The Mystery of Al Sharpton’s Ascension to Power

GOP state chairman Ed Cox was surely having a go at Bill de Blasio when he prophesied that the mayor would be the 2016 Democratic presidential nominee. At this point it isn't even even clear that de Blasio will be the 2017 Democratic nominee for mayor. Cox was just fantasizing about the Republicans’ best hope for victory.

Regardless, it is a near certainty that de Blasio is at the summit of his political career. Doubtless he has broader ambitions, and he obviously relishes the chance to parade himself across the national stage at a Democratic National Convention in Brooklyn—though that opportunity appears increasingly unlikely as the Dems look to swing states Ohio or Pennsylvania as more fruitful ground in a contentious election.

Mayor of New York City is the ultimate dead-end job in American politics. Consider the fact that no mayor since New York’s consolidation in 1898 has been elected to anything after leaving City Hall. Furthermore, none of them had announced publicly that Al Sharpton—who has tracked less favorably than George Zimmerman in Rasmussen polls—was among his closest friends and advisors. The quote “The more they criticize him, the more I want to hang out with him”—de Blasio’s birthday gift to Sharpton at the Rev’s 60th—will haunt the mayor forever, at least anywhere outside of the tiny echo chamber he has built around himself. His would-be statewide or national opponents can go ahead and inscribe those words on his tombstone.

The mystery of Al Sharpton’s ascension to power is opaque. Does he have photographic evidence of something de Blasio desperately does not want revealed? Or more realistically, does he have dirt on the mayor’s ugly dealings with Data & Field Services? At least Obama had the good political sense not to go public with his affection for Sharpton until after his re-election. It is very hard to understand why an otherwise successful mayor would align himself so closely with an intensely divisive figure who offers little upside.

The half-dozen advisors who have the mayor’s ear may think Sharpton is the real thing, but many New Yorkers and a great many other Americans still recall the Tawana Brawley sham (which Sharpton consistently defends); the Crown Heights riots (“Pin your yarmulkes back!”); the eight people who died at Freddy’s Fashion Mart (“White interloper!”); the defense of the Dunbar Village gang rapists; his tax problems; his unsavory associates; etc., etc., ad eternum, ad nauseam. Even 75 percent of African-Americans did not count Sharpton as a voice of their community in a 2013 Zogby poll.

If de Blasio’s political career goes Titanic, how quickly will his political allies escape the vortex? Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito, who at least knows how to show up on time to commemorations, will conceivably be one of the first to jump ship. Charles Rangel has promised to retire in 2016, and Mark-Viverito will be in a good position to contest his seat. Though she has never proven herself to be a dominant primary election campaigner, she will have plenty of money and institutional support by that time. Congress seems like a natural spot for someone who is addicted to sponsoring resolutions on where to site a Smithsonian Latino museum and sending out letters calling on the president to act on her pet causes.

Comptroller Scott Stringer has already distanced himself from the mayor, stubbornly insisting he be permitted to uphold his fiduciary responsibilities in spite of de Blasio’s persistence in asserting that everything will be cleaned up or straightened out later. Public Advocate Letitia James has talked a good game, suing the mayor over charter school approvals and demanding that he fire Bloomberg’s Human Rights Commissioner Patricia Gatling, who was likely on the way out anyway.

If we start seeing some high profile exits from inside the administration, that will be the sign that the structure is starting to crumble. For now, as long as Wall Street bonuses are keeping tax revenues flowing, the mayor and his cronies can continue to applaud themselves for having been elected to office.

AFFORDABLE HOUSING HEARING SKIRTS REAL SOLUTION 

Public housing parking lots occupy some of the city’s most valuable real estate, but when it comes to addressing the city’s housing crisis, preserving $5 monthly parking spots for NYCHA residents is considered sacred.

The City Council finally got around to holding hearings last week on the mayor’s grand housing plan, but a common sense solution to the housing crisis was explicitly kept off the table. 

In keeping with the trend toward density as a way to build in affordability, NYCHA’s 2013 “Infill” plan proposed leasing a number of NYCHA parking lots and other underdeveloped spaces in premium neighborhoods to developers. 

The plan seemed like a win-win: NYCHA would get much needed revenue to maintain its decaying physical plant, and the developers would build mandatory mixed income housing—with affordable and market rate units—increasing inventory for lower income New Yorkers.

After all, while parking spaces for NYCHA tenants are a great amenity for the residents, it is hard to argue that these parking lots are the most efficient use of space for cash-poor NYCHA. Renting the spots certainly doesn’t bring a lot of revenue: NYCHA residents pay as little as $60 for unreserved parking spots—per year.

Considering that the market rate for parking in lower Manhattan is hundreds of dollars per month, it’s not unreasonable to suggest that subsidizing parking isn’t the best use of NYCHA’s assets. However, when news of the Infill plan was floated, NYCHA tenants and their advocates went ballistic, claiming that a land grab was in progress, and that privatization of public housing, followed by eviction of NYCHA tenants, was in the works.

Public housing denizens are highly protective of their subsidized apartments, which are often handed down through the generations. Even attempts to reallocate underutilized apartments, where a senior citizen may live alone in a three-bedroom unit, are met with suspicion and hostility from the tenants and the elected officials who depend on the votes of these well organized blocs.

Even though the Infill plan explicitly stated it would not involve the loss of any public housing units, that rents would not go up and that it would result in new, permanently affordable housing, NYCHA residents reacted as though they were about to be put out on the street. Check out the transcripts of the April 2013 Public Housing Committee hearings if you are interested in the highly paranoid contemporary discourse around urban housing and displacement.

Council members, including the present Speaker, Melissa Mark-Viverito, and the current public advocate, Letitia James, filed suit to prevent the Infill plan from going forward. Then Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio, calling the plan “counterproductive,” indicated he would put the brakes on any NYCHA land leasing, and the project was basically killed.

At the hearing last week the role of NYCHA in the expansion of affordable housing was addressed obliquely and wistfully. Council members clearly understand that some form of infill would be a wise use of the “asset management matrix,” as Speaker Mark-Viverito referred to it, but politically it is a third rail. Too bad, because at the rate it is going,  the administration is a long way from attaining 200,000 affordable units.

Seth Barron (@NYCCouncilWatch on Twitter) runs City Council Watch, an investigative website focusing on local New York City politics.