Gifford Miller

City Comptroller Bill Thompson just released an audit that found the City Council under its previous speaker, Gifford Miller, violated the City Charter and its own internal regulations when it came to mailings, "spending $1.67 million for printing without entering into formal contracts,"

The report, which I haven't read yet in its entirety, is here.

This may be a quiet time when it comes to campaigning, but may also be the best time to get a new political company off the ground.

Earlier this month, 26-year-old lobbyist George Fontas founded New Gotham Strategies, LLC. Fontas said his campaign consulting gig will be completely separate from his current job at the lobbying firm, Capalino + Company.

Fontas managed Vinny Gentile’s general election in 2003, ran Gifford Miller’s field operation in South Brooklyn in 2005, and did some work on behalf of a 527 group trying to unseat a state Senator congressman upstate in 2006. So, what’s in store for 2009?

“The biggest concern is switching seats because a lot of that hasn’t shaken out yet,” Fontas told me. Which means plenty of behind-the-scenes work for consultants like him right now.

UPDATE: Fontas prefers to say he was "educating voters" during that 2006 race, rather than trying to"unseat" an elected official. There's more on that race over here.

Bill Thomson and Adolfo Carrion had a friendly chat during last night’s dinner for the Bronx Democratic County Organization at the Marina Del Rey.

At one point, I and two other reporters ran into Denny Farrell, who was hanging out with his daughter. He cheerily noted that earlier in the day he’d gotten another pro-congestion price mailing, making it three so far. “It must be good to be a billionaire,” he said. (The mayor, about whom Farrell was referring, has denied that he's providing any direct funding for the effort.) Then, Farrell rhetorically asked how many phone calls he’s gotten, smiled, and made a big zero with his fingers.

In introducing Christine Quinn, Assemblyman Jose Rivera, the county leader, said, “If I decide to go back to the City Council in ‘09, I want her to be my speaker again.”

Assemblyman Jeff Dinowitz told me he won’t be in town when Sheldon Silver convenes his conference meeting in Manhattan on July 16.

Non-Bronx officials who made their way to the dinner include David Weprin, Melinda Katz and Simcha Felder - all comptroller candidates in 2009, Assemblyman Michael Gianaris, and state Comptroller Tom DiNapoli. Also floating around the room were former City Council Speaker Gifford Miller (no tie!) and Democratic Mayoral candidate Fernando Ferrer.

And state Senator Efrain Gonzalez, who was indicted last year for misusing public money, was at the dinner before I arrived and stayed after I left, seemingly having a good time.

A reader passed on these fliers that were handed out over at the Gay Pride Parade this weekend. The fliers, which don't indicate who paid for them, highlight Christine Quinn's accomplishments in the LGBT community. I asked the Speaker's office where the fliers came from, and a spokesperson responded by telling me that they're given out every year.

Just for context -- and not to suggest a perfect analogy here -- it's worth remembering the controversy that ensnared Quinn's predecessor, Gifford Miller, in 2005 when he sent thinly-veiled campaign material into almost every Council district using taxpayer money. (It turned out to be a massive gift to his opponents.)

UPDATE: A Quinn spokesman tells Liz the fliers cost $54. The spokesman also notes that unlike the Gifford Miller fliers, these were relatively small in number and handed out in a non-election year. Which makes my comparing this to Miller’s mailing far-fetched, according to Liz.  read more »

In preparation for his all-but-officially declared run for mayor, Anthony Weiner has hired Lisa Hernandez Gioia, I've just confirmed.

She's an accomplished fund-raiser who most recently worked for one of Weiner's 2005 opponents, Gifford Miller. Of the many criticisms one could have made of Miller's mayoral run that year, the campaign's ability to raise money wasn't one of them. [link fixed]

It's another sign that Weiner,, an outsider in the 2005 mayoral race, will look a lot more like a front-runner in 2009. As he'll be the first to say.

-- Azi Paybarah

Last night, the Manhattan Surrogate's Courthouse--Tammany Hall's glorious Beaux Arts folly--played host to the City Council's annual Christmas party. The highlight, by unanimous consent, was a duet rendition of "Silent Night" by Council member Melinda Katz and former Council Speaker Gifford Miller.

Council members are said to have paid $35 a head for their staffers to attend the party, while lobbyists had to shell out $50.

There were a number of other parties as well, including one for Jerry Skurnik's political consulting firm, Prime New York. Efrain Gonzalez, the state senator from the Bronx recently indicted for embezzling more than $400,000 from charities in his district, was spotted at that one, according to one person who was there.

If anyone has pictures of the festivities--lampshade shots would be great--please forward them on.

UPDATE: The Politicker has been corrected--rather amusingly--by several anonymous commenters from City Hall. It seems some (all?) council members made their staffers pay their own way to the holiday party. Sheesh--you'd think there'd be room in the city budget for a couple free longnecks and a bowl of Fritos. Jimmy Walker would never have stood for this! Keep the outrage coming...

-- Azi Paybarah

One interesting detail amid the mega-coverage of Hillary Clinton's presidential gear-up is the hiring as her national field director of the highly capable Karen Hicks, who worked for Howard Dean in New Hampshire and for Gifford Miller here.

Hicks's recent New York stint ended somewhat unhappily: she was in charge of gathering petitions for Miller's 2005 mayoral campaign, allowing them to omit the salary and the cost of her operation from the list of expenditures that counted towards the campaign's overall spending limit. But when the Miller campaign publicly pointed out the campaign benefits of what she had done -- "We knocked on more than 150,000 doors of targeted primary voters to get their signatures and introduce them to Gifford" -- her role became one of a number of negative story lines that helped doom the campaign.

Not that anyone's expecting the prospective Clinton '08 campaign -- which is hardly going to lack for financial support -- to resort to accounting tricks to save money on staff salary.

-- Azi Paybarah

Eric Gioia will be courting the next generation of celebrity later this month. On April 27th Gioia will be feted by Donald Trump Jr., Justin Rockefeller, Spitzer-supporter Sara Weinstein, and almost first daughter Karenna Gore Schiff at Union Square's Spy Club in celebration of his birthday. The host committee also includes politicos Leecia Eve, Gifford Miller and Dirk McCall.

It sounds like Gioia's embracing the ideals (and cash) of Generation Engage, a non-profit co-founded by the young Rockefeller, and self-described as "a non-partisan effort aimed at raising the political profile of young adults."

For as little as $10 you too can mingle with these so-called next generation leaders and find out how often they day trip in Sunnyside.

—Nicole Brydson

In a brief respite from the fired council staffers, here is a list of Christine Quinn's new hires:

Elizabeth Fine, General Counsel -worked in the Clinton White House

Kevin Wardally, Deputy Chief of Staff -former senior political advisor to Gifford Miller

Maura Keaney, Deputy Chief of Staff -ran GOTV operations for Mike's re-election

Ululy Martinez, Deputy Chief of Staff -former counsel to Jose Rivera

Rob Newman, Legislative Director -Council staffer since 1999

Lucy Mayo, Policy Director -once worked for Quinn's old boss, Tom Duane

Maria Alvarado, Press Secretary -council staffer since 2003 and worked on Miller's campaign

-Azi Paybarah

On Dec.  read more »

41 Million Tourists Can’t Be Wrong    read more »

On Dec.  read more »

Now that Christine Quinn has been officially sworn in to head the City Council, outgoing speaker Gifford Miller might be spending a bit more time around the house, plotting his next political move.

So why not join him?

A two-bedroom, two-bath duplex is available in Miller’s 82nd Street co-op. The apartment came on the market in the end of June at $1.2 million, listed with Gina Serman of the Corcoran Group. The price was increased slightly a month later.

Spend cold winter nights by the woodburning fireplace, cramming for your Fordham Law exams. And grill burgers all summer in the 500-square-foot backyard.  read more »

-Michael Calderone UPDATE: Sometime after 2pm, this listing vanished from the broker's homepage under properties for sale. It is now showing up as "rented." So perhaps Giff has a new neighbor after all.

People around City Hall have said for a while that Mike would prefer Chris Quinn as Speaker to Bill de Blasio.

And here's a tidbit in support of that thesis: Quinn retained as a consultant on her run Josh Isay, the same ex-Schumer aide who was a consultant to Bloomberg's reelection campaign. (It was a very good year for Isay and partner Micah Lasher, who also ran Scott Stringer's campaign for Borough President.)

But why would Mike like Chris? She's genuinely combative, and played a key role in foiling the stadium project.

Still, she's by her roots a local pol, not -- like de Blasio -- a Democratic operative who might have set himself up as an ideological or partisan challenger to the Mayor.

What's more, de Blasio might have fit more easily into the role of rallying constituencies outside the Mayor's liberal Manhattan base. He's an outer-borough guy with an Italian name. His roots in the black community go back to his years with Dinkins. He has ties to Democratic activists around Hillary Clinton and John Edwards.

Chris's personal style is much more combative than Bill's or Gifford Miller's, but her base is a subset of Mike's own. So the threat she poses to Mike seems, like Giff's, limited.  read more »

NOTE: One other indicator I neglected to mention: Borough Park's Simcha Felder came out for Chris in a fashion particularly damaging to de Blasio, something one thinks he might have at least run past the folks in Bloomberg's political operation after working so hard for Mike's reelection.

Yesterday may have been the marked by the ceremony surrounding the Mayor's inauguration, but it was the Speaker's race that made for the most interesting political theater, or at least choreography.

As speaker candidate Christine Quinn stepped out of Gifford Miller's office, she stopped dead in her tracks, noticing that her main rival for the job, Bill de Blasio, was speaking frantically on his phone in a City Hall foyer crowded with just about every commissioner and pol in city government. Quinn's entourage quickly closed ranks around her, and they all stepped back, strategizing in whispers about how to make it to the door without bumping into de Blasio. Their apparent solution was to form a tight circle around her, using a Councilmember buffer to get her safely to the door.  read more »

According to this blog,which keeps an eye on the race, Queens county leaders have given up on electing one of their own, and are planning to again cash in their voting bloc in the form of key chairmanships.

"Where Queens goes, the Speaker goes," Queens Councilman David Weprin told The Politicker yesterday.

Moskowitz and Miller: Two Rising Stars    read more »

Moskowitz and Miller: Two Rising Stars  read more »

Second Thoughts On Term Limits    read more »

New York City is more populous than 100 of the world’s countries, and yet our Mayor’s ra  read more »

Politicker intern David Greenhouse attended the East Side City Council candidates' forum last night. He writes in with this dispatch:

"In the District 5 debate, an audience member asked about the 91st St garbage transfer station. Joel Zinberg, Mike's man in District 5, was strongly opposed to the station, a position that shows, intriguingly, how he may not stand with the mayor when it's inconvenient for him to do so.

"Jessica Lappin was a bit more moderate and said she'd allow a recycling station, a stance that aligns with the position of Giff Miller, her her former boss.

"Zinberg also took a dig at Giff's classic public school gaffe. 'I have a four-year-old daughter who will be attending public school next year,' he said. 'Because some parents have actually thought about where our daughters are going next year.'

"Meanwhile, over in District 4, Dan Garodnick kept emphasizing his role in suing the city on behalf of same-sex couples denied marriage licenses. Clearly, he was trying to take the issue away from Patrick Murphy -- but do most voters even know about Murphy's leadership on gay rights?

"Candidates were asked which politicians they admired on the other side of the aisle. Garodnick said, 'I must admit that I admire the Mayor. This is a mayor who arguably is of the other party ...' (cue laughter). Garodnick added, however, that he would not be endorsing either mayoral candidate.  read more »

"Murphy's closing statement also drew laughter. 'This is such an incredibly rich district,' he said. 'And I don't mean financially, I mean, we have... Although, that too.'"

City Council members hoping for a quick roll-back of term limits before this session ends will apparently be disappointed.

Henry Stern writes on his Web site:

"We received a call this afternoon from Steve Sigmund, director of communications for Council Speaker Gifford Miller. He told us that the Speaker would not initiate, participate in, or support any effort by the Council in 2005 to revise or repeal the term limits imposed by public referenda."

This, Stern says, makes a "coup" less likely. Whew.  read more »

But with the candidates to replace Miller promising some change to term limits -- how else will they get support? -- this seems unlikely to end here.

This week in the paper:

The Transom, as a former employee of the profile subject, will not comment on Tom Scocca's profile of Nick Denton. However, The Transom will quote this paragraph:

"I do find bizarre the level of interest in the finances of a private company," Mr. Denton instant-messaged. "A small private company.... Without an office, even." In his humility, Mr. Denton sounded like a man cruising the Jersey Turnpike on a motor scooter that appears to run on bathwater: Why are you interested in my little scooter? It doesn't carry anywhere near as many people as your gasoline-powered S.U.V.

Indeed.

The Transom, led by correspondent Brook S. Mason, postulates this week that Moscow is the New Paris. They're rich, baby! Also: Anna Wintour throws an awkward party for George Clooney, and sad-sack Gifford Miller wanders the streets of Manhattan licking candy apples.

Hey, have you been Kunkeled? So many people have these days! Matt Haber recalls life on Chambers Street where Benjamin Kunkel borrowed a set for scenes in his novel Indecision.

Thomas Krens is out, after 17 years, as director of the Guggenheim. But can museums survive his heinous legacy? Tyler Green looks back on an era, and chats with new Gugg director Lisa Dennison.

What goes on inside that hip Danny Meyer burgerstand? It's Shake Shack Confidential!  read more »

Justine Levy, glam Parisian daughter of Bernard-Henri Lévy, comes to America to dish the dirt.

Alexandra Jacobs confronts her own media-whoredom after her Jet Blue "national event."

The excitement of Primary Night no doubt caused millions of New Yorkers to lose seconds, perhaps eve  read more »

In the hours leading up to his defeat in the Democratic Mayoral primary, Gifford Miller campaigned v  read more »

Has this been a terrible month for George W. Bush?  read more »

Has this been a terrible month for George W. Bush?  read more »

Jess Bruder and I saw Bill Clinton in his element, and Hillary not quite as much, at the Clinton Global Initiative last week.

One item that may not jump out of the piece, but that's worth keeping an eye on: Hillary's commencement speech this spring at RPI seems to have laid out her most coherent critique of the Bush Administration, one grounded in science, and one that seems central to the way she thinks these days.  read more »

Also today, Jason Horowitz looks at Gifford Miller and wonders about the impact of term limits on some of the city's most promising politicians and the political landscape.

One take: "As soon as they get in there, they are looking for their next job, plotting rather than focusing on the job in front of them," said David Mark, editor of Washington's Campaigns & Elections magazine, who believes that term limits actually create career politicians.

As the clock ran out on a Democratic Mayoral primary notable for its lethargy, front-runner Fernando  read more »

Perhaps the truest measure of how little way institutional support and government office get you in this town is this Bronx vote total:

Christopher X. Brodeur: 4,921 Gifford Miller: 3,219.

Brodeur, whose main campaign activity was haranguing reporters (who mostly ignored him), called to do some well-justified gloating this afternoon about the contrast between his $200 budget and sparse campaign schedule and Miller's operation.

"I sat at home and drank beer and played guitar... while he kissed every ass in town," he said.

The mysteries of politics!  read more »

Gifford Miller greeted bleary-eyed commuters at 96th street and Broadway with a chorus of volunteers behind him. "What time is it?" Mayor Time," they sang as he squeezed hands and tunelessly hummed some song with the lyrics "oh well I know I must be free."

But not all the volunteers' chants worked so well. "Give me an M" got nothing butter a murmur. "For Christ's sake," said one disappointed volunteer.

Luckily, Judge H. Steed jumped on the scene. After pledging his support for Miller in a rant that ended in a hug from the candidate, Steed demanded a campaign sign and started his own cheer. "Michael Jackson may be chiller, but we vote for Gifford Miller!"

As Miller's aides debated whether Steed was deranged, a drunk or on crack, the campaign's best cheerleader screamed out an inspired "You can think about it, or you can be about it. Gifford Miller!"  read more »

A reader passes on this flyer, picked up in around the Atlantic Avenue subway station in Brooklyn.

Beneath the images of the Rev. and Mayor David Dinkins are the candidates they actually back in the local races -- City Council Member Letitia James, District Attorney candidate John Sampson -- and, beneath them, a few more names, including "Gifford Miller for Mayor of New York City."  read more »

There's a thin black line that seems meant to allow them to claim that they're keeping Miller and the others apart from the Sharpton endorsement, but the message is clear.

"A typical Brooklyn Democratic organization trick," says the reader.

On Tuesday, Sept.  read more »

On Tuesday, Sept.  read more »

Another aspect of the Times's Snyder endorsement is the way in which it will raise the tempo of that race, and drive turnout in Manhattan. It's one of a number of exciting downballot races -- Borough President and City Council in Manhattan, D.A. in Brooklyn in particular -- that seem likely to raise turnout in ways that could help Gifford Miller and Virginia Fields.

The more white and African-American Democrats in Manhattan and Brooklyn go to the polls, the less likely it is that a Hispanic surge for Ferrer will push him over 40%. Or that's how it seems to me.  read more »

And with that observation, The Politicker is taking the rest of the day off. We'll be back -- at work, in Manhattan, for the duration of this cycle, sigh -- tomorrow.

So there was A.  read more »

The recent debates among the four Democratic Mayoral candidates proved without question that the rea  read more »

In less than a month, the city will pause to remember the terrorist attacks that destroyed the World  read more »

On a good day, you can squint at the four Democrats seeking to be the next Mayor of New York and the  read more »

In less than a month, the city will pause to remember the terrorist attacks that destroyed the World  read more »

Not to be upstaged by Weiner's shocking and (ahem!) formal declaration of his mayoral candidacy yesterday, Team Giff issued a release last night, one that really threw down the gauntlet: "Miller for Mayor Announces that Miller is a Candidate for Mayor."

"It's official, Gifford Miller is a candidate for Mayor," wrote communications director Steve Sigmund. "He calls on every serious candidate in the race to make their intentions clear (beyond the months of campaigning, fundraising, policy announcements, endorsements, debates, and forums...that is)."  read more »

All bets are off.

Oliver Koppell is being dragged into Miller's flyer mess.

His challenger is demanding that Koppell's campaign pay for the taxpayer-funded newsletter Giff sent to his district.

"The cost of possibly illegal literature authorized by City Council Speaker Gifford Miller and Councilmember Oliver Koppell, and mailed in the 11th District, should count towards the Koppell Leadership Committee threshold," Ari Hoffnung wrote to the CFB.

"Any fines levied against Gifford Miller for New York mailings to the 11th Council District should extend to the Koppell Leadership Committee."  read more »

A CFB spokeswoman said they're looking into the complaint.

George Pataki turned up in the cornfields of Iowa last weekend, after giving his aides the green lig  read more »

Invitations are circulating to a gathering at gay activist Allan Roskoff's West Village apartment next Wednesday evening, where he and Mark Green aide Corey Johnson are hosting an "important" Sharpton event. The Rev. and Marjorie Harris are launching a campaign against AIDS and homophobia in communities of color.

Gifford Miller is expected, and the other candidates for Mayor have been invited.  read more »

You in the comments section: Be nice.

Over brie and wine at the gallery theXpo in the fashionable Brooklyn neighborhood of Dumbo last week, Gifford Miller raised some eyebrows with a new version of his East Side childhood.

The Speaker grew up, he casually mentioned, in "East Harlem," according to two attendees.  read more »

One guest at the event speculates that it was "a way to connect with the young gentrifiers."

UPDATE: Miller spokesman Reggie Johnson emails: "The Politicker's characterization of Gifford Miller's statements at a recent 'theXpo' event is inaccurate and false. Gifford didn't contend or suggest in anyway that he had ever been a resident of East Harlem. As he has often done before, Gifford spoke of his parent's service to the East Harlem Community Board 11 and how their long time service has given him a special connection to the community. Any contention that he said anything more would be patently false." The Politicker wasn't there, but two people who were report they heard Miller say, "I grew up in East Harlem where my father was a member of the community board."

Democrats seemed happy to stay with the Karl Rove theme today, from the draft council resolution from Gifford Miller calling for Rove's removal to C. Virginia Fields' statement knocking Bloomberg's "weak response" to his statements. There's no obvious downside for them in continuing to express their anger at Rove for what he said, and at Pataki and Bloomberg for what they didn't. But will it help them? Pataki has used the Rove affair as an excuse to go on the attack by repeating Republican talking points on the Dick Durbin stuff. And Bloomberg's handlers seem to have decided that the mayor no longer needs to deal with Rove's comments at all. Bloomberg made it through a radio appearance and a public event in Harlem today without expanding upon the artfully bland statement he made yesterday. So that makes nothing from him today and, I presume, nothing over the weekend. It has apparently fallen to enterprising, if lesser-known, Republicans like Senate hopeful John Spencer to engage the Democrats: the former Yonkers mayor is holding a press conference later today outside Hillary Clinton's Senate office to denounce comments she made about the Iraq war. The conversation about outrageous comments, jump-started by Rove, will continue to provide great fodder for local bloggers until something better comes along. But I'm wondering where the point of diminishing returns is for everyone else.  read more »

Gifford's chosen an interesting tack on his relative youth in this piece of street literature, which we found in Brooklyn yesterday and which his campaign kindly sent over today.

It begins: "They said he was too young to lead the City Council. Gifford Miller proved them wrong.... Gifford Miller has always been impatient about getting results. Now -- at 35 -- his drive, energy, and new ideas may be just what New York City needs."  read more »

Unrelatedly, where exactly is Giff looking in that bottom left picture on the first page?

Maybe Angelo Dundee, the wise and wizened trainer of Muhammad Ali, should have been a political cons  read more »

Remember when Giff announced the endorsements of three East Harlem district leaders, and then two didn't show up?

Well, they've done it again.

Today, Miller announced the endorsements of "more than two dozen" black ministers.

We just spoke to one of them, Clinton Miller of Brown Memorial Baptist Church in Fort Greene.  read more »

"I did not endorse Gifford Miller. My name should not be on that list," he told us. "At this point in my ministry, I don't make political endorsements, and that was made clear to all those candidates who have asked."

Google "Gifford Miller." Or "Freddy Ferrer." Or "Virginia Fields."

And check out who bought the ad on the right side of the page.  read more »

Miller aide Steve Sigmund offered this reaction: "Like any public figure, Gifford Miller accepts that obsessive fans are sometimes part of the job."

"If I see Anthony Weiner, I'm gonna kick him in the balls!"Woody Johnson was kidding around at the a  read more »