David Yassky

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Congestion pricing, for all practical purposes, died this week. But Councilman David Yassky hasn’t lost faith.

“If you step back, the congestion pricing idea was put forward by Michael Bloomberg a year ago, and it’s a very big idea,” he said on the night of April 7, a few hours after Sheldon Silver’s Democratic Assembly majority snuffed out the proposal in committee. “It’s a complicated idea, it’s an ambitious idea. In some ways, it’s amazing that it’s gotten as far as it has in as short a time.”  read more »

Assemblyman Jim Brennan of Brooklyn, who is also running for city comptroller, introduced his own congestion pricing bill today. A spokesman, when asked, did not say whether he will support the plan as it is currently presented to lawmakers.

Brennan's new bill would ensure the program comes up for renewal in three years, and wouldn't allow the state to issue bonds against the program's future earning. Critics say allowing the bonds means the current congestion pricing plan wouldn't be temporary enough because it would last for the life of the bonds.
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A reader sent along this invitation for a May 1 awards dinner hosted by the Independent Neighborhood Democrats, a political club in Brooklyn. Among the honorees is the organization's councilman, David Yassky, who is also a candidate for city comptroller.  read more »

Last night two city comptroller candidates -- Melinda Katz and David Weprin -- voted against congestion pricing, while three of their likely opponents in the race -- David Yassky, Simcha Felder and John Liu -- voted for it.
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A congestion pricing measure before the Council just passed, 30 to 20.

Domenic Recchia, who is planning to run for Congress, took a pass on voting the first time around, but eventually voted yes. Eric Gioia, who had told the New York Times on March 8 that he was voting no, also voted for it. Comptroller candidate Melinda Katz voted no, but her likely rival David Yassky voted yes. The two candidates for Brooklyn brough president, Bill De Blasio and Charles Barron, both voted against.  read more »

Here’s a shot from the breakfast hosted Sunday morning by the Council of Orthodox Jewish Organizations on the West Side, which, as Grace Rauh noted, attracted nearly every 2009 candidate for citywide office.  read more »

During an interview on The Perez Notes last night, Democratic consultant Hank Sheinkopf delivered a hypothetical negative ad against Councilwoman Melinda Katz, one of the leading candidates for comptroller in 2009.

“I haven’t written it yet," said Sheinkopf. "I’m going to write it write now. Somebody can steal this and do what they want with it:

"‘Melinda Katz wants to be comptroller of the city of New York. Her credentials? Well, she was the Land Use Chair of the City Council. Here are some facts. During her Land Use [Committee] chairmanship, New Yorkers lost more affordable housing than in any other time in history. Rents skyrocketed. She’s taken millions from land lords. Some of those landlords'--lets do it this way--

"'She’s taken hundreds of thousands from landlords, slumlords, the worst kind of people. Those who want to jack up our rents and throw us on the street. So there you have it. Melinda Katz, for the landlords. Think she ought to be comptroller? Ha. Absolutely not.'

Response from Katz's office after the jump.  read more »

Adolfo Carrion just announced two more co-chairs for his city comptroller campaign: former city comptroller Elizabeth Holtzman and Merryl H. Tisch, chairperson of the Metropolitan Council on Jewish Poverty.

Last month, Carrion rolled out two others: former state comptroller Carl McCall and business executive Leo Hindrey Jr.

Locking up the support of two former comptrollers gives Carrion, at least, a distinction among a field that also includes Melinda Katz, David Yassky, David Weprin, Simcha Felder and James Brennan.

The official statement is after the jump.  read more »

St. Patrick’s Day is coming up, and so is the big parade, meaning it's once again for local politicians to make a statement one way or another on the organizers' decision not to allow gays to participate under their own banner.

I asked a few possible citywide candidates about their parade plans, and here’s what I heard back so far.

Mayoral candidates:

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The co-chairs for Adolfo Carrion’s comptroller campaign will be former state comptroller H. Carl McCall and business executive Leo Hindrey Jr. of InterMedia Partners, the campaign announced this morning.

Hindrey, the former C.E.O. of the YES Network (which broadcasts Yankees games) also helped raise money for another Bronx politician seeking citywide office: Fernando Ferrer, who ran for mayor in 2005.  read more »

Here is David Yassky spokesman Sam Rockwell, who is leaving the Council payroll to go on tour with his band, The XYZ Affair. I asked Rockwell, who plays drums and provides backup vocals, if working in politics has ruined his cred in the music scene--both he and Yassky weigh in.  read more »

For those buildings in the city that are kept warm with heating oil, a City Council proposal could throw some old French fry residue into the mix. Tomorrow, the council's environmental protection committee is hearing two bills that would require all heating oil to be 20 percent biodiesel, forcing the more environmentally friendly combustible often made from vegetable oil into the mix. The bills, introduced by Council Members James Gennaro and David Yassky, would take full effect in 2013.

Biodiesel tends to be more expensive than normal heating oil, though advocates in New York and elsewhere are pushing for government subsidies.  read more »

To the fund-raising numbers for comptroller candidates Adolfo Carrion, Melinda Katz, David Yassky, and David Weprin -- all hovering around the million dollar mark -- add a total for one more candidate.

Jim Brennan’s campaign announced just now that he’s raised $144,000 in this most recent fund-raising period, bringing his total amount of contributions up to $405,000, they said. That leaves him with $280,000 on hand, according to spokeswoman Linda Gross.

Brennan’s campaign estimates they are also eligible for about $670,000 in matching funds from the city’s Campaign Finance Board.

David Yassky (jokingly?) suggests that reporters should be subject to Freedom of Information Law requests, just like elected officials. Why? Because it would be educational to the public, and so he can to see the stockpile of embarrassing footage of his colleagues.

UPDATE: Yassky just called to tell us: he's definitely joking! "I was trying to be humorous, but I guess I'm no Simcha Felder," Yassky said, referring to his comedic comptroller rival.

Non-presidential campaign activity!

On Monday. A "Lawyers for Yassky” fund-raiser.

Details here.

* Pictured above is Councilman James Gennaro with Josh Tickell, the producer and star of “Field of Fuel,” a documentary about foreign oil dependence that has been selected for the Sundance Film Festival. As Gennaro’s press release puts it, “The film also features a variety of people, including Woody Harrelson, Julia Roberts and Councilman James F. Gennaro, Chair of the Council’s Committee on Environmental Protection.”

* Councilman Simcha Felder will hold the second of two kick-off fundraisers for his bid for comptroller in Queens this Thursday. The suggested donation is $18, perhaps an effort to draw a contrast with rival David Yassky, who asked supporters for $500 at his kick-off. Felder’s first event was in Brooklyn on Monday night.  read more »

Some reactions from the 2009 circuit to Adolfo Carrion’s entry into the comptroller’s race:

Fernando Ferrer, the most recent Hispanic candidate to run for mayor, told me via cell phone, “Well look, I think that he’s staked out for himself a race where he’s going to be a dominant figure.”

Asked if he was disappointed that Carrion would not be seeking the mayor's office, Ferrer replied, “I’ve just given you my comments.”

More after the jump.  read more »

At the kick-off fund-raiser for David Yassky's campaign for city comptroller last night, I asked him to tell me a little about the race, which will be his second high-profile bid in as many years.

“Well, it all started when I was five,” Yassky jokingly began, before turning serious.

“I started in city government when Koch was mayor, 20 years ago, at the budget office. I talk about it because that is where I first saw what a difference it makes whether you spend money on something that’s a big waste or whether you spend money on something that has a big effect,” he said.

More after the jump.  read more »

 

 

This evening, David Yassky kicks off his City Comptroller campaign with a fund-raiser at the Harvard Club.

He's part of a fairly crowded field in which some of the candidates have already started to raise money and endorsements: Melinda Katz, David Weprin, Jim Brennan and (all-but-declared) Simcha Felder.

The next Campaign Finance Board disclosure filing deadline is January 15. Any predictions as to what the candidates will show?

UPDATE: Also tonight is a birthday party/fund-raiser for Assemblyman Micah Kellner of Manhattan at XES Lounge, 157 West 24th Street, starting at 6:30 p.m.

I just spoke to David Yassky, the Brooklyn councilman and comptroller candidate who was in on Hillary Clinton's closed-press two-hour backroom meeting with Brooklyn politicians late yesterday afternoon.

Yassky said that Clinton turned in an "uber-impressive" performance, fielding questions dealing with, among other things, the persistently high unemployment rate for young African-American males, energy policy and President Vladimir Putin. (The Russia question came from an Assemblyman from Brighton Beach.)

"In Brooklyn you get a very wide range of issues and interests," Yassky said.

It's official: David Yassky is running for comptroller.

He filed paperwork with the Campaign Finance Board late last week and it just popped up on the CFB’s web site a few minutes ago.

Earlier, I noted the strategy will likely be to pick up support in his vote-rich section of Brooklyn and, since the race is full of outer borough candidates, scoop up the largely unclaimed votes in Manhattan. The other candidates in the race are David Weprin, Melinda Katz and possibly John Liu, all from Queens, plus Simcha Felder and James Brennan from Brooklyn. There's low-level grumbling about Adolfo Carrion getting into that race (although Carrion indicates he'd prefer to run for mayor).

When I spoke with Yassky on Friday, he didn’t confirm or deny he was entering the race. Instead, he said, “I still feel like it’s a long time away. And when given that we still have a city that is almost entirely reliant on diesel fuel to heat itself, when there is biofuels that would make so much of a difference, in terms of carbon emission, and we’re still spending all this money on tax breaks that would happen anyway, which we shouldn’t be doing. I feel like those are the things to be focusing on. Over and above atoning for my sins.”

He added, “It seems too far away to be talking about 2009.”

UPDATE: Just to clarify, Yassky's statement about atoning for sins was a eference was to Yom Kippur, which started on Friday, the day we spoke.

Councilman and all-but-announced city comptroller candidate Simcha Felder of Brooklyn hired another staffer: Eric Kuo, who will be the new new press person.

Kuo previously did press for Councilman Vincent Gentile, a Democrat in the conservative-leaning Bay Ridge section of Brooklyn (the same area that produced Democratic operatives George Fontas, Scott Gastel and Sam Cooper). He also worked for Councilman Oliver Koppell in the Riverdale section of the Bronx. (There are probably some notable operatives from there too, but I'll need some help on that one.)

More on Kuo after the jump.  read more »

Barack Obama is in town today – look for him on The Daily Show later tonight – and the non-vacationing Azi was on hand at a rally near Times Square that the Illinois senator held to show off some endorsements from New York pols.

You can get a summary of the event here, but Azi took note of the presence of one particular elected official:

Given that one of Obama’s themes is “turning the page” on the past, it seems ironic that he’s touting the endorsement of City Councilman Al Vann. Vann is a product of the Civil Rights generation who got his political start during the Ocean Hill-Brownsville fight over school control. But he’s dabbled in the kind of racially polarizing politics that Obama talks about overcoming. For instance, he rallied opposition to David Yassky’s Brooklyn last year – in part, by pointing out that Yassky was “a white individual.”

 

About that talk going around that City Councilman David Yassky of Brooklyn will enter the already-crowded City Comptroller’s race in 2009...

"I’m not trying to be coy about it," Yassky just told me. "I want to stay in government. I love this work. I think I’ll want to keep doing it after my term is over. And I think I’ll be in another election," but 2009 is "too far away and I have not decided. We’re not there."

Though there are at least five candidates, it's not that outlandish for Yassky to calculate that there may be room for one more. The list of announced and likely candidates for comptroller include Simcha Felder and James Brennan of Brooklyn, and John Liu, Melinda Katz and David Weprin of Queens, if I'm not missing anyone. The pool of voters in Manhattan, in the absence of another entrant (Scott Stringer, maybe?), are anything but locked down.

Yassky is popular with the New York Times and with Michael Bloomberg, who has already held two fund-raisers for Felder, but has shared national TV time with Yassky. So, if he can line up backing uptown and in his part of Brooklyn... who knows?

Sort of.  read more »

People suddenly care what he says about the environment.  read more »

Nine members of Brooklyn’s Community Board 6 have not been reappointed to another two-year term after the board took several votes opposing the Atlantic Yards project.  read more »

In case you missed it, Mike Bloomberg was on The Today Show this morning to announce that the city will phase in hybrid vehicles into the city’s taxi fleet over the next five years as part of his overall effort to reduce local pollution.

The mayor was joined by two other guests. One was Yahoo’s Vice President of Marketing, Patrick Crane, whose company donated 10 hybrid taxis to the city.

“And," the mayor said, by way of announcing the other, "most importantly, this is City Councilman David Yassky, who’s been leading the environmental fight here in the city."

Not a bad plug for Yassky on national television.

Afterwards, Matt Lauer used the occasion to ask about 2008.

“So the taxis next year have to meet emission standards, just in time for you to run for President,” he said.

 

Bloomberg’s response: “Well, part of your statement is right.”

A number of community board members in Brooklyn’s Brownstone Belt who voted against Atlantic Yards will not be reappointed next week, according to officials involved with the process.

Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz, an early and ardent supporter of the housing-and-arena complex at Atlantic and Flatbush avenues, is expected to replace several Community Board 6 members when he makes appointments next week. Community Board 6 includes Park Slope, Boerum Hill, Cobble Hill and Red Hook and last year issued a strongly worded rejection of the project proposed by private developer Forest City Ratner.

“We would like to remain optimistic that we can contribute to changes in the current plan which would accomplish the laudable goals of the project concepts. But in its current form we cannot support this project,” wrote then-board Chairman Jerry Armer in a Sept. 29, 2006, letter (PDF) to the Empire State Development Corporation, the government sponsor of the project. “We cannot possibly support the current project with the knowledge that we would be causing irreparable harm to our own communities.”  read more »

There aren't enough reporters covering the presidential candidates, according to Ben.

But there are a lot of 2008 campaign flacks.

Barack Obama just hired a pollster who worked, at various times, for Bill Clinton and David Yassky.

Rudy Giuliani watched yesterday's Yankee game with noted pollster Frank Luntz.

Christine Quinn is the 16th most powerful gay American, according to this list

What would happen if you based your NCAA basketball predictions on teams from states with strong campaign finance laws? Bethany Foster of The Brennan Center found out.

The LGBT community made out pretty well in the state budget, according to The Agenda.

Sewell Chan is all over a story about Starbucks, unions and body piercing.

George Pataki spoke with Montell Williams and said it's "completely wrong" to set a date-specific deadline for withdrawing troops from Iraq.

Jon Corzine didn't deliver to Hillary the kind of massive endorsement that Jim McGreevery delivered to Howard Dean.

Liz Sabater has video footage of Bill Richardson when he was in New York recently, and explains that she missed other events because she was partying with Nancy Pelosi.

Federal money is available to boost the economy in Appalachian parts of New York.

A Pissed Off Teacher makes note of a law firm specializing in teachers in trouble.

And pictured above are Bill Thompson and Adolfo Carrion sort of shaking hands at an event yesterday.

-- Azi Paybarah

Freshman Congresswoman Yvette Clarke of Brooklyn, the only Democratic member of the New York delegation yet to endorse Hillary Clinton for President, just confirmed a report on the reason she's holding out.

She hasn't endorsed yet, in part, because Hillary spokesman and advisor Howard Wolfson worked on the Congressional campaign of David Yassky, who was one of Clarke's opponents in last year's four-way primary.

Here is NBC's transcript of Clarke's interview this morning with John Noel:

JOHN NOEL: The fact that her political consultant worked for your opponent in the congressional race, does that play into this at all? YVETTE CLARKE: Of course that raises a big flag, you know, puts up an antenna because again that was an issue that the community was very ill at ease with. And we've had some conversations about it to be quite honest with you. And I think that that needs to be addressed in order for the community to feel like that something like that would not occur again.

UPDATE: Wolfson responds:

"My work for David Yassky was based on a decade of friendship with him. I have enormous respect for Congresswoman Clarke and look forward to supporting her re-election."

-- Azi Paybarah

Here’s something ordinary New Yorkers don’t often get to see: a candidly worded strategy  read more »

Yvette Clarke may have played up the female angle in last year's congressional election, but that was nothing compared to this.

From a piece on Clarke in The Hill:

Clarke isn't your typical half-lost, conservatively dressed freshman. More runway than House floor, upon arriving at lunch she unwraps a thick, multicolored scarf and removes a long, pretty beige overcoat to reveal an animal-print Gianni Versace suit -- a mid-thigh-length skirt accompanied by a short blazer. A beige fur cap covers a sleek new hairdo. "Now that my hair's so short I can feel the breeze," she says, explaining that she recently removed her hair weave. She says people in Congress have been doing double-takes at her fur cap. She doesn't care. She stands tall in black wedged heels.

Now I ask you, if the election had turned out differently, would anyone be writing this way about Chris Owens or David Yassky?

-- Azi Paybarah

City Council Speaker Christine Quinn has reached a compromise with a dissident faction of City Council members that had pushed for ending tax breaks for market-rate real estate developers.

The compromise, reached on Tuesday morning, will expand the so-called exclusion zone for the 421-a multifamily housing tax incentive to more parts of East Harlem, Carroll Gardens, Sunset Park, and Bushwick, meaning that new buildings in those areas will only receive tax abatements if they include affordable housing, Jonathan Rosen, a spokesman for Housing Here & Now, a coalition of housing advocacy groups, told The Real Estate.

He said, in addition, the compromise bill requires developers who tap into the city's new $400 million affordable housing trust fund to keep their units affordable for 50 years or provide for them to be sold to tenants or to the city.

Quinn came Tuesday morning to the 20-odd members who had backed a stronger reform bill by David Yassky and Annabel Palma and asked for nine of their votes, according to an individual briefed on the conversation. Quinn already had a majority of Council members behind her bill, but needed more in order to prevent the appearance of a sharply divided Council. (Most Council votes pass unanimously or nearly so.)

It is unclear just how many of the 20 will support Quinn, but reportedly enough of them will. Another source said that some Council members are still trying to get further concessions, including a requirement that developers would need to make 30 percent of units in core Manhattan affordable to low- and middle-income folks, instead of the current 20 percent, in order to qualify for tax breaks.  read more »

- Matthew Schuerman

A heated debate is taking place at City Hall today as two competing factions--one led by City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, the other by Bronx Democrat Annabel Palma and Brooklyn Democrat David Yassky--fight to bring as many City Council members as they can to their sides of the 421-a residential tax break debate. (A source says that Quinn is winning, but that Palma and Yassky still have loyalists.)

As part of the lobbying effort by the affordable housing coalition that supports the Palma-Yassky bill, Brad Lander, the director of the Pratt Center for Community Development, produced, virtually overnight, a 15-page color report (PDF) showing 54 recently built or under-construction buildings located outside of Quinn's exclusion zone with condos selling for between $350,000 and $2 million, with most in the high six figures.

Since 421-a applies to new buildings, these will be grandfathered into the program no matter what happens. Lander's point: neighborhoods like Borough Park, Forest Hills and Hamilton Heights, which are well outside Quinn's zone, are well-established by now, and Quinn's bill would still reward developers even when they build market-rate apartments in more gentrified places like these.

- Matthew Schuerman

The Black Brooklyn Empowerment Convention of 2006 has been a fascination of mine since I got my hands on the first email about it...which referred to David Yassky as a white individual and threw a spotlight on the racial implications of his congressional race.

Then we found out about a not-so-publicized meeting of convention organizers with Eliot Spitzer, where they demanded more blacks get jobs in all state agencies.

Now, comes word that all that convention planning and organizing has left the group in debt. Below is a copy of the group's latest agenda, which someone was kind enough to send along.

Note item No. 6:

To: Planning Committee, Black Brooklyn Empowerment Convention 2006

From: Councilman Al Vann

Re: Follow-up Meeting The next meeting of the Brooklyn Black Empowerment Convention will be held on Saturday, November 4, 2006 at 1360 Fulton Street, 3rd Floor- The Skylight Gallery, Bedford-Stuyvesant Restoration.

As usual, we shall begin promptly at 10:00 a.m. and adjourn by 12 noon. Among the issues to be considered:

1. Report from meeting with Attorney General Eliot Spitzer

2. Update on "Cluster" activities and plans

3. Post-convention restructuring of Planning Committee

4. Printing and distribution of ratified Agenda

5. Use of Convention's web site and email address

6. Eliminating convention debt

7. Open agenda

Thank you.

A spokeswoman for the convention declined to put a dollar amount on the convention debt.

-- Azi Paybarah

Harold Ford gave up his safe U.S. House seat to run for the Senate this year, a gamble that now appears on the verge of failing. But even in defeat, he might enjoy an option that many similar ex-House members don't: the chance to reclaim his seat almost immediately.

That's because Steve Cohen, the Democrat on course to succeed Ford representing the Memphis-based 9th District, will be supremely vulnerable to a primary challenge in 2008. Cohen, a longtime state senator who emerged with 29 percent of the vote from a 14-way Democratic primary in August, is white -- in a 60 percent black district specifically designed to encourage the election of an African-American and protected by the Voting Rights Act.

That Cohen is white and Jewish played a major role in the primary, with ugly slurs occasionally making their way into the public discussion of the contest. Cohen defended himself by saying that he was a white man who would vote "like a black woman" and pledging to seek membership in the Congressional Black Caucus - an idea that was met with something between indifference and hostility by the CBC's current members.

If Ford decides he wants to return to the House in '08, knocking off Cohen in a primary would probably be a lay-up, since his star power could keep the field from getting too crowded.

The biggest question would be whether Ford will opt for this path, since he has clearly grown tired of the House and its creaky seniority system and plainly envisions a more prominent place for himself in American public life. Plus, to play the race card in an '08 primary - even subtly - might negatively affect any hopes Ford might harbor of another statewide bid.

The situation in Ford's district is not unlike the recent drama in New York's 11th District, another Voting Rights district where a white Jew - Councilman David Yassky - ran in a crowded primary against several credible black candidates. Yassky, of course, was branded "a colonizer" by outgoing Congressman Major Owens, and was edged out by Yvette Clark in the September primary.

-- Steve Kornacki

Keith Ellison of Minnesota, who is poised to be the first Muslim congressman, got a visit and endorsement yesterday from Rep. Anthony Weiner.

Ellison, who converted to Islam from Christianity, is poised to become the de facto spokesperson for a large portion of the county's Muslim community. The trip to Minnesota certainly seems like another example of Weiner, an outspoken Israel hawk who was listed among the 50 most influential Jews in America by the Forward, broadening his portfolio.

It's not entirely unlike his decision to endorse and campaign for Yvette Clarke against David Yassky, a fellow alumni from Schumerworld, in the NY-11th. And, since, his credibility among his base ethnic constituents is apparently unimpeachable, just as smart politically.

Dept. of Semantics: A reader emails to say, "Get your terminology right. It's Schumerland, not Schumerworld." -- Azi Paybarah

As his first major legislative action since losing that congressional race in Brooklyn, David Yassky will act to take a number of "ludicrous laws" -- outdated and ridiculous-sounding rules crafted, perhaps, in more humorous times -- off the books.

Among the bills being repealed is one that says it's illegal to use a horse to wash a street, sidewalk, or steps of a building.

The rest are after the jump.

Any other laws that the Council should repeal?  read more »

-- Azi Paybarah

On June 8, a memo was sent to “Black Elected Officials, City, State, and Federal” from City Coun  read more »

On June 8, a memo was sent to “Black Elected Officials, City, State, and Federal” from C  read more »

As part of our continuing efforts to flood the zone on the Charles Barron beat, we caught up with him yesterday outside City Hall. Unlike David Yassky, who looked absolutely haggard -- he appears to have lost so much weight in the course of his campaign that he was swimming in his suit -- Barron didn't look or act like a man who'd just been defeated.

"Big victory, big victory. You're looking at the next Congressman from the 10th congressional district, that was a big loss for Ed Towns," said Barron, who finished second in a three-way primary in which Towns, the incumbent, received less than 50 percent of the vote. "That was a big loss for Al Sharpton endorsed someone who the majority of the people voted against," he said.

"I think Sharpton's influence is not only waning -- it is non-existent in some instances. Sharpton lost with two judges. Sharpton lost in our race I believe, and the races he was winning in, those folks were going to win any way. I think is shows a waning influence and people shouldn't let him continue to play this last-minute endorsement game, waiting to see who is going to win and then get on their side. So this is a victory for the masses."  read more »

Other Barron favorites appear to include primary opponent Roger Green, "the most disgraceful person in this whole thing," Andrew Cuomo, "a slumlord," and Hillary Clinton, because "she's for the war."

--Jason Horowitz

The opposition blog No Land Grab floats the intriguing idea that had David Yassky opposed Atlantic Yards outright, he could have stolen some of Chris Owens' votes and won in the 11th. -Matthew Schuerman