Winners & Losers 12/09/16

We’re just 16 days ’til Christmas, 23 days ’til the new year, and 42 days until Time magazine Person of the Year Donald Trump takes the oath of office and becomes the 45th president of the United States. But we don’t have to wait to find out this week’s winners and losers … so read on.  

WINNERS

Nicole Malliotakis and Ron Castorina - Hold off on destroying those IDNYC records, de Blasio. A judge granted a restraining order preventing the destruction of the records, which contain personal information on thousands of undocumented immigrants, after these two Staten Island electeds filed a lawsuit. Staten Island Republican Assembly members don’t get too many wins, so they should definitely relish this one.

Yoav Gonen and Grace Rauh - The mayor announced this week that he would start to release emails with his so-called “agents of the city” after fighting with the press for months over his refusal to release correspondence with his select group of non-government aides. While the lawsuit is still going, these two enterprising reporters from the Post and NY1, respectively, can take some satisfaction in the impact that their good work had on improving disclosure out of City Hall.

Eric Ulrich - After years of toiling in the New York City Council’s tiny GOP caucus, the upstart councilman is moving up in the world. No, he’s not joining the Democrats – he’s trying his hand at the small screen. Ulrich has received the city’s go-ahead to participate in a possible reality TV series, which would likely feature Ulrich mulling over whether to challenge the city’s Democratic mayor (an endeavor former GOP presidential candidate John Kasich recently urged people to support).

Peter Ward - New York City Hall is looking more and more hospitable to the Hotel and Motel Trades Council. Amid Mayor Bill de Blasio’s re-election campaign, the Dem has made the union feel so at home that it is single-handedly guiding the city’s new industrial jobs plan. Still, Ward, the union’s president, had better hope the Times stops publishing stories detailing the plan’s trajectory before the details are hashed out.

Teno West - While the guy who brought him the contracts, Nassau County Executive Ed Mangano, is in a heap of trouble, West and his partners at Pannone Lopes Devereaux & West, did pretty well for themselves working with the Long Island politician. As Mangano reduced the role of his internal legal staff, outside counsel saw their role grow, and Teno’s firm took the lion’s share of the work, earning $5 million in recent years. Good work, if you can get it.

LOSERS

Anthony J. Annucci - No outlet gets attention like the Times, and nobody’s getting attention this week like the Annucci’s Department of Corrections and Community Supervision after the Times published a story alleging widespread racial bias in state prisons against black inmates AND black guards. Getting more black guards upstate may cut down on racism against inmates, but who want to go up the river knowing they’ll get humiliated?

Bill de Blasio - Between admitting he “owns” record city homelessness numbers and only receiving $7 million of a requested $35 million in federal funding for NYPD protection of President-elect Donald Trump, it’s been a bad week for Hizzoner. But when will the mayor stop his war with the New York press corps? He may have dropped his “agents of the city” policy going forward, but he’s still protecting past communications. And then he’s going out of his way to brag about stop-and-frisk reforms that happened under Bloomberg in campaign emails, and telling reporters they’re wrong when they point out these pesky facts that are getting in the way of his re-election narrative.

Vinnie Gentile - We at City & State try to make these write-ups fun and breezy. It’s hard to do that with this one. The New York city councilman was sued this week by a former aide who charged the pol mocked him for his Asperger’s syndrome. On top of that, the former aide said he wouldfind decapitated teddy bears on his desk, some gutted, impaled and covered with red coloring, left by other aides. Not much funny about that.

Mark Poloncarz - It’s unambiguous: upstate New Yorkers want Uber. But how far are they willing to go? Erie County is now set to spend $100,000 to promote ride-sharing, a move that has come with political problems, as the billion-dollar companies appear well-prepared to promote their own cause. While there may be legitimate reasons to put money behind a push for ride sharing, Poloncarz found himself backpedalling on the issue, after members of the press and an Erie County legislator questioned the wisdom of using taxpayer money to promote the cause of private companies.

Andrea Stewart-Cousins and Charlie King -  At a time when Democrats are calling for unity in the party to gain control of the state Senate, it’s probably not conducive to start a high school-style fight within the party. King, the former executive director of the state Democratic Party, repeatedly criticizing Stewart-Cousins’ ability to unify the party – but don’t worry, King thinks the governor would be proud of him. We at City & State are not taking sides. From our view both ended up losers in this exchange.