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July 31, 2017

SAVE THE DATE! Thursday, September 28 8:00am - 12:00pm Museum of Jewish Heritage 36 Battery Pl, New York, NY 10280

Topics Include: Energy-efficient Initiatives to Decrease NY’s Carbon Footprint The Future of Food Sustainability Improving Water Quality and Resiliency Featured Speakers:

Kathryn Garcia

Commissioner New York City Department of Sanitation

Vincent Sapienza

Acting Commissioner NYC Department of Environmental Protection

Mark Chambers Director NYC Mayor’s Office of Sustainability

Gale Brewer

Manhattan Borough President

RSVP at CityAndStateNY.com/Events For more information on programming and sponsorship opportunities, please contact Lissa Blake at lblake@cityandstateny.com

City & State New York

July 31, 2017

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EDITOR’S NOTE

NICK POWELL Features & opinions editor

The deterioration of the New York City subway system is a failure of political leadership that spans decades. Beginning with Robert Moses blocking the Second Avenue subway and culminating in Gov. Andrew Cuomo draining a whopping $450 million from the MTA budget in his six years as governor, New York’s leaders have consistently mistreated the city’s mass transit system.

Politicians have raided or withheld funding for capital projects. Two subway derailments in the past month and chronic delays on nearly every subway line have made it almost impossible for New Yorkers to get through a single week without major issues.

In this week’s magazine, we highlight congestion pricing as one possible solution that neither Cuomo nor Mayor Bill de Blasio appears to support.

The good news is mass transit commuters can make their voices heard at the ballot box. Both Cuomo and de Blasio are up for re-election in the next 18 months, and while ousting either one appears unlikely, it’s an opportunity for voters to send a message.

CONTENTS BOCHINCHE & BUZZ ... 6 Gossip on Cuomo’s trip to D.C., Anthony Scaramucci and more

CUOMO’S MTA ... 8

Mass transit’s bumpy road since 2011

PUBLISHER’S SECTION ... 26

How a law degree or an MPA could help you become a better public servant

NEW YORK NONPROFIT MEDIA ... 36 Will David Greenfield be allowed to join the Met Council?

LHOTA’S MTA FIX

WINNERS & LOSERS ... 42

Who was up and who was down last week

CONGESTION PRICING

Former Streetsblog writer Stephen Miller on whether congestion pricing could fix the subway fiasco

... 12

Nicole Gelinas of the Manhattan Institute says the last thing the MTA needs is more money ... 10

FAIR FARES

Nick Powell says it’s de Blasio’s fault single moms can’t afford MetroCards ... 20

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CityAndStateNY.com

The

July 31, 2017

Latest

LIKE GROUNDHOG DAY, BUT WITH HEALTH CARE Another week, another effort by the U.S. Senate to repeal and replace Obamacare. The Senate voted to open debate on health care legislation Tuesday, and then failed to pass a replacement bill that night. A full repeal then failed Wednesday.

Finally, three GOP senators broke ranks to vote down a “skinny” repeal on Friday morning. After seven years of trying to replace Obamacare, it’s back to the drawing board for the GOP.

LHOTA MONEY TO FIX SUBWAY Metropolitan Transportation Authority Chairman Joe Lhota revealed his plan to update the subway system Tuesday, with fixes like accelerating signal repairs, adding more cars to certain trains and even taking out subway seats on crowded routes. There are risks, like the potential for seatless cars to encourage more exuberant subway performances. More pressing is Lhota’s call to Gov. Andrew Cuomo and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio to split the $836 million bill for this plan. While Cuomo praised Lhota’s ideas, de Blasio remained noncommittal. Also, the MTA doesn’t have a great track record of finishing projects on time. Like an impromptu subway performance, Lhota’s plan may be difficult to successfully execute.

The

In a victory for Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer, the New York City Council’s Land Use Committee and zoning subcommittee approved rezoning 78 blocks of Midtown East. The measure is expected to be OK’ed by the full council, but don’t expect dramatic new skyscrapers anytime soon – it’ll take money, time and major deals to redevelop the area.

On Wednesday, Trump tweeted that transgender individuals would be banned from serving in the military. It caused backlash on the right and left, but the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff told military leaders the next day that, all tweets aside, there has been no change yet to the military’s policy.

C&S: Why did you decide to launch a challenge from the left at incumbent Mayor Bill de Blasio?

RG: I, along with a lot of other New Yorkers, voted for de Blasio in 2013 and was encouraged by his election because he ran on a platform of ending the “tale of two cities” narrative. He’s failed miserably across the spectrum of issues that affect low-income people and people of color in our city.

So, after a lot of deliberation and internal debates, we decided to join the race as a strategy of bringA Q&A with ing more public attention to the issues that we New York City care deeply about.

Robert Gangi The

Kicker

C&S: What affect are you hoping to have with your candidacy?

RG: Our intention is not to impress Bill de Blasio except impress him in the sense that we demonstrate in our campaign that there are a lot of people disappointed with him and disaffected with

“He’s RESPONSIBLE. It’s CLEAR. Just take ownership and fix the problem.”

—New York City Mayor BILL DE BLASIO, saying Gov. Andrew Cuomo is in charge of fixing the subway system, via the Times Get the kicker every morning in CITY & STATE’S FIRST READ email. Sign up at cityandstateny.com.

The governor visited Washington, D.C., Wednesday, requesting – with limited success – the $10 billion the federal government promised during the Obama administration to fund construction of the Gateway Tunnel under the Hudson River. The project has remained in limbo since President Donald Trump was inaugurated.

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mayoral candidate

MR. CUOMO GOES TO WASHINGTON

him, and they want to see a different approach to government and a different approach to social and racial justice issues.

C&S: How would you respond to the culture of institutionalized racism in the New York criminal justice system?

RG: It tears at the fabric of the city. It makes us all a little less safe. It can stop. Politically, it’s very hard to get mainstream politicians to support what has to happen. What we would do, if we take office, to break through that culture, is basically communicate to police that this is no longer tolerated. On day one, we would fire all the officers involved in the death of Eric Garner. The fact that they still work for the police department – are still paid by New York City taxpayers – is a disgrace.

PATRICK CASHIN /MTA; CHRISTOPHER HALLORAN, ROMAN BABAKIN/SHUTTERSTOCK

MIDTOWN EAST IS IN THE ZONE

City & State New York

July 31, 2017

Did you

5

Miss it?

ABNY BREAKFAST

FRANK G. RUNYEON

In a speech to a who’s who list of attendees at the Association for a Better New York’s Power Breakfast on Thursday, Gov. Andrew Cuomo made his latest pitch to fix the New York City subways, and laid some of the blame for the crisis at the feet of Con Edison, the system’s power provider.

“Over the last 12 months, 32,000 delays because of power-related issues,” he said. “The MTA doesn’t control the power, Con Edison does. Con Edison has a duty to safely, prudently and effectively provide electricity that powers the subway system.”

(A Quinnipiac poll found 40 percent of New York City voters blame Cuomo for the subway’s issues.)

The governor’s speech also included other fixes for the city’s beleaguered subways, including an “adopt-a-station” program where private companies could pay for station maintenance. He also called on all New Yorkers to change their attitude to make it “our MTA.” “There has to be an air of civic engagement, investment in this system,” he said.

1. Gov. Andrew Cuomo speaks at the breakfast 4. State GOP Chairman Ed Cox 6. New York City Council Transportation Com2. New York City Public Advocate Letitia James 5. MTA Chairman Joe Lhota gets tough answer- mittee Chairman Ydanis Rodriguez 3. REBNY President John Banks ing questions about the state of the subways 7. New York City Comptroller Scott Stringer

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CityAndStateNY.com

July 31, 2017

Exclusive scoops and insider gossip from

GERSON BORRERO

CUOMO’S IDC SPIN IN D.C.

ANDREW CUOMO

Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s trip last Wednesday to Washington, D.C., was all about making it clear to U.S. Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao that the Empire State has major infrastructure woes – particularly the lack of funding for the new Gateway rail tunnel between New York and New Jersey.

There was also his closed-door meeting with Democratic members of the New York congressional delegation to brief them on the state’s top infrastructure needs. But several bochincheros who were in the room told me that Cuomo was also grilled about the state Senate Independent Democratic Conference. “(Cuomo) dished out a lot of what he’s said to some back home,” said one bochinchero, referring to Cuomo’s lack of appetite to play mediator between the IDC and mainline state Senate Democrats.

There are a handful of members of New York’s congressional delegation who aren’t buying it. “He can’t push (the) IDC off on the hatred between (state Sens. Michael) Gianaris and (Jeff) Klein,” the bochinchero said with audible irritation. “It was typical Cuomo, blaming someone else.” As many know, the renegade IDC is led by Klein and seven other members who vote with the Republicans on many issues; Gianaris is the deputy Democratic conference leader.

Another bochinchero added, “We know (Cuomo) could put an end to this IDC nonsense. It’s hurting Democrats.” The general consensus is that Cuomo needs to feel the pressure in order to act. Or, in the context of his national ambitions, Cuomo will eventually realize that if the IDC-Republican partnership is being talked about by the state’s congressional delegation, then other prominent Democrats across the country are surely taking notice.

That’s bad bochinche for Cuomo, who is angling for the party’s presidential nomination in 2020.

THE RISE OF EL MOOCHO On the heels of the surprising appointment of Anthony Scaramucci as White House communications director, I asked a reliable bochinchero about the newly minted novice from New York. Here’s what the insider Republican Trumpista neoyorquino told me: “Anthony has been friends with the president a long time. He was working in Trump Tower in early summer 2016. He was a friendly face on the fifth floor on difficult days, bucking people up and pushing us harder. He’s ‘Original Trump’ and that pedigree will certainly come through in his new position.”

Given the rapid rise of El Moocho to the center of the national stage of disgrace, B&B wanted the scoop about how exactly he crawled into the swamp. Scaramucci’s filth-laced diatribe and talk of threats – revealed by The New Yorker’s Washington correspondent Ryan Lizza – shows how a lengua sucia can also be an asset. No update from the bochinchero since the Lizza piece, but I bet he’s proud of El Moocho.

ANTHONY SCARAMUCCI

City & State New York

July 31, 2017

SOME

7

ON SOMOS

A report from their March Albany conference is still being pulled together (it’s like pulling teeth), and yet the members of the Assembly’s fiestaoriented Puerto Rican/Hispanic Task Force are already putting some major touches on their upcoming fall conference from Nov. 8-12 at the Caribe Hilton in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

“After 30 years of doing this, one would expect at least a summary a week or two after each conference,” one veteran bochinchero insider told B&B. In general, those that try to engage Somos leadership find that its Executive Director José Paulino – anointed by Assemblyman Marcos Crespo – usually has a “Which way do we go?” response. The harsh critique by the bochinchero stems from frustration regarding Crespo’s lack of success in making the changes he spoke about so articulately.

Yo, Marcos, where’s the report from your boy Paulino?

MARCOS CRESPO JOSÉ M. PAULINO REMEMBER, GENTE, IT’S ALL BOCHINCHE UNTIL IT’S CONFIRMED.

12 Sheridan Avenue | Albany, New York 12207 | (518) 436-6202 | ostroffassociates.com

2011

Tracking the trains under Gov. Andrew Cuomo

Jan. 1

July 21

$250

Cuomo signs legislation that includes a

Jay Walder, the MTA chairman since 2009, announces his resignation.

Oct. 20

Dec. 12

Cuomo nominates , a former deputy mayor and banker, as chairman and CEO of the MTA.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo is sworn in as the 56th governor of New York.

Joe Lhota

2

cut to the MTA payroll tax.

Second Avenue

The first phase of the subway opens to the public.

ta

is confirmed to return as

MTA chairman.

A subway derailment in

125th

Street Harlem at station injures nearly

40people.

This metric for New York City subways represents the percentage of trains making all of the scheduled station stops and arriving at the destination terminal on time, early or no more than five minutes late. If all trains arrived on time, the figure would be 100 percent.

July 10

The “summer of hell” officially starts.

July 11

Funding for the and other improvements is approved by state Senate Majority Leader John Flanagan and will move forward.

LIRR third track

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New York Penn Station.

May 23

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Cuomo coins the phrase “summer of hell” to describe expected delays for Amtrak and LIRR commuters due to repair work at

11

Veronique Hakim

serving as the MTA’s interim executive director.

il 2 0

2016

Apr

Prendergast retires from MTA, with

Cuomo, Prendergast and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio announce a deal to fund the 2015-2019 capital program at $26.1 billion.

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is approved.

Oct. 10

ch 2

Jan. 31

$27b

Jan. 13

M ar

The MTA reaches a contract agreement with Transport Workers Union Local 100, which includes raises of more than 2 percent per year for subway and bus workers.

The MTA’s 2015-2019 capital program, now totaling

funding the state’s portion of the MTA’s capital plan, raising concerns about future borrowing.

Under pressure from upstate lawmakers, Cuomo agrees to allocate $27.14 billion for the state Department of Transportation and Thruway Authority’s capital program, nearly matching $27.98 billion for the MTA’s capital program.

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Jan. 4

budget proposal without fully Cuomo unveils a

March31

. 20

A Long Island Rail Road derailment in Brooklyn injures more than 100 commuters.

May 24

F eb

2017

Jan. 1

Jan. 16

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July 31, 2017

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CityAndStateNY.com

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City & State New York

July 31, 2017

Oct. 28

The subway and bus systems as well as the Long Island Rail Road and Metro-North Railroad are shut down as Superstorm Sandy approaches.

2014

2015 Sept. 23

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OF ON-TIME TRAINS PER MONTH

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A Metro-North Hudson Line passenger train derails in the Bronx, killing four and injuring more than 60.

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The 34th StreetStation opens, extending the No. 7 line by 1.5 miles.

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Cuomo announces lower tolls for Staten Island residents and commercial vehicles using the MTA’s Verrazano-Narrows Bridge.

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The MTA proposes a 2015-2019 capital program totaling $32 billion, but with a

Sept. 13

st and New l de Blasio o fund the program at

Feb. 6

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a transit veteran nominated

by Cuomo, is confirmed as MTA chairman June 20 and CEO.

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Nov. 5

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50m

he MTA tax.

After a little over a year on the job, Lhota announces his resignation to run for New York City mayor.

Most mass transit is back online with limited service, marking the first full day of work and school post-Sandy.

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CityAndStateNY.com

July 31, 2017

COMMENTARY

For the agency that has everything

Throwing more money at the MTA won’t solve anything

By NICOLE GELINAS LAST WEEK, Metropolitan Transportation Authority Chairman Joe Lhota unveiled a “how to fix the subways” strategy that is sound enough, but is mostly made of measures the MTA should have taken months ago – and, indeed, started to take before Lhota even arrived on the scene.

And despite Lhota’s professed commitment to turning things around, the MTA continues to confront bad news, as its board committee meeting last Monday revealed.

First, subway delays continued to worsen before Lhota arrived. In May, only 61.7 percent of weekday trains ran on time, down from 68.8 percent last May. That’s a big 7.1 percent decline.

Second, the MTA continues to experience a different sort of delay: difficulty starting and finishing capital projects.

The MTA’s major problems right now stem from old signals and poor maintenance.

The $600 million project to modernize the signals on the No. 7 line, now a decade into planning and construction, is supposed to be finished later this year.

But meeting that deadline will be “challenging,” project officials said, because of software glitches and a failure to teach drivers how to operate the new equipment.

And New York City Transit’s core maintenance and replacement program, including track and switch projects, is also behind.

The agency was supposed to finish $950 million worth of work through May. Instead, it only finished $211.7 million, or 22 percent of the goal. New York City Transit was also behind on “substantial completions,” spending only $433 million of its allocated $834 million.

The plan Lhota announced deals with the first sort of problems: reducing delays by increasing inspections, getting crews to broken equipment more quickly, sealing leaks, removing trash from tracks faster and keeping medical professionals at busy stations to deal with sick passengers. This is basic stuff.

Lhota hasn’t yet addressed the other, much trickier, problem: how to do major construction work more quickly. He said he will do so soon.

Yet the MTA – taking its cues from Gov. Andrew Cuomo – doesn’t want to do this hard work first. The authority wants to jump ahead to something easy: asking for more money, particularly from Mayor Bill de Blasio and New York City taxpayers.

Cuomo says the city is not doing its fair share. So the MTA wants the city and state

y

g

City & State New York

July 31, 2017

to split the cost of Lhota’s $836 million short-term plan. The money will go toward hiring 2,700 more workers as well as accelerating construction work.

Just one problem: The MTA doesn’t need more money right now.

Its tax take has more than doubled in the past decade, to $5.5 billion annually, even as inflation has increased prices by only about 28 percent.

That’s partly because the state Legislature enacted a $1.7 billion payroll tax in 2009, but the MTA also benefits from economic growth, as I noted in a new report.

As de Blasio correctly said last week, city taxpayers already pay the bulk of these taxes, which range from a sales tax to a business-income tax. (Other downstaters pay the rest.)

Together with fares, tolls and other revenues, the MTA will take in $15.6 billion this year – an enormous amount of money – compared to $7.8 billion 12 years ago. The city is more than providing its fair share.

This money should be enough for the MTA to accomplish its core task of running subways on time.

Yes, it would be prudent for the city to set aside a chunk of its record budget surplus

LHOTA

HASN’T YET ER, ADDRESSED THE OTH

MUCH TRICKIER, PROBLEM:

HOW TO DO MAJOR CONSTRUCTION WORK uickly.

q e r o m

for long-term transit investment beyond the $2.5 billion it has already promised between 2015 and 2019. It may need that money to invest in subways after 2019, if New York has a recession.

But unlike people waiting for delayed trains, the city should not be in a hurry.

The MTA hasn’t proven that it can spend new money wisely – or even unwisely and quickly.

■

Nicole Gelinas is a contributing editor to the Manhattan Institute’s City Journal. Follow her on Twitter @nicolegelinas.

Our Perspective Spectrum Strike Affects Us All

By Stuart Appelbaum, President, Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, RWDSU, UFCW

T

he strike by over 1,800 members of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers against their employer, SpectrumTime Warner Cable, isn’t important only to the families of the cable technicians who are fighting back against corporate greed. Their strike is important to all of us who believe in good jobs that build better lives and stronger families and communities. Their courage should resonate with everybody who has had enough of a corporate race to the bottom where workers are disrespected and benefits and pensions continue to be attacked.

In many ways, the action echoes the 2010 strike by hundreds of RWDSU members at Mott’s in Williamson, New York. In that case, as in this one, workers pushed back against a successful, profitable company, owned by an even larger company (Dr. Pepper/Snapple), that was attacking their workers and trying to destroy hard-earned benefits that members had earned for years. Local, national, and international support grew for the striking RWDSU Local 220 members, many of whom had decades of service at the apple sauce

11

plant. Their strike came to symbolize the struggle of workers to keep quality jobs in an era when corporations value workers’ contributions less and less. After a long four months, Mott’s workers won their strike, negotiating a fair contract with good wage increases that protected benefits and gave them the security they had earned.

We see a similar fight at Spectrum, where cable technicians have been working without a new contract for years as the company has refused to negotiate in good faith. The company – whose CEO made almost $100 million in 2016 – is proposing drastic health care cuts for unionized workers and their families and wants to eliminate pensions and job security. The company also refuses to amend its discipline policy which punishes workers for making multiple visits to a household, when the majority of technical problems are due to the fact that the company hasn’t updated equipment in decades. Buildings aren’t properly wired, equipment is old and outdated, and workers take the blame for cable speeds that often fall so short of advertised performance that New York Attorney

General Eric Schneiderman has filed a lawsuit accusing the company of defrauding consumers.

When a multi-billion-dollar corporation attacks middle-class workers’ benefits and retirements, it threatens the health of entire communities. And when a cable company replaces trusted, skilled technicians who enter consumers’ homes every day with unknown scabs from outside of the community with little experience, that’s worrisome for our families.

Mott’s workers fought back and won, and protected middle class jobs and communities. And they did it with support of consumers and their communities. Spectrum workers need the same support, and they need to win, to send a message that our jobs – and our lives and our families – are important. Working people cannot accept corporate attacks on our quality of life in the name of higher profits.

IBEW Local 3 needs your help. The NYC Franchise agreement for Charter/Spectrum is up before the City Council for review now. Please support good union jobs and share your concerns and complaints about Charter/Spectrum with the New York State Public Service Commission by emailing secretary@dps.ny.gov.

www.rwdsu.org

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CityAndStateNY.com

July 31, 2017

COULD

By STEPHEN MILLER

CONGESTION

PRICING

SAVE THE

The transit fix Cuomo and de Blasio don’t want to talk about

City & State New York

SHUTTERSTOCK

July 31, 2017

IT WAS LIKE a scene from a dystopian movie: Several sets of clammy hands trying desperately to open the foggy doors of a stranded subway car. One passenger wrote in the door’s steamy window, “I will survive!”

The passengers, stuck underground with minimal information on a Brooklyn-bound F train in June, experienced one of the most jarring examples of the New York City subway’s decline in recent years. Derailments and stalled trains have turned what should be an uneventful, daily commute into a test of endurance for New York City straphangers.

Nightmarish memories of “the bad old days” from the the 1970s and ’80s are coming back as subway ridership declined last year for the first time since 2009.

The public has demanded action from elected officials, but New York’s famously feuding mayor and governor are engaged in more of a political death match than actual problem-solving.

As the executives battle it out, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, effectively controlled by Gov. Andrew Cuomo, is left lurching from one operational crisis to the next after years of deferred maintenance.

Meanwhile, Manhattan’s above-ground congestion is once again on the rise. Lately, researchers have begun pointing to ride-hailing services as one of the big culprits behind worsening gridlock – after all, it’s easy for Manhattanites to summon an Uber when trains are on the fritz. But Mayor Bill de Blasio, who controls city streets, lost a bruising battle with Uber over congestion in the first half of his term.

The million-dollar question is: How can it all be fixed?

For years, transit advocates have pointed to congestion pricing as a two-for-one solution: Motorists, including taxi and Uber passengers, would pay more to drive in the congested heart of Manhattan. The money would be used to improve and expand the city’s mass transit system, so fewer people would feel the need to use a car.

To many of its supporters, congestion pricing is such an obvious solution that they describe it as inevitable. But since Cuomo and de Blasio took office, the rancorous pair have been united in their disinterest, even as the subway falls apart on a near-daily basis.

“It’s a nice idea, but it’s been talked about for years, and it was very controversial and didn’t go anywhere,” Cuomo said in late June. “I don’t see any change in the political appetite.”

De Blasio had echoed that sentiment a few weeks earlier. “There’s not been any consideration of congestion pricing, so long as the current political alignment in Albany exists,” de Blasio said. “That is a hard reality, so I’m not putting time and energy into something that’s not going to happen.”

For now, this policy is dead on arrival.

What happened? Can the growing pressure to fix the subways convince the mayor and governor to reverse course? And is congestion pricing even the right fix for New York City’s transportation problems?

BEFORE THINKING ABOUT the future, it’s important to understand the history of congestion pricing. Ever since the city removed tolls from its East River crossings in 1911, various mayors and advocates have tried to bring them back, only to be shot down, usually by officials responding to outer-borough drivers.

“Politically that’s a no-no, apparently,” said former MTA Chairman Richard Ravitch. “Politicians that represent constituencies that like to drive over the Manhattan, Williamsburg and 59th Street (Queensboro) bridges don’t like to have their constituents have to pay to do it.”

The first mayor to embrace tolls as a way to not just raise revenue, but to also reduce congestion and improve air quality, was John Lindsay, who, in 1973, included tolls on the Harlem River and East River bridges in the city’s Clean Air Act compliance plan.

Lindsay’s proposal gained the support of Gov. Nelson Rockefeller, but it was undone when U.S. Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan and Rep. Elizabeth Holtzman amended the Clean Air Act in 1977, al-

13

lowing their Brooklyn-bred successors, Mayor Abraham Beame and Gov. Hugh Carey, to remove the tolls from the city’s air quality plan.

“That’s the closest we ever got to congestion pricing in New York City,” said Sam Schwartz, who was a junior engineer in the city’s traffic department at the time.

Bridge tolls came up again under Mayor Ed Koch, when Schwartz served as as a top transportation official, and during the David Dinkins administration, when a mayoral adviser named Janette Sadik-Khan pushed for them. But the idea failed to gain traction, and went into hibernation during Rudy Giuliani’s two terms as mayor. In 2002, Mayor Michael Bloomberg proposed bridge tolls to patch a tight budget, but the idea was soon abandoned.

The idea of a more comprehensive congestion pricing plan gained steam with the proliferation of E-ZPass and advanced camera technology. London introduced its congestion charge in 2003, and Stockholm followed suit in 2006. A coalition of environmental, transportation and business groups pushed the idea for New York, and it became the headline policy of Bloomberg’s PlaNYC environmental initiative in 2007.

But the concept almost didn’t make it into the mayor’s program.

“It was a very last-minute decision,” said Bruce Schaller, who was hired that spring to oversee the city transportation department’s planning and sustainability initiatives. “There was a lot of internal debate within the administration about whether this was a worthwhile way to spend capital.”

Months before unveiling his congestion pricing plan, Bloomberg said the idea

CityAndStateNY.com

would be a “nonstarter” in Albany. But after announcing the plan on Earth Day as the marquee policy of his environmental agenda, he appointed Sadik-Khan as his transportation commissioner and took the proposal to Albany.

Bloomberg had support from Gov. Eliot Spitzer and the MTA, and his significant campaign donations got him a warm reception in the Republican-controlled state Senate. In the New York City Council, Speaker Christine Quinn secured a 30-20 vote for congestion pricing. (Among the “no” votes was then-City Councilman Bill de Blasio.)

But things ultimately ran aground in the Assembly. Speaker Sheldon Silver’s Democratic caucus was split on congestion pricing, and many Brooklyn and Queens members chafed at the idea, seeing Bloomberg’s plan as elitist.

“It says if you’re rich enough, you can come into Manhattan. And if you’re not rich enough, you can’t,” said Richard Brodsky, who was an assemblyman from Westchester County at the time. “It’s Bloomberg-era nonsense.” Brodsky was one of two “no” votes, both appointed by Silver, on the state’s 17-member commission to modify Bloomberg’s plan.

Advocates put out fact sheets showing that middle-income New Yorkers who depend on mass transit would benefit from the improvements paid for by wealthier commuters who drive into Manhattan. But in part because the idea came from the billionaire mayor and focused on Manhattan, the elitist public image of congestion pricing had already been established.

A last-minute congestion pricing endorsement from Gov. David Paterson, who had taken over after Spitzer’s resignation, failed to sway Silver. With a divided caucus, the speaker declined to call a vote on the plan. Congestion pricing died in April 2008, just over a year after it was announced, and $354 million the federal

July 31, 2017

government had set aside for New York’s program went to other cities.

But the MTA was left with a funding gap for its capital plan and a growing operational deficit that would only worsen during the coming economic crisis. Two months after congestion pricing’s defeat, Paterson tasked Ravitch, whom he would later tap as lieutenant governor, with leading a commission to identify new MTA funding sources.

Some of Ravitch’s recommendations became reality, such as a 50-cent taxi fee, a new payroll tax and biennial toll and fare hikes. But the proposal for tolls on the East River and Harlem River bridges fell victim to four state senators who held the balance of power in the newly Democratic chamber: Ruben Diaz Sr. and Pedro Espada of the Bronx, Carl Kruger of Brooklyn and Hiram Monserrate of Queens.

“They were crooks,” Ravitch said. Indeed, Kruger, Monserrate and Espada, who served as majority leader, all later went to jail for corruption. (Diaz is now looking to return to his old City Council seat.)

To transit advocates, the “gang of four” exemplify the worst of New York politics, and not just for their self-dealing. “One of the biggest stumbling blocks I see is when I meet an elected official who drives into Manhattan with a parking placard,” Schwartz said.

Kate Slevin, vice president of state programs and advocacy at the Regional Plan Association, tried to bolster support for congestion pricing when she led Tri-State Transportation Campaign during the Bloomberg era. “A lot of elected officials drive around the city,” she said. “They don’t know that most New Yorkers are on public transportation.”

PHILIP KAMRASS/OFFICE OF THE GOVERNOR; ROB BENNETT FOR THE OFFICE OF THE MAYOR; SHUTTERSTOCK

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City & State New York

OF THE MAYOR; SHUTTERSTOCK

July 31, 2017

AS CONGESTION PRICING and bridge toll proposals over the years were scuttled by outer-borough politicians, Schwartz began talking about how to craft a plan that could gain their support.

He was convinced that congestion pricing should be paired with a “toll swap” that reduced fees on outlying bridges like the Verrazano-Narrows, Bronx-Whitestone and Throgs Neck. Starting in 2011, Schwartz began devoting time and money to fleshing out the concept. By then, the political landscape had shifted: Bridge tolls were no longer on Albany’s agenda, Republicans had regained the state Senate, self-professed “car guy” Andrew Cuomo had become governor and people were beginning to think about what a postBloomberg city would look like.

Schwartz connected with transportation economist Charles Komanoff and environmentalist Alex Matthiessen, who were working on a different congestion pricing plan. The team made the rounds to transit advocates, community groups and elected officials seeking feedback and support.

The plan they developed, called Move NY, would raise $1.3 billion a year for transit by charging $5.54 to drive below 60th Street and cross the currently toll-free East River bridges while also levying new fees on taxi and for-hire trips in the center of the city. Drivers on seven MTA-controlled spans would see toll cuts of 30 to 40 per-

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cent. Since its release in early 2015, the plan has garnered endorsements from legislators, unions, business groups, transportation advocates and editorial boards.

Congestion pricing skeptics like thenCity Councilman Mark Weprin and state Sen. Jose Peralta came out in support. The Daily News and The New York Times were on board. So were the Transit Workers Union Local 100, 32BJ Service Employees International Union and the City Council’s progressive caucus. Even Uber began making positive indications about supporting this type of road pricing. Legislation modeled on Schwartz’s proposal was introduced by state Sen. Andrew Lanza, a Staten Island Republican, and Assemblyman Robert Rodriguez, a Democrat representing East Harlem. Move NY organizers hoped the early support could encourage the mayor or the governor, their ideal champion, to take the leap.

Ultimately, neither executive embraced the plan. Both have portrayed it as a political impossibility, exasperating Move NY advocates.

“There’s this terrible Catch-22 where the legislators are looking at the governor, and meanwhile, you’ve got a governor who’s not seeing the requisite support in the Assembly and Senate for him to stick his neck out,” said Komanoff, who now serves an adviser to Move NY. “It’s a very frustrating situation.”

Schwartz echoed Komanoff’s complaints. “I don’t understand elected officials who say, ‘There isn’t the political appetite.’ Isn’t that what they’re in the business for?” he asked. “It strikes me as odd when politicians use politics as the reason to not do it.”

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Frustrated with the lack of action at the state level, Move NY unveiled a “home rule” option in early June. Toll reductions on outlying bridges wouldn’t be feasible without the state’s cooperation, but the city could go it alone and enact a toll to drive below 60th Street, Move NY said.

Conventional wisdom holds that congestion pricing is up to Albany, but the city could move forward on its own because of a 1957 state law that allows it to implement tolls on roads and bridges, according to a legal analysis by New York University law professor Roderick M. Hills, Jr. “Many attorneys over a number of administrations have looked at this question very carefully,” city Transportation Commissioner Polly Trottenberg said at a City Council hearing on congestion in early June. “And I think we have all determined that the city doesn’t have that legal authority. We need to get that authority from the state.”

In the unlikely event that de Blasio and the City Council embark upon a Manhattan-only toll program, it would almost certainly be a candidate for pre-emption by the state Legislature.

Albany has shown little hesitation to bigfoot the city, most recently on a plastic bag fee that was passed by the City Council and signed by de Blasio, only to be reversed after Cuomo and the state Legislature overturned the fee.

Plus, there is no shortage of toll opponents in Albany. “I don’t think the answer is to charge tolls on the free bridges,” Assemblyman David Weprin said. “There are a lot of small businesses and people from Queens, Brooklyn and Long Island that rely on the free bridges.”

If the goal is to raise funds for the MTA, there are alternatives to congestion pricing on the table. Weprin has long wanted to restore the commuter tax and offer a rebate to New York state residents. State Sen. Michael Gianaris proposed an income tax surcharge on millionaires. Brodsky and Empire Center for Public Policy research director E.J. McMahon want to redirect bank settlement funds to the MTA. Then there are sales tax and gas tax proposals. Each has its pluses and minuses, but as with congestion pricing, none of these solutions have gained Cuomo’s support.

“Ultimately, the governor is going to have to weigh in about how he’s going to pay for the things we’re going to need,” said Rodriguez, the sponsor of the Move NY bill in the Assembly. “Thus far, he’s not saying how he’s paying for it, other than loading on more debt.”

July 31, 2017

But there’s a strong argument that today’s subway problems are caused by operational missteps and decades of bad decisions, not a lack of money at an authority known for its sky-high costs.

Even some congestion pricing supporters say it might not be the right solution to the subway’s woes.

“The framing of the question right now has been much more about management than it has been about money. And that’s appropriate, given the facts on the ground,” said Schaller. “I spent my afternoons, evenings and weekends on congestion pricing.

It’s not like I don’t have a lot of investment in it. But there’s a time to move on.”

Matthiessen insists the MTA needs both new revenue and a new way of doing business, and congestion pricing should be part of the solution. “They’re not in conflict,” he said. “I would condition the awarding of new money to the MTA on them undergoing some significant reforms.”

Veronica Vanterpool, executive director of Tri-State Transportation Campaign and a de Blasio appointee to the MTA board, said fundamental changes in how the MTA works are badly needed. “But in-

City & State New York

July 31, 2017

SHUTTERSTOCK

MTA to maintain a state of good repair is the responsibility of the board.”

All eyes are on Joe Lhota, newly reappointed to lead the MTA as its chairman.

He’s offered an action plan to fix the subways, along with a price tag – $836 million in the short term, followed by an additional $8 billion in the next capital plan. But he’s also seeding doubt that the MTA’s leadership will act independently from Cuomo; at a July press conference, Lhota forcefully echoed the governor’s line that the city is responsible for funding the subways.

Cuomo is known to use a strong hand at the MTA when it’s politically advantageous, taking credit for the New Year’s opening of the Second Avenue subway and directing the authority’s board to lower tolls for Staten Island residents during an election year, fast-track his plan to replace toll booths with cashless tolls, and approve the installation of LED lights on its bridges.

But as the subways are falling apart, Cuomo attempted a disappearing act in June, when he said he had no control over the authority. Editorial boards and advocates, led

by Riders Alliance – which at one point cre-

stitutional fixes are not going to find the amount of revenue that’s necessary to fix the system,” she said. “They have to be coupled together.”

Before fixes can even be considered, Ravitch said, the MTA needs to do an accurate assessment of its maintenance and operational needs, directed by a truly independent board that’s not simply following orders from the governor.

“How do you know what should be spent? How do you know how much money you need? Nobody’s asking the right questions,” he said. “The failure of the

ated a cardboard cutout of the governor so straphangers could vent their frustrations – kept the focus on Cuomo.

His recent attempts to point the finger at the city notwithstanding, Cuomo has responded to this pressure - though advocates are less than inspired by his genius grant competition and ephemeral promises of more funding for the MTA. Where things go from here is anybody’s guess.

When Ravitch led the MTA in the 1980s, the city’s business titans were key to building support for fixing the subways, but

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that force is missing today. “They became big advocates of enacting taxes in Albany to support the MTA,” he said. “Different era, different kind of people in the business community, I guess.”

Transportation Alternatives executive director Paul Steely White also wants a more vocal business leadership. “There’s this old mythology of Rockefeller and Ravitch and others going down into the tunnels and showing their business cohort the deterioration firsthand,” he said. “We need that moment again, when there’s a new coalition of businesses. A whole flock of private sector interests are still on the sidelines. I’m talking about tech, primarily, but there are others. They need to be activated.

They need to be politicized around this issue because right now a lot of their employees are up in arms.”

Continued deterioration in subway service could force Cuomo’s hand, bringing him to endorse something like congestion pricing if the political costs of not doing so become untenable. The governor’s approval rating is already starting to dip as voters give him poor grades on his handling of the MTA. “I strongly suspect that there has to be a complete level of rage from the transit-riding public in order to make this happen.

Maybe we’re approaching that,” said John Kaehny, executive director of government transparency watchdog Reinvent Albany.

“We’ve got the crisis because the MTA is in crisis, but we don’t have the champion.”

Until that champion steps forward, people advocating for change like Slevin are frustrated by de Blasio and Cuomo. “I’m somewhat baffled by the fact that neither the mayor nor the governor have taken this up at this point, given the daily experience of riders throughout the region,” she said.

“They could be a hero and show that they are going to be a leader that fixes the subway, fixes the bus system, fixes the commuter rail system.”

Without a state or city executive that embraces congestion pricing, Move NY proponents are fed up.

“Sometimes you’ve got all the right ingredients – you’ve got funders, you’ve got polling showing New Yorkers support it, you’ve got editorial boards, you’ve got elected officials – and yet if you don’t have the governor and the mayor, it makes it hard to do something like this. But that doesn’t mean there’s not huge value in seeding the ground,” Matthiessen said. “We’ve done everything we need to do.”

Stephen Miller is a freelance journalist covering transportation.

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POLLY TROTTENBERG Commissioner, New York City Department of Transportation

July 31, 2017

C&S: What’s your opinion on all the commotion surrounding the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and New York City’s subway system?

PT: I think the city welcomes the appointment of Joe Lhota as the new chair of the MTA. Joe is undertaking both a 30day organizational review and then a bigger 60-day look at some of the deeper questions about what needs to be done to make some dramatic improvements to the subway system. We look forward to participating in those studies and doing what we can to help once the MTA puts some good solutions on the table.

C&S: What’s your top priority as commissioner right now?

PT: We obviously want to see better subway service. But we also want to be part of helping to find the solution. Obviously, New York City transit riders are not having a good summer and we think there are a lot of things that can be done there to make service improvements. On the New York City Department of Transportation side, as I mentioned, we have our own things that the city owns and operates and can do to improve mobility in the city. Working with the MTA on rolling out more select bus service lines, on expanding Citi Bike and our bike lane network and the citywide ferry service. We’re also rolling out this summer a car-share pilot. I always do want to say when we talk about our priorities, obviously for us, roadway

safety and Vision Zero is kind of the overlay of everything we’re doing.

C&S: There was a bit of some bad press regarding the citywide ferry service. How has it been going?

PT: I think we’ve been a victim of our own success. I think the good news is, people were so enthusiastic and ridership has been so strong, so there were definitely some crowds, but I think that’s actually not a bad problem to have and the Economic Development Corporation really runs that service. I think they’ve responded very quickly. They’re ordering larger vessels, so we’re quickly making adjustments to accommodate what I actually think has been tremendously successful.

Solving the MTA’s Long-Term Challenges

By Carlo A. Scissura - President and CEO of the New York Building Congress Last week’s announcement by Metropolitan Transportation Authority Chairman Joe Lhota of an emergency subway rescue plan couldn’t have come at a better time.

As New York’s daily commuters can attest, the mass transit system is straining to accommodate historic levels of ridership. Virtually every line has gotten more crowded in the past year, while delays are becoming far more frequent and longer. Even more concerning is the recent uptick in major incidents, such as this summer’s derailment of both an A Train in Harlem and the Q in Brighton Beach.

The short-term MTA plan, which is projected to cost more than $800 million, will address the most immediate drivers of delays by hiring more workers, repairing the most antiquated signals, adding more cars where possible, and instituting quick fixes for the track and power failures that are plaguing the system.

This is a great start, which will hopefully show positive results in the

coming months. But as Lhota was quick to point out, we will have to wait until 2020 and the next MTA five-year capital plan before we are able to address the MTA’s most fundamental and complex challenges.

The Building Congress stands ready to work with the MTA, as well as Governor Andrew Cuomo and Mayor Bill de Blasio, on a long-term plan that will make the entire agency more responsive and adaptable, as well as more flexible in its procurement and project delivery methods. We also believe that any and all discussions about the MTA’s longterm needs must be accompanied by a frank assessment of the projected costs and a realistic funding plan.

The Building Congress advocates the adoption of dedicated revenue sources devoted exclusively to the MTA’s capital program. All options must be on the table, including a uniform toll on vehicles entering Manhattan’s central business district; an increase in the Petroleum Business Tax; removal of the artificial cap on the gasoline sales tax; and a hike

in the MTA region sales tax surcharge.

We must also strongly consider a new tax on app-based ride-hailing services, as well as one-time revenue sources that could serve as a down payment on the purchase of new subway cars and the modernization of the subway’s signaling system. One potential source is the New York State Department of Financial Services, which is said to have a few billion dollars in settlement funds yet to be dispersed or earmarked. A statewide bond act to fund the MTA is another possible revenue source.

Once we have an inventory of needs, as well as a reliable estimate of fuwnding, we can map out a solid plan to create a more reliable, modern and convenient subway system.

Every level of government has a role to play, along with the region’s businesses, drivers and commuters.

If everyone contributes their fair share, we can do far more than return to a state-of-good repair – we can create a more seamless and efficient transit network that can grow in lockstep with our economy and population.

City & State New York

July 31, 2017

JOHN D. PORCARI Interim Executive Director, Gateway Program Development Corporation

C&S: The Gateway Program has been deemed one of the most essential infrastructure projects in the U.S. right now. Can you explain what it is?

JP: Gateway is a program of projects. It’s multiple projects that will eliminate a single point of failure for 10 percent of America’s GDP. That single point of failure is a 106-year-old bridge and a 106-year-old tunnel under the Hudson River. They carry about 200,000 people a day on 450 trains. It’s the economic lifeline for the New York metro area. Gateway will replace a bridge and a tunnel that were carrying passengers while the Titanic was still under construction.

C&S: What’s the current status of the Gateway Program?

JP: The first project in this program of projects is called the Portal North Bridge, which is a new bridge over the Hackensack River. It’s 100 percent designed, 100 percent permitted and ready to go to construction. It’s lacking only the federal funding commitment. The local half is in place.

The House is proposing funding for the bridge and I’m confident the merits should speak for themselves. The bridge is the one that will go to construction immediately and the tunnel is not far behind.

C&S: So why is this so important? Why should people care?

JP: It goes directly to the economic vibrancy of not just the New York metro area, but really the whole nation. This is a project of national significance because the economy nationwide is intertwined and every region depends on other regions. With New York as the financial center of the United States, and in fact the world, it is an essential project. The merits of the project are overwhelming.

We cannot allow a tunnel and a bridge that were built by our great-grandparents to be a single point of failure for such an important part of our economy.

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July 31, 2017

COMMENTARY

NO EXCUSES, MR. MAYOR – SUPPORT FAIR FARES

A

LL IT TOOK was a new battleground for the long-running pissing match between New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio and Gov. Andrew Cuomo for the mayor to become a newly visible ally in the fight for a more functional subway system.

Welcome to the party, Mr. Mayor. Grab a seat or a pole and get comfortable; there are signal problems ahead and we should be moving shortly.

De Blasio, who in June dismissed the idea of riding the subway more frequently as “cheap symbolism” – a laughable contention given his 12-mile daily commute via SUV caravan from Gracie Mansion to the Park Slope YMCA to “stay connected” to his old neighborhood – has finally figured out that his responsibility to the subway system isn’t just to merely throw up his hands and say, “Not my problem.”

Of course, straphangers may have noticed that’s exactly what de Blasio did for several months this year as he and the City

Council tangoed during municipal budget negotiations over Fair Fares – a proposal to earmark about $200 million to subsidize discounted MetroCards for New Yorkers living below the federal poverty line.

The same mayor who, once upon a time, spoke eloquently about bridging the city’s equality gap; whose 2013 electoral victory was buoyed by strong support from low-income neighborhoods; whose budgets have risen every year he’s been in office to a whopping $85 billion as he throws money at new social programs

ED REED/MAYORAL PHOTOGRAPHY OFFICE

Single moms can’t afford the subway, and that’s nobody’s fault but de Blasio’s

By NICK POWELL

City & State New York

July 31, 2017

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NEW YORK CITY MAYOR BILL DE BLASIO RIDES THE SUBWAY LAST WEEK AS AN OPPORTUNITY TO SEND GOV. ANDREW CUOMO A MESSAGE, DEMANDING THE GOVERNOR TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE SUBWAY SYSTEM.

– yet balked at funding Fair Fares that would’ve appreciably changed the lives of nearly 800,000 of his constituents.

Norma Ginez, 41, a first-generation Peruvian immigrant whose parents brought her to New York City when she was 6 years old, is a single, unemployed mother of three children living in the Concourse section of the Bronx. She is unemployed out of necessity rather than an inability to work. All three of her children have special needs and require extra attention that keeps her from working.

Sitting in a booth at a hole-in-the-wall diner on 170th Street in the Bronx with her daughter, Ginez describes how she’s forced to ration what little money she has for bare necessities, which means that even a $2.75 single subway ride is often a luxury she can’t afford.

As a result, Ginez hoards MetroCards with any amount of money on them, including free ones she gets as a member of Riders Alliance, a transit advocacy group that is pushing the Fair Fares proposal with the Community Service Society of New York.

More frequently, Ginez is forced to commute by foot, sometimes as many as 20 or 30 blocks to and from various doctors’ appointments and errands. While the walking is great cardiovascular exercise – she jokes that her jeans fit a lot looser than they used to – it’s not a sustainable mode of transportation during the winter months or when the weather is nasty.

“I go to my counselor, my medical doctor and I keep every MetroCard so that I have them for the winter time, rainy days or times that I feel like it’s too far to walk,”

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July 31, 2017

Ginez said. “Other times we will walk – if I’m at 149th (Street) and Third (Avenue) I’ll walk to 169th Street to get home with my kids. We make a field trip out of it. ‘Look at the pretty building! We’ll go to the park!

Play for a little bit and then we’ll walk back home so you’ll get real tired and go to sleep!’”

Despite the full-time job of being a mother, Ginez has carved out time to work with the Riders Alliance on the Fair Fares campaign. She was drawn to the campaign after an impromptu conversation with a Riders Alliance member, a college student, on the platform of the 161st Street subway station.

They bonded over their struggle to afford a subway fare, and when he explained the proposal for a discounted MetroCard, Ginez was immediately sold. Ginez wasted no

What makes de Blasio’s resistance to Fair Fares even more inexplicable is that he is well aware of the challenges low-income New Yorkers like Ginez are facing.

In May, the Mayor’s Office for Economic Opportunity released its annual poverty report, which showed commuting costs raise the poverty rate by 2.2 percentage points, and have a greater impact on pushing people into poverty than payroll taxes or anything else except out-of-pocket medical expenses.

As a single mother, Ginez is part of a demographic that is disproportionately affected by increasingly unaffordable subway fares. The poverty rate for single mothers in New York City is staggeringly high – 41 percent live below the poverty line, twice the poverty rate for New Yorkers overall.

Cuomo’s ridiculous game of “Whose Subway Is It Anyway?”

Yes, Cuomo is being utterly disingenuous in pushing the false narrative that the city should be doing more to fund the MTA, but it’s no less frustrating that de Blasio does not seem to understand the difference between managing subway operations and being responsible to his constituents. Why not take matters into his own hands and provide some measure of relief for low-income New Yorkers suffering from a snarled subway system? Subway fares will be hiked once again in 2019 and 2021, putting an affordable commute even further out of reach for de Blasio’s most vulnerable constituents.

If de Blasio were half the political operative he thinks he is, he might recognize that

De Blasio CAN’T GET BEYOND

THE POLITICS, INSTEAD CONTENT TO BE an unwitting pawn IN Cuomo’s

“WHOSE SUBWAY IS IT ANYWAY?”

RIDICULOUS GAME OF

time, joining the Riders Alliance for a day of action in the Bronx, canvassing for petition signatures with her three kids in tow.

Ginez has since become a vocal advocate for Fair Fares, even convincing Vanessa Gibson, her councilwoman, to sign on to the campaign. So far, 40 council members – well beyond a majority – support the proposal, as well as city Comptroller Scott Stringer and Public Advocate Letitia James.

De Blasio has repeatedly called the Fair Fares proposal “noble” in spirit, but has insisted that the responsibility should fall to the state, which controls the MTA, displaying willful ignorance to the fact that the city already subsidizes MetroCards for seniors and public school students. The mayor also declined to fund a compromise proposal that would have established a $50 million pilot program for a discounted MetroCard.

“If (de Blasio’s) not going to do it, we’re going to start to find another mayor that can do it,” Ginez said. “It’s something very important. Families are depriving themselves from other necessities that they need, sometimes even empty stomachs, to get to and from work because they have to pay for that fare.”

Indeed, even as Ginez looks for work – she was recently certified as a medical biller – she confronts the grim reality that the jobs available to her are simply insufficient to sustain her family financially. Ginez recounts a recent experience, in which she used one of her saved MetroCards to travel to Queens to interview for a position as a telephone operator at a hospital. The job paid a pittance – $8 an hour – so Ginez declined.

A precious round-trip subway fare wasted.

“I said, ‘Take this (wage), think about how much I pay for child care, add my subway fare, $120 automatically or so I have to pay for my monthly MetroCard so I can make sure I can get to work. Then lunch, maybe I can’t bring food from home and I’m hungry. It’s not going to compensate.’

“Listen, even 10 years back, (with a job paying) $19 an hour, I had a vehicle and I had two kids, I still didn’t make it. You’re going to tell me with $8 an hour I’m going to make it but with three children? No way.”

While Ginez makes a compelling economic argument for a proposal like Fair Fares, de Blasio can’t get beyond the politics, instead content to be an unwitting pawn in

funding Fair Fares is a terrific opportunity to go beyond the “cheap symbolism” of having his press secretary tweet photos of him riding the subway. After all, the roughly 800,000 impoverished New Yorkers that would benefit from discounted MetroCards is more than the total number of people who voted for de Blasio in 2013 general election.

Alas, de Blasio has clearly made the political calculation that he can win re-election without lifting a finger on subway fares.

There is no Democrat on the ballot that’s making the mayor sweat, and Nicole Malliotakis, the presumptive Republican nominee, is widely considered to be a long shot.

In the meantime, voters like Ginez will continue advocating for Fair Fares. The issue is not going away.

“Mayor de Blasio says that he really loves the lower-income class and he’s for us, but he’s not really showing he’s for us if he’s not (funding) lower fares for lower-income families,” Ginez said. “We are going to round up more council members. We’re going to round up more people that are in the same situation like us. We’re going to prepare for next year.”

■

NICK POWELLt www.nyslant.comt

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City & State New York

July 31, 2017

JEFFREY DINOWITZ Chairman, Assembly Committee on Corporations, Authorities and Commissions

YDANIS RODRÍGUEZ Chairman, New York City Council Transportation Committee

C&S: You recently introduced a new bill to the Assembly. What does the bill do?

JD: It earmarks specific percentages from the state income tax in successive years in the budget. It would be half a percent next year followed by 1, 1.5 and then 2 starting in 2021. This money will go to transit so we have a guaranteed source of revenue. And the money will be distributed throughout the state – it’s not just focused on New York City or the MTA. The bill would generate $700 million that, after the MTA would be able to bond out some of the money, it would translate into $9

billion. So there would be money for upstate transit systems and upstate roads, but the point is to guarantee that there would be money for mass transit in particular.

C&S: Is there any legislation you’d like to see passed that can improve the issues surrounding the Metropolitan Transportation Authority?

YR: The speaker of the council, Melissa Mark-Viverito, we both agree that we are going to putting a hearing together. Right now, we are working with the members of the transportation committee putting all their ideas together so that when we call for a hearing, we will bring our colleagues on the council and the voices from the MTA and stakeholders to come together and bring potential suggestions on how we can take the MTA to a better place.

YR: I believe that it is our responsibility to have a more permanent plan on how we can raise the revenue for the MTA. I believe that we should explore the possibilities to ask the state to increase the mobility tax and that money to be used exclusively for New York City Transit. But I also believe that we should speak to legislators from Albany, Long Island, Westchester and Connecticut and build their support to raise the commuter tax.

C&S: What are your top priorities as chairman of the transportation committee?

C&S: Is there support for the bill in the Assembly?

JD: Well, the bill was just introduced and we’re going to be soliciting sponsors. I suspect there will be significant support, but I can’t tell you that right now. I am confident that there will be a lot of support. There are some people who may say they don’t believe in earmarking money because it ties our hands and takes away our flexibility. And maybe that’s not so wrong

C&S: What are your opinions on the “summer of hell”? How do you think it’s been going so far?

YR: It affects not only New Yorkers, but also many tourists and residents of Long Island. The reason why we’re dealing with this situation is

in theory, but in fact not earmarking money has resulted in a massive underfunding of our needs.

C&S: Will this bill only help people who ride the subways?

JD: No. We all have a stake in making sure we have a great school system. We all have a stake in making sure that certain other things that we don’t use work properly. One of those things is the buses and subways, even if you don’t personally use them. We have a massive stake in them. If the system collapses that will have a devastating effect on our economy and we just cannot let that happen.

because the repair (work) for Amtrak is overdue. So what I hope is to see more resources coming from the federal government and for Amtrak also to have a better plan on how to make all those repairs and reduce the levels of the impact that it has on New Yorkers and tourists.

C&S: What can New Yorkers do?

YR: First of all, we need to continue to increase the voices of New Yorkers to be part of the solution for the MTA. My suggestion is to want to be part of the solution, to come up with ideas and suggestions. I think we should also demand a better system of transparency when it comes to having that road of communication with the MTA.

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From JD to MPA:

Which path is best as you enter public service?

For those inspired to enter public service, particularly in this era of waning faith in our national government, pursuing a graduate degree is more important than ever and is an efficient way to climb the ladder in government.

In this special section, we examined two popular graduate degrees for the publicly minded: the top law and master’s of public administration programs in New York state.

The utility of a law degree for those who want to work on legislation and public policy PUBLISHER’S SECTION

is immeasurable. But if “The Paper Chase” and three years of brutal memorization and the Socratic method is not your desire, then the MPA and its focus on public policymaking might be a better fit.

Hear from New York’s top law school deans, statewide legislators and experts on education in these pages and you’ll be wiser as you plot out your career trajectory in the growing field of public service.

—TOM ALLON, City & State president and publisher

City & State New York

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Why a law degree could make you a better policymaker WILLIAM ALATRISTE FOR THE NEW YORK CITY COUNCIL

By PHILIP LENTZ

Writing and interpreting laws is a central function of government, so knowing how and why laws are written is a crucial skill.

Whether a student is thinking of a career in government or one that deals with government, such as lobbying or working for a nonprofit, having a law degree is becoming more important for students considering a career in the public sector.

“There’s a huge connection between law school and the public sector,” said David Yassky, dean of the Elisabeth Haub School of Law at Pace University, who also served as a New York City councilman and as chairman of the New York City Taxi and Limousine Commission. “Government is in the business of making laws and regulations, and lawyers are in the business of interpreting laws and regulations to help clients understand them,” he said.

Experts said a law degree is an asset whether one works in government or represents clients before government.

“The core curriculum offered by law schools is certainly foundational for public service,” said Anthony Crowell, dean of the New York Law School, noting that basic courses in tort law, contract law, civil procedure and criminal law all deal with government in one way or another.

“It raises the level of professionalism in government when those who are running it have a solid foundation in the law,” he said. “Every action government takes has a legal implication.”

A law degree is also an asset for those looking to impact public policy, whether from inside government or from the outside.

Sarah Steiner, who is now an election lawyer, decided to go to law school after working in city government for several years. “For the things I wanted to do – the kinds of policy changes I wanted to affect – I could be more effective if I had a law degree,” she said. “A law degree gives you an authority, a gravitas you

NEW YORK CITY COUNCILMAN DAN GARODNICK SAYS HIS "LEGAL TRAINING WAS INSTRUMENTAL" IN NEGOTIATING THE REZONING OF EAST MIDTOWN.

don’t have without it, even if you’re doing the same thing.”

After receiving her degree, Steiner worked as a defense lawyer while becoming active with the New York City Bar Association on policy issues. “The advocacy and advisory work I did, I could not have done if I had not gone to law school,” she said.

The credibility associated with a law degree can be an important factor in career advancement. “Someone with a law degree is going to be able to get a higher level position even if it’s an executive capacity and not as a counsel capacity,” said Ken Fisher, a former New York City councilman and now a lawyer who works with the government. “It doesn’t guarantee they’ll do a good job, but it will make it more likely that they’ll get one.”

Tom McMahon, president of the government relations firm of TLM Associates LLC, said the skills he learned in law school were very helpful in government, even if they weren’t specifically legal jobs.

“The skills that I got from law school were the ability to read laws and understand them, the ability to communicate on issues and the ability to research various topics,” said McMahon, who served as director of the New York City Council’s Finance Division and the New York City

Council’s general counsel. “The thinking you learn in law school helps you in public service,” he added.

Elected officials said their legal training has been an important asset in their careers.

New York City Councilman Dan Garodnick said his law degree has been very helpful in the council. It guided his role in filing a lawsuit against the owner of Stuyvesant Town-Peter Cooper Village for improperly deregulated apartments, which he won, as well as interrogating Con Edison officials after a 2007 steam explosion and negotiating the rezoning of East Midtown.

“I was able to dig deep into the zoning resolution and help develop a plan that balanced the various rights and interests,” he said. “That legal training was instrumental.”

For state Sen. Michael Gianaris, his law degree taught him how to write laws. “It has given me an interesting background to be a lawmaker,” he said, noting that he worked as a lawyer on the state Legislature’s central staff before becoming an elected official. “Nonlawyers rely on staff to deal with the nitty-gritty of crafting bills. I have a unique perspective because I used to work on central staff.”

He also said that one of the more helpful courses he took in law school was a PUBLISHER’S SECTION

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negotiation workshop class, which is valuable in politics. A law degree also gives graduates the background to handle many different types of issues that government faces.

“What law school does is give people a vocabulary and a toolkit to do whatever they want to do,” said Melinda Saran, vice dean for social justice initiatives at the University of Buffalo Law School. “A law degree is important because it gives students the skills to be able to work from policy to regulations to the statute and back again – to understand the relationships.”

She added, “For people going into the government sector, it’s helpful to get past the bureaucracy and see the big picture of what they’re doing. We talk to students about policy in addition to the law – how policy shapes the law and vice versa.”

She said it is also important to help students refine their writing skills if they plan to go into the public sector. “Our students come out with an understanding of how to write persuasively and ob-

jectively, which is important in the public sector – so they can argue when they need to argue – but also be objective when they need to be objective," she said.

There is greater interest today among law students in careers in the public sector, which has helped push law schools to offer more courses, clinics, internships and workshops in areas related to public service.

Ross Sandler, a professor at New York Law School and a former New York City transportation commissioner, said an IRS ruling in 1969 that public interest litigation was a charitable activity was a major boon for nonprofits and enabled law graduates to make a living practicing public interest law.

“As more funding sources appeared, there was more opportunity to do this sort of litigation,” he said. “Not just on the left side of the spectrum, but also on the right side. Conservative organizations got involved. Public interest can be on both sides.”

He added, “Law schools today are heavily committed to having course, internship and clinical opportunities to participate in public interest and public service.”

For example, Sandler created the Center for New York City Law at New York Law School, which studies city laws and government decisions. Located feet from City Hall, the law school prides itself on offering courses that specialize in municipal law. “New York Law School has a home-court advantage,” Crowell said.

Many law schools have similar programs.

The Touro College Jacob D. Fuchsberg Law Center on Long Island shares its campus with a federal and state courthouse. With that proximity, many of the judges serve as adjunct professors. And its students are able to participate in clinics and internships at the courthouse – some in conjunction with Touro’s William Randolph Hearst Public Advocacy Center, where its law students provide legal help to local nonprofits.

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July 31, 2017

“We’re the only accredited law school that shares a campus with a federal and state courthouse,” Dean Harry Ballan said. “That gives our students unique insight into civil and criminal cases.”

At Pace University’s law school, many of the law students are first-generation Americans, so there is great interest in immigration law. “We have an immigration clinic for people who appear before ICE (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement),” Yassky said. “A lot of students then do immigration law when they graduate. Not typically with government – because government doesn’t hire people to do that – but for nonprofits that do immigration work.”

For law school students interested in public service, lawyers recommend that students learn how to write, take a wide variety of courses and get a good grounding in the law.

Fisher urged law students to take legal writing courses: “Not just about writing advocacy documents like a brief, but how to write a contract precisely be-

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STATE SEN. MICHAEL GIANARIS SAYS HIS LAW DEGREE MEANS HE DOESN’T NEED TO RELY ON STAFF FOR “THE NITTY-GRITTY OF CRAFTING BILLS.”

cause that’s good training for legislative drafting.”

Steiner, the election lawyer, said, “It was and still is my opinion that the best thing for yourself as a lawyer is to get the broadest exposure to legal structures. There’s an old phrase: The law is

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a seamless web. Nothing you’re going to learn will be useless to you.”

Gianaris agreed. “The best thing a person can do is try and learn as much as possible about as many different fields.

You never know what will strike you as interesting until you do it,” he said.

■

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Law schools in New York Columbia Law School

WWW.LAW.COLUMBIA.EDU ENROLLMENT: 1,234 students DEAN: Gillian Lester ALUMNI: Montana Gov. Steve Bullock, Salt Lake County Mayor Ben McAdams Columbia Law School is renowned for the intellectual rigors of its curriculum and the groundbreaking scholarship of its faculty. Its mission of teaching and research serves the world at large and instills in its students a global worldview that prepares them to be exceptionally capable, ethical and resourceful leaders. Drawing unparalleled strength from the vast interdisciplinary resources of our distinguished research university – and the global stage that is our New York City location – Columbia’s students complete their legal training ready to engage the world’s most challenging issues across borders, jurisdictions, subject matters, sectors and industries.

Its training includes J.D., LL.M. and J.S.D. programs.

New York University School of Law

WWW.LAW.NYU.EDU/ ENROLLMENT: 1,369 students DEAN: Trevor Morrison ALUMNI: U.S. Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander Founded in 1835, the New York University School of Law has a long record of academic excellence, national scholarly influence and innovative achievements. It is a pacesetter in legal education, pioneering new approaches to training practical skills and the early recognition that law has an increasingly global dimension that should be reflected in the classroom.

Its innovative lawyering and clinical programs, interdisciplinary colloquia, public interest initiatives, and its law

and business transaction courses have served as models for others. In recent years, the school has substantially increased its focus on and expertise in intellectual property law, social entrepreneurship and cybersecurity.

Cornell Law School

WWW.LAWSCHOOL.CORNELL.EDU ENROLLMENT: 605 students DEAN: Eduardo M. Peñalver ALUMNI: Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen, U.S. Rep. Katherine Clark Cornell Law School is a rigorous and vibrant intellectual community.

Founded in 1887, Cornell Law is a top-tier law school with a rare characteristic: its size. With about 600 students, Cornell Law School offers an intimate, collegial and diverse environment in which students grow through their interactions with one another and learn from its dedicated and interdisciplinary faculty. After their time at Cornell, graduates leave able to think about the law systematically and prepared to practice at the profession’s highest levels.

Fordham University School of Law

WWW.FORDHAM.EDU/ INFO/20346/SCHOOL_OF_LAW ENROLLMENT: 993 students DEAN: Matthew Diller ALUMNI: New York City Councilman Vincent Gentile, state Sen. Andrew Lanza At Fordham Law School, “in the service of others” is more than a motto, it is also a career path. From student-initiated groups and serviceoriented legal centers to specialized academic courses, to the experiential learning opportunities of clinics and externships, Fordham Law provides countless avenues for students to

pursue public interest and service – including a concentration in public interest and service. Learn more at law. fordham.edu/publicinterest.

Yeshiva University’s Benjamin N. Cardozo Law School

CARDOZO.YU.EDU/ ENROLLMENT: 803 students DEAN: Melanie Leslie ALUMNI: U.S. Rep. Grace Meng, New York Associate Justice Dianne Renwick of the state Supreme Court’s Appellate Division, First Judicial Department The Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, a division of Yeshiva University, is located on Fifth Avenue in New York City. Cardozo offers a comprehensive legal education with extensive ties to the New York legal community, government and the private sector, with emphasis on finance, media and technology. The entrepreneurial and creative focus of Cardozo stems from its renowned program in intellectual property and information law, including the FAME Center for fashion, arts, media and entertainment law, the Tech Startup Clinic, the Indie Film Clinic and the Blockchain Project. Cardozo is the birthplace of the Innocence Project and is ranked 14th in the nation for practical training by PreLaw Magazine. Alumni work in all sectors and the National Law Journal placed Cardozo among the “top 50 go-to law schools” for big law firm hiring, and ranked Cardozo 36th in the nation for “gold standard” jobs requiring a law degree for 2016 graduates.

St. John’s University School of Law

WWW.STJOHNS.EDU/LAW ENROLLMENT: 591 students DEAN: Michael A. Simons

City & State New York

July 31, 2017

ALUMNI: New York Court of Appeals Chief Judge Janet DiFiore, Queens Borough President Melinda Katz Career development is central to St. John’s University School of Law. With the support of dedicated career counselors, and with guidance from its strong network of more than 16,000 alumni, St. John’s students receive individual attention beginning in their first semester.

The result is a career development strategy that leads students through a career pathways approach to legal education, including advanced courses, internships, cocurricular activities, clinics, honors programs, study abroad opportunities and externships. And, whatever path its graduates pursue, they carry with them the Vincentian values of St. John’s, understanding that law is a vocation through which they can live justly and better the world.

Brooklyn Law School

Safe Harbor Clinic and the Disability and Civil Rights Clinic. The school also offers the Edward V. Sparer Public Interest Law Fellowship Program, a 10week paid summer internship with a public interest organization in the U.S. or abroad and the Public Interest/Public Service Fellowship Prog ram, a twoyear fellowship that offers real-world experience in government agencies and nonprofits, and a guaranteed paid position the following year. PreLaw Magazine, a leading news source in legal education, ranked Brooklyn Law School in the top 20 law schools in the nation for public service, earning an “A” grade in the public interest category.

WWW.BROOKLAW.EDU/ ENROLLMENT: 814 students DEAN: Nicholas W. Allard ALUMNI: Former New York City Mayor David Dinkins, Assemblyman Steven Cymbrowitz This year, Brooklyn Law School launched its new Public Service Law Center, which serves as a hub of resources and information related to public service programs, initiatives and activities. The center advances the law school’s dynamic tradition of service, offering myriad ways to use a legal education to engage in public service, including an expansive array of student-led pro bono projects and innovative fellowship programs.

The law school also offers an array of public interest curricula and opportunities, including courses on race and the law, mental health law and First Amendment law, as well as robust clinical offerings, such as the

Syracuse University College of Law

LAW.SYR.EDU/ ENROLLMENT: 534 students DEAN: Craig M. Boise ALUMNI: Ellicott Development CEO Carl Paladino, U.S. Consumer Product

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Safety Commission Acting Chairman Ann Marie Buerkle To study the law is to join the ranks of some of the best minds in history – leaders, idealists, inventors, entrepreneurs, dreamers, agents of change and heroes. This is the tradition students enter at Syracuse Law. Syracuse Law believes an outstanding legal education is as dynamic as the law itself. It puts students at the center of an intellectual, professional, personal and cultural experience that will make its graduates better lawyers and better leaders. Syracuse Law sits at an enviable position for law schools: rigorous, intimate and friendly. Ranked among the best in the country for its trial and appellate program, it is also a leader in emerging fields such as national security law and technology commercialization law. From big law firms to solo practice startups; from clerkships to public advocacy; from international banking to Capitol Hill

July 31, 2017

to Hollywood studios; the knowledge, practice, and network students gain at Syracuse Law is an incomparable experience and education designed to endure.

University at Buffalo School of Law

WWW.LAW.BUFFALO.EDU/ ENROLLMENT: 451 students DEAN: Aviva Abramovsky ALUMNI: Syracuse Mayor Stephanie A. Miner, Erie County District Attorney John J. Flynn The University at Buffalo School of Law – the premiere law school in the SUNY system – is situated on the flagship campus of a researchintensive public university. It offers a quality legal education at an affordable price by providing handson experiential learning, extensive curriculum offerings, a wide array of concentrations, one-on-one faculty

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advisement and small classroom experiences. Its innovative clinical and practicum programs deliver topquality practical training in legal skills.

Many of its nationally prominent faculty members have a doctorates in addition to their law degrees, allowing the school to offer a wide range of interdisciplinary course options that provide a better understanding of how the law works in our society.

Albany Law School

WWW.ALBANYLAW.EDU/ ENROLLMENT: 342 students DEAN: Alicia Ouellette ALUMNI: Gov. Andrew Cuomo, Albany Mayor Kathy Sheehan Albany Law School is the oldest independent law school in North America and the only law school in the state capital. A small private school founded in 1851, Albany Law’s alumni embark on brilliant careers

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July 31, 2017

– a U.S. president, governors, chief counsels to Fortune 500 companies and seats on the U.S. Supreme Court.

It has an affiliation agreement with the University at Albany that includes shared programs and access for students and faculty to learn from one another. It was named No. 1 in the country for preparing students for government law and No. 6 nationally for prosecution and public defense

by PreLaw Magazine. More than 900 of its alumni currently work in state government and 294 alumni are sitting judges in the state.

New York Law School

WWW.NYLS.EDU/ ENROLLMENT: 621 students DEAN: Anthony W. Crowell ALUMNI: U.S. Rep. Eliot Engel, Staten Island Borough President James Oddo New York Law School is a center of legal education and practical training.

Students learn critical advocacy skills and to create responses to local and global challenges. They develop knowledge and professional values by working with a world-class faculty and receive extraordinary practical training through sophisticated and cutting-edge clinical and externship opportunities. The school’s location in lower Manhattan makes it the best situated law school in New York City for the systematic integration of formal instruction with real life experiences, since it is literally steps away from a variety of sectors: business and financial services, media, tech, applied sciences and government.

Hofstra University’s Maurice A. Deane School of Law

LAW.HOFSTRA.EDU/ ENROLLMENT: 695 students DEAN: A. Gail Prudenti ALUMNI: Assemblyman David Weprin, Assemblyman Steven Otis Hofstra University’s Maurice A. Deane School of Law prepares passionate

students to have an impact in the legal community and beyond. Since 1970, Hofstra Law has provided an education rich in both the theory and skills needed to produce outstanding lawyers, business executives and community leaders. Located on the campus of Hofstra University in Hempstead, Hofstra Law is 20 miles outside of New York City in suburban Long Island. Hofstra Law offers a J.D. program, as well as LL.M. graduate degrees in American legal studies for foreign law graduates and family law. The law school also offers online master’s degree and LL.M. degrees in health law and policy.

Pace University’s Elisabeth Haub School of Law WWW.LAW.PACE.EDU/ ENROLLMENT: 485 students DEAN: David Yassky ALUMNI: Assemblywoman Latrice Walker, Massachusetts state Rep. Sarah K. Peake

Pace University’s Elisabeth Haub School of Law offers J.D. and master’s degree programs in both environmental and international law, as well as a series of joint degree programs, including a doctorate in juridical science in environmental law. The school, housed on the university’s campus in White Plains, opened its doors in 1976 and has more than 8,000 alumni around the world. The school maintains a unique philosophy and approach to legal education that strikes an important balance between practice and theory, putting its students on a “path to practice.”

CUNY School of Law

WWW.LAW.CUNY.EDU/ INDEX.HTML ENROLLMENT: 339 students DEAN: Mary Lu Bilek ALUMNI: New York County Surrogate Court Judge Rita Mella, state Sen. Jamaal Bailey

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Founded in 1983, CUNY School of Law offers a full-time program and a parttime evening program. The law school has been consistently recognized as a leader in public interest law and diversity. “Law in the Service of Human Needs” is the school’s motto.

A greater percentage of CUNY Law graduates choose careers in public interest and public service than any other law school in the nation. CUNY Law has been consistently ranked among the top three in the nation for its clinical programs and was one of the pioneers in preparing students for practice through integrated instruction in theory, practical skills and ethics.

Touro College’s Jacob D. Fuchsberg Law Center WWW.TOUROLAW.EDU/ ENROLLMENT: 302 students DEAN: Harry Ballan ALUMNI: U.S. Rep. Kathleen Rice, state Senate Majority Leader John Flanagan The Touro Law Center provides a quality legal education and encourages students to examine the moral goals of the law while promoting social justice and community service. Touro Law separates itself from other law schools in New York by getting its students into the courtroom early in their law school tenure and providing robust hands-on opportunities for learning. Its students learn from a truly accessible, highly credentialed faculty who are dedicated to student success.

Touro Law Center prides itself on having graduates who serve as vital members of our community – serving as mentors, judges for student competitions, members of our governing board and adjunct professors.

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Do you need an MPA in the era of activism?

CORY SEAMER/SHUTTERSTOCK

By JULIA KALUTA

PROTESTERS MARCH IN THE WOMEN'S MARCH IN NEW YORK CITY IN JANUARY.

The 2016 presidential election inspired a movement of young people marching in the streets and making their voices heard. With millennials becoming a driving force in politics, it might be surprising that one of the fundamental graduate programs for public service has seen such large fluctuations in recent years.

A master’s of public administration, or MPA, is a postgraduate degree program that concentrates on professions in the public sector, including jobs in the local, state and federal government as well as nonprofit organizations. While some schools, such as New York University’s Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service, have had a significant increase in applications, other schools have seen a steady decrease.

“Across the board, policy schools have had a decline in applications in the past three years and there’s really no clear certainty as to why that’s happening,” said Grace Han, executive director of admissions and financial aid at ColumPUBLISHER’S SECTION

bia University’s School of International and Public Affairs. “It could be a number of things, not only domestically, but also internationally that’s causing the decline.” The lack of consistency is puzzling, but may stem from inadequate knowledge surrounding the degree.

An MPA is equivalent to a master’s degree in business administration, or MBA, which focuses on policies and management in the private sector. An MPA degree differs from a master’s degree in public policy because more core courses are dedicated to budgeting, finance, managerial economics, political and legal processes with a greater exposure to ethics and qualitative methods of analysis. Graduate school programs specializing in MPA degrees look for applicants who are self-driven leaders with strong academic records.

Applicants are not required to have pursued political science as their undergraduate major and admissions officers often look for students with a wide variety of interests. Leadership roles in stu-

dent organizations, community boards or job positions are excellent indications of a strong team player and a motivated independent thinker. “We’re looking for candidates, not only academically capable, but also in terms of their experiences both personal and professional (in) what will they bring to the classroom,” Han said.

Also, multiple references, an undergraduate transcript and personal statements are required for most schools, but specific requirements are unique to each program. Test scores, such as GREs and GMATs are not required for all MPA programs, though some schools strongly recommend submitting the scores anyway.

MPA programs have a variety of specialties, depending on the university, that candidates focus on during their two years. For example, at the Wagner school, the two main concentrations are in public and nonprofit management and policy as well as health policy and management. In the 2015-2016

CORY SEAMER/SHUTTERSTOCK

City & State New York

July 31, 2017

school year, 60 percent of Wagner’s 882 students specialized in public and nonprofit management and policy and 18 percent specialized in health policy and management. Binghamton University’s master’s of public administration program has a similar focus on public sector management, with 40 percent of its 2016-2017 graduates ended up working in local, state and federal government and about 35 percent working for nonprofit organizations. Similarly, among the University at Albany’s Rockefeller College of Public Affairs and Policy graduates, 46 percent work in state or federal government.

According to the American Society of Public Administration, the most common professions among its nearly 10,000 members are professors, city managers, city administrators, executive directors, consultants and deans. Working for a company in the private sector is also a possibility, but the MPA degree focuses more on providing candidates with a greater background in public pol-

icies. The public sector’s responsibilities differ greatly from for-profit companies.

“In the private sector, the most important decision an organization makes is often behind closed doors. Whereas in the public sector, every time you do something meaningful it is often out of doors. The world has an opportunity to weigh in,” said Thomas Bonnet, an adjunct lecturer at Baruch College’s Marxe School of Public and International Affairs.

Choosing to pursue an MPA degree and work in the public sector could also point some students toward a career in community relations, allowing them to hear from or advocate on behalf of the public. That’s not to say that the choice between government work and nonprofit work doesn’t have its pros and cons as well. “Nonprofits are usually much smaller and less bureaucratic,” said Erica Foldy, director of public and nonprofit management and policy program at NYU’s Wagner Graduate School of Public Service. “Things are

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not as formalized in the structure and some people prefer that, but there are benefits in either sector.”

The average salary increase between having a bachelor’s degree and earning a master’s degree is $18,000, according to MPADegree.org. However, due to the varied careers open to MPA graduates, the starting salary can be much higher or lower than the $68,000 average salary, depending on the position. One of the greatest attributes of earning an MPA degree is its flexibility. All candidates have the common desire to serve the public, yet the ways in which they will carry out that mission inevitably varies.

An MPA degree is perfect for anyone looking for an interdisciplinary higher education experience hoping to strengthen their understanding of public policies and management. Combining a passion for helping people and the need for a stable income, the MPA degree is a practical choice for accomplishing your professional and personal dreams.

■

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The must-read news source for New York’s nonprofits Edited by AIMÉE SIMPIERRE

CAN GREENFIELD EVEN JOIN THE MET COUNCIL? Outgoing councilman’s plan revives concerns about a nonprofit on the rebound

N

EW YORK CITY Councilman David Greenfield’s July 17 announcement that he will not run for re-election and instead head the Metropolitan Council on Jewish Poverty has put the challenged nonprofit back in the spotlight and revived concerns about its political entanglements. Questions about accountability have trailed the sprawling nonprofit since a $9 million grand larceny and kickback scheme was exposed in 2013.

Since that scandal, the Met Council has been subject to a complicated, multiagency oversight agreement. The agreement may, in fact, preclude Greenfield from taking the job as his hiring has yet to be approved, or even considered by some of those agencies.

WILLIAM ALATRISTE FOR THE NEW YORK CITY COUNCIL

By NICK POWELL and DAN ROSENBLUM

NEW YORK CITY COUNCILMAN DAVID GREENFIELD HAS SAID HE WILL NOT SEEK RE-ELECTION, AND PLANS TO LEAD THE METROPOLITAN COUNCIL ON JEWISH POVERTY INSTEAD.

The Met Council, established in 1972, became a large and influential charity running food banks, offering domestic violence services, operating affordable housing and providing other services for low-income New Yorkers. But through 2013, Met Council Executive Director David Cohen and CEO William Rapfogel, along with other co-conspirators, stole about $9 million from the nonprofit as part of a “20-year grand larceny and kickback scheme,” according to the state attorney general’s office. Rapfogel pleaded guilty and was sentenced in 2015 to three to 10 years in prison, but was quietly granted a “merit release” in May, according to the Daily News.

Following the scandal, the charities bureau of the state attorney general’s office drafted an agreement for the New

York City Department of Investigation, the Mayor’s Office of Contract Services and the state Division of Budget to oversee the Met Council, and mandated that the Met Council’s remaining board of directors – several were dismissed as a result of the scandal – agree to a set of stringent governance and oversight rules to qualify for city and state funding. The 14-page contract stipulates that the nonprofit adopt several reform measures, including hiring an outside auditor; creating subcommittees on the board of directors to review compensation, governance and other issues; developing a plan to fix any financial deficiencies; and appointing two independent directors to the board, subject to approval by the state comptroller and agencies tasked with monitoring the organization.

WILLIAM ALATRISTE FOR THE NEW YORK CITY COUNCIL

City & State New York

July 31, 2017

It’s not clear how many of these actions the organization has fulfilled, and representatives of the Met Council did not respond to repeated requests for comment. The organization has an ethics code as well as a general counsel and compliance officer listed on its website, both listed as objectives in the oversight agreement.

Among the agencies overseeing the Met Council, the Mayor’s Office of Contract Services did not respond to a request for comment. The city Department of Investigation declined to answer specific questions about whether the nonprofit followed the oversight agreement as it pertains to hiring Greenfield, only confirming that the monitorship agreement requires it to review the hiring of executives. “That process is ongoing,” a spokesperson said.

Greenfield would replace Alan Schoor, a veteran of the Jewish Board of Family and Children’s Services, who took over the nonprofit in 2015 from David Frankel. Combined, the two were paid $750,000 to run the organization even as revenues dropped by more than 30 percent in one year, according to the Forward.

The state Division of Budget, however, made it clear that Greenfield’s hiring was not yet official, and that the agencies overseeing the Met Council were not consulted or involved in the process of selecting Greenfield as the chief executive.

“The monitoring agreement established in 2013 provides that the city and state have final approval on the executive director of the Met Council,” Morris Peters, a spokesman for the state Division of Budget, wrote in an email. “To date, the Division of Budget has not been consulted or involved with this proposed appointment and, accordingly, has not approved it. Along with the city, we will be discussing the candidate with the Met Council shortly and we expect all monitors will meet with the board in the coming weeks to obtain a status update on operations.”

Several observers have questioned state Attorney General Eric Schneiderman’s involvement in the oversight arrangement. A 2015 City & State story raised the issue of Schneiderman’s office striking a plea deal with Rapfogel in which millions of dollars in restitution was repaid to some of the

same directors on the Met Council board who turned a blind eye to Rapfogel’s illegal activities.

Despite drafting the oversight agreement, Schneiderman’s office is only tangentially involved in scrutinizing the Met Council’s activities. Direct oversight is provided by the three aforementioned agencies.

However, if the Met Council was found to be in violation of the oversight agreement, Schneiderman’s office could take action against the nonprofit. The attorney general’s office did not respond when asked if it had received any referrals from the agencies overseeing the Met Council.

THE MET COUNCIL is the umbrella organization for 19 local Jewish Community Councils across New York City, with the heaviest concentrations in the North Bronx and Central and South Brooklyn.

As the Forward recently reported, the Met Council is still struggling financially, with Schoor cutting contributions to employees’ retirement plans in June, saying, “The financial situation of the agency remains a challenge.”

Greenfield’s appointment marks another chapter in the Met Council’s uphill climb.

In early 2015, the organization had planned to merge with UJA-Federation of New York – a considerably larger faith-based social services organization – only to instead appoint Schoor to lead the Met Council.

Even as it recovered, the organization continued to provide services to low-income New Yorkers of all faiths. “It wasn’t scandal-ridden,” said City Councilman Rory Lancman, who, like many of his colleagues, helps fund several Met Council programs through discretionary funding. “A couple of guys figured out how to steal some money, and like a lot of nonprofits, even large ones – and a lot of for-profit corporations – you had a board that was asleep at the switch.”

In response to the announcement about Greenfield’s move to the Met Council, Lancman tweeted that he was “really shaking my head at this one” as the nonprofit “got burned for being too close to politics just a few years ago.” He told City & State that he expected the Met Council to veer away from those politics and to conduct itself in a nonpartisan, apolitical fashion as

well as tamp down on executive pay that exceeded $400,000 for Rapfogel.

Indeed, sources familiar with the inner workings of the Met Council said that there were several members of the organization’s leadership that were highly uncomfortable with the timing of Greenfield’s announcement that he would not run for re-election.

Because Greenfield made the decision after the ballot petitioning deadline, a committee on vacancies that he controls named a replacement for his council seat – Kalman Yeger – a former Greenfield aide and Met Council employee.

“If you’re the leadership of Met Council, you want everyone in the Jewish community and you want everyone in city and state government to have nothing but warm and fuzzy feelings about you and your organization,” Lancman said. “That means there’s no room for being involved in politics – in partisan politics or political machinations.”

But that may be exactly why the organization planned to hire Greenfield. Speaking to New York Jewish Week, Met Council board President Abraham Biderman credited his “excellent relationships in government” and “knowledge of how government works, which is a major funder of Met Council, and his knowledge of his constituents, who are served by the Met Council.”

John MacIntosh, partner and board member of SeaChange Capital Partners, which has worked with troubled or compromised organizations, wrote in an email that he’s experienced nonprofits in similar situations are put at a disadvantage when fundraising. “Most nonprofits are largely fungible to private funders – lots of other groups are clamoring for donations – and also to government which can usually find others to take the contracts,” he said.

SeaChange recently helped guide the Healing Arts Initiative through a merger after its executive director discovered an embezzlement scheme. He noted that often the rank-and-file employees are those who suffer when a nonprofit stumbles.

“So the most common strategy is to make pleas from desperation in the hopes of limping along until memories fade,” MacIntosh said. “This is really tough on staff, very few of whom had any culpability for the problems.”

■

MORE ONLINE • Allison Sesso, executive director of the Human Services Council, and Pam Mattel, chief operating officer of Acacia Network, join an NYN Media Insights podcast on the shift to a value-based payment model.

• NYN Media shares audio of the keynote speech professor Ester Fuchs of the Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs gave during our 40 Under 40 Rising Stars awards breakfast.

To see the full versions of these stories and subscribe to First Read Nonprofit, visit nynmedia.com.

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CityAndStateNY.com / PUBLIC and LEGAL NOTICES

July 31, 2017

THE SLURP LLC, Arts. of Org. filed with the SSNY on 01/19/2017. Office loc: NY County. SSNY has been designated as agent upon whom process against the LLC may be served. SSNY shall mail process to: The LLC, 49 East 96th St., Apt #16B, NY, NY 10128. Reg Agent: Chin Chin Ip, 49 East 96th St., Apt #16B, NY, NY 10128.

Purpose: Any Lawful Purpose.

Notice of Formation of 16E39 LLC. Arts of Org. filed with New York Secy of State (SSNY) on 5/8/17. Office location: New York County. SSNY is designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to: 213 W 35th St, Fl. 7, NY, NY 10001.

Purpose: any lawful activity.

CITYANDSTATENY.COM

VISIONARISTS LLC, Arts. of Org. filed with the SSNY on 06/21/2016. Office loc: NY County. SSNY has been designated as agent upon whom process against the LLC may be served.

SSNY shall mail process to: Visionarists LLC, 114 West 26th St., FL 8, NY, NY 10001.

Purpose: Any Lawful Purpose.

Notice of Qualification of ARROWS UP, LLC. Authority filed with NY Secy of State (SSNY) on 6/2/17. Office location: New York County.

LLC formed in Colorado (CO) on 8/11/16. SSNY is designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to: 111 8th Ave, Fl. 13, NY, NY 10011. Principal Address of LLC: 450 Crossen Ave, Elk Grove Village, IL 60007.

Cert. of Formation filed with CO Secy of State, 1700 Broadway, Ste 200, Denver, CO 80202.

Purpose: any lawful activity.

July 31, 2017 Notice of Qualification of Pantheon Real Assets Opportunities Fund, L.P. Authority filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 06/05/17. Office location: NY County. LP formed in Delaware (DE) on 05/17/17. SSNY designated as agent of LP upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to: Pantheon Ventures (US) LP, New York, 1095 Avenue of the Americas (6th Ave.), 24th Fl., NY, NY 10036.

Address to be maintained in DE: 160 Greentree Dr., Ste. #101, Dover, DE 19904. Name/ address of genl. ptr. available from SSNY. Cert. of LP filed with Secy. of State, 401 Federal St. #4, Dover, DE 19901.

Purpose: any lawful activities.

Notice of Formation of ANTILLIANO INDUSTRIES LLC. Arts of Org. filed with NY Secy of State (SSNY) on 6/19/17. Office location: New York County. SSNY is designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to: 187 Wolf Rd, Ste 101, Albany, NY 12205.

The name and address of the Reg. Agent is Business Filings Incorporated, 187 Wolf Rd, Ste 101, Albany, NY 12205.

Purpose: any lawful activity.

Notice of Qualification of Pitch Monkey Productions, LLC. Authority filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 06/07/17. Office location: NY County. LLC formed in California (CA) on 06/01/17.

SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served.

SSNY shall mail process to: 8383 Wilshire Blvd., Ste. 1000, Beverly Hills, CA 90211, also the address to be maintained in CA. Arts of Org. filed with the Secy. of State of CA, 1500 11th St., Sacramento, CA 95814.

Purpose: any lawful activities.

Notice of Qualification of KAERCHER CAMPBELL & ASSOCIATES INSURANCE BROKERAGE OF NEVADA, LLC. The fictitious name is: Kaercher Insurance Agency LLC. Authority filed with NY Secy of State (SSNY) on 6/13/17. Office location: New York Co. LLC formed in Nevada (NV) on 11/16/05. SSNY is designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to: 111 8th Ave, NY, NY 10011. NV address of LLC: 9555 Hillwood Dr., Ste 140, Las Vegas, NV 89134. Cert. of Formation filed with NV Secy of State, 202 N Carson St, Carson City, NV 89701. The name and address of the Reg. Agent is CT Corporation System, 111 8th Ave, NY, NY 10011.

Purpose: any lawful activity.

Notice of Formation of NEUROMODULATION, LLC. Arts of Org. filed with NY Secy of State (SSNY) 6/9/17.

Office loc: NY County. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to: LLC c/o Zahn Ctr. 160 Convent Ave, Grove School of Engin. R. B20, NY, NY 10031.

Purpose: any lawful activity.

Notice of Formation of Riverdale Osborne Towers Venture LLC. Arts of Org. filed with NY Secy of State (SSNY) on 5/8/17. Office location: New York County. SSNY is designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to: 28 E 28th St, Fl. 9, NY, NY 10016.

Purpose: any lawful activity.

Notice of Formation of FunFit Kids, LLC filed with SSNY on 5/1/2017. Office: NY County.

SSNY designated agent of the LLC upon whom process against it may be served.

SSNY shall mail process to LLC: 215 W 84th St, Unit 607, NY, NY 10024. Purpose: any lawful act or activity.

Notice of Formation of NORTH RIVER ASSOCIATES LLC Arts. of Org. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 06/19/17.

Office location: NY County.

Princ. office of LLC: 333 W. 57th St., Ste. 107, NY, NY 10019.

SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to the LLC at the addr. of its princ. office.

Purpose: Any lawful activity.

Notice of Formation of Courageous Integrity LLC, Arts of Org filed with SSNY 5/5/17. Office: NY County.

SSNY designated agent upon whom process may be served against LLC to: Corp. Filings of NY, 90 State St, Ste. 700, Office 40, Albany, NY 12207.

Purpose: any lawful act.

Notice of Formation of ALLISON COOPER FLOWERS LLC Arts. of Org. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 06/20/17.

Office location: NY County.

SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served.

SSNY shall mail process to Corporation Service Co., 80 State St., Albany, NY 12207.

Purpose: Any lawful activity.

Notice of Qualification of 561 Pacific Street Owner LLC. Authority filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 06/09/17. Office location: NY County. LLC formed in Delaware (DE) on 12/16/15.

SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to: c/o Adam America Real Estate, 850 Third Ave., Ste. 13D, NY, NY 10022; Attn: Omri Sachs. Address to be maintained in DE: National Registered Agents, Inc., 160 Greentree Dr., Ste. 101, Dover, DE 19904. Arts of Org. filed with the DE Secy. of State, 401 Federal St., Dover, DE 19901.

Purpose: any lawful activities.

CITYANDSTATENY.COM

Notice of Formation of 135TH STREET ASSOCIATES ACQUISITION, LLC Arts. of Org. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 06/14/17. Office location: NY County. Princ. office of LLC: 60 Columbus Circle, NY, NY 10023. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to Corporation Service Co., 80 State St., Albany, NY 12207-2543.

Purpose: Any lawful activity.

Notice of Formation of 105TH IH ASSOCIATES ACQUISITION, LLC Arts. of Org. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 06/14/17. Office location: NY County. Princ. office of LLC: 60 Columbus Circle, NY, NY 10023. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to Corporation Service Co., 80 State St., Albany, NY 12207-2543.

Purpose: Any lawful activity.

Notice of Qualification of FINANCIAL DATA SERVICES, LLC. Authority filed with NY Secy of State (SSNY) on 5/1/17.

Office location: New York Co. LLC formed in Florida (FL) on 12/28/93. SSNY is designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to: 111 8th Ave, NY, NY 10011.

DE address of LLC: 4800 Deer Lake Dr. E, Jacksonville, FL 32246. Cert. of Formation filed with FL Secy of State, Clifton Bldg, 2661 Executive Center Circle, Tallahassee, FL 32301. The name and address of the Reg. Agent is CT Corporation System, 111 8th Ave, NY, NY 10011.

Purpose: any lawful activity.

Notice of Formation of 101 H 2040 WHITE PLAINS 2 LLC. Arts of Org. filed with New York Secy of State (SSNY) on 6/15/17. Office location: New York County. SSNY is designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to: 111 8th Ave, NY, NY 10011. The name and address of the Reg. Agent is National Registered Agents, Inc., 111 8th Ave, NY, NY 10011.

Purpose: any lawful activity.

Notice of Formation of 372 CPW 12X, LLC Arts. of Org. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 06/12/17. Office location: NY County. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to c/o Edmonds & Co., P.C., 501 Fifth Ave., 19th Fl., NY, NY 10017.

Purpose: Any lawful activity.

Notice of Qualification of CBOE V, LLC. Authority filed with NY Dept. of State on 3/28/17.

Office location: NY County.

Princ. bus. addr.: 400 S. LaSalle St., Chicago, IL 60605. LLC formed in DE on 9/23/16. NY Sec. of State designated agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served and shall mail process to: CT Corporation System, 111 8th Ave., NY, NY 10011, regd. agent upon whom process may be served. DE addr. of LLC: 1209 Orange St., Wilmington, DE 19801. Cert. of Form. filed with DE Sec. of State, 401 Federal St., Dover, DE 19901.

Purpose: all lawful purposes.

Notice of Qualification of 177 INVESTOR LLC Appl. for Auth. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 06/23/17. Office location: NY County. LLC formed in Delaware (DE) on 06/15/17. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to c/o Corporation Service Co. (CSC), 80 State St., Albany, NY 12207-2543, regd. agent upon whom and at which process may be served. DE addr. of LLC: c/o CSC, 251 Little Falls Dr., Wilmington, DE 19808.

Cert. of Form. filed with Jeffrey W. Bullock, DE Secy. Of State, Townsend Bldg., 401 Federal St., Ste. 3, Dover, DE 19901.

Purpose: Any lawful activity.

Notice of Formation of 2246 Victory Realty LLC, Filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 6/28/17. Office location: Richmond County, SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served.

SSNY shall mail process to The LLC, 42 Lakeland Road, Staten Island, NY 10314.

Purpose: any lawful activity.

Notice of Qualification of 97 GRAND AVENUE BK LLC. Authority filed with NY Secy of State (SSNY) on 06/14/17.

Office location: New York Co. LLC formed in Delaware (DE) on 06/05/17. SSNY is designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to: 111 8th Ave, NY, NY 10011. DE address of LLC: 1209 Orange St, Wilmington, DE 19801. Cert. of Formation filed with DE Secy of State, 401 Federal St. Ste 4, Dover, DE 19901. The name and address of the Reg. Agent is CT Corporation System, 111 8th Ave, NY, NY 10011.

Purpose: any lawful activity.

Notice of Formation of Framework Consulting New York, LLC. Arts of Org filed with Secy of State of NY (SSNY) on 06/14/2017. Office loc: NY County. SSNY designated agent upon whom process against LLC may be served.

SSNY shall mail a copy of process against LLC to princ.

Bus. addr.: 915 Broadway, NY, NY 10010. Purpose: any lawful act or activity NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN THAT A LICENSE, SERIAL # 1303916, FOR WINE & BEER HAS BEEN APPLIED FOR BY THE UNDERSIGNED TO SELL WINE & BEER AT RETAIL UNDER THE ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGE CONTROL LAW AT 79 GRAND ST BROOKLYN, NY 11249.

KINGS COUNTY, FOR ONPREMISE CONSUMPTION. ALEN CORP

PUBLIC and LEGAL NOTICES / CityAndStateNY.com

July 31, 2017 NOTICE OF FORMATION of GLOBAL MEDIA MEGACORP LLC. Art of Org filed with Secy of State of NY (SSNY) on 05/30/17. Office loc: NY County.

SSNY designated as agent of the LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to the LLC, 96 Perry St., B3, NY NY 10014.

Purpose: any lawful activity.

MSP HOSPITALITY, LLC. Arts. of Org. filed with the SSNY on 06/08/17. Office: New York County. SSNY designated as agent of the LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail copy of process to the LLC, 245 8th Avenue, New York, NY 10011.

Purpose: Any lawful purpose.

Notice of Formation of 525 8TH LLC. Arts of Org. filed with New York Secy of State (SSNY) on 5/8/17. Office location: New York County.

SSNY is designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to: 213 W 35th St, Fl. 7, NY, NY 10001.

Purpose: any lawful activity.

Notice of Qualification of 177 FORT WASHINGTON NE LLC Appl. for Auth. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 06/23/17. Office location: NY County. LLC formed in Delaware (DE) on 06/15/17.

SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served.

SSNY shall mail process to c/o Corporation Service Co. (CSC), 80 State St., Albany, NY 12207-2543, regd. agent upon whom and at which process may be served. DE addr. of LLC: c/o CSC, 251 Little Falls Dr., Wilmington, DE 19808.

Cert. of Form. filed with Jeffrey W. Bullock, DE Secy. of State, Townsend Bldg., 401 Federal St., Ste. 3, Dover, DE 19901.

Purpose: Any lawful activity.

Notice of Formation of URBAN ARTISAN DM1 LLC. Arts of Org. filed with New York Secy of State (SSNY) on 8/4/14. Office location: New York County.

SSNY is designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to: 107 W 86th St, #3C, NY, NY 10024.

Purpose: any lawful activity.

Notice of Formation of 182-186 SPRING STREET HOLDINGS LLC. Arts of Org. filed with New York Secy of State (SSNY) on 3/23/17. Office location: New York County. SSNY is designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to: 90 State St, Ste 700, Office 40, Albany, NY 12207.

Purpose: any lawful activity.

Notice of Formation of 140W28 LLC. Arts of Org. filed with New York Secy of State (SSNY) on 5/8/17. Office location: New York County. SSNY is designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to: 213 W 35th St, Fl. 7, NY, NY 10001.

Purpose: any lawful activity.

Notice of Formation of 101 H 230th & Broadway LLC. Arts of Org. filed with New York Secy of State (SSNY) on 6/21/17.

Office location: New York County. SSNY is designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to: 111 8th Ave, NY, NY 10011. The name and address of the Reg. Agent is National Registered Agents, Inc., 111 8th Ave, NY, NY 10011.

Purpose: any lawful activity.

Notice of Formation of Porter Grey LLC. Arts of Org filed with Secy of State of NY (SSNY) 4/6/17. Office loc: NY County.

SSNY designated agent upon whom process may be served against LLC to: 420 Lexington Ave, Ste 300, NY, NY 10170.

Princ bus addr: 211 E 43rd St, Ste 647, NY, NY 10017.

Purpose: any lawful act.

Notice of Qualification of SWTO LLC. Authority filed with NY Secy of State (SSNY) on 6/30/17. Office location: New York Co. LLC formed in Delaware (DE) on 3/5/01. SSNY is designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to: 111 8th Ave, NY, NY 10011. DE address of LLC: 1209 Orange St, Wilmington, DE 19801. Cert. of Formation filed with DE Secy of State, 401 Federal St. Ste 4, Dover, DE 19901. The name and address of the Reg. Agent is CT Corporation System, 111 8th Ave, NY, NY 10011.

Purpose: any lawful activity.

UPTOWN TASTE LLC Art. Of Org. Filed Sec. of State of NY 3/16/2017. Off. Loc.: New York Co. SSNY designated as agent upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY to mail copy of process to The LLC, c/o D’Von Gholston, 366 Convent Ave., Apt# 1B, New York, NY 10031. Purpose: Any lawful act or activity.

Notice of formation of Crashbox Theater Company LLC. Arts of Org filed with Secy.

Of State of NY (SSNY) 6/9/17.

Office loc: NY County. SSNY designated agent upon whom process may be served against LLC to: 1685 Gates Ave. #1L Flushing, NY 11385. Princ. bus. addr: 1777 1st Ave, #3S NY, NY 10128. Purpose: any lawful act.

Notice of Formation of 315 82ND STREET LLC. Arts of Org. filed with New York Secy of State (SSNY) on 5/19/17. Office location: New York County.

SSNY is designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to: 222 Broadway, Fl. 19, NY, NY 10038.

Purpose: any lawful activity.

Notice of formation of GFG Broadway LLC. Arts of Org. filed with NY Secy of State (SSNY) 6/6/17. Office loc: NY County.

SSNY designated agent upon whom process against LLC may be served. SSNY shall mail process to: Athina Balta Law Group PLLC, 100 Park Ave Ste 1600, NY, NY, 10017.

Purpose: Any Lawful Purpose.

Notice of Qualification of 151-10 35TH AVENUE, LLC Appl. for Auth. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 06/14/17. Office location: NY County. LLC formed in Delaware (DE) on 06/09/17.

SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to c/o A&E Real Estate Holdings, LLC, 1065 Ave. of the Americas, NY, NY 10018. DE addr. of LLC: Corporation Service Co., 2711 Centerville Rd., Ste. 400, Wilmington, DE 19808. Cert. of Form. filed with Secy. of State, Div. of Corps., John G. Townsend Bldg., 401 Federal St., Ste. 4, Dover, DE 19901.

Purpose: Any lawful activity.

Notice of formation of GD Spring LLC filed with the Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 7/5/17.

Office loc.: New York County.

SSNY is designated as agent of the LLC upon whom process against it may be served. The address SSNY shall mail copy of process to is c/o Leonard Budow, Esq., 101 Park Ave., 17th Fl., New York, NY 10178.

Purpose: Any lawful activity.

Notice of Formation of 338W36 LLC. Arts of Org. filed with New York Secy of State (SSNY) on 5/8/17. Office location: New York County. SSNY is designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to: 213 W 35th St, Fl. 7, NY, NY 10001.

Purpose: any lawful activity.

Notice of Qual. of LES DEV LLC, Authority filed with the SSNY on 06/22/2017. Office loc: NY County. LLC formed in DE on 03/07/2017. SSNY is designated as agent upon whom process against the LLC may be served. SSNY shall mail process to: 10 Bleeker St.,, #7A , NY, NY 10012. Address required to be maintained in DE: 1209 Orange St., Wilmington, DE 19801.

Cert of Formation filed with DE Sec of State, 401 Federal St., Ste 4, Dover, DE 19901.

Purpose: Any Lawful Purpose.

NOTICE OF FORMATION of Primecast Ventures, LLC. Arts of Org NY (SSNY) on 4/17/2017. Office loc: NY County. SSNY designated agent upon whom process may be served against LLC to: US Corp. Agents, Inc., 7014 13th Ave. Ste. 202, Brooklyn, NY 11228. Purpose: any lawful act.

Notice of Formation of Image Charlton Investors LLC. Arts of Org. filed with New York Secy of State (SSNY) on 6/5/17. Office location: New York County.

SSNY is designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to: 11 E 44th St, Ste 1900, NY, NY 10017.

Purpose: any lawful activity

Notice of Formation of ENTERTAINMENT ACCESS LLC Arts. of Org. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 06/30/17. Office location: NY County.

Princ. office of LLC: 710 Broadway, 6th Fl., NY, NY 10003. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to the LLC at the addr. of its princ. office.

Purpose: Any lawful activity.

Notice of Formation of Southern Success LLC. Arts of Org. filed with New York Secy of State (SSNY) on 6/28/17. Office location: New York County.

SSNY is designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to: 935 Broadway, Fl. 5, NY, NY 10010.

Purpose: any lawful activity.

66 PEARL, LLC, Arts. of Org. filed with the SSNY on 06/29/2017. Office loc: NY County. SSNY has been designated as agent upon whom process against the LLC may be served. SSNY shall mail process to: C/O W Brothers Management, LLC, 350 5th Ave., Ste. 6540, NY, NY 10118.

Purpose: Any Lawful Purpose.

Notice of Formation of WEST 48TH HOLDINGS LLC. Arts of Org. filed with New York Secy of State (SSNY) on 4/19/17. Office location: New York County.

SSNY is designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to: 250 Bowery, FL. 2, NY, NY 10012.

Purpose: any lawful activity.

Notice of Formation of SE ASIA (TYPE B) NOMINEES LLC. Arts of Org. filed with NY Secy of State (SSNY) on 6/28/17. Office location: New York County.

SSNY is designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to: 111 8th Ave, NY, NY 10011. The name and address of the Reg. Agent is CT Corporation System, 111 8th Ave, NY, NY 10011.

Purpose: any lawful activity.

Notice of Formation of BELLATOUR, LLC. Arts. of Org. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 07/10/17.

Office location: NY County.

SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served.

SSNY shall mail process to Rick A. Davidson, 151 W. 21st St., Apt. 6E, NY, NY 10011.

Purpose: Any lawful activity.

NOT MY LAST LLC, Arts. of Org. filed with the SSNY on 05/03/2017. Office loc: NY County. SSNY has been designated as agent upon whom process against the LLC may be served. SSNY shall mail process to: Double A Property Locating Services, Inc., 733 3rd Ave. 15th Fl, NY, NY 10017.

Purpose: Any Lawful Purpose.

CITYANDSTATENY.COM

Notice of Qualification of R1DEMAND, LLC. Authority filed with NY Secy of State (SSNY) on 6/28/17. Office location: New York County.

LLC formed in Delaware (DE) on 6/12/17. SSNY is designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to: 187 Wolf Rd, Ste 101, Albany, NY 12205.

DE address of LLC: 108 W 13th St, Wilmington, DE 19801.

Cert. of Formation filed with DE Secy of State, 401 Federal St. Ste 4, Dover, DE 19901.

Purpose: any lawful activity.

Notice of Formation of Procuratio, LLC. Arts of Org. filed with New York Secy of State (SSNY) on 5/16/17. Office location: New York County.

SSNY is designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to: 111 8th Ave, NY, NY 10011. The name and address of the Reg. Agent is National Registered Agents, Inc., 111 8th Ave, NY, NY 10011.

Purpose: any lawful activity.

Notice of Formation of Bird Dog Advisors LLC. Arts of Org. filed with New York Secy of State (SSNY) on 6/2/17. Office location: New York County.

SSNY is designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to: 521 5th Ave, Fl. 17, NY, NY 10175.

Purpose: any lawful activity.

Notice of Formation of 439-441 48TH INVESTORS LLC. Arts of Org. filed with New York Secy of State (SSNY) on 4/27/17. Office location: New York County.

SSNY is designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to: 250 Bowery, FL. 2, NY, NY 10012.

Purpose: any lawful activity.

Notice of Qualification of CPFC OpCo LLC. Authority filed with NY Dept. of State on 4/11/17.

Office location: NY County.

Princ. bus. addr.: 62 Chelsea Piers, Ste. 300, NY, NY 10011.

LLC formed in DE on 4/6/17. NY Sec. of State designated agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served and shall mail process to: National Corporate Research, Ltd., 10 E. 40th St., 10th Fl., NY, NY 10016. DE addr. of LLC: 850 New Burton Rd., Ste. 201, Dover, DE 19904. Cert. of Form. filed with DE Sec. of State, 401 Federal St., Dover, DE 19901.

Purpose: all lawful purposes.

NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN THAT A LICENSE, SERIAL # 1304040 FOR LIQUOR, WINE, & BEER HAS BEEN APPLIED FOR BY THE UNDERSIGNED TO SELL LIQUOR, WINE, & BEER AT RETAIL UNDER THE ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGE CONTROL LAW AT 171 EAST POST ROAD WHITE PLAINS, NY 10601. WESTCHESTER COUNTY, FOR ON PREMISE CONSUMPTION. R & R RESTAURANT CORP.

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CITYANDSTATENY.COM

Notice of Formation of Dr. Jodie Eisner Psychological Services, PLLC. Arts of Org. filed with New York Secy of State (SSNY) on 7/5/17. Office location: New York County.

SSNY is designated as agent of PLLC upon whom process against it may be served.

SSNY shall mail process to: 6 E 39th St, Ste 1100, NY, NY 10016. Purpose: Psychology.

Notice of Qualification of 175 WEST 95TH HOLDINGS LLC Appl. for Auth. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 07/14/17. Office location: NY County. LLC formed in Delaware (DE) on 01/18/17.

Princ. office of LLC: 152 W. 57th St., 12th Fl., NY, NY 10019.

SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to c/o Myles Horn at the princ. office of the LLC. DE addr. of LLC: c/o National Registered Agents, Inc., 160 Greentree Dr., Ste. 101, Dover, DE 19904. Cert. of Form. filed with DE Secy. of State, 401 Federal St., #4, Dover, DE 19901. Purpose: Real estate investment.

NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN THAT A LICENSE, SERIAL # 1303951 FOR LIQUOR, WINE, & BEER HAS BEEN APPLIED FOR BY THE UNDERSIGNED TO SELL LIQUOR, WINE, & BEER AT RETAIL UNDER THE ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGE CONTROL LAW AT 173 MOTT ST NEW YORK, NY 10013.

NEW YORK COUNTY, FOR ON PREMISE CONSUMPTION. LETS EAT CANTINA INC. Notice of Qual. of IMB SOLUTIONS, LLC, Authority filed with the SSNY on 07/20/2017. Office location: NY County. LLC formed in DE on 07/05/2017. SSNY is designated as agent upon whom process against the LLC may be served. SSNY shall mail process to: Jenny Machida 55 Exchange Place, Ste 401, NY, NY 10005. Address required to be maintained in DE: 310 Alder Rd, PO Box 841, Dover, DE 19904. Cert of Formation filed with DE Div. of Corps, 401 Federal St., Ste 4, Dover, DE 19901.

Purpose: Any Lawful Purpose.

Notice of Formation of Imagine 25 BND LLC. Arts of Org. filed with New York Secy of State (SSNY) on 12/6/16. Office location: New York County.

SSNY is designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served.

SSNY shall mail process to: 1350 Broadway, NY, NY 10018.

Purpose: any lawful activity.

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CityAndStateNY.com / PUBLIC and LEGAL NOTICES

Notice of Formation of FGRT, LLC. Arts of Org. filed with New York Secy of State (SSNY) on 7/7/17. Office location: New York County. SSNY is designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to: 599 Lexington Ave, Fl. 22, NY, NY 10022.

Purpose: any lawful activity.

Notice is hereby given that a license, number 1302477 for a “Restaurant Wine License” has been applied for by the undersigned to serve Beer / Wine at retail in the restaurant under the Alcohol Beverage Control Law at Harvest of the Sea LLC d/b/a Chamusca, located at 92A Rivington Street, New York, New York 10002 for on premises consumption: Harvest of the Sea LLC d/b/a Chamusca Notice of Formation of THE BLUEPRINT PROJECT, LLC Arts. of Org. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 03/07/17. Office location: NY County.

SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to Sara Southwood, 201 E. 21st St., Apt. 5L, NY, NY 10010.

Purpose: Any lawful activity.

Notice of Formation of CSHM REALTY LLC. Arts of Org. filed with New York Secy of State (SSNY) on 12/19/00.

Office location: New York County. SSNY is designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to: 111 Broadway, Ste 2102, NY, NY 10006.

Purpose: any lawful activity.

Notice of Formation of GARGANO GROUP LLC. Arts. of Org. filed with SSNY 3/24/17. Office loc: NY County.

SSNYdesignated as agent upon whom process against LLC may be served and mailed to: US Corp. Agents, Inc., 7014 13th Ave, Ste, 202, Brooklyn, NY 11228. Princ bus addr: 505 W 37th St., Ste. 3305 NY, NY 10018. Purpose: any lawful act.

Notice of Formation of E83 LLC. Arts. of Org. filed with NY Dept. of State on 12/5/16.

Office location: NY County.

Princ. bus. address: 767 5th Ave., 46th Fl., NY, NY 10153.

Sec. of State designated agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served and shall mail process to: National Corporate Research, Ltd., 10 E. 40th St., 10th Fl., NY, NY 10016.

Purpose: any lawful activity.

Notice of Formation of KS 230 LLC Arts. of Org. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 07/12/17. Office location: NY County. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to Corporation Service Co., 80 State St., Albany, NY 12207-2543, regd. agent upon whom and at which process may be served.

Purpose: Any lawful activity.

Notice of Formation of 54 Ground Realty LLC. Arts of Org. filed with New York Secy of State (SSNY) on 6/7/17. Office location: New York County.

SSNY is designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served.

SSNY shall mail process to: c/o Empire Management, 347 5th Ave, Fl. 16, NY, NY 10016.

Purpose: any lawful activity.

HN1 Therapy Network of New York IPA, LLC filed Art. of Org. with NY Dept. of State on June 23, 2017. Office Location: NY County. Sec’y of State is agent for service of process. Copy of any process shall be mailed to c/o Harter Secrest & Emery LLP, 1600 Bausch & Lomb Place, Rochester, NY 14604-2711.

Purpose: any lawful business.

Notice of Formation of Global Markets Advisory Group LLC. Art. of Org. filed with Sec’y of State of NY (SSNY) 5/31/17.

Office loc: NY County. SSNY designated agent upon whom process against LLC may be served. SSNY shall mail process to: 11 Meadow View Rd., Gladstone, NJ 07934.

Purpose: Any lawful activity.

Notice of Formation of Fujka Design LLC. Arts. of Org. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 06/21/17. Office location: NY County. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to: 160 East 55th St., Apt. 2C, NY, NY 10022.

Purpose: any lawful activities.

Notice of Formation of Stephanie Manes PLLC. Arts. of Org. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 07/10/17. Office location: NY County. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to: Stephanie Manes, 52 E 76th St 5th Fl., NY, NY 10022. Purpose: to practice the profession of Law. Notice of Qualification of CPFC ManagementCo LLC. Authority filed with NY Dept. of State on 4/11/17. Office location: NY County. Princ. bus. addr.: 62 Chelsea Piers, Ste. 300, NY, NY 10011. LLC formed in DE on 4/6/17. NY Sec. of State designated agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served and shall mail process to: National Corporate Research, Ltd., 10 E. 40th St., 10th Fl., NY, NY 10016.

DE addr. of LLC: 850 New Burton Rd., Ste. 201, Dover, DE 19904. Cert. of Form. filed with DE Sec. of State, 401 Federal St., Dover, DE 19901.

Purpose: all lawful purposes.

337 WEST 84 LLC Art. Of Org. Filed Sec. of State of NY 7/12/2017. Off. Loc.: New York Co. SSNY designated as agent upon whom process against it may be served.

SSNY to mail copy of process to Martin S. Kera, Esq., 5 Southgate Avenue, Hastings on Hudson, NY 10706. Purpose: Any lawful act or activity.

July 31, 2017 LuvNix, LLC Arts of Org. filed with NY Secy of State (SSNY) 5/17/17. Office loc: Richmond County. SSNY designated agent upon whom process against LLC may be served.

SSNY shall mail process to: Attn: Cheyenne Mosseley, 900 Spectrum Dr, Austin, TX 78717.

Purpose: Any Lawful Purpose.

CITYANDSTATENY.COM

Notice of Qualification of COLUMBUS SPONSORSHIP LLC Appl. for Auth. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 11/01/04. Office location: NY County. LLC formed in Delaware (DE) on 02/05/03. Princ. office of LLC: 60 Columbus Circle, NY, NY 10023. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to c/o The Related Companies, L.P., 625 Madison Ave., NY, NY 10022-1801. DE addr. of LLC: c/o Corporation Service Co., 2711 Centerville Rd., Wilmington, DE 19808.

Cert. of Form. filed with Secy. of State of DE, John G. Townsend Bldg., Federal and Duke of York Sts., Dover, DE 19910.

Purpose: Any lawful activity.

Notice of Qualification of BLANCERA GROUP, LLC Appl. for Auth. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) 6/07/17.

Office loc: NY County. LLC formed in CT 4/30/14. SSNY designated agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to BLANCERA GROUP, LLC, c/o Catherine Suh, 833 Broadway, 2nd Fl., NY, NY 10003. CT addr. of LLC: 126 New Canaan Ave., Norwalk, CT 06850. Cert. of Form. filed with Secy. of State of CT, Commercial Recording Div., PO Box 150470, Hartford, CT 06115.

Purpose: any lawful activity.

Notice of formation of Otto Schnutz LLC filed with the Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 7/6/17.

Office loc.: New York County.

SSNY is designated as agent of the LLC upon whom process against it may be served. The address SSNY shall mail copy of process to is 170 Varick St., 2nd Fl., New York, NY 10013.

Purpose: Any lawful activity.

Notice of Formation of Dots Per Inch Music, LLC. Arts of Org. filed with NY Secy of State (SSNY) on 7/12/17. Office location: New York County.

SSNY is designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to: 111 8th Ave, NY, NY 10011. The name and address of the Reg. Agent is CT Corporation System, 111 8th Ave, NY, NY 10011.

Purpose: any lawful activity.

STORAGE Midtown Moving & Storage Inc. will sell at Public Auction at 810 East 170 Street, Bronx NY 10459 at 6:00 P.M. on AUGUST 8, 2017 for due and unpaid charges by virtue of a lien in accordance with the provisions of the law and with due notice given all parties claiming an interest therein, the time specified in each notice for payment of said charges having expired household furniture & effects, pianos, trunks, cases, TV’s, radios, hifi’s, refrigerators, sewing machines, washers, air conditioners, household furniture of all descriptions and the contents thereof, stored under the following names: ADAMES JAY ABABIO RICHARD/AKESSON SAMUEL ANTHONY BUFFA BAGDASAROVA EVGENIA BEST KELVYN CELESTINO JUAN CRUZ YAZMIN MINAYA DESTEFANO CLEMENTE DOMINGUEZ LUIS A. /ESTRADA DAVID DELGADO EDUARDO/CANCINO CESAR DIXON CHARLES ESTEVEZ VARGAS ANABEL EVERING FELICIA MARSHA ENGELSHER FARRELL TIM/SWEENEY MEGHAN GEORGE DAVID HUNTINGTON GEORGE HUDSON TANIQUE/DAVIS THERESA INZERILLO ERNEST/KRAF BRIAN JACKSON SHAWN KHOURY JOHN/KHOURY ISABELLE KANTE MAMADOU/KANTE CHRISTAL KORNEGAY BELINDA LEVIN OCLUPANT LEONID LARBI MARTHA K MOCTAR-NELH MOHAMED MITCHELL EIMANI ONG HERMAN PAMNANI BRAD REYES JOSE REECE ERIC SANDERS VICTOR TSIKLIOIS JOHN/ARENAS STACY YERM ALBERT YHELILI EMIRJETA/JOHN DOE/JANE DOE CRUZ JUDITH DIXON TEQUILLA FLORES LISSETTE GREEN SHANEEQUA JOHNSON NAQUAN ROSS CHRISTOPHER PARKER JAMES/DOE JOHN & JANE SIMONE SACKEY/JOHN DOE; JANE DOE Notice of Formation of S3 115 STANWIX LENDER LLC. Arts of Org. filed with NY Secy of State (SSNY) on 7/20/17. Office location: New York County. SSNY is designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to: 444 Madison Ave, Fl. 41, NY, NY 10022.

Purpose: any lawful activity.

Notice of Qualification of CRESCENT SKY LENDING FACILITY – 1 LLC. Authority filed with NY Secy of State (SSNY) on 7/18/17. Office location: New York County. LLC formed in Delaware (DE) on 6/23/17. SSNY is designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to: 1745 Broadway, Ste 1736, NY, NY 10019. DE address of LLC: 1013 Centre Rd, Ste 403-B, Wilmington, DE 19805.

Cert. of Formation filed with DE Secy of State, 401 Federal St. Ste 4, Dover, DE 19901.

Purpose: any lawful activity.

Notice of Formation of Eastside Property 19, LLC. Arts of Org. filed with New York Secy of State (SSNY) on 4/7/17. Office location: New York County.

SSNY is designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served.

SSNY shall mail process to: 25 Robert Pitt Dr., Ste 204, Monsey, NY 10952. The name and address of the Reg. Agent is Vcorp Agent Services, Inc., 25 Robert Pitt Dr., Ste 204, Monsey, NY 10952.

Purpose: any lawful activity.

CITYANDSTATENY.COM

Notice of Formation of CRAIGMINE LLC. Arts. Of Org. filed w/ Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 7/17/17. Office in NY County. SSNY designated agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to c/o Craig Kallman, 200 E. 62nd St., New York, NY 10065.

Purpose: any lawful act/activity.

Notice of Qualification of HANNON & COMPANY, LLC. Authority filed with NY Secy of State (SSNY) on 5/30/17.

Office location: New York Co. LLC formed in Delaware (DE) on 5/24/17. SSNY is designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to: 111 8th Ave, NY, NY 10011. DE address of LLC: 1209 Orange St, Wilmington, DE 19801. Cert. of Formation filed with DE Secy of State, 401 Federal St. Ste 4, Dover, DE 19901.

Purpose: any lawful activity.

Notice of Formation of The Feit Law Firm PLLC. Arts of Org. filed with New York Secy of State (SSNY) on 5/30/17. Office location: New York County.

SSNY is designated as agent of PLLC upon whom process against it may be served.

SSNY shall mail process to: 444 Madison Ave, FL. 41, NY, NY 10022. Purpose: Law. Notice of Formation of MMM Capital LLC. Arts of Org. filed with New York Secy of State (SSNY) on 7/19/17. Office location: New York County.

SSNY is designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to: 1370 Broadway, Fl. 4, NY, NY 10003.

Purpose: any lawful activity.

Notice of Auction Sale is herein given that Access Self Storage of Long Island City located at 29-00 Review Avenue, Long Island City, N.Y. 11101 will take place on WWW.STORAGETREASURES. COM Sale by competitive bidding starting on August 14, 2017 and end on August 23, 2017 at 12:00 p.m. to satisfy unpaid rent and charges on the following accounts: Contents of rooms generally contain misc.

Household goods and other effects. #1509 - Kerriann Reynoso, #2448 Avery Bock.

The contents of each unit will be sold as a lot and all items must be removed from the premises within 72 hours. Owners may redeem their goods by paying all rent and charges due at any time before the sale.

Cellco Partnership and its controlled affiliates doing business as Verizon Wireless (Verizon Wireless) proposes to collocate wireless communications antennas on a rooftop with an overall height of 87 feet at the approx. vicinity of 2709 Ocean Avenue, Brooklyn, Kings County, NY 11229.

Public comments regarding potential effects from this site on historic properties may be submitted within 30 days from the date of this publication to: Trileaf Corp, Erika, e.diak@ trileaf.com, 10845 Olive Blvd, Suite 260, St. Louis, MO 63141, 314-997-6111.

Notice of Auction Sale is herein given that Citiwide Self Storage located at 4555 Pearson Street, Long Island City, N.Y. 11101 will take place on WWW. STORAGETREASURES.COM Sale by competitive bidding starting on August 14, 2017 and end on August 23, 2017 at 12:00 p.m. to satisfy unpaid rent and charges on the following accounts: Contents of rooms generally contain misc. household goods and other effects. #5D13 - Anna Warke.

The contents of the unit will be sold as a lot and all items must be removed from the premises within 72 hours.

Owners may redeem their goods by paying all rent and charges due at any time before the sale.

MERCER ESTATE CAPITAL, LLC, Arts. of Org. filed with SSNY 7/18/17. Office loc: NY County. SSNY designated as agent upon whom process against the LLC may be served.

SSNY shall mail process to: The LLC, Erik Coler, 20 River Terrace, Apt.28B, NY, NY 10282.

Purpose: Any Lawful Purpose.

MHM Productions LLC Art. Of Org. Filed Sec. of State of NY 7/12/2017. Off. Loc.: Richmond Co. SSNY designated as agent upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY to mail copy of process to The LLC, 23 Mosel Ave, Staten Island, NY 10304. Purpose: Any lawful act or activity.

PUBLIC and LEGAL NOTICES / CityAndStateNY.com

July 31, 2017 NOTICE OF SALE OF A COOPERATIVE APARTMENT

NOTICE OF SALE OF A COOPERATIVE APARTMENT

PLEASE TAKE NOTICE: by Virtue of default under Loan Security Agreements, and other Security Documents, held by GreenPoint Mortgage Funding, Inc., as Secured Creditor, George Nelson, DCA # 1300011, will sell at public auction, with reserve, at the Rotunda of the New York County Supreme Courthouse, 60 Centre St., New York, NY 10007 on August 22, 2017 at 12:30 p.m., 14 shares of the capital stock of Amblunthrop Holding, Inc., issued in the name of William Campbell, and all right, title and interest in a Proprietary lease to 788 9th Avenue, Apt 3B, New York, NY 10019.

Sale held to enforce the rights of Countrywide Home Loans, Inc., as Secured Creditor, who reserves the right to bid. Ten percent (10%) Bank/Certified check payable to the Escrowee, Leopold & Associates, PLLC, as attorneys for Countrywide Home Loans, Inc. Balance due at closing within thirty (30) days. The auctioneer’s fees are required at sale.

The Cooperative Apartment will be sold “AS IS” and possession is to be obtained by the purchaser(s Dated: June 29, 2017

PLEASE TAKE NOTICE: by Virtue of default under Loan Security Agreements, and other Security Documents, held by Greenpoint Mortgage Funding, Inc., as Secured Creditor, George Nelson, DCA# 1300011, will sell at public auction, with reserve, at the Rotunda of the New York County Supreme Courthouse, at 60 Centre Street, New York, NY 10601, on August 22nd, 2017 at 11:30 am, 250 shares of the capital stock of 523-527 West 143rd Street Housing Development Fund Corporation (A Cooperative Housing Corporation), issued in the name of Christopher Harris, and all rights, title and interest in a Proprietary Lease to Apartment 2A located at 523 West 143rd Street, New York, NY 10031.

Sale held to enforce (the) rights of Greenpoint Mortgage Funding, Inc., as Secured Creditor, who reserves the right to bid. Ten percent (10%) Bank/Certified check payable to Leopold & Associates, PLLC, as attorneys for Greenpoint Mortgage Funding, Inc. Balance due at closing within thirty (30) days. The auctioneer’s fees are required at sale.

The Cooperative Apartment will be sold “AS IS” and possession is to be obtained by the purchaser(s) and subject to Co-Op approval.

Dated: June 27th, 2017

Leopold & Associates, PLLC 80 Business Park Drive Suite 110 Armonk, New York 10504 (914) 219-5787

NOTICE OF FORMATION OF Mint Travel LLC. Arts of Org filed with Secy of State of NY (SSNY) 7/17/17. Office loc: NY County. SSNY designated agent upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to: 7014 13th Ave, Ste 202, Brooklyn, NY 11228. Princ bus addr of LLC: 303 E. 83rd St. Apt 15D, NY, NY 10028. Purpose: any lawful act or activity .

PUBLIC NOTICE New York City Dept. of Consumer Affairs Notice of Public Hearing Notice is hereby given, pursuant to law, that the NYC Department of Consumer Affairs will hold a public hearing on WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 23RD, 2017 at 2:00 P.M. at 42 Broadway, 5th floor, on a petition for MAIDENEIRE LLC to NEW MAINTAIN, AND OPERATE an unenclosed sidewalk cafe at 11 MAIDEN LN in the Borough of Manhattan for a term of two years.

REQUEST FOR COPIES OF THE REVOCABLE CONSENT AGREEMENT MAY BE ADDRESSED TO: DEPT. OF CONSUMER AFFAIRS, 42 BROADWAY, NEW YORK, NY 10004 ATTN: FOIL OFFICER

Leopold & Associates, PLLC 80 Business Park Drive Suite 110 Armonk, New York 10504 (914) 219-5787

Notice of Formation of KOAST LLC. Arts of Org. filed with New York Secy of State (SSNY) on 12/28/16. Office location: New York County. SSNY is designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to: 17-18 201 St, Bayside, NY 11360.

Purpose: any lawful activity.

Notice of Formation of SOLITA SOHO HOTEL, LLC. Arts of Org. filed with New York Secy of State (SSNY) on 3/26/04. Office location: New York County.

SSNY is designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to: 202 Centre St, Fl. 6, NY, NY 10013.

Purpose: any lawful activity.

WHIZ REAL ESTATE LLC, Arts. of Org. filed with the SSNY on 12/12/2016. Office loc: NY County. SSNY has been designated as agent upon whom process against the LLC may be served. SSNY shall mail process to: Kanfi, Levinzon, CPAs P.C., 237 West 35th St., Ste 702A, NY, NY 10001.

Purpose: Any Lawful Purpose.

CITYANDSTATENY.COM

NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN THAT A LICENSE, SERIAL # 1301723, FOR WINE & BEER HAS BEEN APPLIED FOR BY THE UNDERSIGNED TO SELL WINE & BEER AT RETAIL UNDER THE ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGE CONTROL LAW AT 483 COLUMBUS AVE. NY,, NY 10024.

NY COUNTY, FOR ONPREMISE CONSUMPTION.

NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN THAT A LICENSE, SERIAL # 1304165, FOR WINE & BEER HAS BEEN APPLIED FOR BY THE UNDERSIGNED TO SELL WINE & BEER AT RETAIL UNDER THE ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGE CONTROL LAW AT 268 270 6TH AVE. NY, NY 10014.

NY COUNTY, FOR ONPREMISE CONSUMPTION.

MICHEL GE INC

BAR GIACOSA CORP

Notice of Formation of Tabestan, LLC filed with SSNY 7/7/17. Office: NY County.

SSNY designated agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail copy of process to US Corp Agents 7014 13th Ave, Ste 202 Brooklyn, NY 11228. Princ Bus add: One Madison Ave, 8th Fl, D35Q, NY, NY 10010. Purpose: any lawful act or activity.

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July 31, 2017

CITY & STATE NEW YORK MANAGEMENT & PUBLISHING CEO Steve Farbman, President & Publisher Tom Allon tallon@cityandstateny.com, Vice President of Strategy Jasmin Freeman, Comptroller David Pirozzi dpirozzi@cityandstateny.com, Business & Sales Coordinator Patrea Patterson, Junior Sales Associate Cydney McQuillan-Grace cydney@cityandstateny.com

Who was up and who was down last week

LOSERS GALE BREWER & DAN GARODNICK These two towers of Manhattan politics may soon be joined by new, gleaming office towers in the area around Grand Central Terminal after the long-delayed Midtown East rezoning plan passed the City Council Land Use Committee on Thursday. Term-limited City Councilman Dan Garodnick and the beloved Beep ushered in the plan and negotiated it over years in an effort to give the old-school neighborhood a new-school vibe.

OUR PICK

OUR PICK

WINNERS

By asking New York City to pony up half of their $836 million plan to fix the subways, Gov. Andrew Cuomo and his handpicked MTA Chairman Joe Lhota appear intent on painting Mayor Bill de Blasio into a corner and making him a loser. By not blinking in this staredown, the mayor may get himself a political win, but if the subway continues to fall apart, don’t we all lose? Here are last week’s Winners & Losers.

PRODUCTION creativedepartment@cityandstateny.com Creative Director Guillaume Federighi, Senior Graphic Designer Alex Law, Graphic Designer Kewen Chen, Junior Graphic Designer Aaron Aniton, Digital Content Coordinator Michael Filippi, Multimedia Director Bryan Terry

BILL DE BLASIO The mayor saw some bad press this week with a New York Times feature looking into his alleged favors for a campaign donor, restaurateur Harendra Singh. The mayor also got battered after police were reportedly ordered to sweep homeless people from a subway station before he did a press event, which his office denied, even after the email supposedly giving the order was published.

“Read my lips: I don’t care,” de Blasio said Wednesday about the email.

That’s probably what got him in trouble in the first place.

THE BEST OF THE REST

THE REST OF THE WORST

PETE KING

MERLIN ALSTON

The Long Island congressman got his new bestie Donald Trump to show up.

MARK POLONCARZ

Erie County will buy and rejuvenate abandoned Bethlehem Steel land.

ANTHONY SCARAMUCCI

Some of what he says is loony tunes, but the White House comms chief fits right in.

ZEPHYR TEACHOUT

Rather than disappear after defeat, she’s nabbed a Democratic Committee post.

EDITORIAL editor@cityandstateny.com Editor-in-Chief Jon Lentz jlentz@cityandstateny.com, Features and Opinions Editor Nick Powell npowell@ cityandstateny.com, Editor-at-Large Gerson Borrero gborrero@cityandstateny.com, New York Nonprofit Media Editor-at-Large Aimée Simpierre asimpierre@nynmedia. com, Managing Editor Ryan Somers, Digital Editorial Director Derek Evers devers@cityandstateny.com, Senior Reporter Frank G. Runyeon frunyeon@cityandstateny.com, Staff Reporter Jeff Coltin jcoltin@cityandstateny.com, Staff Reporter Dan Rosenblum drosenblum@nynmedia.com, Copy Editor Eric Holmberg, Editorial Assistant Grace Segers gsegers@cityandstateny.com

This crooked cop was given 20 years for using his badge and his gun to push coke.

JOHN FLANAGAN

Every pol loves to be showered with praise, but few like their shower appraised.

NAQUAN HILL

The Rikers Island inmate slipped away, but the jail-on-an-island worked as advertised.

NEAL KWATRA

The press is all over his maybe is/maybe isn’t lobbying he never registered for.

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Vol. 6 Issue 29 July 31, 2017

CIT YANDSTATENY.COM

July 31, 2017

Cover by Guillaume Federighi and Aaron Aniton Cover direction by Guillaume Federighi

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SAVE THE DATE! Wednesday, August 16 8:00am - 12:00pm Museum of Jewish Heritage 36 Battery Pl, New York, NY 10280

Topics Include: Effects the Trump Administration will have on the Privatization of NY Schools Opportunities and Challenges Behind New York’s Higher Education Education Think Tank: Ideas, Solutions and Innovations Featured Speakers:

Carmen FariĂąa

Chancellor New York City Schools

MaryEllen Elia

NYS Commissioner of Education, President of University of the State of NY

Betty Rosa

Chancellor, New York State Board of Regents

RSVP at CityAndStateNY.com/Events For more information on programming and sponsorship opportunities, please contact Lissa Blake at lblake@cityandstateny.com

Liar,Liar

Tracks

on Fire!

Hey, Mayor de Blasio,

Instead of delaying trains for a press conference – then letting your staff lie about it – why not do something productive to help end subway riders’ summer of hell?

You insist you have no responsibility to the six million riders who use the subway every day. That’s a lie too.

NYC has a $4 billion surplus of taxpayer money.

Mr. Mayor, you can help reduce train breakdowns, signal failures and track fires by allocating a fraction of that surplus to the MTA Action Plan.

The state is paying 50%.

So should City Hall.

A 50-50 split is undeniably fair.

Stop holding up trains and stop holding up the subway repairs that will end the Summer of Hell!

Paid for by the Transport Workers Union John Samuelsen, International President