Striking how Brooklyn accounts for both the top 5 Mamdani (blue) and top 5 Cuomo (purple) districts

ah, perhaps instead of pumping millions into endless factional infighting Dem donors could invest in making local Dem organizations genuine civic spaces that can reach people during and between elections

I know there’s other stuff going on tonight too, but … NYC’s Charter now has new processes to approve more affordable housing, more quickly, and in more places.

I don’t care what your political sympathies are, you can’t just post “BREAKING: [candidate of my choice] wins” without citing which reputable source has called the race No, not even in an off-year election

Game 7 tension + house full of Halloween candy = bad scene

Priorities

As you prepare to vote, NYC, please read my op-ed about the importance of NYC voting yes on questions 2 through 5: www.vitalcitynyc.org/articles/fli... These changes aren’t about the needs of politicians. They’re about the needs of New Yorkers. /1

A friend of mine in Chicago just shared a video on IG of an ICE operation near her house. The operation happened just minutes before the neighborhood Halloween parade. ICE used tear gas and multiple parents had to wash their kids' (including toddlers) eyes out.

Unstated background for this NYT point/counterpoint piece: One author has financed tens of thousands of units of affordable housing. The other has built none, and made a career of arguing against building proposals. Guess which says YES on affordable housing. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/25/o...

For people looking to tune out the noise and understand NYC’s affordable housing ballot questions (#2-5), here’s a tl;dr: They would tame the hyperlocalism of “member deference,” which contributes to housing shortages and segregation - in NYC and Chicago: www.povertylaw.org/article/shri...

NYC’s avant press never ceases to amaze me nygroove.nyc/housing-refe...

Great piece from @errollouis.bsky.social about how important a yes vote on ballot questions 2, 3, 4, 5 is to NYC’s ability to take on our affordability crisis. You’ll see obfuscation and name-calling, but no solutions from those who say the current system is just fine. nymag.com/intelligence...

Doing right with courage gives courage. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/15/u...

The City Council and its Charter Revision Commission continue to use public funds to conduct a campaign against ballot questions proponents say will spur affordable housing. Even in 2025, from a good government (ethical, legal) perspective, this is shocking. www.crainsnewyork.com/politics-pol...

Curious choice of location for this event opposing Charter reforms that would tame member deference: Essex Crossing, a site built with affordable housing today, but which sat vacant for decades because of ... ... opposition to affordable housing development from a powerful local elected official.

There is a shortage of fearless, topical journalism in institutions once known for this

People need to look at these pictures and ask, is this America? Does this look like America? Does this look like the America you want it to be? open.substack.com/pub/charlies...

Headed off scene. Local community understandably very upset. I still personally don't have any details on the reported shooting incident that led to today's protest. WBEZ has a story out; remember things are still developing and details can change quickly. www.wbez.org/immigration/...

Surreal moment for America. Needless to say, if the normal police ever pulled something like this — pulling every single person out of an apartment building and handcuffing them to run warrant checks — they would be sued into oblivion. Yet ICE is going to get away with it entirely.

So, the idea is that there should be an environmental review for a referendum to change the City's land use review processes? The processes set up in 1989 without an environmental review. And modified in 2019 without an environmental review. Charter referenda don't have environmental reviews.

Kudos to the NYC Council for approving Just Home - an important project, bottled up for too long without even a hearing - and another affordable development, both over local member objections. In a city that treats affordability as an urgent priority, actions like this would not be exceptional.

A new op-ed from CHPC’s @hslatkin.bsky.social in @vitalcitynyc.bsky.social illuminates how misunderstanding of rent-stabilized apartment data is contributing to a mounting financial crisis in the housing New York City's low-income residents rely on. www.vitalcitynyc.org/articles/the...

Ironic, isn’t it?

This may be hard, but it isn’t complicated. Political violence is intolerable. Political rhetoric that stokes violence - by vigilantes or agents of the state - is a tool of political violence, and is intolerable. Condemn and reject all leaders who stir the pot of political violence.

This would be daylight robbery of NYC’s democratic process.

Reads like the statute guiding the actions of the Charter Commission. If you feel like the Charter Commission has failed to meet that standard, you'd sue the charter commission and force them to redraft the questions — which were published two months ago, fwiw. BOE as an end-run is baaaaaaaaaaad.

Let’s be clear about what’s being cooked up here: A handful of officials say they’ll defend the integrity of the public review process for housing by … unlawfully suppressing a legitimate voter referendum created through months of public hearings. Burying democratic integrity with political dirt.

This is NYC’s equivalent of a phone call to the Board of Elections demanding they find 11,270 votes. It’s a five-alarm fire for democracy and honoring election laws. Don’t let the BoE deprive New Yorkers of a vote they’re entitled to. And shame on anyone who allies with them against democracy.

Republicans on NYC's Board of Elections think they can illegally overrule ballot questions—or at least delay for long enough that the questions can't be printed on ballots. Signal boost, send emails, and help us stop them:

Compassionate conservatives, where are you now www.cnn.com/2025/08/14/b...

The @mta.info ought to do something about the widespread glitches in the info about transfers that’s posted on the LED boards in subway cars. No, you can’t transfer from the R to the L in all these stations. I see these glitches all the time. Let’s help out tourists and visitors.

Excellent piece from Samantha Magistro of Bronx Pro in the Commercial Observer. The Adams administration’s retreat from commitments to build Haven Green is an ominous signal to the partnerships that drive NYC’s creation of affordable housing. commercialobserver.com/2025/07/new-...

"Five months into its unprecedented dismantling of foreign-aid programs, the Trump administration has given the order to incinerate food instead of sending it to people who need it" @hana-kiros.bsky.social, on spending $130,000 to burn food worth $800,000 www.theatlantic.com/health/archi...

I’m finding this Independence Day a time to reflect on the society we aspire to. In order to create it, we must be able to imagine it. Some thoughts. /1

I don’t think anyone is prepared for what they just did w/ ICE. This is not a simple budget increase. It is an explosion - making ICE bigger than the FBI, US Bureau of Prisons, DEA,& others combined. It is setting up to make what’s happening now look like child’s play. And people are disappearing.

USDA funding was gutted and now the honeybees we need for food are being devastated by a crisis that scientists knew was coming but were powerless to stop An extremely alarming tale of what happens when you don't have sufficient foresight and state capacity: www.science.org/content/arti...

GOP reconciliation bill's effects: —Poorest 1/5 of earners: *declining* after-tax incomes —Those making >$3 m/year gain $118,000 —12 m people become uninsured —3.2 m people lose food stamps —US stops its efforts to combat climate change —$122 billion spent on deportation & concentration camps

The evil bill is on its way to the House. Cancelled our events at home for the week and just got to DC. I’m getting ready to debate. Please help us stop this. Link below 👇🏾 indivisible.org/stopthecuts

I once met a man named Jacob. He was in his seventies, a small man, stooped and bent, who looked much older than he was. He was kind and gracious, and was used to people being put off by his posture and size. His story of how he ended up like that is informative. 1/

Invisible in the foreground of this article is the city’s regulated affordable housing - the units financed specifically to be affordable to low-income New Yorkers - whose owners, government, nonprofit, for-profit, are struggling to cover operating costs. www.crainsnewyork.com/real-estate/...

GOP Sen. Thom Tillis says Trump's mega-bill is bad for North Carolina: "This will force the state to make painful decisions like eliminating Medicaid coverage for hundreds of thousands in the expansion population, and even reducing critical services for those in the traditional Medicaid population."

Thread — find your state, call your reps

Senate Republicans dropped a nearly 1,000-page “Big Beautiful Bill” in the DEAD OF THE NIGHT. And they want to vote on it TODAY. Trump is jamming through a bill that rips away health care, closes hospitals, raises grocery and utility bills to give tax breaks to billionaires.

In the Quinnipiac poll The “big beautiful bill” has 29% approval. Meanwhile ICE is 39/56

A new Fox News poll on the "One Big Beautiful Bill":

Yes, I agree — it would be terrible. Please do NOT share this information!!!

Note: this is a housing policy post, not a politics post. But a quote like this highlights a common blind spot in the public conversation. If housing policy focuses only on keeping rents low but not also on paying the costs of operating, it’s going to hurt the tenants it’s trying to help. A 🧵: /1

The Adams administration, evidently under new management, appears to have begun dismantling its remarkable affordable housing legacy. How much further will it go to destroy what it has created? /1 www.thecity.nyc/2025/06/23/e...

Randy Mastro's announcement this morning that the City was abandoning the construction of 123 units of senior housing in SoHo/NoHo has created a new scourge that I'll call ZOMBYism. It's NIMBYism from beyond the grave. /1