This week’s biggest Winners & Losers

She emerged victorious from a competitive field of candidates, and now she intends to similarly squash New York City’s rat population. After a harrowing, months-long search, Kathleen Corradi, a land use expert and Department of Education alum, was officially named the city’s rat czar. That’s good news for Mayor Eric Adams who now has a comrade intent on rodent elimination, and very bad news for the rats. Probably. Afterall, they’ve survived several mass extinctions, floods, and nuclear radiation, but will the rats survive Corradi?

The overpopulation of guinea pigs in New York City – an issue we’ve definitely been paying attention to – might finally have a solution. The City Council passed a bill from Diana Ayala banning the sale of these cute, furry rat-alternatives in pet stores. New Yorkers who want to add a guinea pig to their family can now only do so by adopting them from shelters, which are inundated with abandoned guinea pigs. While Ayala is a winner of the week for passing the bill, the guinea pigs themselves are winners of the wheeeeek – a rough approximation of the sound of their excitement when you stop by your local shelter to adopt one.

Every cloud has a silver lining for the former Queens Council member. Elizabeth Crowley has been tapped as the new president of the Building Trades Employers Association, succeeding the retiring Lou Coletti. More power and likely more pay than a borough presidency. Plus she’s now a shoe-in for next year’s City & State Construction Power 100, where Coletti ranked eighth on the 2023 list that was unveiled earlier this week.

PBA President Patrick Lynch is retiring! What a great opportunity for the guy who was challenging him … oh, wait, the police union’s 24-year-reigning president has endorsed another white guy named Patrick as his successor. Will Grable have a better shot against Pat Hendry than Pat Lynch? Who knows, but Grable came right out and accused Lynch of putting “his finger on the scale of the race to replace him on his way out the door.”

You don’t mess with New York City.  Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan learned that the hard way when he tried to throw his weight around the Big Apple with a promise to hold a congressional hearing here over Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg’s policies and historical indictment of Donald Trump. Bragg had a succinct response: not in my house! He slapped Jordan with a lawsuit filed in federal court to curb any potential interference in the Trump criminal case. And Bragg’s office had an extra message for Jordan too, suggesting he deal with the violent crime in Ohio before throwing stones at New York.

As chair & CEO at JUUL, K.C. Crosthwaite must help the company cough up $112 million to New York as part of a lawsuit settlement. While JUUL has admitted no wrongdoing, the lawsuit announced by state Attorney General Letitia James was over misleading marketing that contributed to the youth vaping epidemic. And it doesn’t stop there! The full settlement amount is $462 million and will go out to six states and Washington D.C.