Empty Suit Named Worst Landlord- Big City Brief -- Tues. Dec 21

Good morning, here is your New York City political brief in 60 seconds (70 if you read slowly, 90 if you’re the mayor.)

Empty Suit Named Worst Landlord.

Mayor Empty Suit has a new award he could hang in his House of Horrors Trophy Room know, as City Hall.

Public Advocate Jumaane Williams, whose own job description fits on a stamp, is out with the yearly “Worst NYC Landlords”. And not surprising, the Mayor was tops. He technically runs the New York City Housing Authority and for the third straight year NYCHA is the worst. Broken elevators, broken heat, rats as unpaid tenants are among the reasons. 

This is all made even more terrible because of the on-going lead paint scandal at NYCHA, where it turns out that the number of children exposed may be triple the original number- at least 9,000 apartments are impacted. That wasn’t disclosed by the city, it was disclosed by the federal monitor overseeing NYCHA in October. At least Bart Schwartz, who holds the thankless job of being the federal monitor, has a clue as to what’s going on if not a solution to the problem. For the recored, we outlawed lead paint in the 1970s and Empty Suit is accused of down-playing the crisis and covering it up.

This would be tops in all the news if the people who lived in NYCHA apartments lived in fancy TriBeCa.

Big City Bites

• The new Covid relief stimulus bill includes $4 billion for the MTA. The agency says it needs $12 billion.
• While many European nations have banned flight from the U.K. over fears of a new Covid-strain (so much for Brexit!), the U.S. has not. Governor Cuomo won some concessions from airlines which say they begin Covid testing of passengers by Thursday.
• Two people and their dogs decided to take an early exit from a Delta plane and opened an emergency door and took the slide down. They've been arrested (not the dogs).
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