Winners & Losers
This week’s biggest Winners & Losers
Who’s up and who’s down this week?
In case you didn’t get enough precipitation earlier this month when New York City recorded a whopping 2.07 inches of rain in an hour, a record amount beaten only by Hurricane Ida, nature has you covered. Thursday brought with it torrential downpours, thunderstorms and dangerous flash flooding. The governor even declared a state of emergency. Forget getting the bread and milk when they say snow, rain is the hot new weather emergency to panic shop for.
George Sarantopoulos -
Weeks after the election, George Sarantopoulos officially clinched the GOP primary for the 47th Council District in Brooklyn. He squeaked to victory with just a 16-vote margin in a final tally of votes that included at least three dead people and one live person who didn’t cast a ballot. Despite the fraud, election officials said their hands were tied. We’ll never know who benefited, but someone must have had stellar zombie community relations.
Liam Elkind -
There’s a new battle of the generations brewing. Liam Elkind, a 26-year-old nonprofit CEO, recently kicked off a congressional campaign against Rep. Jerry Nadler.. While it’ll take more than slick Zohran Mamdani-esque videos and a fresh face to take down the Upper West Side institution, Elkind has already made quite the splash, drawing national news coverage and, according to his campaign, more donations in a single day than Nadler has in his entire war chest.
Soo Kim -
A casino in the Bronx might just be in the cards after all. Mayor Eric Adams vetoed the City Council’s rejection of a land use application that the Bally’s Corp. needs to continue their bid to build a casino at Ferry Point. But between a potential City Council veto override and the gauntlet that lies ahead to actually be selected for a casino license, it remains to be seen just how long Bally’s Chairman Soo Kim’s luck lasts.
Betty Rosa -
The state teacher union blasted the state Department of Education and Commissioner Betty Rosa for administering “traumatic” new Regents exams that didn’t match the curriculum. Students raged on TikTok after none of the material they learned all year appeared on their biology and earth science tests, while a spokesman from the state education department, however, blamed teachers and schools for not adjusting to the new standards.
Felicia A. B. Reid -
While state Office of Cannabis Management Acting Executive Director Felicia Reid is beginning to stabilize the New York cannabis industry, she’s still the one holding the bag when things go wrong. This time, it’s nearly 200 dispensaries that may have to find new storefronts since their licenses were issued without proper regard for school proximity. Now, a bunch of dispensary owners are mumbling “Bye Felicia” while they browse Zillow.
Janno Lieber -
No one signs up to run the MTA in order to be the most popular New Yorker, but this has been a particularly brutal week for MTA Chair Janno Lieber – who had to contend with two major subway power outages this week, snarling commutes and leading to scores of angry commuters. The MTA also announced a fare hike, further angering commuters. Maybe Dick Ravitch left a memo behind on how to become beloved.