more services for them and probably higher taxes on the very well off. Lhota's biggest concern is to avoid raising taxes at the top rates and to keep NYC safe for wealthy apartment buyers. They both will be tempted to put these differences under the light of class warfare. Lhota may think he will win most this way, but I wouldn't bet on it. Not this year.

The unions may have been divided in the primary, but most of them seem to have no trouble scrambling from the Quinn and Thompson camps to de Blasio. The first two polls show de Blasio ahead by a three-to-one margin. (These numbers are virtually the same as those for Quinn vs. Lhota way back in 2012 when de Blasio was an unknown.) The first tests for the next mayor will be whether he can work out labor agreements that don't break the budget.

The good news for the next mayor, whether de Blasio or Lhota, is that New Yorkers are weary of their mogul. Twelve straight years of Bloomberg after eight years of Giuliani means that City Hall has gradually been cut off from the public, for reasons of security and of philosophy, in ways that were inconceivable in the Koch and Dinkins days.

To bridge the gap between income and wealth inequality described as "the two cities", de Blasio has made a specific proposal to get a little more money from the rich (raising the top tax rate slightly, by a fraction of a percentage point, on those earning more than $500,000 a year) to provide expanded access to early-childhood education for everyone. Offering earlier schooling means the working parent or parents can go back to work earlier, while the children are socialized earlier and are likely collectively to perform better in higher grades. NYC businesses will reap the benefit of a more skilled workforce. Lhota has accepted half the idea, the universal pre-school part, rejecting the idea that higher taxes would be needed.

In the less than six weeks between now and the election, the two campaigns and the many "independent" voices will be painting the choices in various colors of class warfare. Lhota has already said that de Blasio is using a "Marxist Playbook". The realistic range of policy options in New York City does not take us into the terra incognita of "There be Dragons" Marxism. But the City does face real choices.