DE BLASIO | NYC v. Snowstorm

Blizzard of February 2013.

My "Notify NYC" messages from the City of New York are still coming from "Michael Bloomberg". I guess that will be changed tomorrow when City workers are back at their computers.

The word from Notify NYC is that 6-8 inches of snow will fall starting 6 pm tomorrow, January 2, through 1 am Friday. The snow will be accompanied by "low temperatures" which means that the snow will accumulate and some will turn to ice.

Expect salt spreaders. Last year on February 7-9, the first big blizzard of the winter hit New York City and then-Mayor Bloomberg reported he had on hand 250,000 tons to spread on the streets of New York.

A snowstorm happening at the end of a week, on Friday or Saturday, is relatively benign for offices because only one day of work is lost. By Monday the commute is likely to be back to normal. Saturday is a less crucial day for most businesses, obviously excluding retailers and entertainments. During my stint as chief economist for three NYC Comptrollers in 1992-2006, we considered a Saturday economy as three-fourths of a Monday-Friday weekday economy and Sunday was one-fourth of a weekday, so it added up to a six-weekday week.

We estimated the relationship between certain storm variables and economic impact based on historical records. The crucial variables in a snowstorm for determining economic impact are the timing, the precipitation and the temperature. The impact is reduced if the snow is on a weekend, if the precipitation is low (two inches is where trouble can start) and if the temperature is above freezing, 32 F (32 degrees Fahrenheit).

Putting down salt allows the City of New York to reduce the impact of freezing temperature on the ability of commuters to get to work, or shoppers to get to stores. One of the worst scenarios is a slushy snowfall and then a deep freeze, causing icy roads. A snowstorm becomes a blizzard if the snow is driven by the wind.

In the laboratory, adding salt (sodium chloride) to water can bring down the freezing-melting point – depending on which way one is going - from 32 degrees Fahrenheit to 20 F (in the case of a 10 percent concentration of salt) or 2 F (for a 20 percent concentration). In practice, the lower number depends on how much salt one puts down on the roads (the more salt that is added, the higher the salinity percentage and the lower the freezing point of the water). In a lab, the freezing point can be brought down lower than in storm conditions. One source suggests that below 15 F, salt will have little effect.

So salt is only useful to add when the temperature is between 15 F and 32 F. Below 15 F, the salt won’t melt the ice. Above 32 F, ice won't form and the salinized water will just run off into the city sewers.

The preferred remedy for ice in places like Montreal, where I spent much of my childhood, is sand, which helps provide traction to pedestrians and motorists regardless of the temperature. My beloved grandmother Olga van Stockum nonetheless died of hip injuries after falling on Montreal ice in 1949.

Salt has some negative effects on the environment. It corrodes cars and other vehicles and the roads themselves. It is bad for shoes. The runoff is terrible for plants and marine life. Pets that walk outside get the salt on their paws and suffer from the abrasion.

But a big city needs to keep working. So we accept the negative impact of salt. The test is whether the mayor can keep the roads open on Friday morning.

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.

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.