This week's biggest Winners & Losers

Assembly Member Ron Kim has never been an avowed fan of Gov. Andrew Cuomo, but this week he became Public Enemy #1 – a designation that might make some lawmakers cower but which Kim appears to be taking in stride with a string of interviews on national news networks including CNN and MSNBC. Following Kim’s harsh criticism of the Cuomo administration’s handling of COVID-19 in nursing homes, Kim said the governor called him multiple times, threatening to destroy his career over his critical comments – a charge the governor’s office denies. 

The head of the MTA can have a good week, as a treat. Bad news has been wracking up for Pat Foye during the pandemic as transit funds plummeted and doomsday service cuts and layoffs loomed. But things are finally looking up after officials announced that better-than-expected tax revenues and new federal aid means New Yorkers won’t be forced to deal with a 40% cut to subway service. Plus, some overnight service is returning and soon there will only be a two-hour window without trains. Things are finally looking up for Foye.

Cue the calliope and fire up the ferris wheel, Coney Island’s amusement parks will be open for business this year, global pandemic be damned. Coronavirus cancelled last year’s 100 year anniversary of Deno’s Wonder Wheel, but Coney Island has always been a little weird, so Zamperla, the president of Luna Park, and all his boardwalk-based allies can’t complain about celebrating 101.

Kudos to Gov. Andrew Cuomo for taking a week that started out with scattered calls for his impeachment, rolling up his sleeves, and somehow making it infinitely worse! Going off-script on a press call to attack Assembly Member Ron Kim was already a terrible look, but reporting from The New York Times suggests his behind-the-scenes harassment and intimidation of Kim was even more repugnant. Most damning of all, political rivals are weighing in to say they’re not even surprised. The whole shitstorm makes Melissa DeRosa’s “we froze” comments almost seem quaint by comparison.

On Tuesday, courts ruled police misconduct records are public records, and there’s probably few who took it as hard as Police Benevolent Association president Pat Lynch. Previous takes of his include saying the “job is dead” after the firing of the officer who choked Eric Garner to death, and getting mad that cops aren’t supposed to be shooting unarmed black men on rooftops. Considering he supported Donald Trump for re-election, though, sour grapes seem to have been on the menu for a while.

One would think a progressive organization would be all good with staff unionizing. But that doesn't seem to be the case with the Queens Defenders, where two pro-union employees said they were fired as a form of retaliation. The public defender group has denied that the terminations had anything to do with the staff's unionization effort. But the optics are particularly bad given that its co-founder and executive director, Lori Zeno, has already made her distaste toward the union apparent, dubbing it a "mob-like group" in a meeting last month. And the heat is only getting turned up as a slate of Queens lawmakers are publicly siding with the pro-union staffers.