Political Influence, Borough Boards
And Business As Usual

The crocuses and daffodils are blooming. Along the way, take time to smell the flowers.

Lobbying, the age-old profession – not unlike the oldest of professions – is alive and well in New York City. With the changing of the guard in the Executive Mansion (or Mayor Mike’s living quarters) and at City Hall, new faces and powers emerge to compete with the old in the process of providing access to the folks that run the City.

With the departure of Rudy Giuliani and his team, old time lobbying firms scrape to build new relationships with Mayor Mike and Company.

One of City Hall’s top lobbyists during the recent Rudy years was Carl Figliola & Associates. Figliola, a golfing buddy of Rudy, raked in the green by having access on the greens. Now, while he figures out how to share a golf cart with Mayor Mike, the college professor lobbyist has opened his checkbook to attract big name politicos who were term limited out of office.

Unconfirmed reports have former Queens Borough President and friend of Rudy Claire Shulman about to join the firm. Her Deputy Beep, Peter Magnani is also reported to be engaged in talks with Figliola. Other Queens targets of the Figliola power show include former City Comptroller (and State Comptroller candidate) Alan Hevesi and his Deputy Jack Chartier, as well as cousin of Rudy, Cathy Giuliani.

Playing the game on the Council side of City Hall, using a lot less money but an impressive recent track record, is the Parkside Group — a Queens based consulting firm that has already taken its seat at the power table. The firm’s troika — Evan Stavisky, Bill Driscoll and Harry Gianulis — have each, in their own right, demonstrated a political sophistication, built an impressive network and successfully toiled in the political fields. Their combined energies have proven even more effective. In the recent City Council free-for-all elections, the firm successfully guided their candidates to victory in 6 of 9 Queens races in which they were involved. Additional victories in the Bronx and Staten Island helped move them to the top of the campaign consulting charts.

Then they parlayed their influence into coalition building on behalf of A. Gifford Miller, the Manhattan councilman who became council speaker. Parkside’s quiet role may have gone unnoticed by the press in the hotly contested speaker race, but Queens County insiders will tell you that the firm’s professionalism, persistence, skill and network were instrumental in delivering and solidifying the victorious coalition. Now, this Queens-based firm, has the potential of achieving citywide recognition as not only a premiere campaign consulting firm, but also as one of the City’s most influential lobbyists.

We heard, that a new candidate has been added to Parkside’s long list.

Last week we predicted in this column that Michelle Titus would receive the Democratic County designation and go on to walk away with the April 16 Special Election to the Assembly in Southeastern Queens 31st District. Last Friday, Titus was indeed given the Democratic line and, we understand, selected Parkside to guide her candidacy.

Speaking about influence, those folks who were term limited out of office are not going away. We’ll keep you informed as we hear where former “team Queens” winds up.

But in one of the most interesting role reversals in City political annals, former Council Minority leader Tom Ognibene is becoming a part-time counsel to the new City Council Minority Leader James Oddo who served for four years as counsel to Minority Leader Ognibene.

Got that?

The very small handful of Republicans on the City Council get to pick their minority leader who gets perks, extra money and staff. He selects the counsel to the minority. Oddo, the Staten Island Republican, has offered the $35,000 per year part-time post to his former boss. In this case, it may be more than political payback. Ognibene is a skilled legislator and bright attorney with a wealth of knowledge about City government.

For those who don’t remember, it was allegations late last year of gift taking from someone involved in a Buildings Department scandal that cost the 10-year Council veteran Ognibene a judgeship appointment from Governor Pataki. Now the Queens Conservative Republican will join the minority staff in addition to pursuing his private law practice specializing in real estate.

Last Monday, Tribune  editor Tamara Hartman covered the Queens Borough Board meeting concerning the City budget cuts. Like the professional journalist that she is, her page 3 story accurately portrayed what took place.

She worked hard to craft last week’s story to enable people to understand the meeting without coloring it with her perceptions.

Perceptions, however, she had — and they were strong.

On Tuesday morning following the Monday evening meeting, Tamara came into my office to chat about the news. Although we both are often over our heads with work, we enjoy bouncing news concepts off each other and do so in shorthand so as to quickly get back to the day’s tasks.

Unlike most, this was Tamara’s morning, she wanted to bring her thoughts to me — most often it’s the other way around — so that we can both grasp the whole picture as we move forward covering the intricacies of Queens news.

I write the reaction below at home. Tamara isn’t here to provide her spin. I didn’t record our chat or take notes. I do feel comfortable in crafting Tamara’s concepts from memory because she is the one that edits this page and will take the liberty of correcting anything she believes is a slight misstatement. I share her perceptions and I’ve tried to expand some of her shorthand and detail some of the unspoken but understood thoughts. My crayons, perhaps colored her concepts. But I’m sure she likes the colors.

Tamara emoted that the Borough Board meeting was incredible. It was refreshing how the new guys (the recently-elected Council members) wanted to do things differently. Helen (Queens Beep Marshall) and Alex (her chief of staff Alex Rosa) merely followed the old game plan (Claire Shulman’s procedure used at budget presentations for the past decade and a half) while many of the new guys really wanted to ask questions and get substantive answers.

These meetings are attended by Queens Community Board District Managers and Council members and were, during the Shulman years, a place to rubber stamp whatever the Beep said. The old Council members rarely if ever tangled with the omnipotent Beep. Well, no one told some of the new Council members that the same was expected. Although they didn’t directly take on Marshall and Rosa, they did ask probing questions unheard in meetings during the previous administration.

The meeting was to air and approve the Queens Beep’s reaction to the Mayor’s proposed budget cuts. And apparently on just about each and every item, the presentation explained why the cuts were unacceptable to our borough. In a time when the City has a real fiscal crisis, restoring discretionary funds for Council members and the Beep so they could finance their pet projects was near the top of the Queens list.  It seemed that some of the Council members might have been ready to sacrifice that political plum in order to bring fiscal responsibility to a distressed City and a mature approach to budget negotiations. The new guys came looking for solutions.

John Liu asked for some total dollar numbers that should have been there. Peter Vallone (Junior) and Melinda Katz wanted to know what Boro Hall would cut instead. James Sanders even posed the possibility that taxes might have to be raised.

Alex Rosa instructed that we don’t do it that way. Marshall reiterated that as a Council member she’s been through the process and this is how it’s done, refusing, at this point, to offer any alternative item, which could be cut.

Even though Borough Hall didn’t alter its approach from the last decade, Tamara noted, it was good to have Council members actively participating and not mired in past practices or obediently following the Beep’s lead. Several of them were there to solve problems and not necessarily blindly carry back the “you can’t cut Queens” message.

They wanted real priorities and seemed uncomfortable fighting for choral groups while school overcrowding or library hours were on the chopping block.

Ultimately, the new guys did back down and let the Queens Beep off the hook to play it her way.

But these newcomers will grow. They, like the rest of City government, will learn that the people demanded term limits because they no longer want to hear “that’s the way its always been done.”

Tamara and I agreed: The system is broken and we look to the the new guys to fix it. The City is in financial trouble and the people are prepared to sacrifice. Those who want to maintain the status quo are doomed to become part of the past.

We look to the new Council members to protect our borough, to insure that we get our fair share of the pie.

To provide an education to our kids and safety to our streets. But they know very well that some things must go.

We look to them to lead the budget process for the good of our Borough and City.

Change, my friends, is often good.

Headline Writing: The Post Rules

New York’s three tabloid dailies occasionally promote the same story on their front pages.

Daily News	Newsday

Last Wednesday, March 13, they all led with the story of the senseless murder of Rev. Lawrence Penzes while conducting mass at his Lynbrook, Long Island church.

Although a tragic story with no redeeming moral lesson, the page one editors of the three tabs all agreed this was the story that would get readers to pick up their papers.

Invariably, when there is such a fight for reader’s eyes, The New York Post, the paper that brought you, “Headless Body Found In Topless Bar,” takes the craft of headline writing one notch above the others. While the Daily News accurately reported, “Priest Slain At Mass,” and Newsday blared, Murder At Mass,” The Post’s headline writing genius crafted, “Mass Murder.”

Accurate?

Yes, think about it.

Compelling?

Absolutely, as clever a play on two words as we see on page one.

In our craft, good wordsmanship is second only to good reporting.

We congratulate the Post, one out of two, ain’t bad.

Not4Publication.com by Dom Nunziato

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Michael Schenkler can be reached at: MSchenkler@queenspress.com