NY: Rivera and the ‘Appointed’ Senator

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City Councilman Joel Rivera is organizing a rally tomorrow on the City Hall steps to urge newly minted Senator Kirsten Gillibrand to change her position on immigration and gun control issues.
“I’m not jumping on a band wagon just to jump on a band wagon,” he said.
Rivera, speaking to me in City Hall just now, said that Gillibrand “has to” evolve her position on immigration issues and that “if she doesn’t, she’ll have a real problem.”
"She’s an appointed official,” he said, pointedly.
Rivera said he’ll call for Gillibrand to meet with him and immigrant rights activists in the near future.

NY: Monserrate Spends $15K on ‘Reputation Management’

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ALBANY—State Senator Hiram Monserrate brought his elections filings up to date, and records show he paid $15,000 to a reputation management firm two weeks after he was accused of assaulting his girlfriend.
Monserrate’s January filings show his campaign committee paid $15,000 to Dolce Goldin, the home firm of former Inside City Hall host Davidson Goldin.
“Like most elected officials, I receive, from time to time, advice from media consultants,” Monserrate said when asked if the payment was for services rendered related to the alleged assault. (Monserrate has pleaded not guilty and his accuser has publicly changed her story.) “It’s all part of what we do, and that’s what I contracted them for.

NY: Mid-Morning Read: Paterson’s Meeting, Bloomberg’s Poll, Hackshaw’s Candidacy

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Kirsten Gillibrand comes from a political family, like other statewide elected officials.
Joe Biden gave Gillibrand’s nephews high-fives at her swearing-in.
Wall Street bonuses suffered a record decline.
State budget talks are stalled because there are still questions about how Gillibrand was selected.
Replacement parks won’t be ready in the Bronx until 2011.
Jim Tedisco is running, but there’s still no date for a special election to replace Gillibrand.
Hillary Clinton says she won’t get dragged into political infighting.
Criminal charges against Antonia Novello a “slam dunk,” a source tells Fred Dicker.
Novello’s allegedly improper activities cost the state $50,000 in overtime pay.

NY: Nadler’s Stimulus Woe

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Also from Eliot Brown in the Observer today:
Monday and Tuesday were busy for U.S. Representative Jerry Nadler. The verbose Upper West Side Democrat was rushing around the Capitol between committee hearings and meetings, trying to persuade his colleagues to add to the economic stimulus bill before it advanced.
The reason: too many tax cuts, not enough infrastructure spending, and he wanted an amendment calling for $3 billion in additional transit money.
“Too little of what we’re spending is for infrastructure and, in particular, mass transit,” Mr. Nadler said. “You’ve seen more and more attention paid to tax cuts, and I think it’s a mistake.”

Read the rest.
 

NY: Things Look Bad for Governors Island

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From Eliot Brown:

The future these days is indeed looking grim for Governors Island, the city/state-owned former Coast Guard base that officials hope to turn into a grandiose park with accompanying commercial development. With no money in the state budget, the city may well follow with no money; and the nascent revitalization of the island could conceivably be cut short come April 1, when the state budget is due.

Read the rest.
 
 

NJ: Whelan, Darcy, Gee, Campos to join Corzine campaign staff

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Former Star-Ledger reporter Jeff Whelan, who was part of the team that won the Pulitzer Prize for their coverage of Governor James E. McGreevey's resignation, will be the Research Director for Governor Jon Corzine's re-election campaign, according to a senior Corzine aide.  Whelan covered the federal prosecutor's office while Corzine's possible Republican opponent, Christopher Christie, served as U.S. Attorney.
Sean Darcy, Corzine's press secretary, will leave state government to become the campaign's Communications Director.  Darcy worked for Governor Richard Codey and the Department of Community Affairs before joining the front office last year. 
James Gee, who served as McGreevey's Deputy Chief of Staff, will be a senior advisor to the campaign.
Patricia Campos, the Political Director of the New Jersey State Council of UNITE HERE! and a member of the Casino Reinvestment Development Authority, will serve as the campaign's latino outreach director. 
Rafi Jafri, who was based in Chicago raising money for Hillary Clinton's 2008 presidential campaign, will become Corzine's Finance Director.

NY: Kirsten Gillibrand, Like Chuck Schumer With Connections

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Kirsten Gillibrand kind of knows everyone in politics. Just ask her.
“What makes me so successful is that I’ve developed so many relationships,” she said in a phone interview on Jan. 27, hours after being sworn in as a U.S. senator, as she walked to the Senate floor to cast her first vote. “Because I did fund-raising and organizing in New York for 10 years before I ever ran for office, I developed so many great relationships with all the people that care about elective politics. From the public servants to the donors to the community organizers.
“These were all the relationships I called upon when I decided to run,” she continued.

NY: Michael Bloomberg and the Universal Retainer

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At the mayor’s state of the city speech earlier this month, Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz referred to Michael Bloomberg’s reelection campaign as a “job creation program.”
For New York’s most prominent Democratic consultants and operatives, it’s been nothing less—an acquisition project so far-reaching that it actually threatens to dry up the market in experienced local campaign staff.
Yes, the mayor spent tens of millions of dollars in his past two campaigns, much of it on high-priced political talent. But there were still plenty of New York Democrats who simply wouldn’t go there. He was a Republican, and, well, they weren’t.
But the mayor has since registered as an independent (the better to market the idea of a possible bid for president last year).

NY: Bloomberg Gets Sheinkopf, Officially

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Michael Bloomberg’s campaign has officially hired Hank Sheinkopf, the bare-knuckled Democratic consultant who helped elect one of the mayor’s prospective rivals, Bill Thompson, to citywide office in 2001.
Sheinkopf’s hire was confirmed by a campaign spokesman in an email to me just now.
We’ve been speculating for a while that Sheinkopf would join Bloomberg’s growing team of consultants and operatives, which also includes Basil Smikle, who had been working on Anthony Weiner’s campaign, and spokesman Howard Wolfson, who worked for a bunch of Democratic institutions, including Hillary Clinton.

NY: Rivera Backs Off Gillibrand on Immigration, Pending Meeting

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ALBANY—After criticism from the left on immigration, Kirsten Gillibrand reached out today and managed to dodge the first bullet.
Assemblyman Peter Rivera was going to have a press conference this morning to announce “total opposition” to Gillibrand over her position on immigration, but it was canceled, he says, because it had “became unmanageable” (there was a conflicting press conference held by Senate Minority Leader Dean Skelos) and because Gillibrand has asked a chance to explain her positions first.
“The best thing to do is to attempt to meet with her, and then come out with a statement after it,” he said.