Richard Gottfried

Should Governor Paterson indeed move the Moynihan Station project under the control of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, as he said he wants to do, at least two members of the State Assembly are poised to resist the action: Richard Gottfried, the district’s representative, and Richard Brodsky, the chairman of the committee that oversees public authorities.

“It’s a New York project; it ought to be run by a New York agency,” Mr. Brodsky said. “As a bi-state authority, they [the Port Authority] have been unresponsive, remote and immune to reform.”

Moving Moynihan from the state-controlled Empire State Development Corporation to the Port Authority would remove the Legislature from any direct control over the project, taking away its ability to pass laws about the plan or have approval power via the Public Authorities Control Board. (The PACB blocked the project from moving forward in a phased plan at the end of the Pataki administration.)  read more »

After Sheldon Silver helped kill the mayor’s congestion pricing plan, The New York Times published an editorial saying Silver should be punished with a Democratic primary challenge later this year.

As should some of his long-serving colleagues, the editorial added, using as an example Manhattan Assemblyman Dick Gottfried, who has been in office since 1970.

“I disagreed with it," Gottfried said, when I asked him about that editorial last night. "Quite a few people told me they were outraged by it." As for possible primary challengers, he said, “I operate on the assumption that somebody will run and either spend his or her own money, or raise money from all the land lords and drug companies I’ve annoyed.”

Nonetheless, Gottfried recently found a new way of getting his message to the public and reporters. Nine days after that April 12 editorial, the 38-year incumbent created his own Facebook page. Since then, he's been busy making his Facebook presence known. Gottfried friended me at 11:58 p.m. the night he created the page, and has friended reporters and political friends in the days since. He also launched a page to push his plan for statewide universal health care.  read more »

Assemblyman Richard Gottfried has come out against Pritzker Prize-winning architect Jean Nouvel’s tower planned to rise next to the Museum of Modern Art, joining neighbors and State Senator Liz Krueger in their opposition to the project.  read more »

Longtime Assemblyman Dick Gottfried of Manhattan is not commenting on the fate of Eliot Spitzer just yet.

“I think people are waiting to comment until we know what we’re commenting on. Everybody is following that notion. I am certainly,” he told me just now.

Gottfried is hopeful about Spitzer's agenda.  read more »

Assemblyman Richard Gottfried, who has been representing parts of Murray Hill and nearby neighborhoods since 1970, is not in the office this Friday afternoon, and for good reason.

He’s serving on jury duty.

Gottfried called me during a brief break to say, "It’s quite fascinating. I expected going in that it would be the most interesting thing I’ve done in years. And it is. I’m finding it enormously educational."

It's end-of-session time in Albany, when legislation that has been fast-tracked somehow gets derailed, and bills that people haven't heard of speed through to passage.

One notable bill that's moving, as Liz noted, is the legislation that would legalize same-sex marriage.

Another one people a lot of people are watching—and whose fate is far from certain—would authorize congestion pricing in New York City. As Assemblyman Dick Gottfried of Manhattan, who's been in the Assembly since 1971, told me yesterday, "The congestion pricing issue, I think the main obstacle is the number of complicated pieces that need to be worked out. And I just don't know if that's physically possible."

Also from Gottfried, this:

"I've thought that sometime, the week after this, somebody should go to the computer and give a prize for the latest-introduced bill to pass both houses. And see how late that will be." Any guesses?

As George Pataki attempts to hammer out his final deals with the state legislature, here's a helpful reminder of the state of their relations in the closing days.

From Assemblyman Dick Gottfried the other day at a Drum Major Institute panel about prescription drug costs:

"Pataki's TV ads for Child Health Plus is like Japan taking credit for peace in the Pacific... He fought us tooth and nail."

More highlights from the DMI event are here.

-- Azi Paybarah

Writing for Gay City News City Hall News, gay activist Allen Roskoff had a column about the Empire State Pride Agenda dinner and calls out Democratic Assemblywoman Helene Weinstein for stalling legislation to legalize gay marriage.

During the night, people are now talking about Assembly Member Helene Weinstein, who heads the Assembly Judiciary Committee and has kept the Richard Gottfried-sponsored marriage equality bill buried in her committee. She is listed by ESPA as having a "position on marriage equality for same-sex couples unknown or unclear." She must come out for the bill, and have it passed in her committee, or her position is totally unacceptable. Perhaps her friends in the Assembly need to hold her accountable and stop covering for her. I am told that she does not go to LGBT endorsement meetings or events or return questionnaires. Hmmm, what is this all about?

It's another example of how gay activists are increasingly comfortable with the 'with us or against us' argument on the issue of gay marriage. Nathan Riley makes the same case, with less acidity, over here.

-- Azi Paybarah

The Sheraton Russell, at the corner of 37th Street and Park Avenue, is slated to close next month in preparation for demolition so that SJP Properties, of Parsippany, N.J., can develop a 21-story condominium at the site.

But Assembly member Dick Gottfried, the Historic Districts Council and Community Board 6 are trying to get a hearing in front of the Landmarks Preservation Commission before then to see if they can get the building, built in 1922, landmarked. They sent a letter asking for just that to the L.P.C. earlier this week.  read more »

SJP bought the bought the building late last year for $40 million.

-Matthew Grace