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Brooklyn Dems pass rules to stymie reformers

Jeff Coltin — Tue, 25 Aug 2026 23:20:00 -0400

Brooklyn Democratic Party Chair Rodneyse Bichotte Hermelyn’s audacious scheme to maintain control of the county party may work after all – despite all the most powerful Democrats in the state expressing dismay.

Her amendments to the party bylaws, meant to block reform District Leader Julio Peña III from becoming party chair, all passed the party’s executive committee by narrow margins in a closed-door meeting Tuesday night.

“It’s not a win for regulars or reformers — it’s a win for Brooklyn,” Bichotte Hermelyn said in a text message. “Expanding the Executive Committee brings more elected leaders into the process, increases transparency, and strengthens our fight for working families and affordability and (to) stand up against the Trump agenda. When more elected Democrats are involved, everybody wins — not just one faction.”

Reformers aligned with Peña vowed to re-file a suit to block the changes in court Wednesday morning, arguing the manner the rules were changed was illegal. A judge already denied a motion to halt the vote Monday, ruling there hadn’t been any harm yet.

“I’m disappointed, mostly because there was energy in that room and excitement,” Peña said after emerging from the vote. “And it’s disappointing that people are excited to weaken our democracy and to limit the voices of duly elected folks.”

The latest drama started after reformers won a majority of seats on the executive committee in the June election – the culmination of a 18-year reform effort – and declared that Peña had the votes to be the next leader. But that vote won’t happen until late September or early October. So Bichotte Hermelyn proposed amendments to the party bylaws last week to pack the executive committee with her supporters, and convened members of the outgoing executive committee Tuesday night at the Thomas Jefferson Democratic Club in Mill Basin. The reform group New Kings Democrats reported that the eight district leaders who were ousted in June’s election all voted in favor of Bichotte Hermelyn’s rules changes on Tuesday.

Reporters were barred from the closely watched vote. Party aides even covered the storefront club’s windows with sheets of printer paper to block the view from the street. After the meeting, Bichotte Hermelyn went out through the back door and entered a waiting car without giving comment to reporters.

Bichotte Hermelyn’s plan had been met with intense pushback – immediately, among the reformers and victorious district leader candidates in June – but also more broadly across the state Democratic Party over the last week. Gov. Kathy Hochul, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, state Attorney General Letitia James and state Democratic Party Chair Jay Jacobs all came out against the move, as did Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries.

“The value of increasing participation by expanding representation on the Kings County Executive board may have its merits and deserves consideration, however, the timing of this change stands to do more damage than good,” Jacobs – hardly a renegade or bandwagon critic – said in his statement last week.

Hochul, facing reelection this fall, came out against the plot too. “Governor Hochul is opposed to this proposal to rewrite the rules of the Brooklyn Democratic Party,” a campaign spokesperson said in a statement. “Democrats need to be focused on defeating Donald Trump and his MAGA enablers this November, anything else is a distraction – the Brooklyn Dems’ leadership vote should be a fair and transparent process.”

Bichotte Hermelyn hasn’t confirmed whether she plans to run for reelection as leader, or throw her support behind an ally instead.

“If she ran, I would support her,” said Frank Seddio, the former party leader who chose Bichotte Hermelyn as his successor in 2020. “Yes, absolutely support her if she decides to do so.”

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Weeks away from the start of school, 3-K and pre-K programs are without funding

Fariha Rahman — Tue, 25 Aug 2026 17:51:00 -0400

Two weeks away from the first day of school on Sept. 10, pre-K and 3-K providers are digging into their own pockets to be able to open their doors on time after New York City failed to deliver its typical advance payments.

Caryn Rich-Caverly, the educational director at Sips Kinder Facilities on Staten Island, said she has had to take out a high-interest American Express line of credit to pay staff, her facilities’ September mortgage payment and utilities.

Christine Canto, director at There’s No Place Like Home Pre-School in Queens, said she is borrowing money from friends and family as well as emptying her own savings account, so that she can afford to pay her staff and not disrupt the lives of her students whose families depend on childcare.

“It’s not fair, it’s not right, that’s not who I am,” Canto said, when asked if she considered keeping her doors closed. “I’m in this business not for the money but because I care about children and families and I love what I do.”

Providers of the city’s 3-K and pre-K programs, hosted in New York City Early Education Centers that contract with the city, are facing those difficult decisions because they have not received any of their usual funding from the Department of Education to start the school year, City Hall confirmed. Over 1,000 early childhood education centers depend on this funding to pay for teachers, snacks and supplies for their classrooms.

The early education programs provide free 3-K and pre-K education overseen by Department of Education-certified teachers and typically receive an advance on their budget in August – approximately 30% – to open their doors in September, according to another director of an education center.

But this year, according to emails obtained by City & State, program directors were told in June that due to their contract renewals not being processed yet, no funding would be coming in August. An operations analyst for the city’s Division of Early Childhood Education later confirmed to one provider in July that the delay in registering contracts could last “several months.” Providers were instructed to apply for an interest-free month-to-month bridge loan through the Returnable Grant Fund, according to another email that was sent by the Division of Early Childhood Education to program leaders.

City officials announced in late July that Simone Hawkins, who leads the Division of Early Childhood Education, would be stepping down from her position. They did not say at the time why she is leaving or who would be replacing her. A spokesperson for the DOE did not respond to a question about whether her departure is related to the contract issue.

“These contract registration delays are both deeply concerning and nothing new,” said Nicole Brownstein, a spokesperson for the Department of Education. “In the immediate, New York City Public Schools is in the process of onboarding additional contracting capacity, prioritizing the registration of early childhood education contracts and ensuring every provider has the funding they need as they begin the school year, whether through a registered contract or interest-free loans.” Representatives for City Hall and the Department of Education did not provide an updated estimate of how long delays in payments could last.

Rich-Caverly said she applied for the bridge loan last month, but said she has not heard a response despite the Division of Early Childhood Education claiming the processing time should take 7-10 business days.

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani has made universal childcare a key part of his agenda, announcing an ambitious pilot for free childcare for two-year-olds in his first month in office. This 2-K pilot is expected to be supported and integrated into the contracts with existing early childhood education programs.

While already feeling the strain of rising costs, program leaders met with Mamdani in February to discuss their funding struggles. After their meeting, in an email from the Division of Early Childhood Education, they were told that a 2% increase had been approved for the fiscal year 2027 budget to accommodate the rising cost of living. But in addition to not receiving advance payments, 3-K and pre-K education centers will not be seeing the 2% bump they were promised until the contracts are registered.

“We’re working on a 2021 budget in 2026,” said Lori Reitzen Cangiolose, a program director for The Play Experience on Staten Island and founder of the 5-Borough NYCEEC Coalition, saying the rising costs of supplies and food have outgrown their funding level and that providers either have to make up the difference or make cuts. “Our personal savings should not be NYC’s emergency fund.”

Cangiolose was told last fall, during the previous mayoral administration, that there would be no new contract proposals for education centers that contract with the city, and that instead their current contracts would be extended. She argued that the education department should have gotten an earlier start at registering the contract renewals given that notice. In an email to Cangiolose sent by Emmy Liss this week, executive director of the Mayor’s Office of Child Care and Early Childhood Education, Liss said that the large number of contracts was slowing down the registration process.

City Comptroller Mark Levine, whose office is in charge of registering all city contracts, said it is the education department’s negligence that caused this delay. “The DOE has known that these extensions would be needed for months, yet their late start in submitting them has put providers in an impossible situation just two weeks ahead of the year’s start,” a spokesperson for Levine’s office said. “Our office is still waiting for a large volume of these contracts, and we will continue to expeditiously review them no matter how late they come to us.”

Slow payment of contracts is not new for New York City. Nonprofits have been complaining about it for years. Timeliness in payments to Early Childhood Education was even recognized by the City Council during budget hearings as something that needs to be improved.

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Legal threats mount as law limiting ICE takes effect

Kate Lisa — Tue, 25 Aug 2026 17:44:07 -0400

A new state law officially took effect Tuesday prohibiting federal immigration officials from working with local- and state-funded law enforcement agencies for civil immigration enforcement matters. Now, it’s up to the state Attorney General’s Office to force the recalcitrant few municipalities that didn’t willingly wind down their agreements to follow the law. But if the responses from the Republican leaders of those defiant counties are any indication, the threat of getting sued by Letitia James doesn’t scare them much.

The new law prohibits local governments and police in the state from having formal partnerships – known as 287(g) agreements – with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Patrol. Gov. Kathy Hochul argued on Tuesday the freshly effective statute will keep law enforcement’s attention on fighting local crime instead of advancing President Donald Trump’s deportation agenda.

“Local police will assist ICE only if a real crime has been committed,” Hochul said at a press conference about the law in the state Capitol. “New York state will never become a sanctuary for criminals. But at the same time … we will not sit idly by when ICE commits atrocities on our streets.”

Currently, only two counties have failed to give any response to the state indicating they wouldn’t dissolve their 287(g) agreements, with a third providing what James’ office called “an inadequate response.” The state Attorney General’s Office of Immigrant Trust issued subpoenas last week to the Nassau County Police Department and Sheriff’s office, and the Rensselaer County Sheriff’s office for failing to confirm their plans to unwind their 287(g) agreements with ICE.

James also sent a subpoena to the Steuben and Broome County Sheriff’s offices, which gave an unsatisfactory response. Steuben County sent James’ office additional correspondence Tuesday afternoon and is in compliance, according to the Attorney General’s Office, but the subpoena is under review and remains valid.

Issuing subpoenas is a civil investigative demand for information and is the first enforcement step, but they don't seem to have phased GOP county leaders. Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman, the Republican running against Hochul in November, has indicated he’s not backing down. He recounted a recent crime where an undocumented person in his Long Island county was charged in connection with the alleged arson of 10 cars.

“If we didn’t have an agreement with ICE, that individual would have been sent back into the community and probably committed more arsons,” Blakeman said at an event in Delaware County. “What did they have to do, burn down a house with children in it to make Hochul realize these laws make us less safe?”

Likewise, Rensselaer County Executive Steve McLaughlin isn’t budging either, and said he’s ignoring the subpoena. McLaughlin said the county’s participation in the program since 2018 means officials screen noncitizens brought into the local jail to ensure they’re not wanted for crimes elsewhere, and it’s a practice he will not stop.

Though state leaders have spoken frequently about the importance of local officials following the law, Hochul and James haven’t spoken much about the specifics of actually ensuring compliance. The Attorney General’s Office will investigate agencies that do not unwind their agreement, which can lead to a civil action or a period where the office monitors the municipal entity, according to the law. Hochul deferred to James’ office while speaking to reporters Tuesday, but still offered little in the way of details.

“If they do thwart the laws that are duly enacted by this Legislature and the governor, the attorney general will be fully responsible for enforcement,” the governor said, adding it would involve litigation, and possible emergency court orders that would be instated quickly.

McLaughlin is leading a lawsuit filed by 15 sheriffs Tuesday in the Northern District of New York amid other concurring federal suits against the law. Madison County Sheriff Todd Hood, Blakeman’s running mate, is a plaintiff in the suit, but Blakeman is not. Hood agreed to terminate his agency’s agreement with ICE earlier this month. Blakeman has also been adamant his county’s 287(g) agreement isn’t changing, but has remained tight-lipped about his legal plans. His spokesperson declined to comment about either on Tuesday. Other sheriffs across the state are discussing filing a separate lawsuit to challenge the policy.

The law was partially upheld earlier this month, but a federal judge blocked a provision that bans police and ICE agents from wearing face masks. Even so, Hochul was unfazed by the legal threat. “Our law has been already upheld by courts, but if you try it again, I say bring it on,” the governor said. “The courts have already spoken, but I'm confident we'll win again.”

Nine of 12 police agencies that had formal 287(g) agreements have terminated their contracts, according to the state Attorney General's Office. But even without those specific contracts with ICE and Customs and Border Patrol, it remains up to a police agency’s discretion to contact ICE after an undocumented person charged with a crime is in their custody.

Albany Police Chief Brendan Cox and Kingston Police Chief Egidio Tinti, who both attended the governor’s press conference in Albany, said they would not contact ICE if their agencies charged a noncitizen with a crime, though other local law enforcement officials still could.

Complicating matters is the fact the law also bans informal agreements between federal immigration officials and local law enforcement. The state Attorney General’s Office has the authority to crack down on patterns of cooperation that amount to an informal agreement, and James has referred to an upstate county that used ICE for translation services as an example of what would now be an illegal informal agreement. But a spokesperson for James declined to comment on “hypotheticals” when asked when a pattern of police calling ICE about arrested immigrants may fall into illegal territory, and if or when it would intervene the office would intervene.

Hochul denies claims that the policy will erode public safety, arguing that 53 of 62 counties in the state never had formal 287(g) agreement to work with ICE.

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Buffalo’s anointed one: A Q&A with Leah Halton-Pope

Jeff Coltin — Tue, 25 Aug 2026 05:00:00 -0400

Retiring Assembly Majority Leader Crystal Peoples-Stokes was sure that she wanted her longtime adviser Leah Halton-Pope to succeed her in the lower chamber. So sure, that Peoples-Stokes waited to announce in April she wouldn’t seek reelection, at which point petitioning had closed for the Democratic primary.

And after a brief backroom Buffalo papal conclave, Halton-Pope was given a clear path to victory and a ticket back to Albany.

After years working with Peoples-Stokes, Halton-Pope has more recently been leading her own office as majority leader of the Buffalo Common Council, where she’s also been leading the opposition to new Buffalo Mayor Sean Ryan’s budget plan for the financially strapped city.

City & State talked with Halton-Pope in Buffalo on July 29 about advocating for Buffalo, her democratic socialist neighbors and keeping the majority leader role upstate. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

So you don’t have a Republican opponent in your Assembly race – is there a chance that former Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown tries a write-in campaign?

I doubt he will, but somebody else could, and you know this is a democracy, and it’s fine. So I’m open to whatever.

So feeling pretty confident that Jan. 1, you’ll be in the Assembly?

I’m hopeful. I mean, it’s possible that somebody could win a write-in campaign, or maybe I wasn’t looking at the ballot properly.

Assembly Majority Leader Crystal Peoples-Stokes has been a staple in Buffalo and held the seat since 2003. Now you’re her hand-picked successor. What are you going to do differently than her in the seat?

“Differently” is tricky, because I spent so much time working with her, and I think it’s more about what I’ve learned from her. I have my own unique style and energy, but being diplomatic in just about everything you do, finding the middle ground is really important. I think I worked really well with her because I try to figure out how to solve problems. So that’s me. I’m a hard worker. I don’t stop, and I don’t know that that’s so much different than her. I just have a different perspective on some issues.

Every legislator outside of New York City feels like they have to really advocate to make sure that your area isn’t forgotten. What issues are you going to be bringing to the rest of the Legislature for Buffalo and Western New York?

I think the best thing about coming from (Buffalo) city government to go into the state and being that close to the people is it helped prepare my mind for what we need. With this most recent tax increase, we had some individuals who are struggling right now. They’re doing workshops to make sure that people don’t lose their homes if they can. So a tax circuit breaker would be really amazing if we can pull that off.

The Joint School Construction Board is critically important to the city of Buffalo, so that Buffalo Public Schools can go to market on their own.

I also really want to deal with food insecurity, and in a perfect world, I’d love to see if there is an ability to create a tax credit for rooftop greenhouses on some of the buildings here, and then that food can be passed on to those constituents who need it.

We still need to deal with housing issues. We have way too many PILOTs, I feel. There are about 7,000 properties in the city of Buffalo that are not paying taxes to the city. We also have a lot of vacant buildings and vacant lots that have been vacant for generations. It creates blight in a community, in a neighborhood, and so I really want to do a progressive tax on those individuals.

You mentioned Buffalo’s budget issues. Do you see that as an approach to help close the balance?

Yeah. This is self-inflicted. And I don’t believe that we should be trying to get out of it on the backs of our taxpayers, especially those who are vulnerable. So those low-income and generational homeowners, etc. We're not going to be able to tax our way out of it. I do think there are some unique opportunities if we can progressively tax those people until they do something, especially when we're selling lots and putting a time limit on that. Also we’re not fining people, and we have that (as an option) – or, we make an agreement and reduce it significantly.

The majority leader effectively handed you the seat, dropping out of the race after the deadline to file petitions. What do you say to the critics who say that it should have been an open primary?

I will say they had about a month to get petitions. No, seriously, they had a month to get petitions and to vie for the seat. I can't say she handed it to me. I didn't expect it to go this way at all, to be fair. I’m honored that she would even say my name, but I have one more year left for my city seat, and I love what I do. And so this is a bittersweet move, but it is one that is necessary. Now it’s about making sure that the next person behind me is set up.

So was it a total surprise, or did she give you a heads up that she was going to retire?

No, it was a total surprise. The most heads up I got is maybe the day of.

Across town, there was a competitive Assembly primary. You were with the Erie County Democrats, which supported Karen Hoak. But Adam Bojak, a democratic socialist, won. Have you met with him?

Oh yeah, we’ve talked before. I worked with him on some housing issues and talked through some issues that were important. Actually just saw him Saturday, at an event.

Do you think that this speaks to the growth of leftist politics in Buffalo? Is this the start of a trend, or is Bojak just a good candidate?

I think Adam is probably a good candidate. I think if you’re doing work, I think people will find you and will support you. Sometimes you want somebody who’s fresh and new and not connected in any other way. And to be fair, he’s been vying for a seat for a while.

Is there a particular committee or issue that you are really eager to work on?

I think it’s a little different because unlike some freshmen, I actually know where the bathrooms are and have a lot of relationships. So thinking through the committees and knowing what (Peoples-Stokes) had when I first came on board, I have a few on my list that I would like to be on: governmental operations, local governments, because that one is actually the one that deals mostly with municipalities. Economic development, because I care about specifically the cannabis industry. I wrote that legislation and helped negotiate that for the majority leader. So that matters to me. Education – community schools is another item that I actually wrote and negotiated.. I also like tourism, and I'm still playing around. … And then higher ed. I think I've got six big ones. I really want to do it all.

The majority leader is retiring. Do you think that the office of majority leader should stay upstate?

Yes.

And who do you think it should be?

I won’t say that. (Laughs.) I do believe it should be upstate. Downstate has a huge contingency. But it’s always been an upstate position, so I hope (Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie) does stay upstate.

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A ‘naked power grab:’ BK Dems rally against proposed rules change

Annie McDonough — Mon, 24 Aug 2026 17:45:46 -0400

Reformers inside the Brooklyn Democratic Party rallied Monday, casting the county organization’s current leader Rodneyse Bichotte Hermelyn as a Trump-like election denier in a last-minute bid to prevent her from pursuing what they described as an audacious power grab in the party.

“We are here because the 2020 MAGA playbook of trying to steal an election is being used not by Donald Trump, but by the Democratic county leader here in Brooklyn,” state Sen. Andrew Gounardes said in front of a crowd of reform supporters on the steps of Brooklyn Borough Hall. “Their county leader is saying, ‘Go find me the votes. Go find me the votes.’”

“What is being thought about being done tomorrow is one of the worst representations of how this party has operated for such a long time,” Public Advocate Jumaane Williams said.

Thanks to a wave of new district leaders voted into office in June, Bichotte Hermelyn lost her majority foothold in the party, paving the way for a new, reform-minded leader – Julio Peña III – to be voted in as chair in the coming weeks. But Bichotte Hermelyn, who’s also an Assembly member representing Central Brooklyn, isn’t giving up without a fight – one that opponents argue is illegal.

Party leadership put forward proposed new rules that would greatly expand who can vote for chair, effectively diminishing the power of the newly elected district leaders.

The crowd gathered in opposition to that effort included Peña, Gounardes, Democratic congressional nominee Brad Lander, Assembly Members Bobby Carroll and Jo Anne Simon and Council Members Shahana Hanif and Alexa Avilés.

But even more voices have joined them in opposition – including House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (both Brooklynites), city Comptroller Mark Levine and, earlier on Monday, Mayor Zohran Mamdani. “I’m very much opposed to the proposed changes by the current Brooklyn Democratic Party chair,” Mamdani told City & State at an unrelated press conference. “I oppose them because they’re an attempt to circumnavigate the will of the voters, and what we should see is a Brooklyn Democratic Party that is a reflection of what New Yorkers want to see.”

Earlier in the day, Peña and a handful of other Brooklyn Democrats filed a lawsuit to block Bichotte Heremelyn’s efforts, arguing in Brooklyn Supreme Court that the rules change is being orchestrated by a group of lame-duck leaders, who no longer have the authority to carry out major rules changes like what Bichotte Hermelyn is proposing.

Hell Gate reported that the request for a temporary restraining order was rejected later on Monday for being premature. They could refile the suit if the rules changes pass.

Tony Melone, president of the reform club New Kings Democrats, told the outlet that the lawsuit was a backup plan and he hoped Bichotte Hermelyn would either back down to pressure to cancel the Tuesday night meeting or district leaders there would vote against her proposals.

Speaking to reporters after the press conference, Lander predicted that no matter what happens, the scheme would end badly for Bichotte Hermelyn. “I think it has already backfired. I mean even if she wins that vote and is able to cling to power, she has destroyed her own leadership and left the Kings County Democratic organization in tatters,” he said, referring to it as a “naked power grab.”

“I think she probably already has guaranteed a challenge for her seat in two years,” Lander added.

Bichotte Hermelyn did not immediately respond to a request for comment Monday afternoon.

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Immigrant advocates have plans for ONA’s new funding

Rebecca C. Lewis — Mon, 24 Aug 2026 17:44:45 -0400

Funding for immigrant legal services through the state Office for New Americans got a $10 million bump in the state budget approved earlier this year, bringing the total to $74.2 million. Now, immigrant rights advocates have recommendations for the New York Department of State on how that additional money should be spent to best serve immigrant communities.

Although immigrant advocates wanted significantly more money in the state spending plan – $175 million total – they still welcomed even the small increase that came at a time of intense stress on legal service providers. A memo from the Care for Immigrant Families coalition – shared exclusively with City & State – presented three broad recommendation categories for how best to allocate the funds. Above all, the memo urges making investments to expand providers’ capacity to offer emergency deportation defense services. The rest, it says, should go toward recruitment and retention efforts for staff, and building out overall capacity for other immigration legal services in the long term.

“Providers across the state face significantly increased deportation defense needs,” the memo reads. “Without flexible, adequate resources to meet the rising demand for services … waitlists for deportation defense representation have lengthened.”

The memo also specifically recommends following blueprints for strengthening the immigrant legal services field described in the Building Up Immigrant Legal Defense Act, legislation that would go hand-in-hand with the Access to Representation Act that would create a statewide right to an attorney in immigration court. Neither bill has passed in the state Legislature despite years of advocacy from both activists and lawmakers.

“An even greater investment is desperately needed to defend immigrant New Yorkers against escalating ICE attacks,” Rosie Wang, program manager for the Advancing Universal Representation initiative at the Vera Institute of Justice, said in a statement. “But by allocating the funding strategically, the state can still ensure that it has the greatest possible impact.”

The memo offered further details for best allocation practices to the Office for New Americans on funding allocation decisions that would help ensure the success of providers and nonprofits receiving grants. That includes allowing contract flexibility for grantees that would make it easier to shift money and resources as necessary to meet ever evolving needs. That would be tied with new quarterly reporting requirements.

Those recommendations come on the heels of a new audit from the state comptroller’s office, which concluded the state didn’t collect enough data such as wait time for services, provider capacity and levels of unmet need necessary for properly evaluating success or areas with gaps.

Another specific recommendation in the memo would address that shortcoming as well. In Care for Immigrant Families also suggested the establishment of a shared reporting platform to be accessed by all nonprofits receiving grants from the Office for New Americans.

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Editor’s note: A keen sense of timing

Jeff Coltin — Mon, 24 Aug 2026 17:12:50 -0400

There’s an art to deciding when to pursue a story, and when to publish. I was thinking about New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s relationship with the lobbying industry nine months ago, at the Somos conference in Puerto Rico.

I talked to a few lobbyists who weren’t sure what business would be like with this incoming mayor they barely knew. And I talked to a few folks from good-government groups who were feeling optimistic.

“I’m very hopeful with the Mamdani administration,” Common Cause New York Executive Director Susan Lerner said at the time. “Because his message is ‘We’re one city together, and we need to figure out how to make life better for everybody.’ So that is a much more open attitude than ‘I’m now your mayor of swagger.’”

But I decided to wait and see before I wrote anything. Give the Mamdani administration a chance to work – and the lobbyists trying to influence the administration too. When City Editor Annie McDonough checked in again, halfway through the mayor’s first year, we found a widespread sense of relief, and that became the basis for this week’s cover story.

I was also happy with the timing of last week’s cover story, on Julio Peña III, a contender to be the next leader of the Brooklyn Democratic Party. Sahalie Donaldson introduced him, and laid out the stakes – and days later, the party exploded in controversy after current leader Rodneyse Bichotte Hermelyn announced an audacious scheme to pack the committee and keep Peña from winning. We’ll be covering that story as it develops – and relying on our keen sense of timing.

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State Republicans attack new immigration law in wake of foiled Capitol terrorist attack

Kate Lisa — Mon, 24 Aug 2026 14:25:47 -0400

A woman who pledged allegiance to ISIS got arrested last week for allegedly planning to bomb the state Capitol. But rather than make cracks at “radical Islamists” or attack Democrats about a public safety failure, instead, Republican leaders praised the effectiveness of local and federal law enforcement working together.

If that seems apolitical, think again. The GOP have used the incident to implicitly criticize a new state immigration law they claim would prevent such cooperation in the future, leading to the kind of chaos that law enforcement managed to stop this time. And it’s giving a preview of what’s to come in Republican messaging as they prepare for a tough midterm election.

The state law in question bars local police from having formal partnerships with federal immigration agents. And municipalities will need to have ended any existing agreements starting Tuesday. The measure has left Gov. Kathy Hochul in a legal standoff with President Donald Trump, whose administration challenged its legality. But even as most police agencies have indicated they will comply with the law, state Republicans are banking on a chaotic rollout to boost the party’s shot at victory this fall.

Republican gubernatorial candidate Bruce Blakeman, the Nassau County executive, has boasted about his county’s formal partnership with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement known as a 287(g) agreement. And he referred to the benefits of such an agreement in his response to the attempted terrorist attack. “When local and federal law enforcement work together, terrorists are caught before they can hurt innocent Americans,” Blakeman said in a statement to City & State.

Blakeman hasn’t indicated whether he will end his county’s agreements as he runs against Hochul. But he’s clearly not waiting to campaign on the policy in efforts to make gains in the tightening race – and sow doubt about Hochul, who led negotiations with the Legislature for months this year.

“This foiled plot is a powerful reminder that cooperation saves lives – and a wake-up call to Kathy Hochul that putting up walls between local and federal law enforcement doesn’t make New Yorkers safer; it puts families in danger,” he said.

Hochul’s campaign hit back by criticizing Trump’s past attempts to withhold federal funding for public safety measures. “When Donald Trump tried to defund $187 million in (New York City Police Department) counterterrorism funding, Gov. Hochul got it back – and fought to keep New Yorkers safe while Bruce Blakeman didn’t lift a finger,” Hochul campaign spokesperson Ryan Radulovacki said in a statement.

State Senate Minority Leader Rob Ortt echoed Blakeman’s response in a statement on X following the attempted attack, similarly tying the incident to the new immigration law. “The announcement regarding an ISIS-inspired terrorist plot targeting our state Capitol building is not only disturbing, but reinforces why law enforcement at all levels must communicate and work together for the safety and well-being of New Yorkers,” Ortt said.

Democrats were quick to combat the GOP narrative. Mike Murphy, a spokesperson for the Senate Democrats, responded to Ortt, saying the successful efforts by law enforcement to prevent the attack proves that the new law doesn’t prevent local and federal law enforcement from working together. “A reminder it is so dangerous when people claim New York outlawed this cooperation to score points and scare people,” Murphy wrote.

A spokesperson for Hochul’s office also said nothing in the new immigration law would have impacted the alleged terrorism case, and “any suggestion otherwise is shameful and deliberately misleading.” The law bans specific agreements with ICE and Customs and Border Patrol, but it does not prevent local and state police from working with federal law enforcement to solve crimes. ICE was not involved with the attempted terrorist attack in Albany.

Some political observers effectively dismissed the messaging from Republicans as bad spin. “What (Blakeman) is trying to do together in a patchwork here, is just fearmongering, it's not reality,” said Democratic strategist Lupe Todd-Medina, who also worked on Hochul’s 2022 campaign.

But fellow Democratic strategist Hank Sheinkopf said that factual distinction doesn’t make a difference – especially to voters in the suburbs who matter. “Some Democrats are presuming that people know nuance, (and) they don't know nuance,” he said. “What they do know is that things appear to be out of control … What Blakeman and Ortt are doing here is not talking about ICE, they're talking about chaos.”

Although public safety concerns loomed large four years ago, recent public polling shows voters are more motivated by cost-of-living issues this year. Medina said it’s a mistake for Republicans to take a page from an old playbook, and it won’t resonate. “The moment now is about affordability, and the Republicans have to answer for why a pound of ground beef is costing $7,” she said, adding a crime argument won’t work this time. “All it's going to be is fodder. All it's going to be is a soundbite. It's not going to carry the election.”

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Opinion: Invest in low-barrier, high-trust drop-in centers

Sebastien Vante — Mon, 24 Aug 2026 13:30:10 -0400

I've been working in runaway and homeless youth services long enough to know that the young men who come through our doors rarely announce that they're struggling. They don't walk in and say, I think I'm experiencing a mental health crisis. That's not how it works, if you’ve been conditioned, to equate silence with strength.

But they do show up.

Sometimes they come for a meal, a shower or a few hours off their feet. Sometimes they come in loud and charged, testing every boundary they can find because testing limits is the only language they have for “I'm not okay.” If we're paying attention, that's where the real work begins.

The numbers are sobering: 69% of youth experiencing homelessness report mental health challenges, and suicide is the leading cause of death among this population. Six million men are affected by depression in the United States every single year and half of all mental illnesses begin by age 14, with 75% emerging by a person's mid-20s – the window during which so many of the young men we serve are living without housing, consistent support, or anyone asking the right questions.

But awareness alone doesn't open the door. Someone must be standing on the other side of it.

At Safe Horizon’s Streetwork Project, our Drop-In Centers on the Lower East Side and in Harlem do just that. For many young men experiencing homelessness in New York City, we are the first point of contact with anything resembling a support system. A drop-in center asks very little and offers quite a lot – they are where some of the most critical early mental health identification happens but are rarely recognized for the clinical function they serve.

I think about a young man who first came to us when he was eighteen. He used the Drop-In the way he saw fit – and that's by design. At Streetwork, young people decide when they come, how they engage, and what they're ready for.

Over time he joined our men’s affinity group. Things began to surface in that space and we noticed a steady decline in his mental health – something we could only catch by investing in relationship-building as a clinical strategy.

One moment with this young man sticks with me. He walked out of our Uptown Drop-In Center after taking a shower – and just kept walking. Down 125th Street in Harlem. Completely undressed.

I ran after him with a blanket.

By the time I reached him, the police were already there. He was taken to the hospital, and then he was gone from our lives.

Then one day, over a year later, he walked back through our door.

He told me he was on medication and that he was doing better. He didn't remember much about that day on 125th Street, but he remembered how our program had made him feel and that someone had run down the street after him.

What he was describing wasn't a traditional clinical intervention. He wasn't thanking a diagnosis or a treatment protocol. He was thanking a relationship, and the support groups, the staff who knew his name, and the space that never required him to explain himself before he was ready.

There is a crisis of proximity in men's mental health. Young men of color navigating poverty and instability are not refusing help in a vacuum. They are refusing help from systems that have given them every reason not to trust them, from providers they've never seen, in languages that don't reflect their experience. The stigma that discourages men from seeking help is compounded enormously when systems feel foreign, judgmental or inaccessible.

Drop-in models work precisely because they dismantle the threshold. You don't have to name your pain to walk through the door. You don't have to have insurance, a referral, or a diagnosis. You just have to show up. And once you're there – once a staff member knows your name, knows your rhythm, knows when something's off – the chance for intervention becomes real.

I ask advocates, funders and policymakers to think carefully about what "access to mental healthcare" actually means for young men who are unhoused. It cannot only mean expanding the number of licensed providers. It has to mean investing in the low-barrier, high-trust environments where those young men already are – where skilled, caring people are already doing the quiet work of watching, noticing, and refusing to look away.

He didn't remember the day. But he remembered how we made him feel.

For a lot of young men, that's the whole ballgame.

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Lobbyists are still feeling good in Mamdani’s New York

Jeff Coltin and Annie McDonough — Mon, 24 Aug 2026 05:00:00 -0400

Zohran Mamdani had just won the mayoral primary, and lobbyists were nervous.

The man who could be leading New York City, the capital of the western world, was an anti-capitalist. And even worse, for a business where phone numbers are currency, Mamdani was not a part of the scene.

“Nobody knew anybody in his inner circle. Nobody knew who his inner circle was,” said one lobbyist, who was granted anonymity to speak freely. “He really was an unknown.”

Sure, he’d been an Assembly member for a few years, but he was a democratic socialist, and a backbencher who hadn’t earned much attention from the movers and shakers. “What the hell could he do?” the lobbyist added. “I never met with him in a business setting.” Lobbyists weren’t playing a major role in his campaign, either. While former Mayor Eric Adams had raised at least $770,000 in his 2021 campaign through lobbyists, according to government reform group Citizens Union, Mamdani raised approximately $0 in that fashion.

“People were concerned there was going to be a ban – they weren’t going to be able to get access,” said Diane Savino, a former state senator and Adams adviser who now works as a lobbyist with Allied Government Affairs. But that hasn’t happened. “I have not heard one person who’s a lobbyist say, ‘(City Hall) won’t meet with me because I’m a lobbyist,’” she said.

More than half a year into Mamdani’s administration, with one $126 billion budget already done, the picture has come into focus. The doors are still open, and it’s business as usual at City Hall. Lobbyists can’t say they’re getting everything they want, but they all say they’re able to schedule meetings with administration figures – many of whom date back to the days of former Mayor Bill de Blasio – and that they are at least getting heard. It’s just the latest sign that Mamdani is governing as a reformer, rather than a revolutionary. That’s a disappointment for some ethics watchdogs, who hoped he’d take more dramatic action about the wheeling and dealing culture at City Hall. But it’s good news for anybody with financial interests before the city of New York.

“There’s plenty of opportunity to have business grow when the mayor is an avowed democratic socialist,” said Joe Borelli, a former Republican New York City Council member who is now lobbying with Chartwell Strategy Group. “You just have to figure out which type of businesses are going to fall on the most welcome ears.”

The business of influence

Lobbying is a whole industry in New York City. The most recent annual report from the City Clerk found that registered lobbyists reported nearly $145 million in total compensation in calendar year 2025, the last year of Adams’ term.

And the numbers suggest the business hasn’t taken a hit in 2026. Lobbyists reported making just over $78 million in the first six months of this year – a 4% year-over-year increase. In the previous mayor’s first six months, back in 2022, lobbyists reported just under $62 million in compensation. In fact, the industry’s revenue has more than tripled in the past two decades.

Lobbyists see themselves as a mix of teachers, who can educate their clients on how government works – and educate government on how the outside world works – and professional representatives. Just as you wouldn’t go to court without a lawyer, they often say, you shouldn’t appear before government without a lobbyist. The sector is broad, ranging from those who work in-house for smaller nonprofits to guns-for-hire who represent powerful interests like Google, JPMorgan and the Real Estate Board of New York.

Lobbyists and staffers gather outside the New York City Council Chamber during a stated meeting. / Jeff Coltin/City & State

City & State talked to more than two dozen lobbyists, mostly those with portfolios of clients. Many of them agreed only to speak if their names weren’t included, fearing that errant comments could jeopardize relationships within City Hall or with their clients. By and large, they were happy with the situation, even pleasantly surprised.

“I don’t find it substantially different than prior administrations,” said Rose Christ, co-chair of Cozen O’Connor Public Strategies’ New York Practice. “I’ve found them to be genuinely curious and engaged and open-minded, especially when coming forward with opportunities to help partner on things that are early wins for the administration to help demonstrate that the government is able to deliver for New Yorkers.”

Things were slow-going at first, as lobbyists learned the organizational chart, and who reported to whom, but since then, “we haven’t found it difficult to navigate,” said another experienced lobbyist. “We haven’t experienced a ton of backlash or negativity or anything of that nature.”

One caveat: Lobbyists’ very livelihoods depend on the idea that they can get access to the administration, so it’s in their interest to paint the rosiest picture possible about life under Mamdani. It’s a competitive industry, and nobody wants their clients reading City & State and then dropping their contract to go with a firm that claims they know the mayor better.

But all the evidence suggests that it’s been a relief for an industry where some had feared the worst.

Better than Cuomo. Better than Adams.

In the immediate aftermath of Mamdani’s victory last November, lobbyists spent the Somos conference in Puerto Rico drowning their sorrows in rum and consoling clients that it wouldn’t be so bad. Some suggested it would have been even worse had ex-Gov. Andrew Cuomo, Mamdani’s chief rival, won instead.

“All of our clients that paid money were like, ‘We are going to jump off the Empire State Building now, or we’re going to move to Siberia, one or the other,’” another city lobbyist said of the choice between the difficult Cuomo and the outsider Mamdani. “Everyone was very relieved and happy that they didn’t have to deal with Cuomo anymore – but also a little worried because he’s the devil that you know.”

The lobbying class breathed another sigh of relief the very next week, when Mamdani announced he’d be tapping Dean Fuleihan as first deputy mayor. A top de Blasio appointee who spent decades working in the Assembly before that, everyone knew Fuleihan and thought of him as a consummate professional. And Mamdani kept it up, filling his administration’s top roles not with 25-year-old socialists, but with de Blasio administration veterans, who knew the players, and knew the game.

There’s plenty of opportunity to have business grow when the mayor is an avowed democratic socialist.

lobbyist and former City Council Member Joe Borelli

And even though Adams’ doors were open to lobbyists, and even though he was a proud capitalist, some lobbyists see Mamdani’s City Hall as a better forum to do business. The Adams administration, particularly in its final, tumultuous years, could be a chaotic target for lobbyists. The coming and going of top officials – and the in-fighting and rivalries at the highest levels – made it difficult to know who exactly to lobby.

“You might not always get the answer that you want to hear,” the lobbyist who didn’t want to end up in “Siberia” said of the Mamdani administration. “But if you do get the answer that you want to hear, executing it and having them follow through on the things that you need to do has been like night and day. The Adams administration was so incompetent that getting anything done, even if they wanted to help you, was impossible.”

“A level playing field”

Different lobbyists flourish under different administrations. Carl Figliola built a reputation as Rudy Giuliani’s golfing buddy. De Blasio had close ties with James Capalino and Sid Davidoff, while Frank Carone’s Oaktree Solutions built a lobbying practice after he departed as Adams’ chief of staff after one year. (Oaktree’s lobbying team wound down after Adams lost reelection.)

But at this early point in the Mamdani administration, everyone agrees there’s no favored firm profiting off a personal relationship with the mayor. Had Cuomo won the mayoralty, there might have been a rush of Albany insiders speeding down the New York State Thruway to expand their city practices. There were far fewer political pros who knew Mamdani. His confidants who didn’t follow him into government – like consultants Morris Katz, Andrew Bard Epstein and Amit Singh Bagga, or election attorney Ali Najmi – have mostly focused on electoral politics. Lina Khan also has the mayor’s ear, but the anti-monopolist former Federal Trade Commission chair isn’t exactly taking on corporate clients.

“Right now, their priority is not making a lot of money,” Suri Kasirer, founder of the eponymous lobbying firm that’s been the city’s biggest for the last nine years, said of the mayor’s inner circle. “Their priority is getting people elected. By the way, that may change. In two years, three years, I don’t know, there could be a DSA lobbying firm.”

There could be a Mamdani-aligned firm even sooner. Asked if he was going to go into lobbying, Bagga suggested it was an option. “There are plenty of organizations and entities doing important work to support the lives and livelihoods of New Yorkers who need guidance in navigating City government,” he said in a text message. “Helping them achieve their goals is not an ignoble endeavor.”

That’s not to suggest that nobody knew Mamdani before he won. Cozen O’Connor’s Zak Malik volunteered on the campaign. So did Francisco Lebrón, an associate with Kline Public Strategies. And Bolton-St. Johns’ Trivette Knowles knows the mayor’s circle, despite previously working for mayoral race foe Jessica Ramos.

But for now, in the broad world of city lobbyists, there are very few who were actually standing with the mayor before he won the primary. And that can be a good thing.

“I think it’s refreshing to have a level playing field,” Kasirer said. “And an administration that doesn’t play favorites and an openness to good ideas, and things that resonate with them.”

Mamdani, seen here at a conference with Chobani CEO Hamdi Ulukaya, has taken a more business-friendly approach than some thought. / Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office

Of course, even if his staff is lending lobbyists an ear, the mayor has a democratic socialist reputation to uphold. His time is guarded and he rarely, if ever, personally meets with lobbyists – only principals like JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon, or Blackstone President Jonathan Gray. And while the administration’s doors are open for meetings, their arms are not open for hugs.

“The Mamdani administration works every day to better the lives of the people of New York City,” mayoral spokesperson Dora Pekec said in a statement, “not the class of lobbyists who in the last administration were often granted unfiltered access to influence policy and decision-making at the expense of working people.”

Lobbyists can spin any small step in the right direction as a victory to their clients. That could be anything from a chief of staff taking a phone call with a lobbyist to a deputy mayor making a site visit to a client’s organization. Bonus if you squeeze in a photo op. So far in the Mamdani administration, a couple lobbyists pointed to this year’s budget as being a fruitful one for nonprofit organizations, particularly in investments to arts and cultural organizations. Others were proud to see the administration reverse a proposal to delay payments to nonprofit contractors. And real estate developers are still building.

But getting a meeting doesn’t mean that the administration will actually do what your client wants. One lobbyist said it’s been difficult to get a foothold with new members of the administration, who “are very standoffish” with the lobbying class. “Have I had any wins?” they said. “I mean, we were able to get some meetings and get some calls in, but it didn’t change the outcome.”

The “culture of corruption”

The ethics watchdogs don’t feel like they’ve gotten a win yet.

On the campaign trail, Mamdani railed against a “culture of corruption” of “pay-to-play politics” and a “city for sale” under Adams, recalled Grace Rauh, executive director of government reform group Citizens Union, and a registered lobbyist herself. “It is stark, and frankly surprising to us, that a new mayor who came in on the heels of Eric Adams, and the swirl of corruption allegations and indictments that hovered over that administration … (has) made no announcements or policy changes specifically around ethics and accountability,” she said. “We think that was a real missed opportunity.”

After all, there was a criminal probe examining whether Terence Banks, the lobbyist brother of both Adams’ schools chancellor and deputy mayor, was selling access to the Adams administration. (No charges have been brought against him.) Adams’ Department of Buildings Commissioner Eric Ulrich was charged in bribery schemes, and his chief adviser Ingrid Lewis-Martin was also charged with trading her political influence for cash and gifts.

In two years, three years, I don’t know, there could be a DSA lobbying firm.

Suri Kasirer

There haven’t been any ethical red flags from the Mamdani administration so far, Rauh said, but Citizens Union would still like to see proactive steps. For example, de Blasio’s City Hall publicly reported meetings that senior staff took with lobbyists. Adams ended that voluntary transparency effort upon taking office, and Mamdani has not brought it back.

Citizens Union Director of Public Policy Ben Weinberg said Mamdani could also proactively disclose when the Conflicts of Interest Board provides specific guidance to administration officials and strengthen the recusal policy to keep government officials from making decisions that could benefit their former private sector employers or clients. He could also improve funding and staffing at COIB and the Department of Investigation, and even consider moving lobbying oversight away from the City Clerk and into a more independent agency like COIB.

“The north star should be sending a message to the municipal workforce and to the senior officials that the city is turning the page on the culture of corruption,” Weinberg said.

Of course, lobbyists say Mamdani is doing exactly what he should – listening to everyone with an open mind.

“It would be like being a judge and refusing to hear from the defense,” said the lobbyist who called Mamdani an “unknown” in Albany. “Not listening to a certain segment of the population or people who are affected by laws would be malpractice.”

But government affairs professionals are aware that “lobbyist” can be a bad word. And they’re grateful they haven’t been shut out.

“I hope your story doesn’t inspire them to ban lobbyists,” the same one added. “Because they’ve actually been logical and fair about meeting with lobbyists.”

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The 2026 Top 50 New York Lobbyists

City & State — Mon, 24 Aug 2026 05:00:00 -0400

Government relations is a big business in New York. The latest state figures showed steady growth in 2025, with total lobbying spending hitting a record $384.8 million, as corporations, nonprofits, labor unions and other players look to lobbying firms to shape legislative, regulatory and budgetary outcomes.

Each year, City & State provides a comprehensive overview of the state’s top 50 lobbying firms. Firms are ranked based on 2025 lobbying compensation, using the latest numbers reported to the state. We omitted organizations lobbying on their own behalf and combined entities in the same corporate family. We asked the 50 top firms to share their biggest accomplishments from the past year. We are highlighting each firm’s executives, industries and clients as well.

Atop year’s list is Brown & Weinraub, with annual lobbying compensation rising by more than $2 million. Another standout is Hollis Public Affairs, which vaulted from No. 26 into the Top 10. Cojo Strategies, Masiello Martucci Hughes Kulpa and O’Donnell & Associates enjoyed significant growth year over year, while one notable newcomer is Jason Laidley’s London House, making a splash at No 32.

We’re pleased to present the 2026 Top 50 New York Lobbyists.

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Why is Mamdani suing the City Council?

Shenal Tissera — Fri, 21 Aug 2026 16:55:40 -0400

New York City’s roughly 39,000 paraprofessionals were in for a bonus of up to $10,000, thanks to a City Council bill that was set to become law this week. But an 11th hour lawsuit to block the law filed by Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s office on Wednesday has thrown those plans into a state of uncertainty.

Why is the Mamdani administration fighting a bonus for low paid unionized workers, one that’s being sold as a way to address recruitment and retention issues across city public schools? And what does it mean for the two sides of City Hall to be in a legal battle?

We broke it all down here.

What are paraprofessionals?

Paraprofessionals, sometimes called paras, are teaching assistants who mostly work in special education and early childhood education providing instructional services and supervision to students.

The city is facing significant recruitment and retention challenges for the position. Currently, paraprofessionals receive a starting pay of $32,098 and reach a top pay of $54,541 after 15 years or more of employment, per their current union contract. There are more than 25,000 full-time paraprofessionals employed by the city and an estimated 1,600 vacancies according to the United Federation of Teachers.

What is the bill that Mamdani is suing over?

Dubbed the RESPECT Check Act, this piece of legislation would require the city Department of Education to provide a one-time “workforce stabilization payment” of up to $10,000 for every eligible paraprofessional within the New York City public school system who worked within the 2026-2027 school year. The actual payments would be split among four paychecks over the upcoming school year.

The UFT has fought for paraprofessional pay raises in contract negotiations with the DOE but hadn’t come to an agreement, prompting the City Council to move forward with the bill.

“Every member of the council, in a unanimous and bipartisan vote, supported the RESPECT Check Act,” said City Council Speaker Julie Menin in a statement on the lawsuit. “The council will vigorously defend the law.”

The council also sees the bill as a way to mitigate “Carter cases” which are legal proceedings where families of children requiring special needs services seek reimbursement for private school tuition if the city cannot provide adequate accommodations. City expenditures for such proceedings ballooned to over $1 billion in 2025 according to the Manhattan Institute, a conservative public policy think tank.

Why is Mamdani fighting the bill?

The Mamdani administration has argued that the bill is illegal. Their lawsuit claims the legislation circumvents the standard collective bargaining process and undermines the DOE’s powers to negotiate and enter into agreements regarding paraprofessionals’ employment. Specifically, the administration is arguing that the bill is inconsistent with the Taylor Law, a state statute applied to all public sector employees which strictly regulates how parties negotiate terms and conditions of employment.

“The City Council has passed legislation that undermines collective bargaining and sets a dangerous precedent: allowing politicians to bypass workers and their unions and dictate the terms of employment themselves,” Mamdani spokesperson Matt Rauschenbach said in a statement this week. “A one-time payment does not solve the underlying, long-term pay inequities facing paraprofessionals. We will not allow the political process to replace the collective bargaining table.”

The administration also protests the precedent the piece of legislation would set for other unions to bypass collective bargaining and alternatively pursue pieces of legislation through the council to reach favored employment terms.

Why didn’t Mamdani just veto the bill?

Mamdani certainly could have vetoed the bill, but it wouldn’t do much besides prompt a protracted veto override process by the council, and one that was all but certain to have ended in Mamdani’s defeat. The legislation passed by a 49-0 vote in the council, which would allow his veto to be easily overridden Instead, he let it lapse into law and filed the lawsuit, leaving it up to the courts.

Who is backing the City Council?

Everyone from democratic socialist Council Member Tiffany Cabán to Republican Council Member Frank Morano voted in favor of this bill in a rare instance of unity in City Council chambers.

UFT President Michael Mulgrew isn’t exactly thrilled about Mamdani’s latest effort to stop the one-time pay raise from going through.

“The City Council would not have introduced – let alone passed – this bill if it were illegal, and we would not have supported a bill that threatened our collective bargaining rights,” Mulgrew said in a statement. “This administration must keep its promises, and we won’t stop until it does.”

The Legal Aid Society also voiced their support for the council bill in a statement released after the lawsuit came forward, saying in a statement, “We support the City Council’s efforts to ensure [paraprofessionals] they are fairly compensated for their vital work.”

Who is backing the mayor?

Despite a groundswell of support for the paras’ pay push, the mayor is not entirely on his own here.

There are some on Mamdani’s side who believe the entire process of collective bargaining in the city is in jeopardy as long as the bill passes.

“This bill and approach undermines the collective bargaining process and sets a dangerous precedent with real fiscal consequences,” said Ana Champeny, vice president for research at the Citizens Budget Commission, a budget watchdog group. “Our position has nothing to do with the merit of their claims regarding low pay and recruitment challenges. There is a fundamental process for how city and municipal labor unions set wages and terms of conditions of employment.”

And, in the odd couple pairing of the week, the New York Post Editorial Board backed Mamdani too, agreeing that the council bill improperly circumvents collective bargaining.

How rare is a lawsuit between the mayor and City Council?

Not entirely rare! Former Mayors Rudy Giuliani and Michael Bloomberg both went to court with the City Council during their respective tenures. Former Mayor Bill de Blasio faced off with a handful of City Council members who wanted to file an amicus brief in support of another party’s lawsuit against the city. And the City Council sued former Mayor Eric Adams for not implementing an expansion of a rental assistance program known as CityFHEPS.

That last suit carried over into the beginning of Mamdani’s term, giving him some experience already at facing the council in court. (Mamdani and Menin eventually came to an arrangement to end the lawsuit in the last budget deal after agreeing to increase funding to the program by $175 million.)

But this is the first fresh suit between the Mamdani administration and the City Council led by Menin. Mamdani and Menin’s relationship has experienced some recent points of tension – including the administration’s complete no-show at an oversight hearing on the pied-à-terre tax rollout this week. This lawsuit will likely cause some more tension, though neither side of City Hall is likely to say so.

What comes next in the lawsuit?

The council has 30 days to respond to the lawsuit. There is no telling how long this will play out in court, but the CityFHEPS lawsuit spanned several years.

The UFT and the city have started up talks again to resolve the paraprofessional pay issue, presumably because of the pressure the council has put on the mayor through the bill. The legislation specifies the pay bump would be repealed if a collective bargaining agreement is reached that increases paraprofessional pay at or above the level prescribed in the bill. The current UFT contract for paraprofessionals expires in 2027.

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Mamdani’s NYPD is still working with Israel

Fariha Rahman — Fri, 21 Aug 2026 05:00:00 -0400

After the reign of Mayor Eric “I would marry Israel” Adams, the firm stance that New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani took against Israel’s violence in Gaza was refreshing to some of his voters. But whatever Mamdani’s personal views on Israel, not much has changed when it comes to the institutional relationship between New York City and the Jewish state, particularly when it comes to the New York City Police Department’s work with Israeli law enforcement. In fact, the NYPD liaison stationed in Israel, whom the New York Post reported had left the job a week before Mamdani was elected, is now back on the job, a spokesperson for the police department told City & State.

Soon after winning the mayoral election, Mamdani began walking back some of the firm stances he had previously taken against Israel.

As an Assembly member, Mamdani had called for a boycott of Cornell Tech, a partnership between Cornell University and Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, due to the latter’s ties to the Israeli military. During his mayoral campaign, Mamdani said that he would instruct the NYPD to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is wanted by the International Criminal Court, if Netanyahu stepped foot in New York City.

But a few days after winning the mayoral election, Mamdani said he would not support a boycott of Cornell Tech. Last month, he released a video calling Netanyahu a war criminal while admitting he did not have the authority to arrest him. The video drew more than millions of views overnight.

Nowhere has the gap between Mamdani’s views on Israel and his actual policy been greater than his management of the NYPD. In a 2023 speech at the Democratic Socialists of America’s national convention, Mamdani said, “When the boot of the NYPD is on your neck, it’s been laced by the IDF” – which he later clarified was a reference to the to the joint training between the city’s police department and Israeli law enforcement, including IDF personnel. As mayor, though, he has not made any efforts to disentangle the NYPD from Israeli law enforcement.

Instead, he has largely left the department to its own devices under the leadership of NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch, who describes herself as a “proud Zionist.” Mamdani may be a master at messaging, but how does that trickle down into his administration, when there are well-documented ties between the NYPD with Israeli law enforcement, security organizations and an NYPD officer stationed at Israeli National Police headquarters?

Israel and the NYPD

After 9/11, the NYPD looked to Israel to learn best practices for counterterrorism and intelligence gathering, sending officers to a law enforcement exchange program in 2002, initiated by the retired police chief Louis Anemone. The NYPD continued to observe and learn the methods and techniques of the Israeli police and border guard operations in the West Bank. The Jewish Institute for National Security of America, which organizes these officer exchange programs, “maintains that its trips focus on management and policy issues, and that officials do not learn about physical tactics,” as reported by The Forward. (The Israeli government has not responded to requests for comment on their relationship with the NYPD.)

In 2007, the NYPD began stationing an officer in Israel through its International/Domestic Liaison Program. Detective Charlie Benaim, a former IDF officer, has been based at an office stationed at the Israel National Police Sharon District headquarters in Kfar Saba since 2012. He is one of more than a dozen senior intelligence bureau officers stationed at domestic and international locations outside of New York as part of the liaison program, which is partially funded by the New York City Police Foundation. In turn, the foundation is funded by wealthy donors, including the Tisch family. The NYPD commissioner’s uncle Andrew Tisch and her cousin Alexander Tisch sit on the foundation’s Board of Trustees. Netanyahu even reportedly likes to stay in the Tisch family's hotel when he is in New York.

Beyond the NYPD actively working with Israeli law enforcement, the NYPD continues to contract with Israeli companies like Terrogence Global, a web intelligence reporting service founded by former soldiers from the IDF Intelligence Corps. As recently as September 2025, during the Adams administration, NYPD officials also continued to take official trips to Israel for counterterrorism and antisemitism training, even during the war with Hamas.

No trips to Israel are currently planned for this year, an NYPD spokesperson said, but it’s not clear if that’s due to Mamdani’s subliminal influence. The spokesperson said the mayor has never given any directive instructing the NYPD to stop cooperating with the Israeli national police nor to stop attending any conferences or trainings in Israel. City Hall spokesperson Sam Raskin said that while no City Hall officials have travelled to Israel for official business under the Mamdani administration, no travel edicts have been issued prohibiting travel to any country, including Israel.

Some other New York institutions have paused official travel to Israel, given the security threats. The Jewish Community Relations Council of New York has regularly hosted lawmakers on mission trips to Israel. City Council Speaker Julie Menin said in January she plans to continue the tradition and lead a mission to Israel during her tenure – but a council spokesperson said that there are no planned events for the City Council in Israel at this point in time.

Tisch’s NYPD, Mamdani’s New York

Mamdani’s decision to retain Tisch as commissioner upset many of his voters and endorsing groups making up his anti-Zionist base, who criticize her for helping to create the NYPD’s extensive surveillance system and overseeing the aggressive policing of pro-Palestinian protests on college campuses during the Adams administration.

Just last month, the pro-Palestinian activist group Pal-Awda publicly released a list of demands for the mayor on ways that he can leverage his power to take “concrete action against Zionism,” which include firing Tisch. The group, along with fellow pro-Palestinian organization Within Our Lifetime, has also called for Mamdani to put new policies in place to stop illegal sales of land in the occupied West Bank at real estate events in New York City.

“Especially for a mayor who sort of positions himself to be really sympathetic to these issues and has an understanding of what's going on in Palestine, I think there's an expectation that the rhetoric needs to be acted upon and simply expressing solidarity with international law is not enough when there are actual New York laws that can be invoked,” said Shraddha Joshi, an organizer with Pal-Awda.

Mamdani is a supporter of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel and as an Assembly member, he sponsored the Not On Our Dime act aimed at preventing New York-registered charities from funding activity connected to illegal Israeli settlements. State Sen. Jabari Brisport, his friend and fellow co-sponsor, told The New York Times that he expects the mayor will find ways to support the BDS movement as mayor. "It's important for him to do so. I kind of hope people do bring it up,” he said. But since he became mayor, Mamdani has not tried to implement any BDS policies.

Mamdani now has control over the NYPD, which means he has inherited all of the department’s problems. Critics of the police department's surveillance measures, which Mamdani himself once lambasted, have been disappointed by the mayor’s lack of action in curtailing these measures. “At what point does one’s inheritance become their property?,” asked Edward Ongweso Jr. in a piece for New York magazine. Criminal justice reform advocates have also chastised the mayor’s apparent deference to Tisch, calling her approach to low-level crime “broken windows policing” and saying it is antithetical to Mamdani’s vision for the city.

Despite his supporter’s concerns about Tisch’s approach to policing, the mayor has publicly defended his commissioner. At an unrelated press conference last week, the mayor expressed his confidence in Tisch’s ability to execute his vision, “I would not have someone serving our city if I was not confident in what they were doing.”

Mamdani has also faced criticism from within the NYPD. Law enforcement sources told the New York Post that his encouragement of protests during Netanyahu’s visit to the U.N. was “reckless” and “unfair to your own cops.” The situation became even more awkward when the mayor’s spokesperson told the Post that the NYPD would be providing a security escort for first lady Rama Duwaji’s planned trip to Lebanon and Syria, which, like Israel, are under federal travel advisories. An NYPD spokesperson immediately denied that her detail would be joining – and the mayor himself acknowledged there’d been a miscommunication.

As mayor, there is little Mamdani can do to change the U.S. relationship with a powerful state like Israel. But he does have the power to look into the contracts, vendors and organizations his agencies work with – power that he has so far declined to use.

Still, Mamdani has demonstrated some of the most concrete political action elected officials in New York have ever done to show his support for Palestinians. He revoked Adams’ anti-BDS order on his first day in office, released a video for Nakba Day commemorating the forced displacement of Palestinians, refused to march in the annual Israel Day parade, publicly accused Netanyahu of genocide and criticized the illegal sale of occupied Palestinian land.

Those actions have captured attention – including from Netanyahu himself. The prime minister, who is locked in his own reelection battle, has treated Mamdani as a foil. He has defiantly insisted he’ll attend the U.N. General Assembly in spite of Mamdani’s claim that he’s not welcome in New York City, and his campaign ads in Israel prominently feature Mamdani as one of his top foes, right next to the new supreme leader of Iran.

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This week’s biggest Winners & Losers

City & State — Fri, 21 Aug 2026 05:00:00 -0400

Former Rep. Chris Collins is best remembered as the federally convicted, Trump-pardoned Republican from Western New York who made our elite Winners & Losers of the Year list in 2019. Seven years later, Collins is still losing, just in a different state. Collins made a play for an open Republican congressional seat in Florida, where he now lives, but badly lost this week, coming in fifth place out of 10 candidates. Maybe he should have stayed in Western New York – home of the most passionate fanbase in the National Football League.

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Albany woman charged in plotted ISIS-inspired attack on state Capitol

Sophie Krichevsky and Kate Lisa — Thu, 20 Aug 2026 18:01:37 -0400

The FBI thwarted an alleged planned bombing of the state Capitol when they arrested a 35-year-old woman Wednesday who had pledged allegiance to ISIS, according to a complaint filed in federal court.

The woman, Albany resident Jessica Bowie, was arrested near a McDonald’s after meeting in a car with FBI informants who had given Bowie an inert explosive device she intended to use to target the Capitol and state senators, per the criminal complaint.

“We definitely want to make sure the senators get killed for sure,” Bowie allegedly told an informant on Aug. 5. “That’s the most important part. Destroying the building too? That’s, that’s ideal …”

Bowie, who investigators said also went by Aisha Saif, is charged with attempting to provide material support or resources to a designated foreign terrorist organization, namely ISIS. If convicted, she could face up to 20 years in prison, a $250,000 and a lifetime of supervised release. She does not have prior arrests, and is being held in Schenectady County Court.

The FBI, U.S. Attorney’s Office, and state and local police worked together on the case, spearheaded by First Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of New York John Sarcone III. Sarcone said Bowie, who’s originally from Schenectady, converted to Islam about five years ago and recently became radicalized to commit an act of domestic terrorism.

“She went from a little girl waving the American flag after 9/11 to now having stickers of the fallen towers,” Sarcone told reporters at the federal courthouse in Albany on Thursday, referring to something Bowie allegedly told an informant, according to the complaint. “Let that sink in: Miss Bowie didn’t just want to kill lawmakers, she wanted a complete disruption of our government.”

Albany FBI Special Agent in Charge Craig Tremaroli said Bowie started posting anti-American rhetoric on various social media accounts in late May, and sent messages expressing support for terrorism using unspecified encrypted messaging platforms. Police would not specify which platforms Bowie used, but Tremaroli said she swore her allegiance to ISIS through multiple audio recordings in both English and Arabic.

While it’s not clear how investigators became aware of Bowie’s intentions, her plans didn’t seem to be particularly sophisticated. In the weeks leading up to her arrest, Bowie repeatedly spoke with FBI informants – one of whom was posing as an ISIS facilitator – about her plans to carry out an attack on the state Capitol. She told the informant she wanted to attack the Capitol “ideally (on a) day when we know senators will be meeting.” But the Legislature has been out of session since June and is not set to return until January. Bowie did not appear to know that state lawmakers were not present, even though she’s from the area.

She went to the Capitol grounds at least five times between July 21 and Aug. 9, according to the complaint, taking dozens of photos to assess the site and observe security.

“I want to destroy as much of the building as possible and kill the senators while they're meeting,” Bowie told informants. “I want them to lose a lot of important documents as well.” She later told them that larger attacks, like on the White House, would be her ultimate goal.

Bowie bought materials to make an explosive device at Home Depot in Rensselaer, using $200 given to her by the informants, per the complaint. Bowie recounted to informants how she had a DoorDash delivery bag she could use to hold the explosive device, which she gave them, so that she could pose as a delivery worker to carry out the attack.

She also requested a gun to potentially shoot any police officer who tried to intercept her. When she met up with a confidential source of the FBI to retrieve the materials, she also made another $200 donation to the purported bomb maker.

Police continue to investigate if Bowie worked alone and what led to her actions, investigators said Thursday. Officials would not comment on whether other state capitals across the country are facing an increase of similar threats.

Gov. Kathy Hochul thanked the agencies for the arrest, and said security was bolstered in the state Capitol and government agencies earlier this year. “While there is no immediate threat at this time, we will continue working closely with our law enforcement partners to protect New Yorkers and keep our communities safe,” she said in a statement.

State Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins also thanked the authorities in a statement. “I am extremely grateful that law enforcement including the FBI and the State Police acted swiftly on this incident and the individual was apprehended before anything could happen,” she said.

The FBI and police thwarted similar threats at the state Capitol in 2004 and 2016.

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Hochul launches her first TV ads of the cycle as she shifts into full campaign mode

Rebecca C. Lewis — Thu, 20 Aug 2026 06:00:00 -0400

Gov. Kathy Hochul is officially shifting into campaign mode as her first two TV ads of the cycle are set to start airing Thursday and the state Democratic Party prepares to host a statewide series of events this weekend in a pre-Labor Day kickoff to the general election push.

The first of the two ads features the governor discussing her first job at pizzeria in Buffalo. It’s not the first time she has mentioned the job, though the choice could perhaps be interpreted as a dig at a somewhat bizarre campaign-meets-pizzeria-promotional video her Republican opponent Bruce Blakeman filmed two months ago. In her ad, Hochul touted the approval of universal free school meals under her tenure and middle class tax cuts she signed. “Because I know what it’s like to stretch every penny,” she says in the ad. It’s yet another sign the governor is leaning into the political buzzword of this election cycle: affordability.

The second ad conversely goes negative on Blakeman, continuing Hochul’s strategy of tying him to President Donald Trump, who has called the Nassau County executive “100% MAGA.”

Per the governor’s campaign, both ads are part of a multimillion dollar ad buy that will run through Election Day all over the state on broadcast, cable digital and streaming.

“Our campaign is taking the contrast in this election to voters’ screens, doorsteps, and phones: while Governor Hochul fights for your family, Bruce Blakeman fights for Donald Trump,” Hochul campaign manager Preston Elliot said in a statement. Elliot also took aim at Blakeman’s use of artificial intelligence in his campaign material. “Unlike our opponent, we don’t need to use AI or made-up attacks – these are his own real words of adoration about Donald Trump and his policies, and New Yorkers should be deeply concerned.”

Blakeman has frequently made use of AI in campaign videos he posts on social media, some of which may run afoul of election law. The state Democratic Party earlier this month filed a complaint with the state Board of Elections over Blakeman’s use of AI and asking the board to ensure that public matching funds aren’t going toward potential election law violations.

The state Democratic Party is also holding 150 organizing events on Saturday and Sunday as part of its “coordinated campaign weekend of action” to mobilize voters, with the governor hitting the campaign trail next week, according to her campaign.

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Some BK Dems call for district leader’s resignation for ‘antisemitic conduct’

Jeff Coltin and Annie McDonough — Wed, 19 Aug 2026 19:12:14 -0400

District Leaders aligned with Brooklyn Democratic Party leader Rodneyse Bichotte Hermelyn are pressuring an insurgent, reformer faction of the party to call for the resignation of one of their own after she blamed “Zionists” for deed theft in Brooklyn in an interview, not long after she shared a video that referenced antisemitic conspiracy theories.

The letter, which was circulated among district leaders Wednesday, was shared by Joey Cohen-Saban and signed by nine other leaders, according to Cohen-Saban. “As Democratic district leaders, we have a duty to reject bigotry without regard to ideology, faction, or political convenience,” it reads, before calling for the resignation of Carmella Charrington, who was recently elected district leader.

Charrington did not immediately respond to a request for comment. After initially facing criticism for sharing the video, she deleted the post and told The New York Times that she is not antisemitic and did not intend to amplify conspiracy theories.

But some in the party see the criticism of Charrington as part of an attempt to protect Bichotte Hermelyn, who stands a good chance of being ousted as chair by Julio Peña III. Like Peña, Charrington was part of the Brooklyn Can’t Wait reform slate, supported by New Kings Democrats. Peña’s side says he has a narrow lead in pledged votes, but losing Charrington – or mishandling a tense situation with an ally under attack – could complicate his path to victory.

And Wednesday evening, Bichotte Hermelyn announced another audacious plan to maintain her role leading the party. She will try to expand the party’s executive committee from 42 members to 68.

“We want to create a perception of inclusiveness,” she said in an interview on NY1, “I think the perception has been backroom politics, and we don’t want that perception anymore.”

City & State first reported Monday that Bichotte Hermelyn was considering a last-minute rules change to find more votes.

The New Kings Democrats quickly shot back. “This would be nothing short of an anti-democratic power grab by the party chair—changing the rules and packing the executive committee so she can overrule Brooklyn voters and hold on to her position,” the reform club said in a Wednesday night post on X.

Late Tuesday, in screenshots of a group chat obtained by City & State, district leaders affiliated with NKD suggested that others not engage with the sign-on letter criticizing Charrington. “This is an attempt by the Party Chair to hold on to power after she lost an election, not a sincere attempt to fight antisemitism,” NKD President Tony Melone said in one of the messages. “We’ll keep working as a coalition to fight antisemitism and educate all our coalition partners, but we can’t throw away everything you’ve worked for – we need to stand together to win. There’s no need to respond to this letter or to post about this on social media. We can deal with this situation within our coalition, learn from it, and come out stronger.”

“Agree,” Assembly Member Maritza Davila replied.

In the text messages, Melone also said that Cohen-Saban was pointing to a similar sign-on letter in 2021 calling for the resignation of a district leader over anti-Asian posts. “It’s not a comparable situation for a bunch of reasons that we can talk about when there’s time, but in the end Joey and Rodneyse are seizing on any an opportunity to divide us, and the NY Post is happy to help,” Melone says in the message.

But Peña did choose to respond, after being contacted by City & State. “Antisemitism has no place in Brooklyn. I am committed to ensuring our Democratic Party is inclusive and representative of all Brooklynites. That includes confronting hate in all its forms,” Peña wrote in a statement. “Our coalition is working continually to provide newly elected leaders with tools and resources to fight antisemitism and hate as we build a party for all Brooklynites. When coalition members make mistakes, we call them in, confront them, and work together to learn and grow. We have an obligation to the voters who voted for change this June, and to all the communities in Brooklyn who deserve representation in our party, and we take that seriously.”

Like her allies, Bichotte Hermelyn also criticized Charrington.

“Antisemitism has no place in Brooklyn,” Bichotte Hermelyn wrote in a text to City & State. “Harrington (sic) was elected to serve this community and should know better. That kind of rhetoric is unacceptable from anyone entrusted with Democratic leadership, and it demands immediate accountability and reflection.”

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Where are the subpoenas Julie Menin touted?

Shenal Tissera — Wed, 19 Aug 2026 17:39:37 -0400

New York City Council Speaker Julie Menin made it clear she intended to beef up the City Council’s oversight powers, but eight months into her term, the council has yet to flex one of its strongest muscles: the rarely used subpoena power.

No one from Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s administration attended Tuesday’s oversight hearing on the city’s pied-à-terre tax rollout. Attendance at council hearings is a sticking point for the speaker. “(It) is completely disrespectful to not have commissioners attend City Council hearings,” said Menin during an interview with The New York Editorial Board in January. “So that is something that is going to change. I fully expect that commissioners show up at the City Council hearings and not only show up but be prepared to answer questions.”

The administration’s no-show seemed like a potential opportunity to force the agency’s hand with that subpoena power, which Menin stated she would use.

So why not wield it? Likely because it’s seen as a somewhat drastic measure that can carry risks. For one thing, the administration could fight the subpoena and win in court, carrying the possibility of defang-ing future attempts. It can also heighten tensions between the mayor and council. (Though tensions are already climbing between Menin and Mamdani and their respective sides of City Hall. On Wednesday, the mayor’s office planned to file a lawsuit against the City Council over its legislation to raise paraprofessionals’ pay.)

Typically, the subpoena is seen as a last resort option in the council’s oversight toolkit and not using it is seemingly one way Menin is being careful about how adversarial the council gets with the Mamdani administration.

Instead, Menin’s intended targets for the subpoena power, if the council does use it, are more likely to be corporations and bad actors. Last week, the council opened an investigation into four prediction market platforms including Kalshi and Polymarket, focused primarily on their marketing and advertising practices in the city. If they were to completely shirk questions and hearing appearances requested by the city, a subpoena could be on the table.

“The council has utilized its subpoena power on rare occasions and it is an important tool to protect New Yorkers and ensure accountability. Speaker Menin has expanded the Council’s proactive investigative work into industries like prediction markets,” said Menin spokesperson Henry Robins. “The council will consider all appropriate tools available to ensure accountability from both private entities and city government.”

Former City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams also faced calls to use the subpoena, following a string of no-shows by the New York City Police Department at oversight hearings in 2023. At the time, several members of the council joined calls to use the power to compel testimony. But that council never did, and councils before it used it sparingly too.

Council Member Gale Brewer, who previously chaired the Committee on Oversight and Investigations, mulled over the possibility when asked on Tuesday about the possibility of subpoenaing documents from the administration regarding the pied-à-terre tax rollout.

“I’m sure we could. We’re working with the speaker’s office,” Brewer told reporters at a press conference. “The first thing we’re going to do is have the hearing, send the questions, we want answers to all of them, and if we don’t, then we’ll take the next step. But right now that’s our steps.” Speaking to City & State on Wednesday, Brewer referred to it as a rarely used power and said she didn’t recall it being on the table in the past either.

In a story in The City Reporter earlier this week about the cumbersome reporting bills that City Councils typically pass, requiring agencies to compile extensive information, Alex Camarda, a senior policy advisor at Reinvent Albany, suggested the City Council could more often use its oversight powers – including subpoena power when necessary. “Subpoenas should be reserved after all options are exhausted as opposed to defaulting to passing legislation that requires reports and burdens agencies,” he told City & State Wednesday.

For now, Menin seems content to simply flash the weapon, reminding the administration that the council can, if needed, fire it. Last month, she threatened a subpoena to retrieve requested contracts from the Department of Education after months of waiting. “Even the threat of a subpoena can be more useful than the subpoena itself,” Camarda said.

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Who’s cooking for Mamdani? It could be you!

Fariha Rahman — Wed, 19 Aug 2026 17:30:25 -0400

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani is looking to add a new cook to his kitchen at Gracie Mansion. The job posting put online earlier this month requires applicants who have experience with “multiple cuisines, with a focus on South Asian and Middle Eastern cuisine.” Mamdani is New York’s first Indian American mayor and lives in the Upper East Side mansion with his wife Rama Duwaji, the city’s first Syrian American first lady.

The position requires three years of professional cooking experience and the ability to “maintain strict confidentiality regarding the Mayor, Principals, guests, and household operations.” It pays $64,500, and the cook reports to the senior executive chef and executive sous chef. Beyond cooking Mamdani’s go-to breakfast of scrambled eggs, avocado and labneh, the mayor’s kitchen staff provides the food for all the events and official functions hosted at Gracie Mansion.

Before winning the Democratic primary, Mamdani told Bon Appetit magazine that despite not having time to cook, cooking with his wife was one of his favorite things to do. More recently, the foodie mayor and his wife have been spotted around the city eating at a diverse array of restaurants. While vacationing upstate, NY1 reported that Mamdani was spotted last night eating at Casa Susanna in Leeds.

Mayors asking for the Gracie Mansion kitchen staff to adhere to a specific diet is not new, as former mayor Eric Adams famously searched for a vegan chef to support his “plant based,” lifestyle. Mamdani has kept all of the staff that Adams had working at the mansion, according to a spokesperson for the mayor.

In the Gracie Mansion kitchen, at the Juneteenth reception on June 16, 2026. / Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office

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The first NY-17 forum of the general election was … well … awkward.

Kate Lisa — Wed, 19 Aug 2026 16:24:45 -0400

If you’ve been paying attention to their campaign ads and social media rhetoric lately, you might have been surprised to see Republican Rep. Mike Lawler and Democratic challenger Cait Conley smiling and posing for a photo together Wednesday. But much like the interaction itself, there was a palpable feeling of awkwardness at the first forum of the 17th Congressional District general election cycle – arguably one of the nation’s most competitive House races this November.

The Dutchess County Chamber of Commerce breakfast marked Lawler and Conley’s first joint public event since they became general election opponents. Conley, a U.S. Army veteran and graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point, is trying to unseat the sitting member of Congress, who’s seeking a third term. But the incumbent and the combat veteran weren’t likely speaking to many potential voters. The forum, held at the DoubleTree Hilton in Poughkeepsie, is outside the district, which includes a part of southern Dutchess County (in addition to northern Westchester and all of Rockland and Putnam counties).

Lawler and Conley took turns answering the same questions for just under an hour, and discussed immigration, high energy costs, the conflict in the Middle East, data centers and more. They both carefully followed the rule not to directly address each other during the forum itself – though they may have slipped in a discreet dig or two.

“There are real challenges – we all know that – but it's not enough to just scream and yell,” Lawler told the crowd at one point. “It’s not enough to say ‘I hate the president.’ You actually have to find a path forward. That is what I have consistently done, and that is what I will continue to do.” It was a subtle jab at Conley, as the Democratic primary was defined largely by the field trying – and failing – to avoid making the race about President Donald Trump.

“You can just ask people: Their lives have not gotten better over the last two years, they’ve gotten harder,” Conley said, addressing reporters after the forum. “And when you talk about rising costs, it's been across the board because of votes that Mike Lawler has taken.”

Wednesday’s forum was a cordial kickoff that showed that the most significant policy difference between Lawler and Conley is on immigration enforcement. Conley said she believes local police should focus on local crime rather than executing federal immigration tasks, and has called out U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents for past incidents of violence. She backs the main provisions of a new immigration law that limits police working with ICE. The state and federal government are embroiled in litigation over the policy, which takes effect next week. But Conley stops short when asked if she gives the law her full blessing. “I know (from) speaking with our local law enforcement that they can absolutely continue to coordinate with the federal government on criminal activities,” she said.

Meanwhile, Lawler supports Trump's efforts to secure the border, and routinely blasts state leaders for spending billions of dollars in recent years for resources for migrants, like housing, food and healthcare and called the new policy limiting ICE “disastrous.” “We need an immigration policy that works,” he said Wednesday. “We need to secure the border, and we have effectively done that for 14 straight months.

But the two also share plenty of views that are similar. They both answered a lightning round of yes-or-no questions nearly the same way – including one question about tariffs.

Early in the forum, Conley said that tariffs have driven up costs and said Trump’s tactic of using them as a threat is “reckless,” – continuing arguments she championed against tariffs during the primary. But later in the forum, she said she supports tariff exemptions for small businesses when comparable products aren’t available in the U.S. But later in the forum, she shifted her position and said she supports tariffs to protect U.S. companies against unfair trade practices. That took Lawler by surprise. “After a whole year and a half of bashing tariffs, she said she supports them,” he told reporters later. “Frankly, that's fascinating.”

The real fiery discourse between the two candidates is expected at two televised debates scheduled for this fall. And those are unlikely to have the same level of decorum as at Wednesday’s event.

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Council’s pied-à-terre hearing produces many grievances, few answers

Annie McDonough and Chantal Mann — Tue, 18 Aug 2026 17:32:14 -0400

New York City Council members read out 11 pages of questions over 17 minutes about the city’s pied-à-terre tax rollout at an oversight hearing on Tuesday, probing in detail how Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s administration came to decide how to notify homeowners about the tax and determine eligibility.

But Council Members Gale Brewer and Linda Lee read the long list of questions to a row of empty chairs in the City Council chambers, as no one from the Mamdani administration showed up to testify.

“We’re going to send all these questions to the agencies, and boy, do we expect an answer,” Brewer said at a press conference in advance of the hearing.

The oversight hearing marked a new point of strain in the relationship between the Mamdani administration and the council led by Speaker Julie Menin. Council leaders have actively criticized the rollout of the pied-à-terre tax, a surcharge on high-value second homes passed by the state Legislature earlier this year as part of a deal to generate revenue for the city to close its budget gap.

The council had hoped to grill Mamdani administration officials about the rollout of the tax, which drew controversy this summer. (The administration published a list – required, they argued – of nearly one million potentially eligible properties and sent notice letters to about 17,000 homeowners stating their properties could be subject to it, to much consternation.)

The administration extended a window to appeal initial determinations of eligibility until Sept. 18. According to City Hall, 9,884 applications for exemptions have been started, 5,001 have been completed and 2,318 have been approved.

The planned hearing was a perfect opportunity for Menin, who campaigned on holding the Mamdani administration accountable and juicing the body’s oversight function, to do just that. But City Hall’s announcement on Monday that they wouldn’t be attending due to ongoing litigation concerning the tax – something that hasn’t precluded testimony in the past – robbed the council of the chance.

And while neither Mamdani nor Menin was actually at the hearing, it seemed to function at points as a proxy battle between their allies. Dueling press conferences were held at the same time right before the hearing. One featured council members including Brewer, who supports the tax in general, and moderate Democrat and Republican members, who vehemently oppose it, all of whom expressed dismay at the administration’s refusal to testify. A stone’s throw away in City Hall Park, progressive Assembly Members Diana Moreno and Jessica González-Rojas and state Sen. Kristen Gonzalez rallied with organizations aligned with Mamdani, including the New York City Democratic Socialists of America and the New York Working Families Party, to support the tax. “It is good governance to support our mayor, Mayor Zohran Mamdani, when he says he needs this for the city budget,” Gonzalez said.

“Speaker Menin is inside holding a hearing because she wants to listen to the whining millionaires,” Jasmine Gripper, director of the state Working Families Party, said. “We don’t have time for whining millionaires, we need to take care of our people and our communities.”

In written testimony submitted to the council, Department of Finance Commissioner Richard Lee said they asked to postpone the hearing until after Aug. 31, the date of the next hearing in the lawsuit over the tax. “The Council declined,” he wrote.

In the end, the hearing primarily featured public testimony and devolved at points into a referendum on the pied-à-terre tax itself, which passed in May as part of the state budget. A cohort, including the Real Estate Board of New York, called for a pause in the tax.

But the hearing also had a strong showing of defenders of the tax. Inwood resident Beverly Solow testified in support of the tax while wearing a “tax the rich” shirt. “It seems reasonable and fair,” she said, while noting that the rollout was messy and hoped that issues with implementing the tax could be resolved.

At one point, Brewer reminded a group of people testifying in support of the tax that the council – at large, at least – isn’t actually against it. “I want you to know that Council Member Lee and I in particular support this tax,” she said, noting that Menin does too.

Council Member Eric Dinowitz said in the hearing that he also supports the tax, but “without the administration here to even discuss these things on the record in public, it’s very difficult to address these issues in a public forum.”

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We Covered a Zoo? The best and worst press conference locations

Fariha Rahman — Tue, 18 Aug 2026 05:00:00 -0400

Reporters are sent all over New York City and state to cover elected officials. From a busy highway to the bowels of the subway, the press corps needs to make sure to catch all quotable moments from the governor, mayor, members of Congress and local elected officials. While location preference is highly subjective, the City & State team – with the help of legendary press conference attendee, CBS News’ Marcia Kramer – rounded up some of the best and worst spots. We unscientifically rated eight locations on a scale of one (worst) to five (best) microphones.

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani likes a press conference pun. / Ed Reed/Mayoral Photography Office.

Prospect Park Zoo

Rating: Five microphones

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who has a penchant for very literal press conference locations, stayed on theme for an announcement about securing restitution from the food delivery app HungryPanda in front of the red panda exhibit at the Prospect Park Zoo. Sadly, the red pandas declined comment.

Then-mayoral candidate Eric Adams showed reporters around his Brooklyn brownstone in 2021. / Jeff Coltin

Eric Adams’ Brooklyn brownstone

Rating: Five microphones

Who needs “MTV Cribs” or Vogue? We have our own 73 questions with Eric Adams. In 2021, the then-mayoral hopeful let the press corps into his Brooklyn brownstone in an attempt to prove that he did in fact live there. The press got up close and personal with his home, and even got a look inside his fridge.

The City Hall rotunda has been a go-to press conference location for several administrations. / Spencer T Tucker/flickr

City Hall rotunda

Rating: Four microphones

Sitting right at the entryway of New York City Hall lies the majestic rotunda. Though it’s not one of Mamdani’s favorite locations so far, it’s a convenient (and visually striking) venue used by both sides of City Hall. This is one of the better (if a bit familiar) locations, so long as no one tries to take away reporters’ chairs.

The state Capitol's Million Dollar Staircase hosts what feels like millions of pressers during the legislative session. / NYS Senate Media Services

Million Dollar Staircase

Rating: Four microphones

While its construction actually cost $1.5 million in the late 1800s, the gorgeous four-story grand staircase in the state Capitol is a great location to do a press conference. So says City & State’s Rebecca C. Lewis: “The echoes aren’t bad. It’s a really good spot until there are three other competing press conferences at the non-prime parts of the stairs.”

Then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo, sans lifejacket, takes the press corps on a boat tour in 2018. / Mike Groll/Office of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo

Floating on the Hudson River

Rating: Two microphones

Then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo had a thing for out-of-the-box press conference locales. In 2018, he hosted the press corps on a boat on the Hudson River to give an update on the construction of the Gov. Mario M. Cuomo Bridge. The Kramer consensus? “Those were difficult. We’re going under the bridge and there’s cars and he’s screaming to be heard,” she said.

Gov. Kathy Hochul tries her hand at filling potholes in a 2026 press conference. / Will Waldron/Albany Times Union via Getty Images

Filling potholes on Southern Boulevard in Albany

Rating: Two microphones

Gov. Kathy Hochul announced a plan to fill potholes by … filling in potholes herself! While politicians love to get their hands dirty for a photo op, we question the decision to do so on a fairly busy roadway.

Cuomo is unbothered by a passing train in the subway tunnels during a 2017 press conference. / governorandrewcuomo/flickr

On the subway tracks

Rating: One microphone

Why do press announcements on a boring subway platform when you can instead go into the bowels of the system? Kramer recalled a press conference that Cuomo held at a fork on the subway tracks deep below the Columbus Circle station. “It was terrifying,” Kramer said. “It was noisy, it was dark and it was the middle of the summer. We’re standing in the middle and some trains are going to the left and some are going to the right.”

The City Hall steps are hot choice (quite literally in the summer) for City Council press conferences. / Emil Cohen/NYC Council Media Unit

City Hall steps in the summer

Rating: One microphone (zero in summer)

City Hall’s granite steps and bluestone pavers in the summer reflect the heat of a thousand suns. A common place for organizers and protesters to gather before they speak in front of the City Council, Kramer said the steps are a strategic choice to reflect power and legitimacy. On the other hand … been there, done that.

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Randy Mastro can’t stop suing Zohran Mamdani’s City Hall

Sahalie Donaldson — Mon, 17 Aug 2026 15:16:23 -0400

In the eight months that former New York City Mayor Eric Adams has been out of office, he has traveled the world, gained Albanian citizenship and advocated for data centers in the dreaded Midwest. Though his split with City Hall was as acrimonious as it gets, Adams has kept a healthy distance from his old place of work.

One of his top allies is having a harder time making a clean break.

Randy Mastro, the spirited 69-year-old attorney who served as Adams’ first deputy mayor in his final year in office, has become the de facto general in a multi-front war against the new City Hall, using the courts and a blitz of lawsuits to take on democratic socialist Mayor Zohran Mamdani.

Mastro, a former federal prosecutor for the Southern District of New York, has represented clients in five new lawsuits against the city this year. In doing so, he’s cast a wide net. While each lawsuit has sought to foil Mamdani’s plans, targets vary from halting the relocation of a homeless shelter, fighting for the city to adopt an open primary election system, trying to undo the Rent Guideline Board’s rent freeze on rent-stabilized apartments and backing a Forbes journalist pro bono who sued the city for allegedly not sharing records about the overturning of executive orders tied to antisemitism and Israel. The bumpy rollout of the city’s pied-à-terre tax on luxury second homes is the latest issue to draw a legal challenge from Mastro.

Mastro, for his part, insists that none of this is personal. Rather, it’s about “the rule of the law.”

“Who better than a former deputy mayor who litigates to know when local government screws up,” Mastro quipped in an interview with City & State, noting he’s sued multiple administrations. “I’m non-denominational. I’m not a politician. I’m just a lawyer who believes in the rule of law and holding the government accountable when it breaks it.”

But there seems to be a particular fervor to Mastro’s various battles against the Mamdani administration. A forceful presence in the waning days of the Adams administration, Mastro was critical of Mamdani from the start. When he submitted his resignation last December, Mastro stated – unnecessarily, of course – that he’d never “work for a socialist.” Mastro started as a partner at the firm Dechert LLP in January.

“When somebody tells you who they are, believe them,” Mastro said of Mamdani. “While I think many New Yorkers are shocked, they shouldn’t be because he’s doing exactly what he said he would do – and in the process his administration has been breaking the law.” City Hall has vigorously defended those lawsuits, and has logged some successes. A state judge ruled last month that Mamdani acted lawfully in disbanding Adams’ zombie Charter Revision Commission, for example.

But clearly, Mastro has gotten under the mayor’s skin – at least in wake of his latest legal challenge against the controversial pied-à-terre tax. Speaking to reporters last week after a Staten Island judge issued a temporary restraining order pausing the city’s rollout, Mamdani called Mastro out directly.

“There are a few things more certain in New York City than death, taxes and Randy Mastro filing a lawsuit against this administration,” he joked, before adding that he was confident in the legality of the city’s action. Indeed, the pause was only a short-lived victory for Mastro. A state appeals court judge reversed the move last week, ruling that the city can move forward with implementation for now – at least until a court hearing set for the end of August.

Mastro appeared to remain on the mayor’s mind as the week went on. After word broke that the city would drop its plans to tear up Elizabeth Street Garden and replace it with affordable housing – something Mamdani had promised to find a way to do in the first year of his tenure – the mayor laid the blame squarely on Mastro. Last fall, shortly after Mamdani won the mayoral election, Mastro had the garden designated as “parkland,” thus making it much harder for the future administration to build there.

Mastro has been a constant thorn in Mamdani’s side – certainly more than any other person from the Adams administration. Beyond issuing some criticism on social media or in the odd cable news interview, Adams himself has been preoccupied with other matters. While Mastro said he’s been in touch with the former mayor, he declined to go into details about the extent of their communication.

Mastro said he doesn’t blame anyone from the prior administration for staying out of things.

“This isn’t for everyone. It’s hard to fight City Hall. It takes a lot of guts,” Mastro said. “These clients, I give them so much credit, because they are standing up to City Hall and that’s not an easy thing to do.”

Mastro will be back in court later this week, on August 21 for the rent freeze case and August 31 for the pied-à-terre lawsuit. He’s looking forward to it.

“Oh no, it energizes me,” Mastro said when asked whether he expects to be exhausted juggling his various lawsuits. “I’m young at heart.”

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Lawmakers push Hochul to backfill cuts for crime victims, child advocacy centers

Kate Lisa — Mon, 17 Aug 2026 14:41:20 -0400

Programs for crime victims are in peril across the state as an unprecedented demand for aid has left many rape crisis and child advocacy centers millions of dollars short – forcing some to consider closure. And advocates and lawmakers want Gov. Kathy Hochul to intervene.

Domestic violence centers, rape crisis programs and child advocacy centers are seeing their primary source of funding – aid from Federal Victims of Crime Act – significantly cut.

The state Office of Victim Services, which administers the federal funds, notified organizations that applied for the grants of their tentative awards July 9, though the state Comptroller’s Office still has yet to review those awards. Of the state’s 48 child advocacy centers, 36 applied for funding. Six were denied funding altogether while 21 received substantial decreases. The decision means a loss of over $6.9 million to child advocacy centers statewide, which assist families to investigate instances of child abuse – a 31% decrease.

“This funding drop covers the forensic interviewer, the victim advocate, operational things related to paying rent and keeping the lights on,” said Theresa Roth, executive director of the New York State Children’s Alliance.

The Child Advocacy Center of the Finger Lakes was among the six not awarded any federal aid for the first time in years – a cut of over $700,000 to its three locations. Executive Director Ashley Davoli said that represents two-thirds of their budget, and will force the facilities to cut staff in half, and potentially close one of their locations.

“We’re trying to get really creative. We’re exploring every opportunity,” Davoli told City & State. “We are already doing double the work, because we had a staffing reduction last year, and those numbers and the needs for families continue to rise.”

Likewise, rape crisis centers statewide, are being pushed to a similar fiscal cliff because of the reduced federal awards, which were slashed at a time of higher need. Rape crisis programs in New York City are expected to receive about $2.5 million less than in 2022. The Kingsbridge Heights Community Center in the Bronx lost all of its grant funding when the Bronx has the city’s highest rates of sexual violence.

Planned Parenthood of Central & Western NY saw its award slashed from $1.6 million down to $809,500, or a decrease of 56%, director of public affairs Meredith Ouderkirk said. “This is a complex thing for survivors to respond to, so being able to mold our services and our availability around their needs when they’re feeling brave and ready to confront these things is really pivotal to being able to provide these services,” she added.

Some rape crisis programs are being forced to consider closing locations, eliminating free attorney services for survivors, laying off forensic interviewers, eliminating therapy and other prevention programming and halting services for incarcerated people. State law mandates all hospital emergency rooms have Sexual Assault Forensic Examiners, or SAFE, training by 2027, and the cuts threaten hospitals’ ability to comply.

Lawmakers are perplexed by the current funding procurement system, and want Hochul to fix the administrative and regulatory issues that have led to the dire circumstances for victims’ services, arguing the programs are overreliant on federal funding.

“This is not from an uptick in crime – there’s not more victims, it’s just everybody’s going for the same pot of money,” said Assembly Member Andrew Hevesi, who chairs the Assembly Children and Families Committee. Hevesi wants Hochul to fill in the funding gaps, and include more for victims in next year’s budget.

“It seems like every victim services organization in the state operates right on the edge of closure because we just financially don’t keep them afloat or don’t give them a sustained revenue stream,” he said.

The amount of VOCA grants is unpredictable year to year, with the state awarding $72 million in aid in 2025, $43.9 million in 2024, $77.8 million in 2023 and $83.7 million in 2022, according to the Office of Victim Services.

OVS spokesperson Janine Kava said the agency received 316 applications for the grants, seeking $626.1 million over two years – exceeding what was available by about $500 million.

“Never in its history has OVS received that many applicants seeking that level of funding,” Kava said in a statement. “The incredible demand, the state’s competitive procurement process, and federal rules and funding uncertainty, required us to make difficult decisions. The $126.5 million to be awarded annually represents the single largest investment in victim services in the state’s history, allowing us to fund more programs and reach more New Yorkers in need.”

The state allocated $52.8 million in funding to augment the available federal aid and offset cuts. The state Office of Victim Services also limited funding available for criminal justice agencies to prevent even bigger cuts.

Several lawmakers are expected to participate to call for reform for how the Office of Victims Services distributes the aid in a virtual press conference on Tuesday. State Sen. James Skoufis said the nonprofit Fearless! Hudson Valley Inc. in his district had its aid cut by 30%, and wants a different funding procurement process for crisis centers that is more equitable, similar to aid formulas for school districts. “We need to hit a reset button on these awards and go through the process through ample funding,” Skoufis said. “This should not be a ‘Hunger Games’ type of an outcome when we’re discussing critical services like this.”

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Opinion: Let’s treat our museums and libraries like soccer fields

Ken Weine and David Woloch — Mon, 17 Aug 2026 12:46:06 -0400

In 1901, Andrew Carnegie made a $5.2 million gift to New York City, then the largest philanthropic gift in its history, to build 65 libraries and bring library access to all New Yorkers. The funding came with explicit conditions that these branches would be open 72 hours each week and on almost every holiday. For decades the city has failed to meet its end of the bargain. Today, the branches in the city’s three library systems are open on average less than 50 hours weekly.

Access to museums is also limited. The buildings that house many of the world’s greatest museums are owned by the city of New York – The Met, the American Museum of Natural History, the Brooklyn Museum, and 28 other institutions – yet they are generally open only during antiquated bankers’ hours during the week, and few are open late on weekends.

When New Yorkers need them most, during evenings and weekends, the doors of the city’s most precious community and civic institutions are often shuttered.

Recently, Mayor Zohran Mamdani demonstrated a path forward.

In June, he announced that in honor of the World Cup, five soccer fields would keep their lights on all night long, as opposed to the usual 10 p.m. closing time, for six weeks. The results were instantaneous and impactful – more than 4,000 soccer players took advantage of the extension, and communities had newfound safe, gathering places.

The next frontier should be libraries and museums – among the city’s most cherished, yet under-leveraged, assets.

There are many benefits to expanding access to museums and libraries. These institutions provide opportunities for job seekers, English classes, after school programs for students, the life benefits that comes from exposure to literature and art, and gathering places for social interaction.

Scholars have called our time the “anti-social century.” The devastating impact of our atomization is well documented and can be seen everywhere: in plummeting mental health, declining professional ambition, and lower relationship and birth rates. The effects of eschewing community engagement to sit alone at home on our devices has profound societal costs that must be addressed.

Solutions to many of the city’s woes – such as the need for hundreds of thousands of affordable housing units, rebuilding and rethinking the crumbling BQE, and ensuring resilience to our looming climate crisis – require spending billions of dollars and overcoming numerous regulatory hurdles. Better leveraging our cultural and community assets is a far easier lift.

There are three things we need to get this done: continued imagination and innovation at libraries and museums, a modest and sustained city investment, and perhaps most important, leadership and partnership from multiple players in our cultural ecosystem.

The two of us met a decade ago, running external relations and marketing at Brooklyn Public Library and The New York Public Library. In our more recent roles, we’ve remained focused on how to expand access to libraries, museums, and public spaces. This summer, David worked with the city to encourage New Yorkers to visit cultural and community institutions around the five boroughs during the World Cup. Ken, who in a prior role introduced Date Night at The Met, now works at The New York Historical, which has expanded late-night and weekend programming. Without exception, our experience is that if institutions build enticing activities, the people will come.

Indeed, museums and libraries, particularly in New York City, have for decades experimented with opening their doors wider and providing compelling programming to convince younger, more diverse audiences that they are worth visiting. From First Saturdays at Brooklyn Museum (which will turn 30 this fall), to sleepovers under the whale at the Natural History museum, to Brooklyn Public Library’s Night of Philosophy … the list goes on.

A band performs at the April 2024 opening of the Lost New York exhibition at The New York Historical. / Zhen Qin.

Imagine if each borough had a library open until midnight and a major museum open daily until 9 p.m. The transformative impact of this modest change could be had for less than $10 million a year. It’s equally important that the library and museum systems have adequate and reliable hours in all reaches of the city. Longer hours require greater staffing levels, which in turn requires adequate, reliable funding.

Yet, year after year, these institutions do not even know whether they will have base-level funding. It has become a predictable routine that, each year, cultural institutions fall victim to the city’s “budget dance” – where initial drafts of the city budget leave these institutions under-resourced and competing against each other in a budgeting Hunger Games. Even when they do secure funding, they need to scramble to hire staff and rebuild programming – a waste of months of energy annually.

It's time for the city to consider mechanisms such as guaranteeing funding percentages in the City Charter to ensure not only that the dollars are available, but that they are protected from future cuts.

To enable libraries and cultural institutions to realize their full ability to serve the public, we will need leadership from our elected officials, executives of museums and library systems, and labor leaders. Municipal unions, for instance, must be willing to change library work rules to enable staffing for evening hours and Sunday shifts.

But ultimately the leadership starts at the top. Mayor Michael Bloomberg, seeking greater efficiency nearly 20 years ago, pulled together the leaders of the city’s three library systems for a dialogue that ultimately led to NYPL and BPL collaborating on BookOps – a cost-effective, shared book management system. A decade later, Mayor Bill de Blasio wanted more diverse staff and hiring at museums, so while he couldn’t force museums to diversify, he asked for full transparency in hiring decisions, and in the ensuing years the hiring and board appointments better reflected the city they serve.

Which brings us back to soccer fields and Mamdani’s bold move.

Here are the words of a few of the thousands who enjoyed late-night soccer when the lights were kept on – after midnight in Gravesend, Brooklyn: “It’s a blessing. It’s a gift, because I have a bunch of friends who work really, really late,” one player noted. A young woman added, “I got really stoked because not a lot of stuff happens in South Brooklyn.”

And a young man asked hopefully, “Oh man, if this was forever?” Another answered, “I’d be here every week.”

Imagine what late hours at museums and libraries would deliver.

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