Mayor Michael Bloomberg fired a subliminal shot at Public Advocate Bill de Blasio, a Democratic candidate for mayor, for releasing a report that accused the mayor and City Council Speaker Christine Quinn for systematically targeting small businesses in the outer boroughs and levying onerous fines against them. “The world is not as simple as a campaign, and it’s not true just to this campaign, it’s all campaigns,” Bloomberg said on his weekly radio appearance this morning on the John Gambling Show.… [More]

Growing tired of the inertia in collective bargaining talks between Cablevision and the company’s Brooklyn employees, City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, Public Advocate Bill de Blasio and Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer stood with workers outside of Madison Square Garden to demand that Cablevision negotiate in good faith and reinstate a group of workers who were dismissed a week ago. Last week,  Quinn and de Blasio–both Democratic candidates for mayor–ventured deep into Brooklyn to stand with 23 Brooklyn Cablevision workers… [More]

Continuing a fight that began nearly a year ago, the Communications Workers of America, in support of the Brooklyn Cablevision workers ongoing efforts to unionize, released a report yesterday titled “Leaving Brooklyn Behind”, which aims to demonstrate that Cablevision is delivering poor service to customers in Brooklyn. The report, which included a survey of over 700 Brooklyn Cablevision customers, showed that nearly 25 percent of customers rate their service as “poor” or “terrible”, and only 37 percent rated it favorably.… [More]

After a report released by New York Communities for Change showed that a large number of Rockaway residents still have mold or paid out-of-pocket for remediation owing to Hurricane Sandy, Public Advocate Bill de Blasio outlined a plan on Wednesday that would address the public health issue and shift the financial burden to the federal government. De Blasio, who announced his plan on the steps of City Hall, also criticized Mayor Michael Bloomberg for prematurely championing the successes of the… [More]

With an elementary school choir, a dance troupe, and a trio of sibling violinists preceding him on stage this morning at John Jay College, it was a safe assumption that John Liu might be the least exciting person to take the stage on Thursday. Instead, Liu looked nothing like the mayoral candidate who has struggled to emerge from a cloud of suspicion surrounding his fundraising, and every bit like the ascendant and ambitious politician that New Yorkers thought they were… [More]

With the presidential debate dominating the news cycle over the last few days, a group of local political gurus and elected officials gathered last night to chime in on the national discussion. The general consensus of the debating styles of President Barack Obama and Republican candidate Mitt Romney–echoing the popular sentiment from most media outlets–was that Obama lacked the fire in his belly he had in 2008, and that Romney improved his prospects by tacking back to the center. Despite… [More]

At forum on minority- and women-owned businesses, mayor, mayoral candidates talk strategy City & State presented a day-long program this week entitled “The New Agenda” on the topic of minority- and women-owned businesses, with Mayor Michael Bloomberg giving a keynote address to kick off the forum. The event at New York University’s Kimmel Center, which was sponsored by AlliedBarton Security Services, concluded with the first roundtable to feature all six of the 2013 New York City mayoral candidates, discussing the… [More]

Environmental advocates look to a New York City without Bloomberg Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who has a reputation as one of the country’s most environmentally friendly mayors, is pressing ahead with initiatives to clean New York City’s air, use greener energy and raise the city’s lackluster recycling rate. But with fewer than two years left in office, the administration’s continued success may depend in large part on the next mayor—and some observers are fretting that the pool of candidates to replace… [More]