Adams ally to launch think tank

From: POLITICO New York Playbook PM - Monday Mar 28,2022 08:32 pm

Mar 28, 2022

By Sally Goldenberg and Amanda Eisenberg

Presented by The Black Car Fund

New York City mayors have long had outside operations to boost their platforms: The Manhattan Institute, a conservative think tank, readily supported many of Rudy Giuliani's policies. Mike Bloomberg used his personal wealth to spread his agenda beyond the confines of his office. Bill de Blasio established the Campaign for One New York, followed by embattled spinoffs, to bankroll his policy priorities locally and nationally.

Now an ally of Mayor Eric Adams is launching a similar organization connected to City Hall’s new leader.

Tom Allon, publisher of local political website City & State, is raising money for a think tank that will align with the centrist agenda of a Democratic politician Allon counts as a longtime friend — though he vowed independence from the mayor.

A memo to potential donors, obtained by POLITICO, said the organization “anticipates evaluating a number of concrete policy ideas that were part of incoming NYC Mayor Eric Adams campaign platform and putting them through a rigorous academic analysis to assess their financial viability and ability to implement.” One such policy plan is the goal to make the city a global capital for cryptocurrency.

Despite his pledge of objectivity, Allon’s ties to Adams run deep: His son Jonah Allon is a deputy press secretary for Adams. He previously worked as a press secretary in the City Council. He had a hand in arranging for Adams to dine with former Gov. Andrew Cuomo at Osteria La Baia earlier this year, according to someone familiar with the meeting. And just this month, Adams appointed Allon to the Panel for Educational Policy.

The think tank, which Allon is calling Five Boros Institute, is being established as a “non-profit, non-partisan clearinghouse for great urban policy ideas and pragmatic solutions to chronic problems,” according to a four-page memo.

In an interview, Allon said he has raised $250,000 so far, and hopes to amass up to $1.5 million from private funders for the outfit's annual budget. He said he plans to release the names of donors once the organization launches in early May.

QUOTE OF THE DAY: "I was in the subway station last night. I don’t have time for TV." — Adams, when asked about actor Will Smith smacking comedian Chris Rock in the face at the Oscars for cracking a joke about his wife, Jada Pinkett Smith.

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IT’S MONDAY: We’ll get you caught up on today’s action in the state Capitol and in New York City Hall as the budget countdown continues.

From the Capitol

YOUR TAXPAYER MONEY AT WORK: Gov. Kathy Hochul today announced a commitment of a whopping $850 million in public money for a new $1.4 billion stadium for the Buffalo Bills, which happens to be her beloved home team.

The figure — $600 million from the state and $250 million from Erie County — would be a record for public subsidies for an NFL stadium. Hochul said it would be an economic benefit to keep the team in Western New York.

Some groups balked at the tab, especially as dozens of special interests are clamoring for aid for their initiatives as part of the state budget for the fiscal year that starts Friday.

"The Bills stadium deal is a continuation of trickle-down economic development schemes that have enriched wealthy investors on the backs of Black, brown, and working class communities,” said Sochie Nnaemeka, director of the New York Working Families Party, which has endorsed Hochul’s primary opponent Jumaane Williams. “Our public dollars should be going toward public goods, and not subsidizing an oil billionaire's new stadium."

Senate Minority Leader Rob Ortt said he would wait to fully comment until he saw “specific details” in the bill text, but generally embraced the idea.

“I want the Bills to stay in Buffalo,” Ortt, of Niagara County, said after a press conference on bail reform. “The identity of Western New York and the Buffalo Bills is linked … It is significant in a host of ways, both economically and otherwise.”

MASTER CLASS: Hochul announced the opening of this year’s New York State Master Teacher program application for K-12 STEM teachers in all regions. The effort aims to pull together more than 1,400 public-school teachers to help bolster education in science, technology, engineering and math.

"New York's teachers are the vital force behind our state's leading education system, and it is crucial that teachers are provided opportunities to grow within their field," Hochul said in a statement.

The Master Teacher Program is hosted at a SUNY campus in nine regions across the state. Participants each receive a $15,000 stipend for the yearlong program.

For more information, visit: suny.edu/masterteacher. Applications are due by July 15.

From City Hall

NO MORE QUESTIONS: Adams has had it with reporters and their pesky questions. It hasn’t even been a week since the mayor announced his controversial plan to lift the vaccine mandate for athletes and performers, but he’s already sick of defending it. “There is no more questions for Eric Adams to answer. I have a city to run, not a sports team,” Adams said at an early morning press conference in Queens today about daycare funding.

A reporter had asked the mayor about the 1,400 public sector workers who were fired for refusing to get a Covid-19 vaccines and want their jobs back because of what they see as the unfair carveout for sports stars like the Brooklyn Nets’ Kyrie Irving. But Adams took his frustrations out on the press.

“I really want to manage the expectation of the media. I spent two days talking about this. I answered every question that was given to me. What is not going to happen under my administration is a continuation of questions over and over again.

“We’re in this universe where Eric Adams’s name and Kyrie Irving, they get a lot of clicks. That’s fine. You do your job, I do my job,” he said.

Adams did pledge to meet with FDNY unions that want the mandate waived for everyone and have asked for a sit-down with the mayor over the weekend. On lifting the rules across the board, Adams repeated his position that he’s taking a layered approach. “I will roll it out when my medical team tells me what needs to be done," he said.

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ON THE BEATS

HEALTH CARE: Advocates behind the “Fair Pay for Home Care” push in Albany slammed reports today about the state's potential subsidies for the new Bills' stadium , arguing that Hochul should instead invest that money in the state’s health care workforce. Hochul’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Bryan O’Malley, executive director of the Consumer Directed Personal Assistance Association of New York State, questioned how the governor can support including $850 million for the stadium in the budget due April 1, but argue against “investing billions in low-wage” home care workers, who are primarily women and minorities. The “Fair Pay for Home Care” legislation, which a coalition of groups is seeking to include in the final state budget, would pay home health workers at least $22.50 an hour.

“Gov. Hochul wants us to believe $850 million for the NFL's eighth richest owner is sound economic development,” he said in a statement. “Meanwhile, she simultaneously argues that investing in ‘Fair Pay for Home Care’ and eliminating poverty level wages and lifting up hundreds of thousands of primarily Black and LatinX women across the state, funding economists agree will more than pay for itself, will somehow lead to economic ruin.” — Shannon Young.

— New York City diverted 312 individuals from the subway system into services at shelters in the first month of Adams’ push to end street homelessness and improve conditions in the transit system. In its first report issued over the weekend, City Hall spokespeople said that NYPD officers “issued 6,828 Transit Adjudication Bureau summonses, ejected 1,981 individuals and made 719 arrests in the subways, creating a safer, more pleasant and more orderly experience for all riders.” — Amanda Eisenberg

TRANSIT: After years of delay, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority is moving forward on a redesign of its bus network. On Tuesday, the MTA will drop a new draft plan of its Queens bus network redesign. Efforts to redo the city’s bus network have been delayed by the pandemic, but the MTA is expected to implement changes in the Bronx this summer. The “World’s Borough” will be the second to get a bus makeover.

Frank Annicaro, acting president of the MTA bus company , said the redesign is “fundamental” to the MTA’s vision for buses. The city is seeing a “troubling spike” in traffic that has caused bus speeds to drop to an average of 8.1 miles per hour, he said. The new design is meant to simplify routes and increase speeds in a borough highly dependent on the bus system. MTA officials have promised this plan will be very different from the one it released three years ago, which elicited a largely negative response from the 11,000 people who submitted public comments. The MTA will hold 14 virtual public meetings before releasing a final plan.

Transit officials are also convening an advisory board to revisit their policy that requires caregivers to fold their strollers before getting on a bus. A coalition of moms have been attending MTA board meetings to advocate for the change, faulting the agency for making it difficult to safely ride public transit with a baby. — Danielle Muoio Dunn

CUOMO WATCH: A Siena College poll today showed former Gov. Andrew Cuomo down 8 percentage points to Hochul in a potential four-way Democratic primary.

Cuomo spokesman Rich Azzopardi spun it as good news for the former governor as he it contemplates a run for his old job: “There are now two polls showing similar results in the last few weeks and with today’s Siena survey, Governor Cuomo’s support effectively doubled in a few months — demonstrating that when New Yorkers have the facts, they realize the politicalization and the corruption of the process that was used to force from office a governor with a real record of results that improved people’s lives.”

Remember, it was Cuomo who resigned amid sexual harassment allegations, underreporting of Covid-19 nursing home deaths and a $5 million book deal that used state resources as he faced likely impeachment.

And as POLITICO’s Bill Mahoney reported, the Siena poll might have shown Cuomo hit a ceiling after trying to revive his political life: Only 33 percent of registered Democrats wanted him to run in the primary, and only 32 percent thought he did not sexually harass multiple women.

AROUND NEW YORK

— Roughly 8,000 individuals on parole will be released from the supervision of the state’s Department of Corrections and Community Supervision by the end of the month as part of the Less is More law.

— Misinformation lingers throughout the upcoming midterm elections, Gothamist reported.

— New York is terminating its Dairy Princess program and replacing it with the Dairy Ambassador Program to highlight gender inclusivity within the dairy industry.

— Billionaires that donated millions of dollars to Donald Trump’s campaign gave hundreds of thousands of dollars to the Gov. Kathy Hochul.

— Due to the new partnership between BJ’s Wholesale Club and DoorDash, New Yorkers are able to order groceries through DoorDash.

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