A generally positive article on Dan, but I couldn't help but notice these tasty sentences:
"In January, about a week after City
Councilman Daniel Garodnick lost the race for council speaker, he was
the belle of the real-estate industry's annual ball. Mr.
Garodnick sat on the stage with other dignitaries at the New York
Hilton, two seats down from
Alicia Glen,
a powerful deputy mayor who oversees housing and economic
development. No one at the Real Estate Board of New York's banquet
attracted a bigger cluster of executives and lobbyists waiting for a
word than the 42-year old councilman for Manhattan's East Side"
"The city's real-estate world continues to open its wallet to Mr.
Garodnick. In the most recent election cycle, he received more than
$200,000 of contributions from the industry, out of about $1 million,
according to a Wall Street Journal calculation."
25 comments:
He'll never get my vote, no matter what office he might run for in the future. I hope he ends his third term and goes away.
Can we please stop with the Garodnick bashing already? Enough.
I have to wonder why Dan Garodnick left law to go into politics. Was it because he wanted to be a good Public Servant and do the best he could for his [non-1%] constituents, or was it because he saw it as a means of drumming up lots of business for his Legal and RE friends and associates? Who, exactly, does he represent?
Tsk tsk danny boy - such a conflict of interest ole buddy.
Does he think all 20k of us are this stupid? wow..just wow.
For anybody who feels compelled to comment before reading the article, the midtown zoning area is part of Dan's district, which is why big RE is interested in him. They want something, and he will be involved. Anyone who reads this blog and is interested in midtown development, could have attended the CB6 meeting the other week where the plans for One Vanderbilt Plaza were presented (also plans for Skyport and the 25th St. sanitation garage). It's in all our interests for Dan and Alicia Glen to be on good terms--who do you think is talking to de Blasio about what's going to happen with this property? Even if you don't like what you think Dan might be saying to her, the communication is still going on. As for "belle of the ball," that's just the writer getting your attention.
>>Can we please stop with the Garodnick bashing already? Enough.<<
It's a current news item about our councilman. I'm just providing a link and offering up several sentences from this article.
George Baily sold out to Potter.
STR @ September 13, 2014 at 6:15 PM
Baloney. The title of your post is a cheap shots and does not accurately rep the linked-to article. And it served its purpose. it got your flying monkeys howling and throwing crap around as per usual.
RE STR @ September 13, 2014 at 6:15 PM
What an absurd thing to say. You cherry picked quotes out to make him look bad. The article just outlines how he represents areas where there are Real Estate happenings, and yeah Real Estate interests probably do want to curry favor with him. But he shot down Midtown East Rezoning last year and is keeping them from just selling us off to the highest bidder, affordability be damned. So if he's a shill for REBNY he has a very funny way of showing it - as the article makes clear.
DG is a dedicated public servant who works tirelessly for the betterment of this community.
The article says it all. STR just quoted the article. No denying. Just change already.
We need new legislation!
A business newspaper wrote a factual true glowing article on a business oriented politician who is the celebrated belle of the ball of the real estate business and who has two of the biggest real estate deals of NYC. One of those deals resulted in a record breaking eviction rate over a 4 year span with thousands of middle class homes illegally removed from rent stabilized to over-market rate and a commercialization of residential community. The glowing article and glowing success of the business of PCVST and NYC has been at the cost of the Safety, Security and Quality of Life of the Residents of NYC and PCVST.
Yes STR we need new legislation and that requires new politicians who have not been involved in the Bloomberg era that got us here in this mess where businesses are flourishing and people are losing. The number and quality of good neighbors this community while Dan represented this community in the City Council is shameful.
4:06PM Your comment is Putin-esque, disturbing, ass backwards and condescending. The politicians need to be as concerned about staying on good terms with their constituents as they do with each other, lobbyists, and those businesses financing them. No, actually they need to be more concerned with staying on good terms with their constituents and still concerned but to a lesser degree the other parties. We should be the loudest voice. They may have the most money. But we have the Voice and the Vote. They need to keep us happy to keep their jobs.
RE mindset is Politicians work for them, the politicians are their employees because RE pays them.
Constituents mindset should be Politicians work for us. We vote for politicians to represent us. We are not at their mercy and should not shut up as you say so they can play nice to further their Political careers.
Constituents are the bosses of Politicians and they will not know what we expect of them to deliver unless we speak up and demand it. We want our politicians to be fighting for us and successful and they cannot be successful unless we define for them what success is.
This community needs to demand our Politicians start representing its constituents or don't bother coming to our neighborhood entrances to campaign at election time.
The politicians won't know what to do unless we tell them what we want in a message as powerful as the messages they get from those showering them with money.
Mr Guterman is giving us a way to make our message powerful by empowering us to stand up and speak out for ourselves.
September 15, 2014 at 8:50 AM
"they will not know what we expect of them to deliver unless we speak up and demand it."
You mean like repeal of Urstadt? We actually had a candidate for governor who stated she was absolutely for it and yet the other guy got elected with approx 60% of the vote in NYC where most rent regulated voters live. Less than 10% of the state’s almost 6 million registered Democrats bothered to turn out to vote are responsible for that.
Regarding NY pols taking money from special interests. They must be trembling in their boots after that pathetic showing in the primary. They take that money so they can use that it to try reach the (mostly) low info NY voters who bother to show up for anything other than presidential elections.
Meanwhile incumbent anti-tenant real estate tool State Senator Jeff Klein (D-Bronx) who voted with the Repubs all last term easily defeated pro-tenant primary challenger Oliver Koppell with money he got from RE. Klein is the so called indy Dem who almost single-handedly (he couldn't have done it without Cuomo) is responsible for holding back passage of stronger rent regs last term by voting with the Repubs and keeping them in the majority. The makeup of the state senate that's been so responsible for screwing NYC renters remains basically unchanged after the primary and so will likely remain unchanged after the general election. Except now Cuomo claims he'll force Klein and his 3 fellow renegades to vote with their fellow Dems instead of the Repubs. That would put the dems in the majority in the State Senate. But we'll see.
Also, the big real estate money flows into the state senate in Albany to screw renters in NYC apartments, not so much to the city council. It flows to the city council for huge deals like midtown re-zoning or new baseball stadiums.
It seems pretty clear to me that Albany was strategically picked as state capital to keep their goings on far from view of downstate voters. And IMO the resulting ignorance of NYC voters shows.
And finally, I am not responsible for 4:06PM, but that commenter got it about right. He or she made the case in a straightforward way and you should have responded in kind instead of unnecessarily insinuating all kinds of attitude on his or her part.
Dan Garodnick is a disaster for ST. He has led the TA down a path of destruction. The TA will never recover from it's alliance with this dirty politician, who by the way lost more votes from one re-election to the next then has any other NY politician ever.
12:23 it sounds like you and the other guy are saying the same thing. Which makes me wonder, why didn't the TA send out an email blast or slip notes under doors with a call to action to get out and vote for the candidate who wanted to repeal Urstadt. Commentators on this blog were saying it. Why wasn't the TA? It shouldn't matter who de Blasio or Garodnick supported. The TA should have supported the candidate who wanted to repeal Urstadt. Instead the TA went with Garodnick on the PCVST tour for Hochul giving an impression of a Hochul Cuomo endorsement. We need a TA that supports the repeal of Urstadt. Not fair to blame the voters or residents when the TA Board is endorsing the REBNY run Albany.
We missed an opportunity to send a message to Albany with our votes for a candidate who would have repealed Urstadt.
"Not fair to blame the voters or residents when the TA Board is endorsing the REBNY run Albany."
You mean the TA Board that you all listen to?
Why not blame the voters or residents? Did the TA stop them from voting? From becoming educated about which candidates are tenant-friendly? I don't think so.
People who did not vote, or who voted for Cuomo over Teachout, have no one but themselves to blame.
I voted for Teachout and Wu. I won't vote in November because I despise both Cuomo and the slime ball running on the republican ticket.
That may be so 9:10 and I agree with you. But I agree with the other comment too. The TA pretends to represent a voting block of 11,000 people when making statements of endorsement for Political candidates in the past and should have at least made a statement for supporting a candidate who wants to repeal Urstadt instead of following Dan on his PCVST tour for Hochul. The TA should have been on the side of tenants rights and not a politicians interests.
September 15, 2014 at 2:49 PM
Do you really need the TA to do every god damned thing for you?
The TA as an organization is not allowed by state law (because they're a non-profit) to get involved in supporting political candidates, political referendums, etc. However, there was an extended interview with Teachout that was linked to by a tenant on the FB page.
September 16, 2014 at 8:02 AM
The TA did not endorse Hochul. The TA as an organization is not allowed by law to endorse political candidates because they are a particular kind of nonp-profit and would lose that status. I cannot stand Cuomo and I cannot stand Hotchul. I voted for Teachout/Wu. Neverthless I understand why a tour was given to Hochul - so that she could get an earful from Garodnick and the tenants who were there about what the hell goes on here with our crap landlord.
BOSS TWEED LIVES!!!!!!
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