Who's up and who's down this week?

Vote for this week's biggest Winner & Losers.

The subways are falling apart, and there’s nowhere near enough money to fix them. Lots of New Yorkers are smoking pot, even if it’s technically illegal. So … why not kill two birds with one stone (pun intended) and simply tie the otherwise unrelated issues together, using the revenue from legalizing and taxing recreational marijuana to make the trains finally show up on time? That might make us all winners.

WINNERS:

David Carlucci -

The state senator managed to hold onto his seat during the great Independent Democratic Conference Ousting of 2018. And now, Carlucci has even been named the chair of a committee, despite is former IDC status. Sure, he had not been ranking member of the Committee on Mental Health and Developmental Disabilities, and this was not one of the five other committees he sat on. But Carlucci is arguably in a better position as a chair of full-fledged committee than his former IDC colleague Diane Savino (see “Losers” below for more on her). All in all, Carlucci appears to be sitting pretty.

Greg Floyd -

Nobody likes working the weekend shift. But if getting scheduled on Saturdays and Sundays comes with a pay hike, the prospect can be more appealing. That’s the deal that the Teamsters Local 237 president secured for his workers at the New York City Housing Authority, who will tentatively get a 2 percent salary increase next May, a 2.5 percent increase in August and a 3 percent increase in 2020. The only question is: Why didn’t their contract let them work beyond weekdays to begin with?

James O’Neill -

The blue wall of silence will stay standing. A judge ruled in favor of the NYPD after the NYCLU sued for access to a year’s of internal disciplinary records detailing allegations of wrongdoing and the punishment – or lack thereof – that they received. The department has long been protective of badly behaved boys in blue, but O’Neill has zipped lips tighter than ever, citing civil rights law 50a. And it’s great timing, as O’Neill continues to back the officers involved in Jazmine Headley’s violent arrest.

Dominique Sharpton -

The preacher’s daughter won a $95K settlement from the city of New York after blaming the city for a sprained ankle in Soho four years ago. Experts were shocked by the sum – especially given her Instagrams of dancing, hiking and walking on the busted ankle. She must have learned something about deal-making from her dad, the Rev. Al Sharpton, whose own charity is walking an ethical tightrope by buying the rights to his life story.

David Soares -

The president of the District Attorneys Association of the State of New York has gotten the state to agree that the Legislature can’t just tell prosecutors what to do. While nobody wants to protect disreputable prosecutors, the idea of having a commission largely appointed by lawmakers go after them did not sit well with Soares, the Albany County DA whose statewide group sued to stop the legislation in October. An agreement reached this week will table the creation of the commission, and it’s back to the drawing board for legislators.

LOSERS:

Michael Cohen -

Free at last, free at last! Not from prison of course – a federal judge sentenced Cohen to three years in prison for his part in the illegal hush money given to two women who alleged to have an affair with President Donald Trump. Which, yes, is not great for Cohen. But as he puts it, he is finally free of the tyranny of his former boss, whom he said he felt obligated to clean up after. Cohen told the judge that with the sentencing, he was finally free of his “mental incarceration” that he had been living in since he first began working for Trump. Which is good considering his physical incarceration is about to begin.

Bill de Blasio -

Maybe it was the fault of the New York City Human Resources Administration or its security officers. Maybe it was due to a failures by NYPD officers to de-escalate the standoff. Or maybe the root of the problem was simply Jazmine Headley, who allegedly failed to comply with official orders. Whatever the case, the shocking video of police officers yanking Headley’s baby away from her after she had showed up to apply for benefits at an HRA office is ultimately a big headache for the mayor – and one that won’t immediately go away.

Simcha Felder -

The man in the middle was in high demand for years in a closely-split Senate where both Republicans and Democrats needed his vote. Now Dems got their revenge on the turncoat, kicking Felder to the curb by denying him a committee chairmanship for the upcoming session. To add to the indignity, Democrats kept the lowly Libraries Committee chairmanship unfilled. Would’ve been a good fit for a man who managed to be very, very quiet about speed cameras.

Alain Kaloyeros -

Cuomo’s Buffalo Billion hasn’t been all it was cracked up to be, but one of its scandals was resolved this week: Former point person Alain Kaloyeros was sentenced to three and a half years in prison for bid-rigging to favored firms in the $1.5 billion economic development project. Defense lawyers say they will appeal for a lighter sentence on the grounds that Kaloyeros didn’t profit financially from the scheme – apparently he was too busy awarding millions to his favored firms to bother keeping any for himself.

Diane Savino -

Seven terms in the state Senate meant little for Sen. Diane Savino when it came time for Democrats to hand out committee assignments this month. Her past membership in the now-defunct Independent Democratic Conference came back to haunt her, as the best she could get was an appointment as chair of the Subcommittee on Internet and Technology. That’s a far cry from Savino’s past posts chairing powerful committees such as Banks, Codes, and Civil Service and Pensions. But hey, at least she’s in the majority.

NEXT STORY: Who's up and who's down this week?