Winners & Losers 1/8/16

The state Legislature is back in session. But while state lawmakers will be taking a number of vacations between now and the end of June, we'll be here every Friday as your full-time provider of Winners & Losers – no salary bump required. 

WINNERS

Preet Bharara – The Manhattan U.S. attorney’s star appears to be rising across the country. His office helped a TV series team craft characters and scripts for “Billions,” a new Showtime series that highlights federal prosecutors pursuing financial execs. And Kentucky lawmakers invited Bharara to give a presentation on corruption prevention. But neither the glitz-and-glam nor the southern hospitality appear to have followed Bharara to Albany, where the first session since two legislative leaders were indicted has kicked off with lawmakers balking at various ethics reform proposals.  

Bill Bratton – Since returning as New York City’s police commissioner, Bratton has been a winner each time the end-of-year crime stats have come in. Major crime is at its lowest since record-keeping began, although reports of rapes, robberies and homicides did rise. Bratton also announced a promising initiative in the city’s new gun courts, even if he did fumble somewhat by announcing it live on the radio a week before City Hall wanted.

Herminia Palacio – The Bronx native was appointed this week as Mayor Bill de Blasio’s new deputy mayor for health and human services. In her new post, which she landed despite what seemed to be some embellishments when it comes to her experience, she will be at the forefront of the city’s fight against rising homelessness.

Basil Seggos – Gov. Andrew Cuomo wants to give the state’s top environmental official a big boost in the upcoming budget, surely a welcome move if you’re running the Department of Environmental Conservation, an agency that has seen deep cuts to funding and staff. Should the plan survive the budget process the Environmental Protection Fund, a DEC pool of money used for things like acquiring land, restoring waterfront space and protecting farmland, would be nearly doubled, going from $177 million to $300 million.

Catharine Young – The Western New York Republican is now reaping the benefits of picking the right horse in the fallout after former Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos was charged with corruption. Young, who broke with upstate interests to back Long Island’s John Flanagan over Syracuse’s John DeFrancisco, has been elevated to chair of the powerful Senate Finance Committee by the now-in-power downstater. Young took a risk in siding with Flanagan, but it has clearly paid off.

LOSERS

Mark Chestnut – Given the seemingly never-ending incidents of mass shootings and gun deaths, this ad went a little too far, even for the NRA. The editor of America’s 1st Freedom, an NRA publication, approved a tweet with theimages of state Sen. Roxanne Persaud and Assemblywoman Jo Anne Simon next to bullets. The governor and other officials condemned the image and blasted the publication. Chestnut probably missed the target on that one.

Joanne Jaffe – Statistics drive the NYPD – until they undercut pet initiatives, that is. In 2014 Jaffe requested an NYPD study the Juvenile Robbery Intervention Program, which aims to stop young men from committing robberies. But when the findings did not show a significant reduction in recidivism, the department did not publicly release the study and instead proceeded with a planned expansion. NYPD officials claim J-RIP, which involves increased supervision and help accessing services, strengthens relationships between officers and minority teens, but that’s a harder thing to measure.

Melissa Mark-Viverito – The New York City Council speaker is learning the hard way that not everything is an election. She has agreed to pay a $7,000 fine for accepting gifts from a consulting firm while seeking her current leadership position and to pay the $3,796.44 the Advance Group should have billed her for its services. Mark-Viverito said she and her attorney believed the speaker’s race was as an election, and therefore did not fall under the traditional conflict of interest rules.

Christopher McPartland – Who prosecutes the prosecutors? The top corruption prosecutor in the Suffolk County D.A.’s office is being investigated for possible obstruction of justice charges stemming from the probe into former Suffolk police chief James Burke. Investigators are reportedly looking into whether McPartland participated in meetings with Suffolk County law enforcement officials and encouraged them to lie about Burke’s actions. So, basically the complete opposite of what he’s supposed to do.

Howard Zucker - As the head of the state agency charged with regulating the nascent medical marijuana industry, the Department of Health commissioner is now dealing with the fallout from a slow start. With few of the state’s licensed dispensaries operational as planned, some advocates are sounding the alarms. While it appears that some dispensaries are opening this week, people on the short list of diseases eligible for the treatment will continue to voice their impatience as the kinks are worked out.