Putting together a power list

In the latest issue of City & State magazine you’ll find our first ever Borough 50 list: a look at the 50 most influential people in Staten Island, excluding elected officials and only including people who live in the borough.

I wanted to explain in more detail how we approached compiling this list.

It started with an editorial goal. When I took over as executive editor in 2015, my objective for the New York City and Albany Power 100 lists was to explain how city and state government really works. We look closely at the state constitutional or charter powers and how respective administrations use those powers. We then look at the individuals who have the most influence over these people. This is why top union bosses or real estate moguls with close ties to the mayor or governor will always be higher on the list than any rank-and-file lawmaker. From there we talk to trusted sources, making sure to ask probing questions about who has access, who is trusted, how each person impacts the political ecosystem.

Then we bring all that information into meetings with our staff and we debate, comparing what we hear from our sources to try and determine to the best of our ability what is true. This process, and these lists, go a long way toward shaping our coverage. We have found it to be a very effective way to learn about the space we cover and to better explain that space to our audience.

In tackling the Staten Island 50, we sought to use the same standards. Yet it was much harder to compile because we were shining a spotlight on a community where we have not done extensive coverage. This was a learning experience for us, and I truly believe the list will be a great resource for anyone who wants to understand borough-level politics.

My biggest takeaway from this project was how united Staten Island is. While there are distinctly different communities on the North Shore, South Shore and mid-island areas of the borough, the power structures and institutions that exist are not as focused on neighborhoods, like I suspect they are in the other four boroughs. Also, it seemed that on Staten Island there is a unifying theme of “us versus the rest of the city” that goes a long way toward bringing Republicans, Democrats, nonprofits, developers and business leaders together to help each other out. Dedication to the borough and a history of good work seemed to carry a lot more weight than political stripes.

This sentiment is reflected in our list. It has more nonprofit leaders and heads of institutions than political power brokers. There is still politics being played, but people we spoke to – regardless of their political party – all seemed to float the same names for the list.

During the rest of the year we will be doing this project in the other four boroughs (you can nominate people here). I am interested to see if my assessment that Staten Island is more unified is correct.