Post-Primary Jockeying on Rent Control, Congestion Pricing + Salazar and Nixon Retrospectives

Local News:

• With the Democratic primary over, Mayor de Blasio and Governor Cuomo are suggesting a temporary detente, in an attempt to work together to flip Republican-held seats in the State Senate and US Congress. However, Democratic candidates in flippable congressional districts have not yet received any substantial help from the governor.
• Landlords and charter school advocates are scrambling to maintain their interests given significant progressive gains in September’s Democratic primary and the potential of Democrats flipping the State Senate this November.
• A bill that could bring aspects of commercial rent control to NYC will go before a City Council hearing in October, potentially pitting Speaker Corey Johnson (who supports the bill) against the Mayor (who opposes it).
• Signal problems continue to plague the subway, as the Riders Alliance released a report showing that in August trains were delayed for every weekday morning but one.
• The prospects for congestion pricing and other transportation reform passing the legislature next year have increased thanks to insurgent Democratic victories in September’s primary. Gothamist outlined the reasons for optimism and pessimism surrounding subway repairs.
• Mayor De Blasio’s plan to close Rikers Island, which involves transferring the jail’s population to new facilities in the City, is getting pushback from the neighborhoods where those jails would be located.
• NYC School District 15, covering Park Slope, Sunset Park, and Red Hook, became the first of the City’s 32 districts to eliminate middle school screening. This has followed a push from new Chancellor Richard Carranza to reduce segregation in public schools.
• City Council Member Rory Lancman (D-Queens) criticized the De Blasio Administration for ongoing racial disparities in marijuana enforcement.
• A Department of Transportation proposal to fix the BQE involves shutting down the Brooklyn Heights Promenade for up to six years, prompting reactions from urbanists, motorists, and well-connected residents alike. In a quickly-deleted tweet, MTA Chairman and Brooklyn Heights resident Joe Lhota weighed in that closing the Promenade might turn him into a community organizer, remarking, “NIMBY (and proud of it.)”
• New York healthcare nonprofits are considering throwing their weight behind the New York Health Act, a single-payer healthcare proposal that was supported by Cynthia Nixon’s gubernatorial campaign.
• A credit union that held over $800 million in taxi medallion loans was liquidated by the federal government, further imperiling the financial prospects of thousands of taxi drivers.
• A proposal to rezone Governor’s Island for private mixed-use development will begin its public review process later this month.

Elections:

• A pair of articles examine Julia Salazar’s primary victory in last week’s primary: DSA member Annie Shields highlights Salazar’s unabashedly democratic socialist platform and NYC-DSA’s substantial field operation in The Nation, and NYC-DSA co-chairs Bianca Cunningham and Abdullah Younus write in the Daily News that Julia Salazar is just the beginning.
• City Limits conducted a post-mortem of Cynthia Nixon’s gubernatorial run with the campaign’s chief strategist, highlighting a lack of funds.
• Former State Senator Hiram Monserrate, a convicted fraudster and assaulter, managed to win a Queens district leader race after years of failed attempts to return to politics.
• Democrats are targeting District 22 (Bay Ridge, Dyker Heights, etc.), where Andrew Gounardes won the nomination to challenge Republican Marty Golden, as one of their prime opportunities to win control of the State Senate.
• Defeated IDC State Senators Jeff Klein and Jesse Hamilton will evidently not be getting NY Supreme Court judgeships, but the seats they sought will be given to judges who won Civil Court primaries this month, which will allow the Democratic Party to replace the primary winners on the November general election ballot with the judges of their choice, letting them skip the primary to win uncontested elections by default.
• No longer running for public office, Ross Barkan penned an op-ed for the Daily News highlighting the potential for Cuomo to either enact progressive reforms or kill them in 2019.