By Bob Gaydos

Zohran Mamdani

  Mamdani’s his name. Remember it. Get it right. Two ‘m’s and then an ‘n.’ Next mayor of New York City. His first name is Zohran.

    This all needs a little explaining.

     Given a choice in the June primary of Andrew Cuomo, a former governor who had resigned in disgrace because of numerous accusations of sexual misconduct, and Eric Adams, a mayor whose administration was awash in corruption and who personally had federal bribery and corruption charges against him dropped by the Trump administration in exchange for a promise to cooperate with the ICE roundup of anyone who looks suspiciously Hispanic, New York City Democrats chose a young, Ugandan-born Democratic Socialist, Muslim, naturalized citizen, state legislator as their candidate for mayor.

    Zohran Mamdani.

    It wasn’t close and it wasn’t strictly by default. A bright, personable 33-year-old who has mastered social media skills, Mamdani also clearly had a message that resonated with New Yorkers who are finding it increasingly difficult to afford to live in the city they love.

    While Cuomo and Adams talked about their experience in government, Mamdani spoke of free bus service and free child care for children between six weeks and five years old and “baby baskets” for new parents that would include educational resources as well as diapers and baby wipes.

  He talked of a city-owned grocery store in each borough. The stores would operate on city-owned land or in city buildings, buy food wholesale and be exempt from property taxes, which would keep the cost of the food down.

    He said he would freeze rents for nearly one million New Yorkers by strategic appointments to the board which decides on increases for rent-stabilized apartments. He also promised to triple the number of available affordable housing units, with 200,000 new homes to be built over the next decade.

    You get the picture. He talked to New Yorkers about things that were really bothering them and offered a plan to pay for it all.

   Mamdani said he would raise the corporate tax rate to 11.5 percent, which he says will bring in an additional $5 billion. And, he plans a 2 percent tax on the wealthiest 1 percent of New Yorkers.

    Cuomo called Mamdani’s plans “unrealistic.“ So did the wealthy city dwellers and corporations, not to mention old guard Democratic politicians who depend on their campaign contributions. After Mamdani’s surprise victory, big money began pouring into Cuomo’s now independent campaign for mayor. They also desperately began looking for a candidate who wasn’t a – gasp! – socialist.

    In fact, establishment Democrats sounded just like typical Republicans and that’s a terrible thing for a politician in New York City and much of the country these days. Dismissing progressive ideas as too left, too radical and looking for the comfortable middle of the road, in the process offering nothing to contrast with today’s devastating Republican scorched-earth agenda, is a recipe for loss. The status quo is a no go.

    To be clear, Mamdani is a Democrat who shares the same Democratic Socialist values as Bernie Sanders, a Brooklyn boy: Tax people fairly according to their wealth for the greater good of all people. Make New York City a great place to live and work and raise a family even if you’re not super wealthy. A democracy for everyone. It’s not communism; it’s not socialism. Today, in the age of ever greater corporate power, it’s realism.

      Apparently, a lot of registered Democratic voters agree. They don’t want used or tainted goods. Since Democrats far outnumber Republicans in the city, the Democratic candidate is always heavily favored to win.

   The Republican candidate, staging a reprise of his 2021 losing campaign, is Curtis Sliwa. I honestly didn’t even know he was still around. Sliwa, now 73, is a founder of the once upon a time, Guardian Angels, who patrolled the streets of the city in the 1980s, purporting to reduce crime. Sliwa later admitted to faking some “crimes“ they had “prevented.” He also escaped a kidnapping and apparent assassination attempt by John Gotti Jr., who was charged, but not convicted after three trials. Gotti Senior apparently didn’t like something Sliwa said about him.

     Like everyone else these days, Sliwa has a podcast and, I guess, describes himself as a citizen activist. He was unopposed for the Republican nomination for mayor so you can see why Democrats are favored to win. Unless they sabotage themselves, which they have been known to do.

      The Democratic establishment quickly branded Mamdani too far left to win. Even though he just won. Even though he is young, smart and speaks his mind. Even though he may have given city voters yet another convincing reason to vote for him.

      In a direct rebuke to the Adams/Trump deal, Mamdani says New York City should strengthen its sanctuary city laws and promises to bar Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers from city facilities. Polls say that most Americans, never mind just New York City residents, would support this approach.

     Mamdani. Get it right. Next mayor of New York City.

(more…)

By Bob Gaydos

     A funny thing happened to Ed Diana on the way to his $500-a-week, no-show job arranged through the public industrial development agency of the county he ran for a dozen years. He got caught.

     That’s the only thing that “happened“ to Diana, despite what his lawyer would have you believe. Everything else he made happen.

      This is a big story in Orange County, New York, which is about an hours drive northwest from New York City, but it’s about greed and political corruption, so it has implications nationwide. And yes, as with most such stories these days, it involves Republicans, but at least this time, some of them are on the right side of the law.

       Diana, who served three terms as county executive in Orange, recently pleaded guilty to two counts of filing a false instrument. Specifically, he signed a form which states that, as a member of the board of directors of the Orange County IDA, as vice chairman in fact, he had no conflict of interest with the business of that agency. That he had no tangible personal gain arising from that relationship.

       In fact, though, he did. Lying on this form is a felony in New York State. Diana did it twice. He also played guilty to a misdemeanor charge of conflict of interest.

        “If this could happen to Ed Diana, this could happen to anyone,” Diana’s lawyer, Ben Ostrer, said, speaking to the press after Diana’s guilty plea in court. “If you are in government service be thankful it isn’t you.”

         What a load of bull, even for a lawyer in the Rudy Giuliani era.

          In addition to his three times as county executive, Diana also served on the county legislature and a couple of terms as supervisor of the town of Wallkill, one of the larger towns in Orange County. Three decades of public service as an elected official in Orange County. With that experience, you should be able to smell a potential conflict of interest about three months down the road. Yet Ostrer would have us believe it could happen to “anyone.“

          Diana was allowed to plead guilty to avoid a prison term. He agreed to repay the IDA $90,000. He said he had been paid as a “consultant” for three-and-a-half years. In addition to Diana, the former CEO of the IDA pleaded guilty to a charge of corrupting government and agreed to re-pay $175,000 for her no-show job.

           The phantom jobs were with a company owned by the former paid managing director of the IDA, who the prosecutor said was the motivating force and worst actor in this case. He steered firms looking to do business in Orange County to his companies for equipment, planning, office space and technical assistance. Over time, he also raised the rates for the services. He pleaded guilty to corrupting government and agreed to repay $1 million. He will be on probation for five years. All three will be officially sentenced in September.

            All of this “happened” while the board of directors, which other than Diana, also included the chairman of the county legislature, looked the other way or napped during board meetings. Same for the board’s lawyer. The county legislature fired the entire board a couple of months ago when it learned of District Attorney David Hoovler’s investigation. The DA, like Diana, a Republican, said he didn’t file charges against any other board members or their lawyer, because “There’s no criminal liability for incompetence.” Sometimes that means prosecutors can’t prove intent.

      Hoovler pointed out that no money had been stolen, per se, and that all the monies paid to people who shouldn’t have been paid had been accounted for. You say tomato, I say tomahto. People got money they shouldn’t have gotten because of their positions and the money could’ve been used by the IDA for other purposes. In the process, the integrity of the IDA was badly damaged. As a public agency whose primary tool is the awarding of tax breaks to companies looking to locate in its county, trust is far more valuable than cash. The new Orange IDA board must work hard to rebuild that trust.

      It can start by knowing that conflicts of interest don’t just “happen.” Not in Orange County, New York, or anywhere else. They are created. A defining feature of much of today’s Republican Party, on a national level as well as at the local level, is a casual disregard for the rule of law and an arrogant disdain for the truth. That’s a fact. I don’t like writing it, but it’s true. I think it represents a major threat to our democracy.  (In this case, the current Orange County executive, also a Republican, sharply criticized the corrupt arrangement  and called for the state to toughen the punishment for such crimes.)

       When one of our two major parties decides it can unilaterally make up the rules as it goes along  and concoct excuses to avoid responsibility, we are in serious trouble. If people will buy the big lie — The election was stolen. There was no insurrection — why not try a “little” one? “If this can happen to Ed Diana, it can happen to anyone.”

     No it can’t.  Witness the thousands of New Yorkers who serve on public and private boards of directors without such happenings. Of such molehills are mountains created. Lying and entitlement are addictive. So is power. The antidote is truth. Hold public officials accountable. Make them explain their actions. Trust must be earned, today more than ever.

rjgaydos@gmail.com

Bob Gaydos is writer-in-residence at zestoforange.com.