This week’s biggest Winners & Losers

The City of Kingston’s new vacancy study could mean the end of rent stabilization in the first upstate city to adopt it. Hudson Valley Property Owners Association Executive Director Rich Lanzarone must be celebrating after fighting against the regulations for years in the courts, the press and local government meetings.  Things aren’t done and dusted, but the city’s latest vacancy study puts it a ways off the threshold to declare a housing emergency and opt in to the Emergency Tenant Protection Act.

Gold stars for everyone, and help yourselves to some goodies in the classroom prize jar. ELA test scores improved by 7% for New York City public school students in grades 3 through 8 who took state exams in the spring, with 56% of students showing proficiency at their grade level. Chancellor Melissa Avilés-Ramos can celebrate the improvement, even though her predecessor initiated curriculum changes that may have contributed. Or, was it because the state lowered the passing grade? Hmm…

At least for the next two weeks, migrants detained at 26 Federal Plaza will be entitled to 50 square feet of space, private access to legal counsel, a sleeping mat, clean clothes and hygiene supplies. That’s according to a temporary restraining order from federal Judge Lewis Kaplan, issued after the New York Civil Liberties Union sued the Trump administration on behalf of Sergio Alberto Barco Mercado and others held in allegedly crowded and dirty conditions.

You’ve got mail, Megan Ryan. It’s a lawsuit. The former CEO of Nassau University Medical Center is being sued by NUMC for allegedly authorizing $1 million in false payments – including $1,400 for a Lobster Club dinner and a $7,800 Chicago trip that didn’t happen – and engaging in data destruction and coordinated mass resignations to destabilize NUMC. Ryan says her firing was done after she alleged Medicaid fraud. No matter what happens, someone will be sleepless in East Meadow.

Down goes another former Eric Adams aide! Former chief Muslim community liaison Mohamed Bahi pleaded guilty to conspiring to commit wire fraud after he helped orchestrate a straw donor scheme. Bahi’s sentencing is not until October but, per his plea deal with the government, he could face anywhere from probation to six months in prison and a $32,000 restitution payment, so it could be worse.

Acting NYC Health Commissioner Michelle Morse has been on the defense as an outbreak of Legionnaire’s disease concentrated in Central Harlem has left residents eagerly seeking information about the buildings where cooling towers have tested positive for Legionella. The city finally released a list of affected buildings that included Health + Hospitals Harlem and a CUNY building. The city has said remediation is under way, but Morse now has to answer for the city’s steep decline in testing for the bacteria over the course of the Adams administration.