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    Scott Stringer on Why He Wants to Be Mayor of New York City

    “I’m running as a progressive
    who knows how to manage
    the hell out of this city.
    I bring a set of
    experiences that
    are needed at this moment
    of time in our city.
    I’m currently the
    New York City comptroller.
    I know every city
    agency inside out.
    I’ve done the audits.
    I’ve done the investigations.
    I know where the
    money is being wasted.
    And I know the programs
    that aren’t working.
    And I could literally go
    into City Hall on Day 1,
    and begin to transform
    this city and bring it back
    stronger than ever before.”
    “What is the single most
    important step the next mayor
    can take to make up for
    educational losses sustained
    during the pandemic?”
    “Our children are going to
    need the extra help to make
    up for learning loss
    in this pandemic.
    But we also have to equalize
    education opportunity.
    Two initiatives — my N.Y.C.
    Under-Three Child Care program
    would subsidize quality
    child care for every child.
    And second, we need to put two
    teachers in every classroom
    because our kids are going
    to need that extra help,
    that extra support.
    Private schools
    have two teachers.
    Parent associations that
    can afford two teachers
    put them in the classroom.
    It’s time for every kid in
    every neighborhood in every
    school to have two
    teachers in the classroom.”
    “Do you support
    year-round school?”
    “I support making sure that
    we give every child in every
    neighborhood in
    every community
    a quality education.
    I do not support
    year-round schooling today.
    But I do support giving
    kids the extra tutoring,
    the extra resources
    that they need.
    My nine-year-old
    and seven-year-old
    are adamantly against
    year-round school.
    And I side with them.”
    “The next mayor will inherit
    an economy that has been
    devastated in many
    ways by the pandemic.
    What is the first thing
    you would do to help
    New York City recover?”
    “We have to deal with the
    systemic economic challenges
    that this virus exposed.
    We can’t open our city
    the same way we closed it.
    We have to recognize that in
    our hardest-hit communities,
    where there was
    tremendous loss of life,
    we have to reinvest
    in these neighborhoods
    to repair the damage
    that Covid brought.
    And the way we open the
    economy, first and foremost,
    is investing in our
    small businesses.
    My plan is to invest
    $1 billion in stimulus money
    to give the kind of grants,
    from $20,000 to $100,000,
    to businesses so they can
    restock their shelves,
    hire employees, pay back rent,
    making sure that they have
    a chance to make it.”
    “Would you accept an
    endorsement from
    Governor Cuomo?”
    “I would not accept an
    endorsement from
    Governor Cuomo.
    I actually think
    he should resign.
    And so I would not
    accept an endorsement.”
    “What is the most important
    police reform you would
    pursue as mayor?”
    “I will put forth a community
    safety plan that meets
    the challenges of reducing
    police interaction
    in communities of color, but
    at the same time recognizing
    that we have an ability
    to keep our city safe.
    They’re not
    mutually exclusive.
    We can do both.
    Forty percent of 911 calls
    are not for crimes.
    Yet, we send the police to
    answer mental health calls
    and wellness calls
    in our communities.
    I would stop that.
    Mental health
    professionals should
    be sent out to deal with
    mental health challenges.
    And we should reduce
    police responsibilities
    so we can focus them
    on the dangerous crime
    in the neighborhoods where
    we know the shootings are
    taking place.
    I also believe we need
    real police accountability
    and transparency.
    We need to reform the C.C.R.B.
    so that we discipline the cops
    that go rogue.”
    “Who was the best New York City
    mayor in your lifetime?
    Tell us why.”
    “I loved Ed Koch’s
    New York moxie.
    And I loved his
    affordable housing plan.
    But I loved the social justice
    component of the
    Dinkin’s mayoralty.”
    “There are a number of
    proposals to build a seawall
    to protect New York City
    from a future Hurricane Sandy
    and rising sea levels.
    Do you think building a
    seawall is a good idea?”
    “I don’t believe that
    the seawall, as proposed,
    would actually mitigate the
    challenges of storm surge
    and the climate
    crisis that we’re in.
    What I would like to propose
    is making sure that we’re
    actually investing
    in the green economy.
    Part of what I was
    able to do as comptroller
    is not just divest $4 billion
    from fossil fuel, which
    was the largest public pension
    fund divestment in the
    United States, but I also
    doubled the green investment
    in our economy so that we
    can build the next generation
    of green jobs and
    make our communities
    environmentally sound.
    My goal as mayor is
    to put a solar panel
    on every roof, an electric
    battery in every basement,
    because we need to create
    healthy and new
    energy sources.
    And that’s exactly my plan
    when I’m mayor of New York.”
    “Whom did you support in the
    2020 presidential primary,
    and why?”
    “I supported Elizabeth Warren.
    I kind of like candidates
    who have plans.
    And because I have big
    plans, Elizabeth Warren
    appealed to me as
    a woman who could
    address a lot of the
    economic challenges facing
    our country.
    And I was proud
    to support her.”
    “I would not have supported
    the Amazon deal in 2019
    as presented to the
    community and to the city.
    We literally woke up one
    day and found an agreement
    between the governor,
    the mayor and Jeff Bezos
    with almost no consultation
    in the neighborhoods.
    That is not how you do big
    economic development projects.
    And I would approach
    this economic development
    differently, as I have
    as a borough president.
    Look, I was able to build
    three university expansions —
    Columbia, N.Y.U. and Fordham.
    I did it through
    the lens of what
    the community needed as well,
    and created that balance.
    And that’s what we have to get
    back to, whether it’s Amazon
    or other development projects,
    we’re going to have to make
    sure included in these
    projects is real affordable
    housing, really make sure that
    we’re investing in education
    and economic opportunities,
    not just for the wealthy,
    but for everybody
    in the city.”
    “Since voters can rank
    up to five candidates
    on the ballot, whom would you
    pick as your second choice?”
    “I think that’s best
    left for the voters.
    I think candidates
    should focus
    on getting No. 1 votes,
    and voters should explore
    all the qualifications of all
    of us and rank accordingly.”
    “If you were mayor now, for
    how long would you extend
    the eviction moratorium
    and why?
    And how should the city
    deal with the cases when
    the moratorium has ended?”
    “I believe there’s nothing
    more important than keeping
    our people in their homes.
    And if we do not
    continue this moratorium
    until we come through with
    a rent relief package that
    will make people whole, we
    will cause even further pain.
    And I’m not going to do that.
    My plan would be to
    use that stimulus
    money to create an
    economic package
    to do a couple of things.
    First, we do have
    to cancel rent,
    meaning we have to pay
    back that rent to the small
    building owners who’ve
    carried our tenants.
    The way we do that is to
    make their mortgages hold,
    defer rent, and then
    work with the banks,
    the mortgage holders and
    tenants to make sure we come
    up with a plan that doesn’t
    cause mass evictions.
    I do think we can get there.
    So I do think we should move
    toward a car-free Manhattan.
    Part of what the
    next mayor has to do
    is think about how we can
    reimagine our streets.
    I intend to be the street
    mayor of this city.
    And I want to be
    the bus mayor.
    I want to lay down 35 miles
    per year of protected
    bus lanes.
    I think we can build
    protected bike lanes, 350 miles
    within the next five years.
    There’s no reason that we
    should continue to operate
    in the superhighway,
    Robert Moses era.
    It’s time to transition.
    My plan to address
    transportation is bold.
    But it’s serious
    and it’s doable.
    And the way we think
    about reducing car traffic
    is by closing
    streets permanently,
    making sure that
    those open streets we
    had during the pandemic are
    there permanently afterwards.
    We should move retail
    and restaurants
    into the streets, model
    a lot of what we can do
    after Copenhagen and Paris.
    But the car culture, it
    has to come to an end.
    These fossil-fuel-spewing
    vehicles should be a thing
    of the past.”
    “What is your favorite
    New York City restaurant?”
    “My favorite restaurant is
    Amber Sushi on the
    Upper West Side.”
    “Bagel order?”
    “An everything bagel, cream
    cheese and chives, lox.”
    “New York City park?”
    “Central Park.
    But also, growing up
    in Washington Heights,
    I have a love for
    Fort Tryon Park.”
    “Sports team?”
    “The New York Jets.
    God help me.”
    “Broadway show?”
    “My favorite Broadway
    show is ‘Hamilton.’
    There we go.
    That was easy.” More

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    Andrew Yang on Why He Wants to Be Mayor of New York City

    “I’m someone who has benefited
    from New York City as much
    or more than anyone.
    I moved here as a 21-year-old
    student who knew nothing
    about anything, and I have had
    the kind of life and career
    I could only have dreamt of.
    That’s what New York City
    has meant to me
    and so many other people.
    New York City is an incredible
    place where dreams come true,
    and it can still be that place
    with the right leadership
    steering us in a
    better direction.
    I’m running for mayor because
    our city is badly wounded.
    We’re in a crisis,
    and I think I can help
    us get out of it faster
    than any other candidate.
    I’m socially
    distanced, all right.”
    “The first thing we have to do
    to help New York City recover
    is let people know that
    New York City is open
    for business.
    By that, I mean our
    schools are open.
    Our companies are open.
    Our restaurants and bars
    and theaters and Broadway,
    by the time I take
    office, will be open.
    We have to get back some of
    the 66 million tourists who
    helped support 300,000 of the
    600,000 jobs we’re missing,
    as well as all the commuters
    who are missing from Midtown
    and other parts of the city.
    When a commuter doesn’t
    come into the city,
    it’s not just that company.
    It’s the security guards,
    the cleaning staff,
    the food truck
    operators, the retailers,
    everyone that’s missing that
    person coming into the city
    and doing what they
    did pre-Covid.”
    “Would you accept an
    endorsement from
    Governor Cuomo?”
    “My goal is to help get
    New York City heading in a
    better direction.
    And we need everyone under
    the sun as a partner who
    wants to help New York City.
    And so if Governor Cuomo were
    to offer me his endorsement,
    I would accept it.
    I think it would be
    positive for New York City.
    And it would be a clear signal
    that the city and the state’s
    interests are aligned.”
    “What is the single most
    important step the next mayor
    can take to make up for
    educational losses sustained
    during the pandemic?”
    “No. 1, we have to
    get our schools open,
    and then we have to get our
    families back into schools.
    Right now, unfortunately,
    even the families
    that are opting
    into school are
    falling along racial lines
    where whites and Latinos are
    more likely to have their
    kids heading back to school
    whereas Blacks and
    Asians are not.
    And the data shows that
    in-person instruction
    is actually more like twice
    as good as online instruction.
    So we have to get
    our schools open,
    and then get our
    kids physically back
    into school, which is
    not going to be easy.
    It’s going to be
    a big challenge.
    We have to commit
    ourselves to it.”
    “Do you support
    year-round school?”
    “I think as a
    temporary measure,
    we should be extending the
    school year and
    extending hours.
    And so year-round school
    should be something
    that we consider to try
    and help our kids recover
    from learning loss.
    We also have to know
    that many of them
    are going to come back
    to school struggling
    with trauma and abuse.
    We need to dramatically
    increase our investment
    in social workers, in
    mental health workers,
    in guidance counselors
    at the school level.”
    “Since voters can rank
    up to five candidates
    on the ballot, whom would you
    pick as your second choice?”
    “My second choice would
    be Kathryn Garcia.
    She’s a disciplined operator
    with great experience,
    and I hope that she’s a
    partner in my administration.
    Kathryn, if you’re
    watching this, Kathryn,
    let’s team up.
    We’re going to do it.
    We got to do it for the city.
    I would have supported a
    version of the Amazon deal.
    New York City has
    to be a place where
    businesses, big and small,
    feel like they can invest.
    And Amazon was ready to create
    26,000 high-paying jobs which
    would have resulted in
    an additional 100,000
    or so service jobs out
    of Long Island City,
    an area that’s been wanting
    for development for quite
    some time.
    Now, there were problems
    with the process.
    The subsidies, maybe,
    were excessive.
    But you cannot let an employer
    at that scale walk away.
    It was a mistake for that
    deal not to go through.
    And a lot of New Yorkers
    wish we had those 26,000 jobs,
    right now.”
    “The first memory I have of a
    mayor of New York City is
    Ed Koch, his smiling face
    on my TV set as a kid.
    And so he has been my
    favorite my entire life.
    And as I’ve grown older, I’ve
    appreciated the fact that he
    became mayor in a really
    difficult time for the city.
    And his optimism and
    spirit helped lead people
    to believe in
    New York City and invest
    in New York City
    in a time when
    people questioned whether
    New York City was
    the city of the future.
    Unfortunately, we’re in
    a time like that now.
    And we need someone who’s
    going to cheerlead for
    New York City and is
    excited about the city,
    and will help people
    have that same sense
    of optimism about
    our city again.
    We are still the
    city of the future.
    Let’s go, New York City!
    So Ed Koch.”
    “What is the most important
    police reform you would
    pursue as mayor?”
    “Cultures change from the top.
    We need a civilian police
    commissioner who’s not
    of the N.Y.P.D. culture to help
    our police force evolve.
    We know that there is a
    consistent problem with
    the police’s treatment
    of people of color.
    And as a numbers
    guy, you can see it
    in the hundreds of
    millions of dollars
    we spend every year
    settling civil lawsuits
    against abusive cops.
    It’s the worst use
    of public funds.
    We have to change the culture.
    And again, we need the
    right kind of leader.
    We need someone who’s not from
    the N.Y.P.D. culture to help
    the culture move
    forward and evolve.”
    “Do you believe the phrase
    ‘defund the police’ helps
    or hurts the police
    reform movement?”
    “I think the ‘defund the
    police’ slogan, unfortunately,
    seems very absolutist.
    If it were something
    more nuanced,
    like channel more resources
    to mental health interventions
    and substance abuse counseling,
    and education and jobs
    and health care and other
    things in communities,
    that’s where most
    New Yorkers are.
    That’s where we need to go.
    They’re certainly are
    many, many interventions
    that right now are being
    answered by an armed police
    officer that would be better
    addressed by a mental health
    professional, a social worker
    or a substance abuse counselor.
    And that’s where
    we need to invest.”
    “Do you think New York
    is becoming less safe?
    And if so, what is the first
    action you would take to make
    the city safer?”
    “Unfortunately, I do think
    that New York City is getting
    less safe.
    And the numbers bear that out.
    And we have to turn
    this around as quickly
    as possible.
    One thing we can do
    immediately is be much more
    stringent in the way we’re
    enforcing our firearm laws.
    But bigger picture,
    the best way
    we can actually make our
    cities safer and more secure
    is by getting people
    back out on the streets
    and on the subways because
    a well-lit street where
    the restaurants open and
    people are walking around
    is a lot safer than
    a darkened street.
    A subway car that’s filled
    with dozens of people going
    to school or work is a lot
    safer than an empty
    subway car.
    To get our city feeling safer
    again and being safer again,
    we need to reignite the engine
    of New York’s economy and see
    to it that people are enjoying
    our city in the way that we
    always have.”
    “What is your favorite
    New York City restaurant?”
    “My favorite New York City
    restaurant is Corner Slice
    in Hell’s Kitchen.
    They make pizza on top of
    bread that’s like
    focaccia bread.
    So if that sounds delicious
    to you, Corner Slice.
    Check it out.”
    “Bagel order?”
    “My bagel order is a
    whole-wheat bagel with
    scallion cream cheese,
    and lox if I’m hungry.”
    “New York City park?”
    “My favorite New York
    City park is Central Park.
    Don’t judge.
    But it is — Central Park.
    It’s enormous.”
    “Sports team?”
    “My favorite sports
    team is let’s go Mets,
    ever since ’86.”
    “Broadway show?”
    “My favorite Broadway show of
    recent vintage is ‘Hamilton.’
    Wow, was that a great show.”
    “Mayor de Blasio has
    been criticized for his
    late-morning workouts
    at the Park Slope Y.
    What is your fitness routine,
    and would that change
    as mayor?”
    “My fitness routine has been
    to ride a bicycle around
    and try and work out or
    exercise or play basketball
    several days a week.
    I’m hoping that stays
    exactly the same as mayor.
    But one thing I
    would like to do —
    and I hope everyone’s
    cool with this —
    is I would like
    to install just
    a very, very simple
    outdoor basketball
    court on the grounds
    of Gracie Mansion
    because I have two young
    boys, and I would love just
    to be able to go
    outside and just
    shoot some hoops with them.
    And then if you come
    visit me in Gracie,
    which I would encourage
    you to do, then
    maybe we could just
    shoot some hoops too.
    You know?
    It’s going to be a
    very small investment,
    and it will stand the
    test of time hopefully.” More

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    How Eric Adams, Mayoral Candidate, Mixed Money and Political Ambition

    Mr. Adams, the Brooklyn borough president, has called money the “enemy of politics.” But his fund-raising has repeatedly pushed the boundaries of campaign-finance and ethics laws.Eric Adams, the Brooklyn borough president, had begun making the rounds for a nascent mayoral campaign when he arrived at a small gathering in spring 2018.The real estate developer David Schwartz had invited associates to meet Mr. Adams — and cut him a check — at his company’s Manhattan offices. Mr. Adams delivered a short stump speech, talking about his conversion to a plant-based diet and how as mayor he would ensure that schoolchildren no longer ate pizza that resembled cardboard, according to people who were there. He raised $20,000 that day, records show.Mr. Schwartz’s company, Slate Property Group, had recently sought city permission to erect a tower in Downtown Brooklyn nearly twice as tall as zoning allowed. Six months after the fund-raiser, Mr. Adams endorsed Slate’s zoning change, despite objections from the local community board.Mr. Adams, 60, a former police officer who is among the leading candidates in the June Democratic primary for mayor, has termed money the “enemy of politics” and called for complete public financing of campaigns. Yet his dealings with Mr. Schwartz offer but one example of how, across his 15 years in elected office, he has used government power to benefit donors and advance his political ambitions.Mr. Adams’s relationships with his donors, as a state senator and then as borough president, have at times drawn attention and prompted investigations. His ties to developers have increasingly come under fire by critics of the gentrification that is sweeping across Brooklyn and much of the city. He has never been formally accused of wrongdoing. But a review by The New York Times of campaign filings, nonprofit filings, lobbying reports and other records shows that, to a greater degree than is publicly known, he has continued to push the boundaries of campaign-finance and ethics laws.Since taking office as borough president in 2014, Mr. Adams has cut a wide swath in raising money for his campaign. He has amassed the largest war chest of any of the mayoral candidates, with about $7.9 million on hand, according to the city’s Campaign Finance Board. More than a third of the money he has raised from private sources has come from people associated with the real estate industry.At the same time, he has promoted Brooklyn and himself through a nonprofit group, One Brooklyn Fund Inc., that has permitted donors to support him without the spending limits city law imposes on political campaigns.Mr. Adams has taken money from developers who, like Mr. Schwartz, have lobbied him or won his recommendation for crucial zoning changes. In several cases, he appears to have violated city campaign-finance law by failing to report that developers and others have raised money for him. That may have allowed him to obtain public matching funds to which he was not entitled.He has solicited and received donations from people and entities that sought, and in some cases were awarded, grants from his office’s annual $59 million capital fund. And he has wielded the megaphone of his office for the causes, people and groups he favors, including his contributors.Mr. Adams has also forged close ties with lobbyists who have registered to influence him for their clients. Two of the lobbyists sit on his nonprofit’s board, and a third was recently hired as a campaign consultant.Mr. Adams declined to be interviewed but issued a statement about his fund-raising record.“Black candidates for office are often held to a higher, unfair standard — especially those from lower-income backgrounds such as myself,” he said.“No campaign of mine has ever been charged with a serious fund-raising violation, and no contribution has ever affected my decision-making as a public official — yet I am still being cross-examined for accusations made and answered more than a decade ago. I hope that by becoming mayor I can change minds and create one equal standard for all.”Seeking the Democratic nomination for mayor, Mr. Adams handed out fliers last month in Corona, Queens.James Estrin/The New York TimesIn many ways, Mr. Adams’s mix of money and politics reflects a career spent disregarding established norms in favor of nurturing constituencies that have helped him rise through New York’s civic life. He has gone from gadfly, an outspoken advocate for Black police officers, to political insider in Albany and Brooklyn, from Democrat to Republican and back again. As borough president, he has embraced real estate developers while appealing to public-housing residents and railing against gentrification.Politics is, of course, inherently transactional, and generations of elected officials have raised money from people with interests before their government. That nexus has traditionally been challenging ground for regulators and prosecutors to police.That was the case in 2017, when federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York examined episodes in which Mayor Bill de Blasio or his surrogates sought donations from people seeking favors from the city, and then made inquiries to city agencies on their behalf. In deciding not to bring charges, the acting United States attorney, Joon H. Kim, cited “the particular difficulty in proving criminal intent in corruption schemes where there is no evidence of personal profit.” Mr. de Blasio received a warning letter about those activities from the city’s Conflicts of Interest Board.Mr. de Blasio, like Mr. Adams, used a nonprofit to raise money. Amid the controversy, he shut it down.Richard Briffault, a former chairman of the Conflicts of Interest Board, said that while self-enrichment was the primary focus of local ethics laws, soliciting contributions for a campaign or nonprofit from people who stand to benefit from one’s actions would also present ethical issues.“If somebody is using their public position in order to sway donations, that would certainly be, if not officially barred, clearly unethical,” said Mr. Briffault, who now teaches election law and government ethics at Columbia Law School.Conflicts of interest can also be more nuanced. Elected officials, he said, may feel an unconscious bias: “It’s reciprocity in some fundamental sense. We want to be nice to people who have been nice to us.”A Prodigious Fund-RaiserMr. Adams speaking about the Police Department in front of City Hall in 1998. He was on the force for more than two decades.  Chester Higgins Jr./The New York TimesMr. Adams rose to prominence in the 1990s as an outspoken critic of the city’s Police Department from within the ranks, calling out what he saw as institutional racism and arguing for criminal justice reform. He eventually became president of the Grand Council of Guardians, an advocacy group for Black officers, and co-founded a second group, 100 Blacks in Law Enforcement Who Care. Through that activism, he has said, he gained experience raising money for causes across New York.Mr. Adams further honed that skill when, after 22 years on the police force, he won election to the State Senate in 2005. After Democrats claimed the Senate majority, he was named chairman of the plum Racing, Gaming and Wagering Committee. According to a 2010 analysis by Bennett Liebman, then the executive director of Albany Law School’s Government Law Center, Mr. Adams raised nearly $74,000 that year from racing and gaming interests.“Has there ever been as active a committee chair receiving political contributions as Senator Eric Adams?” Mr. Liebman wrote.Mr. Adams soon became embroiled in a scandal after his committee helped choose a purveyor of video-lottery machines at Aqueduct Racetrack. The state inspector general found that he and other Senate Democrats had fraternized with lobbyists and accepted significant campaign contributions from people affiliated with the contenders.Mr. Adams disavowed responsibility.“This process — it disturbed me,” he told investigators, according to an interview transcript, adding that “it was created beyond my arrival.”Mr. Adams at the State Senate in 2009. He would soon be entangled in a scandal involving lobbyists and Aqueduct Racetrack.Mike Groll/Associated PressBut documents from the investigation, never previously disclosed, show that during the bidding process, several contenders were invited to a Sept. 3, 2009, birthday fund-raiser for Mr. Adams at the Grand Havana Room, a Midtown Manhattan cigar bar and haunt of the politically powerful.“Team, we will absolutely need to be present at this event for Senator Adams,” Andrew Frank, a consultant to the Aqueduct Entertainment Group, wrote in an email to its principals, according to a transcript of his interview with investigators. The company’s lobbyists had recommended going, Mr. Frank recalled in the interview.With the support of Senate leaders including Mr. Adams, Gov. David A. Paterson selected Aqueduct Entertainment Group for the contract. Among other issues, the inspector general’s report faulted Mr. Adams and other senators for attending a celebratory dinner at the home of a company lobbyist before the contract was finalized. The senators, the inspector general said, had used “exceedingly poor judgment.”Ultimately, state officials rescinded the contract award and restarted the process. Federal prosecutors investigated but did not bring charges.For Mr. Adams, though, the episode was both a warning and a prologue.Promoting His Borough, and HimselfIn 2014, Mr. Adams became Brooklyn borough president. An inquiry opened that year into his solicitation of funding.James Estrin/The New York TimesOn the next-to-last day of February 2014, leaders of Brooklyn businesses, schools and hospitals filtered into Borough Hall for a discussion of how they might help “enhance the lives of Brooklynites.” They were handed lists of ready-planned events — a turkey drive, concerts, holiday celebrations — along with fliers featuring corporate logos to show how they would be recognized for their sponsorship.“I was a little puzzled about what was going on,” said Lyn Hill, who attended as a representative of New York Methodist Hospital in Park Slope.Their host was Mr. Adams, newly inaugurated to a job, borough president, with limited power — making detailed recommendations, but not deciding, on zoning changes, awarding capital grants and appointing community board members — but abundant opportunity for civic boosterism.The cheerleading art had been perfected by Mr. Adams’s predecessor, Marty Markowitz, “Mr. Brooklyn,” who had elevated the borough’s profile, and his own, with an array of events. To pay for them, he had created a network of nonprofit groups that raised millions of dollars, much of it from donors with business before the city.Mr. Adams would follow in his footsteps. To enlist supporters for his new nonprofit, One Brooklyn, he had organized the Borough Hall event, with an invitation list based in part on the donor rolls for Mr. Markowitz’s nonprofits, records show.One Brooklyn had yet to register with the state, and after the event drew media attention, the city’s Department of Investigation opened an inquiry into whether it had violated conflict-of-interest laws. In an August 2014 memo, the inspector general, Andrew Sein, concluded that Mr. Adams and his nonprofit appeared to have improperly solicited funding from groups that either had or would soon have matters pending before his office.At least three entities that sent representatives were seeking capital grants from Mr. Adams’s office at around the time of the event, investigators found. There is no indication that those organizations ultimately donated.Mr. Adams’s office emphasized to investigators that the slip-ups had occurred early in his administration and promised to comply with the law going forward. The Department of Investigation normally refers such cases to the Conflict of Interest Board to determine penalties. Neither agency would comment, but no enforcement action was taken.Mr. Adams is the only one of the city’s current borough presidents with such a nonprofit, which under city law is permitted to raise private money to augment limited government funding. The group has given out grants and staged dozens of events for Mr. Adams to host, to celebrate holidays, to honor constituent groups, and more. At a candidate forum last week, Mr. Adams said he was proud of that work and had hired a compliance officer to ensure rules were followed.“I did not go from being a person that enforced the law to become one that breaks the law,” he said.But One Brooklyn has also proven to be an effective vehicle for him in circumventing the city’s campaign-finance laws. In all, it has reported taking in at least $2.2 million.Under the campaign-finance laws, citywide candidates cannot accept corporate donations and may take no more than $400 per election cycle from people doing business with the city. Nonprofits like One Brooklyn, however, can accept unlimited contributions, provided they adhere to certain strictures.To be eligible to accept unlimited contributions, One Brooklyn must certify that it spends no more than 10 percent of its funding on communications for Mr. Adams. The intent is to blunt a nonprofit’s political messaging power.But Mr. Adams found a workaround — using advertising dollars and taxpayer resources to publicize One Brooklyn’s events and himself.A newsletter, also called One Brooklyn, displayed Mr. Adams’s picture on some pages six times and featured events staged by the nonprofit and the borough president’s office. The newsletter, last published before the coronavirus pandemic, was funded by advertisers, some of whom are also Mr. Adams’s donors.The January 2018 issue, for instance, depicted the borough president and his mother on the cover with the headline “How I Got Mom Off Insulin in 30 Days.” Broadway Stages, a film-production company that deals with the city government on permitting and real estate issues, bought a full-page ad congratulating Mr. Adams “for your dedication and commitment to Brooklyn.” The company has given $25,000 to One Brooklyn, and its employees have contributed to Mr. Adams’s campaign fund. A company spokesman, Juda Engelmayer, said the owners had long been friends with Mr. Adams and supported many community causes.A newsletter, paid for by advertisers, that Mr. Adams has used to promote himself and events hosted by his nonprofit.Mr. Adams has also used his government website to promote One Brooklyn’s events and his nonprofit’s donors.The city’s conflict-of-interest rules prohibit public servants from soliciting or accepting donations from anyone with a “particular matter” pending before them. On its website, One Brooklyn says the borough president’s office does not accept such donations. But the nonprofit appears to have done so.Over four years beginning in 2015, Green-Wood Cemetery, a national historic landmark, was awarded three grants from the borough president’s capital fund, totaling $907,000, for an education center and a new trolley and caboose. The cemetery was twice invited to One Brooklyn’s annual gala and donated $5,000 each time. The first gift, in 2017, was accepted; the second was returned because of a possible conflict, Green-Wood’s president, Richard J. Moylan, said by email. Green-Wood’s final grant — for $500,000, to finish the education center — was awarded in 2019, with Mr. Adams announcing the gift with a gigantic mock check.“Green-Wood is proud of our role as a good corporate citizen,” Mr. Moylan said.One Brooklyn has allowed campaign donors to support Mr. Adams’s political ambitions far more generously than they can under the city’s campaign-finance law.Jed Walentas, who runs the development firm Two Trees Management, is limited to $400 in campaign contributions per election cycle, because he is on the list of people doing business with the city. But Mr. Walentas’s family foundation has given One Brooklyn $50,000, records show. (Mr. Adams’s campaign has also received at least $24,000 from other donors solicited by or connected to Mr. Walentas.)Jed Walentas is a property developer with business before the city. His family foundation has given Mr. Adams’s nonprofit $50,000.Katherine Marks for The New York TimesFor his part, Mr. Adams championed a $2.7 billion streetcar plan that Mr. Walentas has promoted through a group he founded, Friends of Brooklyn Queens Connector Inc. The streetcar, Mr. Adams tweeted in 2018, “has real potential to be one of those solutions for our disconnected waterfront.” The project stalled, and Mr. Adams has recently distanced himself from it in the glare of the mayoral race.The borough president is also in line to issue an opinion on a rezoning request for Two Trees’ next big project, River Ring, a pair of apartment and commercial towers with a waterfront park in Williamsburg. In city filings, Kenneth Fisher, a lobbyist for Two Trees, has identified the borough president as a potential lobbying target.Mr. Adams, in a recent interview, said he was already “extremely impressed” with the way the Two Trees plan had taken account of rising sea levels. “This is how we need to start thinking,” he added. Mr. Walentas declined to comment.The lines between Mr. Adams’s nonprofit and his campaign can sometimes blur.Edolphus Towns, a former congressman and one of two lobbyists on One Brooklyn’s board, has bundled about $7,000 in campaign contributions for Mr. Adams, records show.Mr. Towns has also registered to lobby Mr. Adams on behalf of Arker Diversified Companies, an affordable-housing developer that worked on the Fountains, a project in East New York that was supported by the borough president, according to city lobbying filings. A political action committee created by Arker executives gave Mr. Adams’s campaigns $6,350 between 2013 and 2016. They declined to comment.Mr. Towns said he had not lobbied Mr. Adams and did not recall registering to do so. He said they had become friends when Mr. Adams, then in the Police Department, worked with Mr. Towns, then a congressman, on criminal justice issues. “Eric was very helpful in getting rid of toy guns that look like real guns,” Mr. Towns said.‘What Oil Is to Texas’Mr. Adams leaving a campaign event last week in Manhattan.Dave Sanders for The New York TimesThe borough president’s relationship to the real estate industry has become something of a campaign issue, and several other candidates have pledged to refuse developers’ contributions.Mr. Adams, who owns the small rental building where he lives, in Bedford-Stuyvesant, dismisses that suggestion, arguing that all landlords should not be tarred for the sins of the bad ones. And while he has come out in favor of a number of his donors’ projects, and of development in general, he has decried the gentrification that has displaced longtime residents and businesses.“Go back to Iowa,” he said in remarks directed at newcomers during a January 2020 event in Harlem. After the comments drew criticism, Mr. Adams tried to clarify: He said he welcomed people from elsewhere but wanted them to invest in their new neighborhoods.In interviews, several figures in the real estate industry said contributions to Mr. Adams’s campaign were not simply transactional but reflective of his overall support..css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-w739ur{margin:0 auto 5px;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-w739ur{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-1dg6kl4{margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:15px;}#masthead-bar-one{display:none;}#masthead-bar-one{display:none;}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-1rh1sk1{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-1rh1sk1 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-1rh1sk1 em{font-style:italic;}.css-1rh1sk1 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#ccd9e3;text-decoration-color:#ccd9e3;}.css-1rh1sk1 a:visited{color:#333;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#ccc;text-decoration-color:#ccc;}.css-1rh1sk1 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}Whatever the precise dynamic, Mr. Adams had amassed at least $937,000 from developers, property managers, architects, contractors and others as of his campaign filing in March. That represented more than a third of his total private contributions, excluding public matching funds, an analysis shows, and included money from developers of luxury buildings in gentrifying neighborhoods.(In order to qualify for public matching funds under a new city program, Mr. Adams’s campaign voluntarily returned more than $300,000 of that real estate industry money — including portions of several donations referenced in this article — because it exceeded the program’s contribution limits.)Among the early backers of Mr. Adams’s mayoral bid was Mr. Schwartz, the Slate group co-founder.On May 25, 2018, a Slate affiliate filed a city land-use application to build a 40-story tower on a wedge-shaped plot in Downtown Brooklyn zoned for roughly 24 stories. Mr. Adams would have to issue an advisory opinion on the proposed zoning change.Three weeks after the filing, on the evening of June 13, Mr. Schwartz hosted the fund-raiser for Mr. Adams at his East 29th Street offices. According to people who attended, Mr. Schwartz organized the event and personally invited guests.Mr. Schwartz, who was on the city’s doing-business list, distanced himself and Slate from the event. He did not personally contribute; he had last given Mr. Adams’s campaign $320 in 2015. And he sent the invitation in the name of a management company that operates in the same offices as Slate. The invitation — in blue, yellow and white, with an “Eric Adams 2021” logo — suggested contributions ranging from $300 for a “friend” to $1,000 for a “sponsor.”Several of Mr. Schwartz’s vendors donated: a demolition contractor gave $2,000, a real estate lawyer $2,500 and an appliance vendor $5,000.Under city campaign-finance law, amounts greater than $500 spent by third parties on fund-raising events and the value of event spaces are supposed to be reported as in-kind contributions, and their organizers, in most cases, must be listed as intermediaries. But Mr. Adams’s disclosures did not list Mr. Schwartz as an in-kind contributor; nor did he report paying for the event himself. What’s more, he did not report Mr. Schwartz as an intermediary, or “bundler,” of others’ donations. Had Mr. Adams done so, the donations Mr. Schwartz solicited would not have been eligible for public matching funds, since he was on the doing-business list.A lawyer for Slate, David Grandeau, said in a statement that “the value of hosting the event was de minimis, and all of the host’s obligations were fulfilled.”David Schwartz, a developer, organized a fund-raising event for Mr. Adams in 2018. Mr. Adams later opposed a community board and came out in favor of an application Mr. Schwartz had before the city.Emily AssiranThe Times identified several other fund-raisers others had hosted for which Mr. Adams’s campaign did not report any expenditures, in-kind contributions or intermediaries. A campaign spokesman said that he did not use a professional finance team, and that paperwork had sometimes fallen through the cracks.Four months after Mr. Schwartz’s event, Brooklyn’s Community Board 2 recommended against Slate’s zoning change, citing what its acting chairwoman, Irene Janner, called the distressing “Manhattanization” of the borough’s central business district.But on Nov. 30, Mr. Adams came out in favor of the rezoning, provided the developer met certain conditions, such as affordable housing designed for families and the elderly, using Brooklyn-based contractors and incorporating features like solar panels. In his report, he referred to the need for office space, among other considerations, but did not disclose his fund-raising relationship with Mr. Schwartz. The City Council later approved Slate’s rezoning.The Slate executive was one of at least three donors receiving the borough president’s endorsement for zoning changes against the wishes of community boards. The others were also later approved by the City Council.Last September, for example, Mr. Adams came out in favor of a rezoning for a proposed 13-story building on Coney Island Avenue in Windsor Terrace, overlooking Prospect Park.Some local residents and Community Board 7 had opposed the plans by JEMB Realty, the developer, arguing mainly that the building’s height would be inappropriate for the neighborhood. Mr. Adams’s endorsement came with several conditions, including more parking for cars and bicycles.In March, JEMB’s founder, Joseph L. Jerome, contributed $2,000 to the borough president’s campaign. Mr. Jerome had last donated to Mr. Adams in March 2015.Mr. Jerome said the donations had nothing to do with Mr. Adams’s actions. “He’s a very good candidate,” Mr. Jerome said.Late last year, Mr. Adams appeared by Zoom as a special guest at an investor meetingfor SL Green, Manhattan’s largest office landlord, offering reassurance after a pandemic year of empty buildings.Mr. Adams called SL Green an “amazing company,” addressed its investors as “partners” and assured them that he would push for a speeded return to offices, suggesting that up to 90 percent of workers could do so safely.“What oil is to Texas, real estate is to New York,” Mr. Adams said. “And we take great pride in having the real oil fields here in our real estate community.”Not long afterward, on March 11, the wife and the sister of SL Green’s chairman, Marc Holliday, along with three company executives, donated a total of $10,000 to Mr. Adams’s campaign. None had contributed before. Mr. Holliday, who is on the city’s doing-business list, did not donate. Mr. Holliday and SL Green declined to comment.The Bully PulpitMr. Adams has used news conferences to promote donors’ products and causes.Elizabeth D. Herman for The New York TimesIn March, Mr. Adams stood in front of Borough Hall, his thumb up, as the influential New York City local of the Service Employees International Union endorsed him for mayor. Beside him stood Tiffany Raspberry, a lobbyist who is also a consultant on his campaign payroll.“Let’s Go #TeamAdams!” Ms. Raspberry tweeted afterward.Ms. Raspberry has registered to lobby Mr. Adams on behalf of at least three clients over the past few years. Executives from all three organizations have donated to Mr. Adams’s campaign fund, as has Ms. Raspberry. She has given to One Brooklyn as well.One of the clients was Mr. Schwartz of Slate. Another, Core Services Group, is a shelter provider for the homeless.In 2017, after city officials announced that Core would open a shelter in Crown Heights, local residents complained that their area was unfairly burdened. Mr. Adams took Core’s side, using a potent tool he has wielded for some donors: the platform of his office. In his newsletter, he urged the community to embrace the shelter and its occupants, writing that his mother had called to tell him that when he was a child, they had routinely been on the verge of homelessness.“Although I still believe that the city should have opened the first of its new shelters in communities that don’t currently have any, my mom has assisted me in amending my thinking on this issue,” Mr. Adams wrote.Over the next three years, 13 Core executives and employees contributed nearly $7,000 to his campaign, records show. In a statement, Core said its employees know “the importance of supporting leaders who champion policies that leave no New Yorker behind.”In an email, Ms. Raspberry said she had known Mr. Adams for 25 years, since her mother worked in the same police precinct as him, and had supported him because he had “consistently been there for people in need and communities of color.”She added, “I find it disturbing that any time a Black woman achieves any level of success on her own merits, questions are raised.”Mr. Adams has publicized products as well.In 2018, he held a news conference at Borough Hall to tout BolaWrap, a Spider-Man-like device that he said the police could use to subdue criminal suspects or the emotionally disturbed.“I’m formally requesting the department pilot this nonlethal restraint technology,” Mr. Adams tweeted later.Scot Cohen, executive chairman of Wrap Technologies, the company that sells the device, had given Mr. Adams’s campaign $1,500 four months before the news conference and gave $2,500 more three months later. The chief financial officer, James Barnes, contributed $5,000. And during the same period, Mr. Adams received $5,100 from Richard Abbe, a former business associate of Mr. Cohen’s and co-founder of Iroquois Capital Management, a Wrap investor. Mr. Abbe and Wrap executives did not respond to requests for comment.The company has featured Mr. Adams prominently on its website.Others who have contributed to Mr. Adams and benefited from his bully pulpit say they simply appreciate his attentiveness to their causes.In 2015, a year into his first term, Mr. Adams organized a news conference on a snowy Sunday to highlight the plight of Hurricane Sandy victims. He stood with two lawyers outside the Gerritsen Beach home of a family that said an insurance company had fraudulently denied its claim for damage from the 2012 storm. Mr. Adams urged homeowners to refile their rejected claims, and called on the state attorney general’s office to oversee the process.Three days earlier, records show, the two lawyers, along with the father and brother of one of them, had donated a total of $8,500 to the Adams campaign. The lawyers’ donations were the largest they had ever made to a city official, records show.One of the lawyers, Benjamin Pinczewski, said he and his partner later recovered millions of dollars in settlements for the hurricane victims.Mr. Pinczewski said the donations and news conference were unrelated and noted that he had donated to Mr. Adams on many other occasions. After learning that insurance companies were wrongly denying claims from hurricane victims, he said, he had reached out to many politicians. Only Mr. Adams and a local councilman responded.“Eric showed me right then and there that he wasn’t just talk,” Mr. Pinczewski said.Reporting was contributed by More

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    Maya Wiley Lands Major Endorsement From Rep. Hakeem Jeffries

    Mr. Jeffries, New York’s top House Democrat, said he intended to engage in significant efforts on Ms. Wiley’s behalf, including making campaign appearances with her.Representative Hakeem Jeffries of New York, the state’s highest-ranking House Democrat, is throwing his support to Maya D. Wiley in the race for mayor of New York City, a significant endorsement at a critical juncture in the race.The decision by Mr. Jeffries, who is the chairman of the House Democratic Caucus and represents parts of Brooklyn and Queens, comes at an inflection point both for Ms. Wiley and in the volatile race more broadly, nearly five weeks before the June 22 primary that is likely to decide the next mayor.“This is a change election, and Maya Wiley is a change candidate,” Mr. Jeffries, who could become the first Black House speaker, said in an interview on Saturday afternoon. Ms. Wiley, a former counsel to Mayor Bill de Blasio, is fresh off an assertive debate performance in which she repeatedly sought to put Eric Adams, the Brooklyn borough president, on the defensive. Mr. Adams and Andrew Yang, the former presidential candidate, have generally been regarded as the two leading contenders, with Ms. Wiley trailing in the sparse public polling available.Still, she has acquired a number of notable endorsements, including the backing of Local 1199 of the Service Employees International Union. An endorsement from Mr. Jeffries, coupled with her debate performance and the start of her advertising campaign, may bolster her efforts to introduce herself to voters and to gain steam in the final weeks before the primary.“Maya’s life experiences, if she can get out and tell that story, will be particularly compelling,” Mr. Jeffries said. “An African-American woman who lost her father at a very young age but rallied back from that adversity to follow in her father’s footsteps as a civil rights champion is a quintessential change candidate.”Mr. Jeffries is expected to appear with Ms. Wiley on Sunday at Restoration Plaza in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn. He said he intended to engage in significant efforts on her behalf, with hopes to campaign with Ms. Wiley as well as with Representatives Yvette Clarke and Nydia Velázquez, who have also endorsed her candidacy. Notably, those three lawmakers, who all represent slices of Brooklyn, did not side with Mr. Adams, a fellow elected official and a veteran of the borough’s politics. Their endorsements of Ms. Wiley may be seen as blows to Mr. Adams as he seeks to consolidate his own support. Mr. Adams and Mr. Jeffries have found themselves on opposing sides of a number of political battles over the years.Asked about some of those dynamics, Mr. Jeffries said that “my respect and relationship with Eric Adams at the present moment is a strong one, and I wish him the very best.”Ms. Wiley, one of the more left-leaning candidates in the race, said she had heard from Mr. Jeffries on Friday night, adding that he, along with Ms. Clarke and Ms. Velázquez, were “leaders whose constituents trust them, respect them, and they move votes.”“To have Hakeem Jeffries standing up with me saying, ‘This is my candidate,’ is hugely impactful in a critically important part of this city to win for anyone who wants to be mayor of New York City,” she added.In the June primary, New Yorkers will be able to rank up to five mayoral candidates, and Mr. Jeffries indicated that he might reveal other rankings of his choices for mayor but said he had not yet reached a decision on how he would proceed.In the interview, he sketched out a detailed map of what he saw as Ms. Wiley’s path to victory, though certainly, with a crowded field of candidates, there is significant competition for every major political constituency in New York.“I expect that Eric Adams and Maya Wiley will perform the best in the communities of central Brooklyn, as well as in other traditionally African-American neighborhoods throughout the city of New York,” Mr. Jeffries said, going on to note Ms. Wiley’s potential in “both traditionally African-American communities” and parts of the city that are home to many white liberals, mentioning neighborhoods like Chelsea, in Manhattan, and progressive Brooklyn enclaves. “That’s a pretty powerful electoral pathway, if the campaign can continue to put it together over the next few weeks,” he said.Some rival Democrats have feared the prospect of a late surge from Ms. Wiley, and the coming weeks will test her ability to execute on that possibility.“Every day I will be out to speak, and we will be making sure that our message is getting out both on television and on radio,” she said. “People are starting to turn their attention to this race in earnest and we’re going to make sure they know who I am and what I stand for and what I’m going to do.”.css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-w739ur{margin:0 auto 5px;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-w739ur{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-1dg6kl4{margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:15px;}#masthead-bar-one{display:none;}#masthead-bar-one{display:none;}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-1rh1sk1{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-1rh1sk1 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-1rh1sk1 em{font-style:italic;}.css-1rh1sk1 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#ccd9e3;text-decoration-color:#ccd9e3;}.css-1rh1sk1 a:visited{color:#333;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#ccc;text-decoration-color:#ccc;}.css-1rh1sk1 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}Mr. Jeffries said that at a policy level, he was drawn to Ms. Wiley’s promises to lead an equitable economic recovery coming out of the pandemic. Ms. Wiley, a civil rights lawyer, speaks often of “reimagining” New York, a city marked by significant racial and economic inequality.“Those communities who have been hurt the most in terms of an economic crisis have often been helped the least,” Mr. Jeffries said. “Those communities that have been hurt the least have often been helped the most. It seems to me that Maya Wiley is the person to make sure that this time will be different.”In recent weeks, issues of violent crime have moved to the forefront of the mayor’s race, amid a significant spike in shootings and a number of high-profile attacks in the subways. Mr. Adams and Mr. Yang have been especially direct about the role they believe the police can play in restoring calm, even as they also support combating police misconduct.Ms. Wiley released a plan to combat gun violence months ago. But she has also supported reallocating $1 billion from the New York Police Department’s funding “to fund investments in alternatives to policing,” her campaign said. And she has resisted the idea of adding more police officers to patrol the subways, breaking with the two perceived front-runners during the debate on that issue as she emphasized the importance instead of empowering mental health professionals.The next mayor, Mr. Jeffries said, must strike “the right balance between promoting public safety and promoting fairness and justice in policing.”“It seems to me that Maya Wiley gets that we have to do both,” he said. Mr. Jeffries said he had reached his decision after extensive conversations with candidates, others in the New York congressional delegation and constituents.His mother did not wait to see where her son would land, telling Ms. Wiley weeks ago that she was on board, NY1 reported.“My mom totally got out ahead of me on that one,” Mr. Jeffries said. “Far be it from me to break publicly from my mom.” More

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    Former Mayor of Fall River, Mass. Is Convicted of Corruption

    Jasiel F. Correia II, who at 24 was the Massachusetts city’s youngest mayor, was convicted of charges related to extorting marijuana vendors and defrauding investors.The former mayor of Fall River, Mass., who was elected at 23 after pitching himself as an ambitious entrepreneur and product of the city, was convicted by a federal jury on Friday of defrauding investors of more than $200,000 and extorting marijuana vendors.The former mayor, Jasiel F. Correia II, 29, used investor money from his tech start-up to pay for lavish goods, trips and clothing, according to an indictment. After becoming mayor of Fall River, which is about 50 miles south of Boston, in 2016, Mr. Correia used his position to gain bribes from marijuana vendors looking to establish their businesses in the city.When he was in college, Mr. Correia founded an app called SnoOwl, which was designed to help local businesses connect with a network of customers. Seven people invested about $360,000 in the app, of which Mr. Correia spent about $230,000 on designer clothing, jewelry, travel, “adult entertainment,” and a Mercedes, according to the indictment.Mr. Correia also used about $10,000 of investor money to pay down his student debt and to fund his political campaign.To conceal the theft, Mr. Correia denied investors access to financial records, lied to them with false updates and also lied to his then-girlfriend, on whom he spent thousands of dollars, telling her that he made his money from the sale of a different app, according to the indictment.After Mr. Correia became Fall River’s mayor, he took bribes from marijuana vendors in exchange for nonopposition letters, which are required in Massachusetts to obtain a license to operate a marijuana business in the state.Bribes from four vendors ranged from more than $75,000 to $250,000 in cash, campaign contributions and other payments, according to court documents.Mr. Correia was convicted on charges of wire fraud, falsifying tax returns and related counts of extortion. Mr. Correia, who is set to be sentenced in September, could face up to 20 years in prison for the wire fraud charges and up to 20 years for the extortion charges.The acting U.S. attorney for the District of Massachusetts, Nathaniel R. Mendell, told reporters on Friday that the verdict was “a fitting end to this saga.”“He sold his office, and he sold out the people of Fall River,” Mr. Mendell said.Mr. Correia told reporters that he would appeal.“Eventually, the real truth will come out,” Mr. Correia said. “I will be vindicated, and my future will be very long and great.”Mr. Correia’s lawyer, Kevin Reddington, who did not respond to requests for comment on Saturday, told reporters outside the courthouse on Friday that an appeal would most likely come after the sentencing, the television station WPRI reported.“We respect the jury’s verdict, but that’s what we have appeals courts for,” he said.Mr. Correia was indicted in October 2018 for wire fraud and falsifying tax returns, and then again in September 2019 in a superseding indictment for extortion conspiracy and extortion, in addition to other crimes.Mr. Correia, who was 23 when he was elected in 2015, became the city’s youngest mayor and promised to revitalize Fall River, a city that was once home to a booming textile industry but declined as manufacturing went overseas.Mr. Correia, the son of Portuguese and Cape Verdean immigrants, was born and raised in Fall River and impressed voters with his ambition, confidence and loyalty to the city. In 2008, Fall River named him “Youth of the Year” for his work with teenagers addicted to drugs.By 22, Correia was a self-described entrepreneur with his app SnoOwl, which was released in 2015. He returned to Fall River after college, determined to expand the business there and run for local office.“I’m a product of Fall River,” Mr. Correia told The Herald News in Fall River in 2014. “I’m young, I’m ambitious and I’m a hard worker. I want to see myself and Fall River succeed.”In a special election in March 2019, Mr. Correia was voted out of office but then voted back in on the same ballot. In a general election in November 2019, he ran for re-election and lost.Maria Cramer contributed reporting. More

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    N.Y.C. Mayoral Candidates Keep Focus on Crime After a Feisty Debate

    Back on the campaign trail, the leading Democrats traded barbs over their competing visions for public safety.On the day after the leading Democratic candidates for mayor faced off in the first major debate of the election season, Andrew Yang attended a conference on the future of the waterfront. Scott M. Stringer went to a vacant lot in Brooklyn to talk about affordable housing. Maya Wiley toured a Puerto Rican cultural center on the Lower East Side. Eric Adams attended fund-raisers, and Raymond J. McGuire greeted business owners on Staten Island.But whatever the candidates’ ostensible agendas, public safety — which spurred some of the hottest exchanges during the debate — remained the topic of the day, after yet another rash of attacks in the subway kept the city’s focus on its shaken sense of order.And so there was Mr. Adams, a retired police captain, reminding New Yorkers in a statement Friday morning that he stood with transit workers in their demands for more officers in the subway. There was Mr. Yang on “Good Morning New York,” opining that the police “are going to drive our ability to improve what’s going on our streets, in the subway.”There, on the other side of the divide, was Ms. Wiley, at the Clemente Cultural and Educational Center in Manhattan, urging that more social service workers for people with mental illness, not more police officers, be sent underground.And there was Mr. Stringer, the city comptroller, sounding a similar note in front of the vacant lot in Brownsville, saying that without a comprehensive prescription that included social services and supportive housing, “We will be cycling people from the subways to Rikers,” the city’s jail complex, “back and forth and at a tremendous financial cost.”With less than six weeks left before the June 22 primary and a crowded field of contenders struggling to define themselves to a distracted electorate, crime, and how to stop it, has emerged as both a dominant public concern and a way for the candidates to score points against each other.Each day seems to bring a fresh cause for alarm. On Friday, a group of men slashed or punched commuters aboard a moving subway train. The attacks came at the end of a one-week stretch that included the shooting of three bystanders in Times Square, a police officer being shot three times while responding to another shooting and at least a half-dozen other seemingly random subway attacks.The candidates have clearly felt pressure to address the violence. After the Times Square shooting last Saturday, Mr. Yang, Mr. Adams and Mr. McGuire held news conferences there, even as the current mayor, Bill de Blasio, stayed away.At the debate, Mr. Adams took Mr. Yang, a former presidential candidate, to task for holding a news conference “blocks from your home” in Times Square but not responding to recent shootings in neighborhoods with large Black populations, like Brownsville. Two other candidates, Shaun Donovan and Kathryn Garcia, responded to the Times Square shooting with plans to get guns off the streets.In many ways, the campaigning on Friday was a continuation of the previous night’s debate, where the candidates leaned into their sharply different approaches to law enforcement and to the question of whether the city can police its way out of a spike in gun violence.Ms. Wiley, a former counsel to Mr. de Blasio and civil-rights lawyer, said at the debate that she would take $1 billion from the Police Department and use the money “to create trauma-informed care in our schools, because when we do that violence goes down and graduation rates go up.”Another candidate, Dianne Morales, who has called for cutting the $6 billion police budget in half, said that “safety is not synonymous with police.” Mr. Stringer and Mr. Donovan have also called for shifting at least $1 billion from the police budget to social services.Ms. Garcia, a former sanitation commissioner, staked out a middle ground on Thursday, saying, “We do need to respond when the M.T.A. says we need more cops in the subway. That does not mean we’re not sending mental health professionals into the subway as well.”Mr. Adams and Mr. Yang have opposed “defunding” the police, and on Thursday night Mr. Adams repeated his call for a reinstituted unit of plainclothes police officers to target gang activity in the city.“​We have to deal with intervention,” he said, “and stop the flow of guns into the city,” adding, “We have to deal with this real, pervasive handgun problem.”In one of the debate’s fiercer exchanges, Ms. Wiley called Mr. Adams an apologist for stop-and-frisk policing. That prompted him to counter that he was actually a “leading voice against the abuse of stop-and-frisk” and that Ms. Wiley had showed a “failure of understanding law enforcement.”Ms. Wiley retorted that as the former head of the city’s Civilian Complaint Review Board, “I certainly understand misconduct.” Mr. Adams, the Brooklyn borough president, hit back, saying that under her, the board was “a failure.”.css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-w739ur{margin:0 auto 5px;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-w739ur{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-1dg6kl4{margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:15px;}#masthead-bar-one{display:none;}#masthead-bar-one{display:none;}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-1rh1sk1{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-1rh1sk1 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-1rh1sk1 em{font-style:italic;}.css-1rh1sk1 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#ccd9e3;text-decoration-color:#ccd9e3;}.css-1rh1sk1 a:visited{color:#333;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#ccc;text-decoration-color:#ccc;}.css-1rh1sk1 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}Ms. Wiley picked up the thread on Friday, reminding a reporter at her tour outside the Clemente Center that Mr. Adams had called stop-and-frisk a “great tool” just last year. (She called the policy “lazy,” “ineffective” and “traumatizing.”)Mr. Adams also took flak from Mr. Donovan at the debate for having said that as mayor he would carry a gun.“As a New Yorker but also as a parent, I’m deeply concerned about the idea of a mayor who carries a gun at a time where gun violence is spiking,” Mr. Donovan, a former city and federal housing official, said.Mr. Adams replied that he would do so only if the police’s threat assessment unit found that he was the target of “a credible threat.”On Friday, Ms. Wiley spoke about there being a “false choice between either being safe from crime and being safe from police violence” and promised, “We can have both.”In an ad released on Friday by a political action committee that supports Mr. Adams, Strong Leadership NYC, Mr. Adams used similar words.“We can have justice and public safety at the same time,” he says in the ad, adding that after being assaulted by the police as a young man, he became an officer with the goal of reforming the department from within. In his statement on Friday, Mr. Adams called not only for more officers in the subway but for “serious mental health resources.”Still, there was no question where his emphasis lay: He also called for better monitoring of security cameras and closer coordination between the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which runs the subway, and the police.“Progress cannot be derailed by crime,” Mr. Adams wrote. “If New Yorkers themselves cannot rely on our public transportation to keep them safe, then tourists will not return and not the businesses that depend on them.” More

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    Rash of MTA Subway Attacks Raise Worries With Service Set to Return

    Hours after mayoral candidates clashed over how to address crime in the transit system, the police reported a series of early-morning assaults.In the span of 12 minutes early Friday, the police said, a group of men attacked commuters aboard a moving subway train, increasing concerns about public safety in New York City’s transit system just as 24-hour subway service is set to resume on Monday.The attackers, striking together on a southbound Lexington Avenue express train as it passed through several stations starting at around 4:30 a.m., slashed three riders, two in the face and one in the back of the head, the police said. A fourth person was punched. The attackers took a phone and a wallet from one of the victims.The three slashing victims, all men in their 40s, were hospitalized and in stable condition, according to the police. One of the attackers, they said, slashed at the three men as another urged him on. The attacks came amid rising concern about crime in New York. Much of that concern has focused on the subway, which is about to resume nonstop service after it was curtailed last May for the first time in the system’s history because of the pandemic.Despite the flurry of reported attacks, the overall trend in subway violence is less clear. Data suggests that crime per rider may be lower so far this year than in 2020, when ridership plunged amid a citywide lockdown, but up from 2019.And now, even as the system gears up for a full return, at least a dozen attacks and other violent episodes have taken place on train cars or at stations this month alone.The police initially said that two men in their 20s were responsible for the three early morning attacks. But at a news conference later on Friday, officials said the assaults were the work of a larger group that was involved in a fourth attack around the same time. In that incident, the police said, a 48-year-old man was stabbed in the eye with a knife. Like the other victims, he was taken to a hospital, where he was undergoing surgery, the police said.Jason Wilcox, an assistant police chief, said at the news conference that the investigation was continuing but that it appeared that the victims had been attacked by a group of men who were coordinating their actions and occasionally splitting into smaller groups. “It looks like they were pairing off, mixing off, as the train was moving down along the 4 line this morning,” Chief Wilcox said.Four men were subsequently taken into custody in connection with the attacks, the police said. They had not been formally charged as of Friday afternoon, the police said. The spate of assaults prompted transit officials to renew their call for more police officers in the subway. An additional 500 officers were deployed to the system in February after a homeless man was accused of stabbing four people in the subway.The issue of subway crime was among the issues discussed at a mayoral debate on Thursday. The eight leading Democratic candidates in the race all used the occasion to express concern about the system’s safety, but they were split over whether more officers were needed. Andrew Yang, Eric Adams, Kathryn Garcia, Shaun Donovan and Ray McGuire said they would expand the police presence in the system. Scott Stringer, Dianne Morales and Maya Wiley said they would not.On Friday Sarah Feinberg — who, as the New York City Transit Authority’s interim president, has consistently raised concerns about the system becoming a de facto shelter for homeless people — lashed out at Mayor Bill de Blasio over the attacks.“The mayor is risking New York’s recovery every time he lets these incidents go by without meaningful action,” Ms. Feinberg said in a statement.In a background note appended to Ms. Feinberg’s statement, the authority pointed out which of the mayoral candidates had expressed support for assigning more officers to the subway. Ms. Feinberg was appointed to the authority’s board by Governor Andrew M. Cuomo, who has frequently clashed with Mr. de Blasio, a fellow Democrat, on policies related to the transit system, and to the pandemic and its impact more broadly.Last week, Mr. Cuomo compared the current condition of the subway to what it was like in the 1970s, and he blamed city officials for failing to address the system’s problem.A spokesman for Mr. De Blasio, Bill Neidhardt, responded to Ms. Feinberg, saying that the city had diverted officers from desk duty to subway platforms and trains.“We’re going to keep putting massive resources into this fight to keep our subways safe,” Mr. Neidhardt said in a statement. “Meanwhile, the M.T.A. sends out statements that point fingers and talk about mayoral politics.”Danny Pearlstein, the policy and communications director for the Riders Alliance, a public transit advocacy group, said in a statement that the subway remained overwhelmingly safe, and he urged Mr. Cuomo not to spread fear about the state of the system.“The reality is that the governor’s fear-mongering may be scaring people away from public transit and making riders who need to travel less safe,” Mr. Pearlstein said in the statement.The victims of the dozen subway attacks this month include: a 60-year-old woman stabbed in the back; two men slashed in the face on separate days; a woman hit in the face with a skateboard; a man visiting from Ecuador attacked with a screwdriver; a transit worker punched in the face, and a subway conductor chased off a train by a razor-wielding man.Several of those episodes resulted in service being shut down, as did other incidents that did not involve attacks on people.On May 5, a man shouting incoherently about Covid-19 vaccines broke into an operator’s compartment on a train car and holed up there for 90 minutes, and hours later another man pulled the emergency brakes on a train, smashed the windows and fled. 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    N.Y.C. Mayoral Candidates on the Issues

    Naik Path (left), 33
    Self-employed from Rego Park

    “Empower law enforcement for people’s safety because there’s a lot of shooting, a lot of stabbing, subway crime, hate crimes — it’s spiking.”

    “Empower law enforcement for people’s safety because there’s a lot of shooting, a lot of stabbing, subway crime, hate crimes — it’s spiking.” More