Public Advocate Begone

 

 

NY Post 

A pair of City Council members are pushing to abolish the public advocate office because they feel it’s a waste of taxpayers’ money.

Queens Councilman Robert Holden told The Post he plans to team up with fellow moderate Democratic Councilman Kalman Yeger of Brooklyn and introduce legislation in the coming months that would force Democratic socialist Jumaane Williams to find a new job.

The public advocate’s $5 million-plus office budget could go to “more essential services” like funding cops and firefighters, added Holden, who’s butted heads politically with “defund the police” supporter Williams for years.

“We have to tighten our belts as a city – especially with this migrant crisis – so that office should be the first to go,” said Holden. “The office does nothing anyway, and no one is ever around to pick up the phone when you call because Jumaane has so many of them working remotely.”

The public advocate oversees 63 staffers and is mostly seen as a watchdog for city government. 

Office holders also get their own taxpayer-funded NYPD security detail with a private driver.

Under Williams, the office has been primarily used as a bully pulpit, including when he infamously stoked Black Lives Matter protests in 2020 by pushing anti-cop rhetoric, critics say.

Holden said the City Council “already has oversight over the mayor,” making the public advocate office duplicative.

 Feels good to be an influencer. Thanks CM's Holder and Yeger (who actually tried to get rid of this earlier but had no chance with the confederacy of fauxgressive dunces that have been occupying City Council for the last decade.)

Jumaane Williams gets re-elected to be a no-show advocate

 Brooklyn Paper

Brooklyn-born Public Advocate Juumane Williams is projected to remain the city’s public advocate, according to unofficial Board of Elections results.

With 93 percent of scanners reporting, Williams expectedly secured nearly 69 percent of the vote as of 11 pm on Election Night, topping five other opponents, including Republican challenger Nevi Nampiaparampil.

Williams’ victory is his third in three years since first running for public advocate in a 2019 special election, and his first for a four-year term.

At an election night watch party at Threes Brewing in Gowanus, Williams celebrated with a slate of other progressive winners.

“Ten years ago people told me and [projected Comptroller-elect] Brad [Lander] we were too far left, today we’re citywide elected officials,” he told the crowd. “Our message works and people believe in it.”

While Williams — who succeeded current Attorney General Letitia James in the seat — has secured the next position for the next four years, he already has his eye on his next potential job, having formed an exploratory committee to run for governor in 2022 against James, Kathy Hochul, and potentially Mayor Bill de Blasio.

 

Jumaane Williams is New York's Public Advocate

 


NY Post


Brooklyn City Councilman Jumaane Williams smashed the competition Tuesday night to become the next public advocate.
 
Williams captured 33 percent of the vote in the jampacked 17-person race, besting his closest rival by 14 points.
 
“I’m still in shock, I gotta tell y’all,” Williams told supporters in Brooklyn afterward.
The celebratory mood turned emotional as he acknowledged his struggles with mental health.
"I’ve been in therapy for the past three years, I want to say that publicly. I want to say that to black men who are listening,” said Williams, 42, struggling to complete his sentences.
 
“There was a time when the title I held was my identity, and that’s a dangerous thing. The best time came for me when I realized no matter what title I have, there is a space in the world for me and I can make incredible change.”

There will be little time to rest for Williams. Tuesday’s vote was a special election to fill the seat left vacant when Letitia James became state attorney general. Petitioning to get on the ballot for the June primary is already underway.
 
The special election may end up costing as much as $22 million — almost $55 per voter.
 
The city Board of Elections estimated that staging the vote would cost between $11 million and $15 million. Additionally, city taxpayers shelled out another $7.2 million to provide public financing to the candidates who applied.
 
NY1 estimated that 9 percent of the city’s nearly 4.7 million active registered voters turned out.
Williams, a longtime activist, finished 14 points ahead of the second-place candidate, Queens Councilman Eric Ulrich, who captured 19 percent of the vote.

Now that a fauxgressive hack won, de Blasio can ditch town and continue his idiotic quest for the presidency. Williams didn't spend the most money in this stupid election for this bogus job for nothing.

Besides, Ju stopped bothering to go to council meetings last year anyway.

Public Advocate candidate David Eisenbach aims at REBNY, de Blasio and City Council

Jumaane Williams spent a million dollars for public advocate campaign

 NY Daily News

The race for public advocate is already the most expensive special election in New York City’s history — and candidates are just getting started.

More than $4 million has been spent by candidates vying for the open seat, according to the latest data available from the New York City Campaign Finance Board. That figure is expected to skyrocket between now and the Feb. 26 election as the remaining candidates have some $2 million in their combined war chests.

Councilman Jumaane Williams (D-Brooklyn) outspent all other candidates through Feb. 11, the latest date covered in the CFB’s most recent reporting period. The campaign has doled out more than $767,000 on the race, including $280,000 in TV ad placements.

 This is a lot of cash for a position that has no real power, except as a stepping stone for higher office for the last two public advocates, being our dumb mayor and new state attorney general.

Williams could do lot more with the position he currently has. Being an official advocate for the public who voted for him

Councilman Ulrich, one of 24 candidates running for Public Advocate, targets the Dope From Park Slope on his platform.

 

 Queens Chronicle

The field of candidates running for public advocate next month is starting to resemble the start of the New York City marathon. So Eric Ulrich, the three-term Council member from Ozone Park, has found a simple message to stand out.

“If people love Mayor de Blasio, if they think he’s doing a great job and think the city is headed in the right direction, then they have 20 other candidates to pick from,” he said in an interview this week with the Queens Chronicle.

“If someone is looking for someone to be a public advocate [who] is not afraid to be independent of the mayor, then I’m their candidate. That’s why I’m running.


Ulrich, who turns 34 two weeks before the special election February 26, is a popular figure in his South Queens Council district after his surprise victory in a 2009 special election and then winning re-election three times in an area that is overwhelmingly Democratic.

He is barred by term limits from running for City Council again when his current term expires in 2021.

I personally think this position is redundant, after all the majority of these candidates are already in city council, so they are already advocates for the public.

Will Melissa be appealing to citywide voters?

From AMNY:
Melissa Mark-Viverito is looking to get back into city public office.

The former City Council speaker announced Tuesday that she plans to run in next year's special election for public advocate. Mark-Viverito, who first announced her bid on "Mornings on 1," will kick off her campaign with an evening event at Borough of Manhattan Community College.

She has said she would hold city and state leaders accountable over the state of the city's transit system, ongoing problems at New York City Housing Authority developments and issues of inequality, as public advocate.

Public advocate offers to help file Whitepointe lawsuit

From the Queens Chronicle:

Whitestone residents upset with the controversial Waterpointe brownfield cleanup may have an influential new ally.

Public Advocate Letitia James said she would help in the potential launch of litigation over the situation at the We Love Whitestone Civic Association's meeting on Wednesday night.

"I'm prepared to seek and try to find a law firm that will represent you in your interests," she said. "This is totally unacceptable."

The Edgestone Group, which conducted the cleanup, plans on building 52 single-family homes at the property. The firm could not be reached for comment.

Many in the community are upset with the Department of Environmental Conversation over the project, because the agency agreed to let Edgestone pursue a different cleanup method than first planned. Rather than the Track 2 residential cleanup that was originally planned, the developer conducted a Track 4 unrestricted residential one, which is less stringent in terms of the chemicals allowed at the site.

The DEC issued a certificate of completion for the cleanup last month.

$3/4M taxpayer money blown on worthless race

From the Daily News:

City Public Advocate Letitia James burned through nearly all of the more than $750,000 in taxpayer matching funds in a lopsided race against a poorly funded opponent — spending $500,000 on a single Election Day expenditure, public records show.

James, a Democrat who cruised to reelection over Republican political consultant J.C. Polanco, spent about $1.7 million in total on the race, according to filings with the Campaign Finance Board. She crushed Polanco, her nearest competitor — earning 812,234 votes to his 172,601.

James was widely expected to win her reelection bid — but still filed a statement of need requesting the entire amount of matching funds, citing Polanco as a strong opponent. In doing so, she noted media coverage about the would-be pol — including stories about how little money he had raised.

Candidates are required to return matching funds they do not spend on their race — but James has just $39,018 left in her coffers, meaning the taxpayers will get back little, if anything.

James spent a whopping half-million in one day — Nov. 7, the date of the general election, when she reported the $500,000 payment to Global Strategies Group. Her campaign said the payment was for digital ads that appeared on social media sites, community and ethnic newspaper sites and other news sites — including the Daily News website.

Sliwa has plan to reform City Hall

From the Daily News:

Guardian Angels founder Curtis Sliwa, who also heads the state Reform Party, wants to give voters a chance to abolish the city public advocate office.

Sliwa, who also hosts a daily radio talk show, is set to call Wednesday for a public referendum to eliminate the advocate position and have the City Council speaker elected by voters, not the council members.

With no oversight or subpoena power, “it is clear by now that the public advocate position has just become a taxpayer-funded method to run for mayor of the city of New York,” Sliwa said.

Making the council speaker a publicly elected position would take the power away from the party bosses who currently control the process, he said. Sliwa added that the speaker should also have increased oversight functions.

By law, the council could vote to put the measure on the ballot or the mayor could appoint a charter revision commission to do it.

Doubting that will happen, Sliwa said the state Reform Party and its allies are prepared to try to collect the necessary signatures needed to put it up for a citywide election.

2 Queens slumlords make PA's top 10 list of bad landlords

From the Queens Tribune:

Public Advocate Letitia James ranked two city landlords with properties in Ridgewood among the city’s 10 worst in her annual Worst Landlords Watchlist, which was released on Tuesday.

James’ list is a database that ranks the worst landlords in the city based on monthly updates of open violations. Silvershore Properties’ Jonathan Cohen—who owns a property at 17-08 Summerfield St. in Ridgewood, which has a total of 116 violations—was ranked as the city’s worst, while Meir Fried—who owns a property at 16-45 Summerfield St. in Ridgewood, which has a total of 28 violations—came in at number eight. Both landlords primarily own buildings in Brooklyn.

Queens properties with the most violations included Hillside House Management Co.’s site at 87-40 165th St. in Jamaica—which ranked first and had 383 violations—and Nada Gracin’s property at 150-15 Sanford Ave. in Flushing, which had 244 violations.

Video Voter Guide: Democratic Candidates for Public Advocate

Is it time for the P.A. to go?

From the NY Observer:

Pop Quiz: If New York City’s mayor steps down, who succeeds him? The correct answer is the public advocate, and for the record, the current public advocate is Letitia James, a former City Council member from Brooklyn.

James collected a total of 119,604 votes in the Democratic primary runoff of 2013 when she beat State Senator Daniel Squadron. That is just shy of 4 percent of the 3 million registered, active Democrats in New York City. And James’ name recognition should surely have improved since then: After all, the role of public advocate is about self-promotion—if it is about anything at all.

In fact, that is all the job is about. It has no power, a tiny budget and few statutory mandates. The public advocate can introduce legislation in the City Council, but the holder of the office cannot vote in that chamber. She can make appointments to eight different boards, councils and advisory groups—but none of any real consequence. And the office’s budget of $2.3 million annually is not even rounding error in a total city budget of $78 billion.

The office of public advocate was created in 1993 when the City Council voted to rename the position of president of the City Council. That position was purely ceremonial, a remnant of the old City Board of Estimate, which was eliminated in 1989 by Charter revisions after the United States Supreme Court declared it was a violation of “one man, one vote.” No one expected the position to last. But it did, largely because the first two incumbents were capable and ambitious.

James may well be a serious person with policy insights and leadership skills. Unfortunately, none of that was readily apparent at the New York Law School breakfast. Instead, attendees were treated to vacuous remarks and a plea for more funding for her office. Claiming she wanted to be the people’s watchdog of city services, she seemed to conveniently forget that two different entities already provide that functions: the Comptroller and the Department of Investigation. Her call for undefined “forensic audits” seemed to emerge half-baked from an unproduced TV pilot: “CSI: City Agency.”

It is time to pull the plug: We really don’t need a public advocate whose principal role seems to be self-promotion and the unspoken hope that the mayor croaks or gets indicted.

Affordable housing disaster was a waste of time and money

From the Daily News:

A city program to convert deteriorating Brooklyn tenements into rehabbed affordable apartments failed big-time, with most of the buildings now abandoned and controlled by a convicted felon, a stunning new report has found.

The report by Public Advocate Letitia James, to be released Monday, found that after 13 years, 17 of the targeted 26 Crown Heights buildings remain a decrepit mess. Pigeons roost in doorways. Windows remain bricked over. Graffiti-scarred doors are boarded up. Squatters have moved in.

The current owner of these squalid eyesores, a for-profit entity called Heights Houses, is run by George Armstrong, a developer who participated in the biggest bribery scandal of the Bloomberg administration.

Armstrong pleaded guilty to bribery charges in October 2011, admitting that to win work with the city Department of Housing Preservation and Development, he paid off top department official Wendell Walters. Walters is the highest-ranking member of the Bloomberg team convicted of corruption, and Armstrong’s involvement in that case has been public for more than four years.

Nevertheless, Housing Preservation and Development has yet to take any steps to cut off ties to Heights Houses, which continues to own 17 buildings meant for rehab, James’ report revealed.

All of this has occurred as the value of properties in the surrounding neighborhood has skyrocketed, buffeted by a wave of gentrification spreading east over the past decade across Brooklyn.

Guess who's getting a raise

From the Daily News:

A city commission recommended pay raises for all the city’s elected officials in a report issued Monday.

The commission said the mayor, City Council, public advocate, controller, borough presidents and district attorneys should all get pay boosts of at least 12%, with some getting more generous boosts.

The City Council would get the biggest raise — to $138,315, a 23% boost to their current $112,500 pay, but only if they agree to give up extra payments known as “lulus” and outside income.

The mayor’s salary should be boosted to $258,750, from $225,000 now, the commission said — a 15% hike.

Mayor de Blasio has said he won’t accept a raise during his current term, but might if he’s reelected.

More left turn signals for safer streets

From the Daily News:

Drivers could get the green light for safer left turns under a bill Public Advocate Letitia James is introducing in the City Council Thursday.

James wants the city Department of Transportation to put dedicated left-turn signals on 100 intersections to prevent drivers from zipping into crosswalks crowded with pedestrians. Another bill from James would make the DOT put out quarterly reports identify problem intersections where drivers are striking pedestrians who have the right of way.

“By increasing the number of protected left turn signals at large intersections and taking a closer look at locations with chronic right-of-way violations, we can make Vision Zero a reality,” James said.

Will new technology help avoid collisions?

From the Queens Courier:

Councilman Rory Lancman and Public Advocate Letitia James called for the implementation of collision avoidance technology in city vehicles and showcased the technology in a retrofitted MTA bus.

Collision avoidance technology acts as a bionic eye to alert drivers of impending danger including other vehicles, pedestrians and cyclists. Lancman and James indicated that the technology has demonstrated an ability to increase safety by reducing overall collisions by 60 percent.

Moreover, the elected officials called for local companies such as Rosco Vision Systems of Jamaica, which is headquartered in Lancman’s area in District 24, to help develop the technology for citywide use.

The legislation calls on the city to implement the technology in the vehicles that are most often involved in pedestrian accidents, such as Department of Sanitation collection trucks and NYPD police vehicles.

What a tangled web they tweed

From the NY Post:

The career politicians in the administrative class like to call themselves “public servants” when they’re feeling humble, or “leaders” when a moment of vanity strikes.

They’re really more like imperial overlords. Sometimes they’re elected, sometimes they’re not, but either way what they love most is to spend our money on their own glorification.

Often they’re completely oblivious to how they look as their gilded chariots cruise past us, their vassals tossing rose petals in the air.

Manhattan’s newest little Caesar is Scott Stringer. If you read the papers over recent decades you’ve been vaguely aware of this dough-faced homunculus, who in a life light on accomplishments has nevertheless been happily drawing a taxpayer salary for more than 20 years.

Apparently Stringer mainly uses his Praetorian guard as chauffeurs, both for himself and his wife.

Twenty-odd years inside the palace walls have damaged Stringer’s memories of what life was like for the average plebeian, or even the average millionaire.

Stringer maintains a taxpayer-funded security detail of six, which you probably wouldn’t even know about if he hadn’t gotten peevish, leading four to ask to be reassigned.

Letitia James is the New York City public advocate, another ceremonial position that exists mainly to provide ambitious politicos a platform from which to conduct press conferences that build name recognition before running for mayor. (The previous public advocate was a guy named Bill de Blasio).

Somehow we managed to do without a public advocate before the office was created in 1993, yet James is such an important figure she also has a six-member security detail, as does the speaker of the City Council.

Among her dozens of staffers are two “first assistants” making $240,000 total and two directors of communications who earn a combined $200,000.

Throwing rose petals pays well.

Shady library board plans to pull a fast one

From the Daily News:

The trustees of the Queens Public Library have scheduled an emergency meeting for Thursday night to remove their controversial director Thomas Galante, while also granting him more than $800,000 in a golden parachute consulting deal, the Daily News has learned.

Word of the hastily scheduled meeting prompted Public Advocate Letitia James, an ex-officio member of the library’s board, to request State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, who regulates non-profit organizations, to join her in seeking a court order to halt the proposed vote.

In a letter late Wednesday to Schneiderman, a copy of which the News obtained, James blasted the trustees’ attempt “to reward the current President with an employment contract that is too favorable in terms, or that will provide him with assets of the Library upon his departure or removal.”

Under the proposed deal, Galante would resign the $392,000-a-year chief executive post he has held for 10 years, and would be given instead a consultant job until July 31 on an “as needed basis” - at a salary of $407,876, said two trustees who were briefed on the deal.

Then on Aug. 1, Galante would begin a two-year consulting job for the library at $386,779 annually. He would also be paid an additional $50,000 on Aug. 1, 2015.

UPDATE: The meeting was canceled.

The rules also apply to Tish

From DNA Info:

Public Advocate Letitia James, whose job involves keeping tabs on bad landlords, has been breaking city rules with her brownstone rental property for seven years and could face a $500 penalty, DNAinfo New York has learned.

James has failed to register her four-unit building with the Department of Housing Preservation and Development since 2007, records show. The public advocate also has 12 open housing code violations on the Fort Greene property — three of which were issued since James purchased the home, according to HPD records.

Landlords of multiple-unit buildings are required under city rules to register with HPD. The rule helps protect tenants' rights, giving them and the city a point of contact in case of an emergency or another problem at a property.

Owners who do not register their properties face a fine of between $250 and $500, according to the city’s administrative code law. If the owner is found to have “willfully or recklessly” failed to register with HPD or made false statements on a registration form, he or she could face as much as a year in prison, according to another administrative code law.

Aja Davis, a spokeswoman for James, told DNAinfo New York that the violations predate James' ownership of the home. Records show that statement is incorrect.