David Weprin

City Comptroller candidate David Weprin is having a fund-raiser this Thursday at the Sheraton Hotel downtown.

The invitation doesn't show a dollar amount, but Weprin told me the ticket price is $250 and up.

Looking ahead to other 2009 citywide races, all three mayoral candidates are expected to be in Denver for the convention. Bill Thompson arrived yesterday, Anthony Weiner is arriving today, and Christine Quinn's office said she will be here.

In an appearance last night on the Perez Notes radio show, Council finance committee chair (and comptroller candidate) David Weprin discussed David Paterson's speech on the budget, congestion pricing and development in the city.

Perez also brought up the Council slush fund incident, which Weprin was quick to characterize as a minor blip in the face of a roughly $60 billion budget.

“I’m not proud of these scandals or these misappropriations of some small amount of money in a very large budget, but in the end I think the process is stronger for it, and we’re all better off for all the scrutiny that came out of this,” he said.  read more »

A legislative breakfast for a Brooklyn-based educational group, Shema Kolainu, on August 5 will be something of a who’s who of New York politicians.

Amusingly, attendees will hear both “remarks” from State Senator Kevin Parker, and “greetings” from one of the Democrats looking to unseat him, Simcha Felder.

The chairman of the event is possible mayoral candidate John Catsimatidis, whose company, Gristedes, is the sponsor.

(Honorary chair status is given to Chuck Schumer and Hillary Clinton, which may help sell a few more tickets.)

The event is paying tribute to, among others, Comptroller Tom DiNapoli, the State Senate minority leader, Malcolm Smith, comptroller candidate and City Councilman David Weprin, and City Councilman Bill de Blasio, who is also a candidate for Brooklyn borough president.

Campaign finance filings for the city comptroller race show candidates getting ready for what looks like it will be one of the more competitive 2009 races. (The latest filing period is January 12 to July 11, 2008.)

According to a search of donations for those candidates between those dates:

David Yassky--$463,575

David Weprin--$334,499

Melinda Katz--$206,154

Jim Brennan--$84,577

Adolfo Carrion’s campaign finance numbers are not posted yet on the Campaign Finance Board’s Web site, but his campaign spokeswoman said he raised $600,000 this filing period.

Melinda Katz's numbers are lower than expected, but then she did just have a baby.

UPDATE: Here are the contribution numbers for the comptroller candidates:

Adolfo Carrion: $570,052
David Yassky: $452,075.00
David Weprin: $316,899.00
Melinda Katz: $192,938.00
Jim Brennan: $83,677.00

(These numbers take into account any refunded donations the candidates dealt with.)

Since campaign finance numbers for city candidates are due tomorrow, a few have begun releasing them, including two candidates in the competitive comptroller's race, David Yassky and Jim Brennan.

Yassky’s campaign said they raised almost $500,000 this period, from a total of 600 donors, bringing his cash-on-hand total to $1.25 million.

Jim Brennan’s campaign spokeswoman said he raised $104,000 this filing period, bringing his total raised to $507,000. The spokeswoman, Jill Harris, also said the campaign is eligible to receive more than $750,000 in matching funds.

Numbers for the other comptroller candidates--Melinda Katz, Adolfo Carrion and David Weprin--were not immediately available.

UPDATE: Weprin told me he raised $336,000 this filing period, bringing his cash on hand total to $1.7 million.

Even in these days of increased transparency when it comes to the City Council's appropriation of member items, the process remains, unavoidably, one that rewards people who know people.

For example, the Metropolitan Council on Jewish Poverty, a non-profit group whose executive director, William Rapfogel, is married to the Assembly Speaker's chief of staff, Judy Rapfogel, got $556,250 in member items this year.

The Ridgewood Bushwick Senior Center, a group founded and closely associated with Vito Lopez, an Assemblyman and Brooklyn Democratic County Leader, got $658,089 in member items.

In the comments section of my original post on these member items, Mendy points out that Leib Glantz, a politically active Satmar rabbi, is a big winner because his group, UJCare, got a $200,000 member item to fund "a variety of services.  read more »

Here's an invitation for a David Yassky fund-raiser tonight on the Upper West Side.

One of the event's hosts is Andrew Tomback, a long-time Yassky contributor who has also given some money to Eric Gioia and, once, back in the day, to Alan Hevesi.

Other notable names include John Alschuler, who has contributed to progressive Democrats like Mark Green and Ruth Messinger. Alschuler has also given money to another comptroller candidate, Melinda Katz ($250 on July 7, 2007).

And there's also Charles Simon, who ran in a special election for an Assembly seat, but was defeated by Linda Rosenthal.  read more »

Councilman Simcha Felder is not getting into the city comptroller race, but he will run for the Brooklyn State Senate seat currently held by fellow Democrat Kevin Parker, according to a source.  read more »

As this dispatch from intern Bharat Ayyar shows, Eric Gioia wasn't the only Council member who yelled at Mark Page today:

High above the action, seated on the upper level at the Council Chambers at City Hall, third and fourth grade students from P.S. 60 observed Friday's hearings on the budget.

"Pay attention. There'll be a test later," quipped Finance Committee Chair David Weprin.

As different members of the council lined up to grill Mark Page, the director of the city Office of Management and Budget, on the '09 budget, which must be approved by the end of June, it quickly became clear that much of the debate would center on education.

District 7 Councilman Robert Jackson of Manhattan butted heads with Page at the hearing on issues of funding and what he said was the city's wavering commitment to the Contracts for Excellence with the state.

At a hearing earlier this week, Schools Chancellor Joel Klein said that it would take $400 million to maintain city schools at 07-08 levels. Without that money, Klein made it clear that cuts would be made. The mayor's proposed budget allocates $428 million less for education than what had originally been planned. Various Council members have said that they will not allow the budget to pass if "there's a dime being cut from the classroom."

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Councilman Eric Gioia grilled the city’s budget director about the slush fund scandal during a heated Council hearing in City Hall just now.

Gioia asked, pointedly, whose job is to make sure there are no phony organizations in the city budget and what guarantees exist to ensure there are no fake groups in this year’s budget.

The budget director, Mark Page, said at one point that he felt like he was “being grilled by a local prosecutor.” He added, “I’m not sure this is the forum for you to be asking me these questions.”

When pressed about whose job it was to catch the phony groups, Page said that his agency got a list from the City Council, implicitly laying the blame with the head of the City Council, Christine Quinn. (One of her top aides, Chuck Meara, was sitting in the front row in the City Council chambers during the hearing, taking note of the exchange.)

Page told Gioia, “Your question about assurance from me that there’s nothing fraudulent in the line items [of the budget], logistically, is -- looking backwards -- is a problem for me as to how to do it.”  read more »