Westchester

As they did in Manhattan, home sales in Westchester County jumped in the first three months of 2007. Sales were up more than 18 percent from the fourth quarter of 2006 through the first of this year, according to the Westchester-Putnam Multiple Listing Service. In the first quarter, in fact, Westchester recorded 10,250 home sales—more than what Manhattan typically sees in an entire year.  read more »

Like in Manhattan, home sales in Westchester County jumped in the first three months of 2007. Sales were up more than 18 percent from the fourth quarter of 2006 through the first of this year, according to the Westchester-Putnam Multiple Listing Service. In the first quarter, in fact, Westchester recorded 10,250 home sales—more than what Manhattan typically sees in an entire year.  read more »

• MTA mulls sliding glass doors for Second Ave. Subway.
[NY Times]
• Atlantic Yards work under way as doubts, suits dog it.
[NY Times]
• Upper East Side residents argue over dog run.
[NY Sun]
• Foye: ESDC may lower developer subsidies.
[NY Sun]
• Loehmann's opens Upper West Side location.
[NY Sun]
• Jean Nouvel's condo rising in Chelsea a 'vision.'
[NY Sun]
• City may create a historic district out of NoHo.
[NY Sun]
• Pension funds feast off Manhattan real estate.
[NY Sun]
• Scorsese sells Upper East Side townhouse.
[NY Post]
• Newer lower Westchester high-rises draw city buyers.
[NY Post]

Did we miss any New York City real estate news this morning? Please send along tips and links.

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Some of Eliot Spitzer's budget decisions are not going down so well in Westchester.

Here's part of a dramatically worded letter sent today by Democratic Assembly members from Westchester to Paul Francis, the governor's budget director, about the new school funding formula:

"We racked our brains to find a single example of the use of the education formula to harm an individual municipality. We often find ways to single out a community for help. Never before, never before has a community been singled out for harm. It is a terrible precedent that once unleashed, can be turned against a community that has fallen from political favor, or which is sacrificed on the alter of expediency, even if that expediency is a timely budget, as you suggest in your letter."

The entire letter is here.

-- Azi Paybarah

• The car parking at Soho's 123 Baxter is "hidden from view and lacks human operators." (Lasers steer the cars into spots, or something like that.) Better yet, it's now open to the public instead of the owners of the 24 condo units. [Metropolis]
• The genius firm Architectural Artifacts is selling off (plus disassembling, shipping, and reassembling) the carved limestone entryway from a Westchester estate. And it only costs $135,000.00! [Luxist]
• The attractively-named Solid Waste Management Plan ("'the swamp' in waste-savvy lingo") aims to get 25 percent of NYC's waste out of landfills/trash-burners this year, and 70 percent by 2015. Luckily for us, recylcing is a hoot. [City Limits]
• An artist (with a lot of time and talent on his hands) drew every fire escape in lovely eastern Soho [above]. Click on all his Web site's little boxes if you really like the fiery rustication between Broadway, West Broadway, Houston and Canal. [The Fireladders of Soho, via Gothamist] - Max Abelson
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Inspired by the state comptroller succession controversy, Assemblyman George Latimer has pre-emptively come out with a new proposal on how to fill the lieutenant governor's position in case of emergency. With one interesting catch. It has to be approved by the state Senate.

A Democratic Assemblyman wants a constitutional amendment to give the governor the power to pick a new lieutenant governor should that office become vacant during his or her term. Right now, the state constitution is unclear how that vacancy would be filled, according to Assemblyman George Latimer of Westchester.

"I don't see the senate confirmation process as being devious," Latimer told me just now in a telephone interview.

When asked if this provision could be used to block the governor from selecting his preferred candidate for that position, Latimer said, "I think it's consistent with what you've seen before. And anything can happen. Unless you get to a position at some future time that the well is so badly poisoned that it's impossible for any of us to work together at all, but I don't envision that happening at all. Not for lieutenant governor where everyone will grant that the governor should have his partner."

-- Azi Paybarah

On Tuesday afternoon, The Real Estate got a strange email from Westchester-based PR man Rich Roher.

Today's decision by the NYS Appeals Court, reversing a June 2005 NYS Supreme Court decision, effectively says that a landlord cannot compel a leasee to acquire terrorism insurance if terrorism is not specifically included in the lease's named perils policy. In other word's [sic], landlords must specifically state in a lease if they will require leasees (or their assigns) to have terrorism insurance.

Frankly, we didn't know landlords ever had the chance to force terrorism insurance upon anyone. But, apparently, they can't anymore.

More to come from Warren Estis of Rosenberg & Estis, the lawyer who represented the Appellant from 9 West 57th...

- Max Abelson

From the prepared text of Bronx Borough President Adolfo Carrion's State of the Borough speech today, this:

"We need to redouble our efforts and my friends, continue to fight against initiatives like the proposed closing of Westchester Square Medical Center and other so called cost-cutting measures that put our community in further danger. And so I pledge to you today that I will join members of the City Council, the Chair of the Health Committee, Council Majority Leader Joel Rivera and the Bronx delegation, as well as members of the State legislature to fight these cuts as we enter this year's budget discussion. Please count on me to testify before your respected bodies and help you make the case for the people of the Bronx and the City."

If it's not clear enough what he's talking about here, this line on Carrion's website states the premise more neatly:

"CARRION TOURS WESTCHESTER SQUARE MEDICAL CENTER Vows to Put Pressure on Governor Spitzer"

UPDATE: 1199 piles on, issuing a statement saying that Carrion "realizes that the closing of facilities and cutting of healthcare programs do not represent reform, and certainly don't put patients first."

-- Azi Paybarah

• Libet Johnson's 1840 brownstone, which she recently bought from Meryl Streep, is on the market for $16 milion. The five-story townhouse, on West 12th Street, has eight bedrooms and a "two-tier garden." [WSJ]
• By the time May rolls around, Chelsea's High Line will be so hip that people without ironic mustaches will not be allowed up. David "Ziggy Stardust" Bowie (above) will be hosting the 10-day-long HighLine Festival, bringing hip indie stars like Daniel Johnston to the 'hood. [Brooklyn Vegan]
• The "scorched earth" left behind by bartha bartha's townhouse violence has apparently gone to contract for around $8 million. [New York]
• The Westchester/Bronx border is "sprouting new residences so fast that the breathing space between one home and the next... is already becoming a memory." Will Williamsbridge become the new Williamsburg? Probably not. [City Limits]
- Max Abelson
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George Pataki will tour the capitol because, astonishingly, he hasn't seen enough of the place yet.

When Pataki leaves, some transportation upgrades won't be finished.

Ben challenges an aspect of today's Times story on Basil and David Paterson.

A lot of tourists have come to New York.

The lawyer monitoring the Independence Party's reorganization in Westchester will cost the IP $350 per hour.

Mystery Pollster looks at President Ford's approval ratings.

Amy Taylor on DMIblog wonders, purposefully, if workplace raids "are part of a larger conservative agenda aimed at creating a climate of fear to undermine union organizing efforts."

Greg Sargent sticks stubbornly to the notion that the war in Iraq doesn't help President Bush.

The Economist measures your happiness.

And pictured above is Mike Bloomberg with a very small bridge.

-- Azi Paybarah

So about that scintillating rumor - the one picked up and held firmly at arm's length last week by super-sub Andrew Rice -- about Westchester native and former White House press secretary Ari Fleischer running for the Sue Kelly seat in 2008...

Fleischer wishes to put the speculation to rest once and for all.

For the record, he said in an impressively Shermanesque email, "I do want you to know that I am NOT running. Now that I have children, I would never do anything that could risk making them into Redskin fans."

-- Josh Benson

When I was a kid, my parents had an expression, WASPy Jews. It was based in part on our one German-Jewish relative: Trudy (a pseudonym). Trudy was cold, straightforward, and wealthy. German Jews and Eastern-European Jews used to be the Sunnis and Shi'ites of American Jewish life. Having lately visited Trudy, I wanted to record some impressions.

Trudy grew up in the 1930s in Westchester, in a big house with a 40-foot living room. Her father was a German who emigrated at the turn of the century to open a branch of a family business. He was worldly. He went skiing in Switzerland in natty attire, he flew airplanes, and his attitudes were typical of assimilating Jews of his generation. He told his daughter that Judaism was a religion, it was not a nation. So he was anti-Zionist. Once Trudy asked her father who the two pretty blonde girls were in the photograph in the living room. "Those are your cousins; they died in the war," he said. Along with many other relatives or hers, in concentration camps. But the word Holocaust was not used.  read more »

They tried to put the best face on it.  read more »

The Berger Commission will recommend closing five hospitals in New York City and four more statewide, according to The Times and The Sun.

They are: St. Vincent's Midtown Hospital and Cabrini Medical Center in Manhattan; Victory Memorial Hospital in Brooklyn; New York Westchester Square Medical Center in the Bronx; and Parkway Hospital in Queens.

Stephen Berger, the commission's chairman and David Sandman say that closing hospitals is just one step, and that reimbursement policies must also be fixed.

Mike Bloomberg's meeting yesterday in City Hall with black leaders to discuss the police shooting of Sean Bell was "extraordinary."

The Post looks at the cop who fired 31 of the 50 shots at Bell and his friends.

The Sun looks at Deputy Mayor Dennis Walcott's role in City Hall's response.

Errol Louis says Ray Kelly is failing in his job to protect the public.

Some state employees in Albany were given "survival packages," on how to get health insurance in case they're not retained under the incoming administration.

Some Republicans hope for another Jeanine Pirro candidacy.

Two Democrats in the City Council turned down their pay raises.

State lawmakers may vote to give themselves a 20 percent pay raise.

Joseph Mondello of Nassau will be unopposed when GOP leaders gather in Albany Thursday to pick a new state chairman.

George Pataki is headed to Afghanistan.

2008 Democratic contenders have to adjust to a new timetable of early caucuses and primaries.

The WSJ [subscription] looks at four of the president's options for Iraq: withdraw troops, add troops, leave them unchanged, or start a draft.

The Justice Department will examine its warrantless surveillance program.

And Foreign Policy magazine has a list of this year's political assassinations.

-- Azi Paybarah

Here's a first glimpse at what the Berger Commission on hospital closings may recommend.

The Sun reported today that the commission may aim to close six out of NYC's 59 hospitals, according to a commissioner member.

"The six hospitals slated for closure are, in Manhattan, St. Vincent's Midtown Hospital, Cabrini Medical Center, and Manhattan Eye, Ear & Throat Hospital; Victory Memorial Hospital in Brooklyn; New York Westchester Square Medical Center in the Bronx, and the Parkway Hospital in Queens, a member of the commission told the Sun."

The commission's recommendations are expected to be made public later this year. If anyone knows about any others that are going to wind up on the list, we'd love to hear about them.

-- Azi Paybarah

Wrong Side Of the Tracks   To the Editor:    read more »

Wrong Side Of the Tracks

To the Editor:  read more »

Wrong Side Of the Tracks   To the Editor:    read more »

Wrong Side Of the Tracks   To the Editor:    read more »

Here's one small-but-telling reflection of the effectiveness of campaigning as a tax-cutting Republican these days in New York:

In the high-tax counties of Nassau, Suffolk and Westchester, voters not only delivered large margins, as expected, to Eliot Spitzer over John Faso, but they also did so for embattled Comptroller Alan Hevesi, in what was supposed to have been Tuesday's only competitive race.

Hevesi won Suffolk County, 164,539 to Christopher Callaghan's 143,470. In Nassau, Hevesi beat Callaghan 180,071 to 145,308 .

And in Westchester, the beating was particularly bad: 129,051 to 82,520.

Yes, most voters hardly knew who Alan Hevesi was, let alone Chris Callaghan. But still.

-- Azi Paybarah

Westchester's Nick Spano isn't the only Republican state Senator whose re-election prospects depend on few votes.

Serph Maltese of Queens, the Republican County leader, narrowly edged out Democrat Albert Baldeo by 783 votes.

A Baldeo aide called to say there are 648 validated absentee ballots which haven't been counted yet, along with an undetermined amount of affidavit and emergency ballots. The re-canvassing of machines which will start next week.

-- Azi Paybarah

With 100% of precincts reporting, unofficial results have Andrea Stewart-Cousins beating incumbent Westchester state Senator Nick Spano: 41,369 to 39,224.

Kos sums up the conflicted attitude some Democrats and liberals are having today.

The American Prospect is overjoyed with this year and sees better days on the horizon.

"If the Democrats handle the next two years well, they could have 56 or more seats in the Senate when the next president takes office."

RudyBlogger thinks Giuliani may announce his presidential plans around January, and has one distinct advantage over John McCain now. Giuliani doesn't have to serve in a polarized senate for two years.

Then again, Ben notes that according to National Journal, Giuliani backed 26 losing candidates yesterday.

Potamac Flacks has a list of Democratic press people who found themselves working for committee chairman and congressional leaders today.

Early and Often says that last night, "Hillary made herself the show. The optimistically yellow suit didn't hurt, nor did the concise speech."

John Hall's music may be outdated, but his successful bid "may epitomize the 21st Century techno-savvy political campaign," says Liz Benjamin.

Chris Callaghan loses the tie and speaks from the heart.

Jerry Skurnik says the elections were good for the Jews and Buddhists.

El Diario is looking for Latino candidates.

And pictured above is my pass from last night.  read more »

-- Azi Paybarah

Republican Rep. Sue Kelly's is sending out the attack-bots.

In an automated call that has been going out to Westchester voters today, an anonymous male speaker connects the support of Kiryas Joel for Democratic challenger John Hall to a commitment to a "mammoth, new 13-mile pipeline" they wanted.

"There's a reason why KJ is block-voting for John Hall today, and it isn't because he said 'no,'" the caller says. He goes on to give Hall's campaign phone number, and says Hall is "trading the votes of Kiryas Joel in return for a mammoth pipeline that will damage our quality of life in Orange County."

At the end of the message, a voice says that the call was authorized by the Sue Kelly campaign. I'm still waiting to hear back from them.

The call is here.

-- Azi Paybarah

Bill Clinton started his speech at Andrew Cuomo's fund-raiser last night in the Rainbow Room with a humble thank you to the room full of supporters.

"Thank you for supporting Andrew and for supporting Hillary and Eliot giving us, our state a chance to make a new beginning."

With only Clinton and Cuomo on a small raised stage, and a gaggle of reporters penned in velvet-roped cage, Clinton went on to say:

"One of the attorney general's functions is the ability sue the federal government when the state is getting the shaft. And I think that's important. The third thing I want to say, and I want all of you to support Andrew and Eliot in this. In my opinion, in most of the state largely because of the politics of the state legislature in this area, and its interface with a lot of things that have happened around the state, New Yorkers don't always get what they pay for from the state and local government. I can say this. I'm not running for anything.

"I live in Westchester county and we pay the highest taxes in America and we're happy to pay them because I think we have good schools, but there's lots of other things that the people ought to have throughout this state that can be given if you support them in the kind of searching re-examination of all the functions of government that we did on the national level that we did when we reinvented government."

About 10 minutes into the speech, when the speech turned to national politics and Clinton's record in the White House, the furious pace of note-taking by reporters seemed to have slowed down.

In the entire 19-minute speech by Clinton, Hevesi's name never came up. As soon as he finished, Clinton stepped off the stage and went straight into the crowd.

"Where's Andrew?" someone in the crowd asked.

"He's in the corner," another person noted.

Clinton, the one-man show, posed for photographs and chatted with anybody who would listen about foreign affairs. Reporters, who wanted to ask the only president to be impeached in recent memory what he thought of the state comptroller who may be impeached, were ignored.

After about 20 minutes of this, Clinton and Cuomo reunited and left the room together, which is when everyone else started to leave...except for a few aides, reporters and bartenders.

-- Azi Paybarah

• The cost of single-family homes in pretty little Westchester has hit a record high. And that's bad news, obviously, because it's inevitably all downhill from here. (And because there's going to be the first year-to-year decrease in sales since the elder Bush administration.) (AP/NY Daily News)
• Jay McInerney is leaving his lady friend's 72nd Street apartment for the Village, but first he's going to hit up "all the Upper East Side restaurants." He couldn't get into Jean-George's favorite Sushi Seki, so he went to Maya (which "has long been one of the best Mexican restaurants in the city.") And yet it made McInerney's tummy hurt. (House and Garden)
• It's (almost) official: The Whitney is ditching Renzo Piano's Madison Avenue expansion plans for the hipster High Line. "Hope springs eternal," says the Upper East Side. (NY Times)
• Boston Baseball Real Estate: The Yankees' Johnny Damon sold his old Red Sox house for over $5 million, but the Mets' Pedro Martinez has been forced to cut his Brookline house down to $1.895. (And poor old Nomar Garciaparra can't unload his Boston waterfront condo.) (WSJ)
• The mysterious Public Authorities Control Board controls New York, and there's absolutely nothing you can do about it. Secrecy is so in right now. (City Limits)
- Max Abelson  read more »
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Westchester's Nick Spano recently became the first Republican State Senator to express support [link added] for gay marriage, putting him at odds with majority leader Joe Bruno and his Republican colleagues.

But Spano argues that only a Republican can talk sense to Republicans, and that he'd make an effective catalyst for change inside the State Senate.

"I would be an effective voice in a senate majority conference that needs to hear voices of reason sometimes," Spano said. "I have moved the Senate with my voice, with members who very often were not as sympathetic to issues of marriage equality, gay rights and ending discrimination."

The Empire State Pride Agenda seems to have been moved, and gave their endorsement to Spano over his Democratic opponent Andrea Stewart-Cousins. They were apparently less convinced by her argument that she looks "forward to participating in a dialogue concerning whether these unions should be labeled 'marriage.'"

--Azi Paybarah

Andrew Cuomo's campaign got an assist today from toughbox prosecutor Leslie Crocker Snyder, who bashed Jeanine Pirro for her refusal to revisit the case of a Westchester inmate later freed on DNA evidence.

From Cuomo's perspective, Pirro's blunder is almost too perfect, allowing him -- with his scant 14 months of courtoom experience -- to hit his opponent on the one area she was counting on to be a comparative strength. Or, at least, to stand back as others do so.

Around 2:30 p.m., a statement on the case was sent out by Snyder, who was last seen running for Manhattan DA against Cuomo's old boss, Robert Morgenthau.

Around 3 p.m., Cuomo's statement came out, in which he states his support "of legislation which would prevent this type of wrongful incarceration of an innocent man, while a guilty sexual predator and murderer went unpunished for his crime."

All of which, I'm guessing, will be more than enougth to keep the story alive for another day.

Crocker Snyder statement after the jump.  read more »

-- Azi Paybarah

Jeanine Pirro is too busy today to take a swipe at Andrew Cuomo, or whoever will be her Democratic opponent.

That's kind of a departure from the eagerness she displayed when she held a press conference outside Cuomo's campaign office shortly after he became the party's designee.

Pirro spokesman, John Gallagher, said she was in Buffalo today for a television appearance and a fundraiser.

Afterwards, she's flying home to Westchester and probably won't get to see any coverage of Andrew Cuomo's speech tonight at the Sheraton.

TiVo, maybe.

-- Azi Paybarah

The Department of Justice will be in town tomorrow watching the polls during voting hours in Brooklyn, Queens and Westchester "to ensure compliance with the Voting Rights Act," the agency announced today. They'll also be monitoring results in Queens after hours. (They must have read about the bare-knuckled campaigning in Jackson Heights).

The DOJ will also be on the ground in Arizona.

The Voting Section of the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division is at 1-800-253-3931. Just in case.

-- Azi Paybarah

I found yesterday's Times story on the collapse of the formerly-surly Colin Montgomerie at the U.S. Open amusing. I'd watched the end of the Open with a friend who was leaping up out of his armchair with joy whenever Montgomerie hit a bad shot. Why? A couple years ago at the Buick in Westchester, a third friend of ours was watching Monty and in a lull told the Scots golfer that his wife was from the same county in Scotland. "You think I give a shit where your wife is from?" Monty flared, and didn't let up at that, either. Our third friend proceeded to follow Montgomerie around the Buick, rooting against him. Apparently the hex is still working.  read more »

Westchester businessman Mark Greenstein's campaign for U.S. Senate against Hillary Rodham Clinton died today much as it had lived--with few people noticing.

The 42-year old educational test-prep entrepreneur, who described himself as the "non-liberal challenger" for the Democratic nomination, launched his campaign a mere two-and-a-half months ago, on March 31. On that day, he declared his desire "to be a national senator," and vowed to stand up to "sellout liberals" who had "emasculated" the Democratic party. But somehwere along the way, he seems to have gotten tired of standing. Earlier today he issued a release saying he would be returning to his test-prep business full time, the AP reported.

This was not Mr. Greenstein's first political dalliance. In 2000, he ran against Al Gore in the New Hampshire Democratic primary. He got 75 votes.

Alas, Mr. Greenstein, we never knew thee.

- Lizzy Ratner

Glenn Blain has John Faso well into his end-zone dance on the strength of his Westchester showing at the convention.

Having spent three years working for the Philadelphia Daily News (and having learned more about journalism from its former editor Zach Stalberg than just about anyone), I read about the paper's sale today with hope. I have to admit my heart sank a little when I saw that the lead owner is one of the Toll brothers. Memo to the glossy shelter books: The Toll Brothers are the builders who are helping to transform America, they are the demigods of sprawl, specializing in McMansions, those little big monsters with atriums, simulated divided light windows, polished granite countertops, unablock driveways for the SUVs and brick-veneer foundations. Ugh.

I suppose the lesson is something I heard my wife saying on the phone to a friend the other day, when the friend was complaining about noise in her Westchester neighborhood. We are all now part of this awful sprawl, no one has immunity, we all must come to terms with it. Though $4 gas will do something.

• Has the real-estate bubble in Westchester and Putnam counties burst? (The New York Post)
• We love Joyce Wadler's House and Home stuff. Today she visits Andy Garcia. (The New York Times)
• Development costs make building new rental units prohibitively expensive. That's all right, you can afford a condo, right? (The New York Sun)

- Tom McGeveran  read more »

Donald Trump donated 436 acres of land in Westchester and Putnam counties this morning--land that he had tried to turn into an 18-hole golf course and country club but failed in the face of community opposition. Ah, but the neighbors are not rid of him yet. We imagine Trump gets some sort of tax relief as a result. More importantly, he gets to put his name on something. The new park will be called the Donald J. Trump State Park. -Matthew Schuerman  read more »

So remember those campaigns Mike was threatening to run against Republican State Senators?

Bloomberg appears to have, at least for now, backed down. But an independent group just put down $200,000 to go after two Republican State Senators, Serph Maltese of Queens and Nick Spano of Westchester, with the message that "the clock is ticking" to vote the city bundles of education money.

And the attack ads -- sinister voice, glowy letters, and all -- just happen to have been produced by KnickerbockerSKD, whose Josh Isay played a role on Mike's campaign team.

You can watch the ads on the site of the League of Education Voters.

The Poughkeepsie Journal notes that the company that runs the Indian Point Nuclear Power Plant (What is it they call it now? Indian Point Child Care Facility?) seems to think, or at least hope, that it has a friend in Eliot. NOTE: The story, by Gannett's Glenn Blain, first ran in the Journal News of Westchester.

Another day, another serious setback for Jeanine. Really, the meltdown is now pretty much total.

Mike Edelman, a Westchester lawyer who was once a young prosecutor alongside Pirro, who remains a great Pirro fan, and who is routinely quoted as a friend and advisor to the district attorney, has posted a long, rough, angry column on a site called Yonkers Tribune, blaming Pirro (and Pataki) political advisor Kieran Mahoney for Pirro's disaster, into which he says she was "flattered, cajoled, and essentially snookered."

"Kieran believed she could attract national attention, raise tens of millions of dollars (and he of course would get 15% of the media placements, but I digress) and would be able to 'rough up Hillary so she couldn't make a run for the presidency'.)...

"But, Jeanine was flattered, cajoled, and essentially snookered into believing that her 'Larry King persona, and great law enforcement reputation, not to mention her high heels, and celebrity like appearance, were enough to make the race a 'catfight': Wrong again Kieran. You forgot one thing: To run for the United States Senate, the most important office in this nation outside of the presidency, you have to have the kind of knowledge and or experience that will allow you to be at ease in discussing the deficit, the balance of trade, fiscal policy, tax policy, the alternative minimum tax, tax cuts, supply side economics, foreign policy, the Iraq war, Israel and Palestine, the budget, energy policy, terrorism, immigration, etc....

"So they put Jeanine out there in August with no training in those issues, and they just let her flounder."

I called Edelman to confirm that he, in fact, wrote the piece, which he did.  read more »

"He can't run away from responsibility of directing Jeanine to the wrong campaign," he said of Mahoney.

The Politicker is told that Dennis Mehiel, the Westchester business man who was Carl McCall's running mate in 2002, is taking another shot at Lieutenant Governor.

I wasn't able immediately to reach Mehiel, but ran the story past his friend, the supermarket magnate John Catsimatidis, who confirmed it.  read more »

"He's got money in the bank, he's bored, and he thinks he can do some good things for the world," Catsimatidis said.

The Politicker is seriously considering lending the Pirro campaign an intern.

At a couple of Hillary Clinton events in Westchester this morning, reporters noted that Pirro nor the Republican Party had even sent the usual student-volunteer "tracker" to tape Hillary's remarks.

Their absence didn't stop them from sending out a couple copies of a press release: "Just today, Hillary Clinton was in Westchester County attacking Republicans with extremist rhetoric."

This intern shortage apparently did, however, stop them from offering any examples of that rhetoric in the press release. Or in follow-up emails. Sigh.  read more »

CORRECTION: They've got the tape! I misunderstood an earlier exchange with the Pirro campaign; apparently, they're fully staffed-up on the tracker front, and had someone at Hillary's events. As for what they were calling "extremist," Pirro's spokeswoman says the "Bush-bashing" of Hillary's public speeches contradicts her promises to work together in fundraising mail.

Based on coverage of the hurricane hearing yesterday, it looks like nursing home residents are in bad shape, but there is some hope for pets.

Assemblyman Richard Brodsky, the Westchester Democrat who called the hearing, is still unsatisfied that some documents he subpoenaed haven’t been turned over, according to an aide, including implementation details. Jarrod Bernstein, press secretary for the Office of Emergency Management, told The Real Estate that the department turned over all requested materials except for those that it was still gathering and others that were third-party reports produced by other agencies.

He defended OEM against Brodsky’s charges that we posted earlier. In a message to our sister site, The Politicker, Bernstein wrote: “The city's hurricane evacuation plan was updated in the spring of this year based on new numbers from the Army Corps of Engineers' population study of areas of New York City vulnerable to hurricanes. In addition, the plan was further updated to incorporate lessons learned from hurricanes Katrina, Rita and most recently, Wilma. As more data becomes available on these responses, we will update our plan as necessary.”

But was the plan actually updated in the spring or not until this fall? When the media, including The Observer, started its rash of hurricane stories around Labor Day, OEM was still saying it expected 1 million evacuees, not the 2.2 million figure in the Army Corps study, nor the 3.4 million that OEM, taking into account the hurricane paranoia that Katrina produced, is now expecting. Bernstein says it took until August to analyze the numbers and identify new shelters that would accommodate the additional evacuees.  read more »

Brodsky’s assertion that “the city simply paid no attention to weather-related evacuations over the last five years” seems like a bit of an exaggeration. The question is: would Joe Bruno, the Emergency Management Commissioner, have revised his plan as quickly as he has without some Attorney General candidate running after him with a rolled-up subpoena in his hand?

-Matthew Schuerman

Labor unions, elected officials, big business and transit advocates are all pushing for the passage of a $2.9 billion transportation bond act Nov. 8, but the last time anybody tried this, in 2000, they failed miserably. At a press briefing Wednesday morning launching this year's campaign, participants gave their two cents on what happened:

Assemblyman Richard Brodsky, Democrat from Westchester: “The political class was divided. I don’t think you had unified support. This time around, you will see, Governor Pataki and I agree on this, and we don’t usually agree on matters. The Mayor and his opponent, local officials, they are all on board.”

Frank McArdle, managing director, General Contractors Association of New York: “The governor, while he nominally supported it, never came out strongly in favor of the bond act. He did very little to encourage people to vote for it.”

Denis Hughes, president, New York State AFL-CIO: “We weren’t there. There was no field operation. You need a field. And that’s usually done by unions or the Straphangers and such.”  read more »

-Matthew Schuerman

Last night in Westchester, Dems and Republicans hammered out the final details of a long anticipated cross-endorsement deal to elect New York's chief administrative judge, Jonathan Lippman, to the state Supreme Court.

Quick to sing the judge's praises was Ravi Batra, the politically wired Brooklyn attorney. In press statement this afternoon, Mr. Batra referred to Mr. Lippman as "the zenith of merit." He also concluded that "the Lippman cross-endorsement by all major political parties proves that politics loves and celebrates merit."  read more »

Of course, Mr. Batra knows much about the celebration of merit. He's received more than a few lucrative appointments from pals in the New York judiciary, two of whom have been censured for presiding over cases that involved Mr. Batra, without disclosing their personal relationships. As we recall, he also knows a thing or two about making judges.

And speaking of Mr. Batra and of Brooklyn, he's also the guy who sued the producers of Law & Order last year... for defamation of character.

Suddenly, those deeply-conflicted-yet-somehow-fascinating Log Cabin Republicans are running for office all over the place. Patrick Murphy is campaigning for City Council on the East Side, and now Brian Lehrer's blog reports that Jeff Cook, a former national Log Cabin official, is considering a primary challenge to Sue Kelly in Westchester.

According to Alarming News, he would run against the House GOP's big-spending ways, making it a test of social conservatism against fiscal conservatism.  read more »

Now, Log Cabin candidacies make a certain kind of sense. A gay Republican can defuse some Democrats' instinctive dislike of the GOP.

Less clear is how this works among, er, Republicans. Particularly GOP primary voters. But we'll see.

Mark Humbert of the AP has a story on Mike McKeon's allegation that the Pirro mob contributions story comes from the Clintons (rather than, say, from reality). Humbert quotes my vague denial that our source is a Clintonite.

Anyway, for the record, I went back to the source and asked if I could use a fuller characterization.

He said he wanted his name to stay out of the press, but he is a 23-year old college student in New York City, who says he has some time on his hands, and who is a "political hobbyist" and a reader of The Politicker.

"I'm not with Clinton, I'm not on the campaign staff," he said, sounding a little taken aback at the notion. (Also, he's not on the city's political scene, and Google doesn't show that he has any connection to professional politics.)

Rather, he was reading reports of the Pirro announcement, and saw Azi's note that Bernie Kerik is quoted on Pirro's Web site.

"I think the fact that Kerik is quoted on her Web site kind of tipped me off" to look for mafia connections, he said, recalling reports that Kerik had used mob-linked contractors on a Bronx apartment, and remembering hearing that lots of mobsters had moved to Westchester.

So he went to Pirro's campaign finance reports, and found companies whose names indicate that they are involved in -- natch -- construction and contracting.

Then he put the firm names and "mafia" into Google.

And bingo: Worth Construction.

He emailed his findings to Wonkette (sigh!) and, hearing nothing, to us.  read more »

And this is how stories are made these days. Sorry, Mike.

Jeanine Pirro has received at least $2,000 in campaign contributions from a company with long-reported ties to organized crime, according to Westchester campaign finance records.

Pirro's campaign for district attorney accepted $500 from the company, Worth Construction of Bethel, Connecticut., as recently as June 20, 2005. (Worth is one of several suspect donors catalogued in this Daily News report today.)

The company was barred from bidding on school construction contracts in New York City after its president, Joseph Pontoriero, refused to answer any questions from authorities about his alleged mob ties, according to published reports. The firm has denied any such links.

The Times reported in 2000:

"Mr. Pontoriero was listed as an unindicted co-conspirator in the so-called commission case, a key prosecution in 1986 that helped break the mob's stranglehold on the concrete industry. That trial, a 10-week glimpse at gangland lore, established the existence of a Mafia politburo, known as the commission, and resulted in the conviction of the city's top crime leaders.

"He was a regular visitor to the Palma Boys Social Club in East Harlem in the 1980's, where, according to the F.B.I., he often met and talked with Anthony ["Fat Tony"] Salerno, then the crime family's boss."

Worth executives also contributed $9,000 to Al D'Amato's reelection campaign in 1997, and their contributions in 1999 to Al Gore generated something of a scandal after they were disclosed.

Westchester's electronic records, which go back only as far as 2001, list a $1,000 contribution to Pirro that year, followed by $500 in 2004 and another $500 this year.  read more »

Pirro spokesman Mike McKeon told the News and the (ever-gracious with the credit) Times: "Jeanine Pirro has prosecuted more than 100 made members and associates of the mob and has been a leader in the fight against organized crime. Any suggestion to the contrary is just ridiculous."