Eric Gioia

Last night, at the "Rock to Save Darfur Concert-Benefit," City Councilman Eric Gioia told Talib Kweli that he'd like to replace Mos Def as the other half of Blackstar. Kweli laughed and shook his head.

Gioia was at B.B. King's Blues Club in Times Square, along with a handful of hip-hop artists and human rights activists, as one of the sponsors of a City Council resolution asking the New York City pension fund to divest from Sudan.

“I’ve been working on this for about two years, and its kind of a lonely fight,” Gioia told me backstage before he addressed the crowd.  read more »

There was no dancing at the Seneca Club's 109th Dinner Dance--a veritable sea of elected officials--but there were about 55 honorees, who received diamond-shaped trophies and dined on a buffet that included a kosher option.

“It’s sort of like a political bazaar that’s as much like Baghdad as it is anything else," said Roger Adler, a judicial candidate for the 1st Civil Court District in Brooklyn. "There’s a chuckle quality to it, like, give me a break, this is like polyester. And then there’s the more substantive one--people are brought together.”

Outside the buffet, I caught Representative Ed Towns, who was on his way out after receiving an award.

“This is one of the oldest clubs in the borough,” he told me. “In order to be around for over 100 years you have to have a level of consistency, and also the ability to evolve with the community -- Greenpoint is not the same as it was a hundred years ago,” he said, gesturing outside as a man rolled by in a motorized wheelchair.  read more »

Here's an invitation for a David Yassky fund-raiser tonight on the Upper West Side.

One of the event's hosts is Andrew Tomback, a long-time Yassky contributor who has also given some money to Eric Gioia and, once, back in the day, to Alan Hevesi.

Other notable names include John Alschuler, who has contributed to progressive Democrats like Mark Green and Ruth Messinger. Alschuler has also given money to another comptroller candidate, Melinda Katz ($250 on July 7, 2007).

And there's also Charles Simon, who ran in a special election for an Assembly seat, but was defeated by Linda Rosenthal.  read more »

Anthony Weiner wasn't the only New York elected official in Puerto Rico campaigning for Hillary Clinton--Eric Gioia was there, too.

A spokesperson said, "Eric believes deeply in Hillary; he's known her since he worked in the White House, so whenever she needs support he'll be there."

As this dispatch from intern Bharat Ayyar shows, Eric Gioia wasn't the only Council member who yelled at Mark Page today:

High above the action, seated on the upper level at the Council Chambers at City Hall, third and fourth grade students from P.S. 60 observed Friday's hearings on the budget.

"Pay attention. There'll be a test later," quipped Finance Committee Chair David Weprin.

As different members of the council lined up to grill Mark Page, the director of the city Office of Management and Budget, on the '09 budget, which must be approved by the end of June, it quickly became clear that much of the debate would center on education.

District 7 Councilman Robert Jackson of Manhattan butted heads with Page at the hearing on issues of funding and what he said was the city's wavering commitment to the Contracts for Excellence with the state.

At a hearing earlier this week, Schools Chancellor Joel Klein said that it would take $400 million to maintain city schools at 07-08 levels. Without that money, Klein made it clear that cuts would be made. The mayor's proposed budget allocates $428 million less for education than what had originally been planned. Various Council members have said that they will not allow the budget to pass if "there's a dime being cut from the classroom."

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Here’s Mark Page trying to respond to Eric Gioia’s agressive inquiries about the budget at City Hall today.

Robert Jackson didn't approve of fellow Councilman Eric Gioia’s line of questioning at a hearing on the Council's phony-appropriations scandal this afternoon.

“I think it was political grandstanding on the part of Eric Gioia and his run for public advocate. But, quite frankly, I don’t know if he received any brownie points in that.”

Councilman Eric Gioia grilled the city’s budget director about the slush fund scandal during a heated Council hearing in City Hall just now.

Gioia asked, pointedly, whose job is to make sure there are no phony organizations in the city budget and what guarantees exist to ensure there are no fake groups in this year’s budget.

The budget director, Mark Page, said at one point that he felt like he was “being grilled by a local prosecutor.” He added, “I’m not sure this is the forum for you to be asking me these questions.”

When pressed about whose job it was to catch the phony groups, Page said that his agency got a list from the City Council, implicitly laying the blame with the head of the City Council, Christine Quinn. (One of her top aides, Chuck Meara, was sitting in the front row in the City Council chambers during the hearing, taking note of the exchange.)

Page told Gioia, “Your question about assurance from me that there’s nothing fraudulent in the line items [of the budget], logistically, is -- looking backwards -- is a problem for me as to how to do it.”  read more »

Local Republican consultant Bill O’Reilly recalls going to speak to the editorial board of “a New York publication” about two years ago.

“And the question was, ‘Can you identify any up-and-comers in New York politics—besides Eric Gioia?’”

That would be 35-year-old Councilman Eric Gioia of Queens, who is preparing for the next step in what has been a tidy political career.  read more »

Councilman and candidate for public advocate Eric Gioia, of Queens, held his 35th birthday celebration and “green” campaign kick off at the W Hotel’s Whiskey Bar in Times Square last night. His guest list included Morgan Spurlock, writer and director of Super Size Me (who appeared in an ad recently), and Karenna Gore Schiff, daughter of Al.

Gore Schiff was in charge of the birthday introduction, while Gioia spent most of the evening surrounded by supporters bouncing with American Idol enthusiasm.  read more »

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Just when I thought Betsy Gotbaum had the best YouTubes, here's Eric Gioia out with a minimalist video featuring documentarian Morgan Spurlock (he's the Super Size Me guy, but he also has a new movie about looking for Osama Bin Laden.)

Councilman Eric Gioia is throwing a "give what you can" fund-raiser birthday party with his "good friend, author and activist Karenna Gore Schiff," also the daughter of Al Gore.

Part of the (painfully?) colorful invitation that isn't picture here says, "We are proud to go green. The Gioia campaign is the first carbon neutral campaign in NYC history."  read more »

A congestion pricing measure before the Council just passed, 30 to 20.

Domenic Recchia, who is planning to run for Congress, took a pass on voting the first time around, but eventually voted yes. Eric Gioia, who had told the New York Times on March 8 that he was voting no, also voted for it. Comptroller candidate Melinda Katz voted no, but her likely rival David Yassky voted yes. The two candidates for Brooklyn brough president, Bill De Blasio and Charles Barron, both voted against.  read more »

Speaking at the Central Brooklyn Independent Democrats club last night, public advocate candidate Norman Siegel said he doesn't plan to use the office of public advocate as a stepping stone.

The civil rights lawyer has said before that he is interested in protecting citizens' civil liberties, but he doesn't want to make the painful decisions that an executive has to make. According to one attendee, Siegel said, as an example, that he couldn't bring himself to close libraries on Sundays as a cost-saving measure.  read more »

 

Here is Betsy Gotbaum’s latest video, featuring herself, Eric Gioia, and others discussing access to public benefits—a little like a one-minute highlight tape of a press conference (if such things actually have highlights).  read more »

 Eric Gioia, a high-energy and ambitious thirty something city councilman from Queens, has decided to run a “carbon-neutral” relection campaign next year.

Gioia will eliminate paper invitations to campaign events, use only recycled paper when paper is used and cut down on mass mailers, balloons and buttons.

He also plans to purchase carbon offsets and use hybrid vehicles.

"There is a lot of waste on campaigns, and I think ... you have to recognize the impact you're having on the world around you," he told The New York Post a couple of days ago.

It's possible to have carbon-free events and products. Organizations such as Carbon Fund are now promoting Carbon-free businesses. The company's Web site describes its initiative as "an innovative and flexible program that can help your business to reduce its carbon footprint to zero through carbon offsets and reductions."

All of this has its value, helps build awareness and is a useful educational tool. But it’s a short-term band-aid when major surgery is required.  read more »

St. Patrick’s Day is coming up, and so is the big parade, meaning it's once again for local politicians to make a statement one way or another on the organizers' decision not to allow gays to participate under their own banner.

I asked a few possible citywide candidates about their parade plans, and here’s what I heard back so far.

Mayoral candidates:

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Eric Gioia’s 2009 campaign seems to have broken new ground this week in announcing it was going carbon neutral.

It’s a trend I imagine a number of other candidates running later this year, and next, will follow.  read more »

Here’s part of an invitation to Norman Siegel’s February 25 campaign kick-off fund-raiser for what will be his third bid to be public advocate.

Names on the invitation include: State Senator Eric Adams of Brooklyn, City Councilman Hiram Monserrate of Queens, Meile and Stuart Rockefeller, and Democratic fund-raiser Lewis Cohen.
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Assemblyman Adam Clayton Powell IV of Harlem is officially running for Public Advocate.

“I opened up a committee last Tuesday -- yes,” he told me just now. "It's something I've been thinking about for a while and I decided to take the plunge, open up a committee and see how far I can take it."  read more »

Every four years, all of the presidential candidates descend on New Hampshire. And so does City Councilman Eric Gioia.

“I go up every presidential cycle,” Gioia, who worked in the Clinton White House, told me late yesterday. “I was up there for Muskie!” (Joke.)

"‘99 was the first time I was up there,” Gioia explained.  read more »

Christine Quinn's office just released a statement which manages to oppose the M.T.A.'s proposed budget, but which (not coincidentally, I'm guessing) doesn't mention the governor. (Spitzer first articulated the plan and he praised the M.T.A.'s budget this morning.)

Quinn isn’t the only one carrying out this balancing act. Council membersEric Gioia and Simcha Felder similarly avoided attacking Spitzer in their statements opposing the M.T.A. budget, while Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz’s statement mentions the governor several times, but stops short of criticizing him.

Christine Quinn’s statement:  read more »

Jackson Heights City Council candidate Danny Dromm hosted a number of influential local politicians at a fund-raiser this weekend, most notably city Comptroller Bill Thompson, who will be a special guest at a fund-raiser for Dromm’s opponent in the Democratic primary, Alfonso Quiroz [time clarified]. Quiroz's boyfriend and treasurer is Thompson's director of communications.

More after the jump.  read more »

Last night at David Weprin’s fund-raiser for his city comptroller campaign, I learned that the City Councilman’s long-time chief of staff, Jack Rubin Friedman, is leaving in January to become the head of the Queens Chamber of Commerce. One attendee told me that Rubin might run for Weprin’s seat in 2009. (Rubin was standing nearby and interjected that it’s only a possibility at this point.)

The event at the Woolworth Kitchen and Towers drew a number of notable attendees: Dan Gardonick, Eric Gioia, Dave Pollak, Hank Sheinkopf, Domenic Recchia, Diane Savino and George Arzt.

Press-shy top aides to Christine Quinn, Ramone Martinez and Chuck Meara, were also there, and probably weren’t thrilled when Weprin announced their presence over the microphone.

Here's City Councilman Eric Gioia, a Clinton supporter who chairs the Council's Investigations Committee and may run for public advocate, promising to investigate Rudy Giuliani's role in the failure of the FDNY radio equipment on 9/11.

The clip is from The Albany Project.

Norman Siegel, for one, is going full speed ahead in his bid for public advocate.

He's got a fund-raising event tomorrow on East 39th Street off Lexington Avenue. On October 29, Seigel’s having another fund-raiser, on Read Street. And that's in addition to one he had a couple of days ago at 130 Morningside Drive.

What’s interesting is that while Siegel is busy campaigning for the job, that's not much public evidence of other would-be candidates doing the same. Part of the reason may be because Councilman Eric Gioia of Queens, who is likely to jump into the race, has already raised $979,780, according to the latest campaign finance numbers from July.

A number of elected officials have raised more than Gioia for their prospective bids for citywide offices, but most of them are believed to be interested in mayor or comptroller.

Of course, there’s still plenty of time for people to declare their intentions and join Siegel in the race.

Who's actually going to do it?

The city Campaign Finance Board just announced its latest round of fines, with Virginia Fields leading the pack.

Fields' 2005 mayoral campaign was fined $70,567, mostly for not responding to a draft audit in a timely fashion (112 days late!). She was also fined $5,727 for spending $57,272 on “non-campaign related and impermissible post-election expenditures.”

Other notable fines: Adolfo Carrion’s 2005 campaign for Bronx Borough President was fined $6,875, mostly for accepting over-the-limit contributions. Eric Gioia was fined $5,050, mostly for the same reason.

“I need your help once more. And this time I’m confident we can win.”

That’s how Norman Siegel starts out a three-page letter to donors announcing that he’ll make a third run at the public advocate’s office.

A copy of the letter was sent to me last night by a
reader who has contributed to him previously.

Siegel, a civil rights advocate who most recently helped a political gadfly get back into mayoral press conferences, ran and lost twice, both times to Betsy Gotbaum.

In his third bid, Siegel says he will “publish reports on effectiveness of city agencies,” “propose and lobby legislation,” and give New York “finally an accessible, effective public advocate.”

He goes on to say, “I learned from prior campaigns that I need money to win. I need money to run ads on television and radio. I need money for direct mail and automated telephone messages. In the past, I was outspent 3 to 1. We can’t let that happen again.”  read more »

Yesterday, one of the quirkiest traditions returned to a major Memorial Day Parade that starts a few blocks inside Nassau County before winding its way through the Little Neck-Douglaston section of Queens.

“I refused to march on the Nassau side,” Weiner told me. He stood on the border, next to the 'Welcome to Nassau' sign and waited for the parade to get into New York City territory before joining in. A person who has been marching in that parade for a couple of years told me that the most notable politician to do that in the past was Rudy Giuliani.

Also attending the parade were regular marchers Mike Bloomberg Frank Padavan, Chuck Schumer, Christine Quinn, Bill Thompson, Adolfo Carrion, Eric Gioia, Melinda Katz, David and Mark Weprin, and Peter Vallone, Sr.

I got this invite this morning for Eric Gioia’s June 1st fund-raiser. In an email about it, he also has a “save the date” for a "second annual Beach Party” on July 11 on the Queens waterfront.

It's almost like he's planning to run for higher office or something.

Practically every major Democrat in the city was at the corner of 14th Street and First Avenue yesterday afternoon to announce the formation of a what they say is the largest housing coalition in the city’s history.

The group, New York Is Our Home, includes labor and tenant groups, the Working Families Party and others.

The most heated rhetoric (video here) came from the Central Labor Council's Ed Ott, who said, “The price of housing in this city is effectively theft” and that affordable housing units, like the ones in Stuyvesant Town behind him, “are being stolen by the greed of developers and the market.”

Which drew applause and energetic head nods from the crowd of elected officials behind him.

In attendance at the rally were Christine Quinn, Bill Thompson, Betsy Gotbaum, Tom Duane, John Sabini, Ruben Diaz, Jr., Keith Wright, Jonathan Bing, Linda Rosenthal, Dan Garodnick, Eric Gioia and Charles Barron, among others. Most of them spoke but none matched Ott’s directness.

After the speeches, the group formed a human chain around Stuy Town, which is several blocks long, and marched down to Union Square.

Practically every major Democrat in the city was at the corner of 14th Street and First Avenue yesterday afternoon to announce the formation of a what they say is the largest housing coalition in the city’s history.

The group, New York Is Our Home, includes labor and tenant groups, the Working Families Party and others.

The most heated rhetoric (video here) came from the Central Labor Council's Ed Ott, who said, “The price of housing in this city is effectively theft” and that affordable housing units, like the ones in Stuyvesant Town behind him, “are being stolen by the greed of developers and the market.”

Which drew applause and energetic head nods from the crowd of elected officials behind him.

In attendance at the rally were Christine Quinn, Bill Thompson, Betsy Gotbaum, Tom Duane, John Sabini, Ruben Diaz, Jr., Keith Wright, Jonathan Bing, Linda Rosenthal, Dan Garodnick, Eric Gioia and Charles Barron, among others. Most of them spoke but none matched Ott’s directness.

After the speeches, the group formed a human chain around Stuy Town, which is several blocks long, and marched down to Union Square.

UPDATE: Adolfo Carrion, Brian Kavanagh and Adam Clayton Powell IV also attended.

Also in the paper, I look at the relationship between two of the top citywide prospects on the City Council Christine Quinn and Eric Gioia. 

For whatever reason -- and there are a number of intriguing possibilities to choose from -- their political alliance is a thing of the past.  read more »

Citywide aspirants Quinn and Gioia are seeing other people.  read more »

With much less chatter and attention than some other citywide elected officials, Queens Councilman John Liu has raised $1,002,771 for an undetermined race, according to recent figures filed with the city's Campaign Finance Board.

Liu seems to have capitalized to spectacular effect on his status as the first Asian-American elected to the council, drawing heavily from Asian-American New Yorkers for his total.

Other notable filings include Councilman David Weprin's $817,136 for the city comptroller's race, Councilman Eric Gioia's $726,618 for an undisclosed race, and Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum's $163,965.

UPDATE: The CFB updated some paperwork which puts Weprin's contributions now at $978,011.

-- Azi Paybarah

I wrote a fair amount last week about the overhaul of the city program that offers tax abatements for new residential construction. The details are here, and here, but to recap: A bill passed by the City Council last week will expand a so-called "exclusionary zone" within which developers, if they want the tax break, will have to also build some affordable housing. I know this is a little wonky, but one could argue that this law will have a lot more effect on the way New Yorkers live for the next few generations than, say, Joe Bruno's horseback buddies or Alan Hevesi's chauffeur service.

There's an interesting wrinkle to this story that hasn't been widely discussed, so far as I know, which is: What happened to Long Island City? The bill was supposed to expand the exclusionary zone to cover neighborhoods that are probable sites of future luxury housing development, such as Fort Green and Lower Manhattan. The best predictor of future luxury development, of course, is present luxury development. And by that measure, Long Island City is one of the fastest-growing areas of the city. In a recent report, the Pratt Center for Community Development profiled numerous luxury buildings outside the old exclusionary zone that were benefiting from the tax break; 12 of the buildings, a healthy percentage of the case studies, were located in Long Island City. All told, these buildings were receiving more than $75 million in subsidies.

Except for a sliver of undeveloped land along the East River waterfront, however, most of Long Island City was left untouched by the council's expansion of the exclusionary zone. And Silvercup West, a $1.2 billion development sponsored by the movie studio of the same name, was specifically exempted. Why? I contacted the office of City Councilman Eric Gioia, who represents the area, but I haven't heard back. Silvercup apparently had some complicated regulatory issues that led to its exemption. It seems possible that the city, which is building an affordable housing complex along the waterfront, on the site where NYC 2012 planned to build its Olympic Village, feels that 5,000 such units are enough for one neighborhood. And someone (ok, it's Azi again) points out that Gioia raises a lot of money and has ambitions to run for citywide office. Keeping a swath of prime land open for unfettered development is the sort of thing real estate folks tend to remember when it's check-writing time. Still, $75 million is a lot of money to leave on the table.

I'm stumped. Is there an explanation that I'm missing? Please fill me in.

UPDATE: Eric Gioia's very friendly chief of staff, Jerel Klue, took time out of his holiday to call me back. He says that, although most of the buildings cited in the Pratt report would not fall under the new exclusionary zone, all of the Queens waterfront would. He took issue with my characterization of that area as a "sliver." Though it may not be wide, Klue said, the area is zoned for high-density development--high-rise buildings and the like. "That is the area that's really booming," he added. "And that is the area where there is a real opportunity to create affordable housing."

-- Andrew Rice

On of this site's most avid readers is now chief of staff to Councilman Eric Gioia of Queens.

Yesterday I ran into Jerel Klue, the football player-sized aide who likes the color pink, who told me about his promotion. His loyalty to Gioia is well-known, but his fondness for this site is more discreet.

At a fundraiser earlier this year, I asked Jerel the pink tie he was wearing that night was in homage of his favorite blog?

"That's sick. But write it."

-- Azi Paybarah

Tonight, Log Cabin Republicans of New York hold their monthly meeting.

The New York Young Republican Club holds a political forum.

Tomorrow, Eric Gioia presents a proclamation and Homework Helpers donates computers and equipment to the Phoenix House in Long Island City.

—Nicole Brydson

Hillary got the broccoli omelet. No word on Gioia.  read more »

In the Observer, Jason Horowitz looks at Mike Bloomberg's coldly apolitical reaction to the blackout and Con Ed, and finds energy wonks to be the only people applauding.

Queens pols Eric Gioia, Mike Gianaris and Joe Crowley still can't seem to make sense of it. And -- as anyone who watched the Spitzer-Suozzi debate last night alredy knows -- the attorney general has declared himself "stunned" by the attempts of his "good friend Mike Bloomberg" to defend Con Ed CEO Kevin Burke.

Any guesses as to what are the next polls going to say about Bloomberg's approval ratings? And whether or not the anger against him will ultimately prove to be localized, like the blackout, within parts of Western Queens?

-- Josh Benson

For some people in New York, the only story today -- still -- is the blackout.

Eric Gioia, whose week has been fairly consumed with servicing his beleaguered constituents in Western Queens and the media, says he spent the morning walking around his district in Woodside and Sunnyside and "didn't speak to one person" who had their power fully restored.

Interestingly, despite the excruciating way that the problem is playing out - it may have claimed its first fatality over the weekend - the issue of who to blame has remained scrupulously un-politicized.

The criticism so far from Queens Democrats has largely spared Mike Bloomberg, who first played down the problem, and has since taken a soft line on Con Ed.

Here's Gioia's assessment of the mayor's performance, for example: "I'm happy he's in Queens everyday now, which is a good thing. The past few days the city has responded really strongly. But it's clear that he response was inadequate and slow at first. I blame Con Ed for that. Con Ed deceived each of us into believing this was not as serious as it was."

-- Josh Benson

Lisa Esler and Eric GioiaMet: January 2000

Engaged: Oct. 20, 2003  read more »

The handlers, donors, endorsers and student supporters who had gathered to see former General Wesley  read more »