This week’s biggest Winners & Losers

The city’s municipal retirees have spent their golden years fighting City Hall’s attempts to force them off of their current Medicare health insurance and onto privately-managed Medicare Advantage plans – and none more so than Marianne Pizzitola, the retired FDNY EMT who helped found the NYC Organization of Public Service Retirees. Pizzitola and her fellow retired workers have been remarkably successful, scoring their biggest legal victory yet last week when the state’s highest court ruled that the city’s plan to stop paying for retirees’ Medicare benefits was illegal.

It’s a good time to be Scott Stringer. Being the only person in the crowded New York City mayoral field to receive the first round of public matching funds is certainly a good way to enter the election year. Particularly when the list of candidates who failed to receive matching funds includes the incumbent mayor. Of course, the former city comptroller is unlikely to hold that distinction for long – next month brings another opportunity for candidates to qualify for the matching funds program – but Stringer is no doubt enjoying it for now.

Rochester is the latest and largest city in the state to adopt “good cause” eviction, a landmark tenant protection passed by state lawmakers earlier this year. It took the city’s lawmakers longer than some expected to get to a vote, and even Rochester City Council President Miguel Meléndez – who helped craft the final version of the bill that passed – argued it won’t solve the housing crisis in Rochester, but at least tenants in the Western New York municipality can feel more secure in their homes.

All that for a Porsche? In a precipitous fall this week, Mayor Eric Adams’ right-hand adviser Ingrid Lewis-Martin resigned from her position at City Hall and was then indicted on bribery charges by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg. Lewis-Martin is accused of using her position to benefit real estate developers in exchange for benefits for herself and her son, including cash for a Porsche. Whether the case is as strong a quid pro quo as Bragg claims remains to be seen, but a photo exhibit of Lewis-Martin’s son posing in front of his brand new wheels sure doesn’t look good.

On Monday, the New York City Campaign Finance Board denied public matching funds to Mayor Eric Adams’ 2025 reelection campaign. In a rare statement, the board said it “determined there is reason to believe the Adams campaign has engaged in conduct detrimental to the matching funds program, in violation of law.” To make a bad week worse, Lewis-Martin, one of Adams’ closest friends and confidants, was indicted on unrelated bribery charges days later. A silver lining for the mayor: Trump indicated he would consider pardoning Adams, who faces a separate federal indictment.

Sometimes it feels that Congress is Nancy Pelosi’s world and we’re all just living in it. That’s certainly how Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez must feel this week. The former speaker of the House played a key role in defeating Ocasio-Cortez’s bid to become the ranking minority member of the House Oversight and Accountability Committee. Now even President-elect Donald Trump has said he feels bad for the Bronx lawmaker, leading Ocasio-Cortez to joke that means her loss must be “bad.”