During an address at a Center for Working Families conference yesterday, New York State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver said that Gov. Spitzer may consider delaying a fare hike. Spitzer already changed his mind about raising the base fare above $2 a ride and limiting any hikes to multi-ride metrocards. Only 15% of riders actually use the $2-a-ride cards though. Silver told the Daily News that he's been urging the governor to postpone any fare......

A storefront at the corner of Vanderbilt Avenue and 43rd Street (across from Grand Central) may be a window into the future of the West Side Rail Yards. The MTA unveiled an exhibition of the five proposals to redevelop the rail yards on the Far West Side of Manhattan, and the public will get a chance to see the models every day (except Thanksgiving) through December 3. And what's more, the MTA wants the......

Even though speculation is running high/wistful on a Michael Bloomberg presidential candidacy (maybe because all the other confirmed candidates are boring - or reporters are bored of covering the other candidates), the Post resurrects a rumor from earlier this year: Bloomberg wanting to run for governor against Spitzer in 2010. Back in May, the Post claimed the Mayor had discussed running for governor on two occasions, but the Mayor said the reports were completely made......

After many attempts by World Trade Center developer Larry Silverstein and state officials to keep brokerage Merrill Lynch downtown, the NY Times reports the firm "appears ready" to move to a new, yet-to-be built skyscraper on Seventh Avenue between 32nd and 33rd Streets. Currently Merrill Lynch has offices at 4 World Financial Center, and it seems that it wants "extra large trading floors." It's questionable whether a Midtown building to accommodate 11,000 employees would be......

Rensselaer County Clerk Frank J. Merola is unhappy with Gov. Spitzer's plan to issue drivers licenses to illegal immigrants. As an employee of the State, he has no legal discretion over whether he can ignore the plan once it's enacted, so he's filed a lawsuit to block the initiative in state Supreme Court in Albany. In a statement explaining his lawsuit. County Clerk Frank Merola alluded to a recent public opinion poll that showed......

NY state officials are expected to release the draft scope for the Moynihan Station's environmental impact statement today, which the NY Sun calls the "Spitzer administration's first public display of forward progress" on the project. The redevelopment of Penn Station into a Moynihan Station at the James Farley Post Office building on Eighth Avenue has been in the works for years. In fact, it was October 8 five years ago that the state officially acquired......

State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver made a public plea to Gov. Eliot Spitzer to cool down his feud with State Senate Leader Joseph Bruno. The so-called Troopergate scandal began when the Governor allegedly sicced State Police on Bruno to monitor his business travel practices. In the aftermath, Spitzer lost some of his long-time aides when he claimed he knew nothing about the surveillance and they resigned. Darren Dopp recently was hired as a lobbyist after......

Darren Dopp, Governor Spitzer's communications director who was suspended after it was discovered he and other aides were plotting against a Spitzer rival (the State Senate majority leader), may be leaving state government for the warmer shores of...political lobbying. Dopp allegedly accepted a job at Patricia Lynch Associates, which was formed at a former aide of Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, according to its website, occupies "the number two spot among all lobbying firms in New......

Back in March of 2003, Mayor Bloomberg opened up the City Hall Academy at the Tweed Courthouse. The school offered two-weeks "residencies" for students, giving them an "inter-disciplinary approach" to learn about NYC and its history. Mayor Bloomberg, who made education reform one of the cornerstone of his mayoral platform (it's a big part of his "national" persona, too!), had said, "The opening of City Hall Academy demonstrates our commitment to excellence, achievement, and innovation......

It's turns out that a dirty tricks campaign - even if it's not quite criminal - can be pretty damaging. A new Quinnipiac poll shows that Governor Spitzer's approval rating has dropped to a new low of 47%. Of course, that's the low after nine months in office, so there's still room for improvement - or to find a new low. Most intriguingly, more than three-quarters of voters want Spitzer to testify about the scheme......

Governor Spitzer's plan to allow illegal residents of U.S. to get New York State drivers licenses by producing a valid foreign passport is generating widespread opposition. More than 80% of New York's DMV offices are supervised by county clerks and The New York Times reports that many oppose Spitzer's license plan and will resist processing applications that don't include proof of legal residence. Clerks in NYC, Westchester, and Long Island are agents of New York......

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is visiting Columbia University today to give a speech for the World Leaders Forum. And he continued to get a big New York-style welcome: The Daily News has its "The Evil Has Landed" cover while Assemblyman Dov Hikind told protesters outside Columbia's gates yesterday, “He should be arrested when he comes to Columbia University, not speak at the university, for God’s sake. I call on New Yorkers to make the......

Gov. Spitzer announced yesterday that illegal immigrants will be able to get valid New York State drivers licenses if they provide a valid and verifiable foreign passport. Spitzer hopes that the change, which reverses a four-year-old Pataki-era decision, will legitimize the 500,000-1 million undocumented immigrants who are driving in New York. In a repudiation of the federal government's stance, the governor said "We will not become part of what is propagated on the federal level......

The rebuilding process at Ground Zero took another small step forward today as final plans for Towers 2, 3, and 4 were unveiled. Larry Silverstein and a group of architects unveiled updated designs for the buildings, which are supposed to start construction in January. These plans are more detailed than the initial designs released last year, with more information on the lobbies, public spaces, and building facades. Silverstein says the buildings will be environmentally......

As part of the deal to advance congestion pricing (and nab the $354 million the feds are offering), the city and state have announced their appointees to a panel to, ur, study congestion pricing and develop a recommendation. The Mayor, Governor, City Council, State Senate Majority Leader, and State Assembly Speaker each get to select three appointees, while the Senate minority leader and Assembly minority leader each select one. Mayor Bloomberg said, "Today we are......

Mayor Bloomberg took to the streets and held a rally to beg Albany to hurry up and make a decision on NYC's congestion pricing plan. CityRoom reports that "Dozens of supporters watched the event...clad in green PlaNYC t-shirts" with signs like "I take a ferry, and I vote." And from the center of Times Square, Bloomberg said, "No state action, no federal funding — it’s that simple. We’ve got to have the state do......

A number of politicians offered their support (though not 100%) of Mayor Bloomberg's Voldemort, aka congestion pricing, today. U.S. Transportation Secretary Mary Peters appeared with Governor Eliot Spitzer and Bloomberg at a press conference today, with Peters saying, "This plan will keep the city that never sleeps from becoming the city that never moves." She also put some pressure on the state Legislature to approve the just submitted S. 6068, the NY State Senate's......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: A large fight at Heritage High School in Manhattan, a trench rescue in Queens, and a suspicious substance at Canal & 6th Avenue Aw, Hakan Yalincak, the NYU student who conned people out of millions, filed an ethics complaint against his lawyer; his lawyer's lawyer told Yalincak (who faces prison time), "You are the ultimate evil person. Have a good time in jail. Watch out for the bathrooms." Peter......

NY State lawmakers are working on legislation that would guarantee rent subsidies that keep Brooklyn public housing project Starrett City affordable, no matter who owns it in the future. Real estate group Clipper Equities has been rebuffed twice in efforts to buy Starrett City, because it was expected the company would attempt to remove long-time residents and charge higher rents. While the legislation is being crafted in Albany in the State Assembly, U.S. Senator from......

The top judge in New York State, Court of Appeals Chief Justice Judith Kaye, has threatned to sue the state if judges don't get raises by the summer. And according to the NY Times, a proposal to give them raises seems to have been a victim of the last minute deal-making for the state budget - Governor Spitzer did include a retroactive pay raise for judges, but lawmakers proposed a raise for both judges AND......

In keeping with the earlier report this week, the planned conversion of the James A. Farley Post Office into a new transit center, the Moynihan Station, moved a step closer to reality. Yesterday, the Public Authorities Control Board voted to approve spending $230 million to buy the post office. While the PACB has approved this and politicians are patting themselves on the back, we doubt the drama will be over. Last October, Assembly Speaker Sheldon......

Get ready for even more intense campaigning in NY State: The State Legislature has approved moving its presidential primary to February 5 from March. Many believe a March primary is pointless, since the most influential ones are earlier in the year. The bill passed 59-1 in the Senate; the Utica Observer-Dispatch says the lone dissent was from Democrat Ruth Hassell-Thompson of Mount Vernon. Hassell-Thompson said, "Getting people out to the polls in the cold weather......

The words were flying between Governor Eliot Spitzer and State Senator Majority Leader Joseph Bruno yesterday, when the two had a crazy fight. Highlights:- Bruno yelling, "I'm not going to be bullied, I'm not going to be steamrolled." - Spitzer yelling, "I'm the governor and I'm not going to be insulted." - Sources say Bruno said, Senate Minority Leader Malcolm Smith, D-Queens; is “so far up (the governor’s a**) he can’t see." (Bruno may have......

Governor Eliot Spitzer announced a new plan to overhaul the state's workers' compensation program. Joined by smiling Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and Senate Leader Joseph Bruno, Spitzer called the deal "a remarkable win-win situation for both workers and employers." The deal will increase weekly benefits for workers' comp, eliminate lifetime payments for "permanent partial disabilities" and allow the state to reform the system as well (like looking for people faking disabilities). About $1 billion......

Newly anointed State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli may be a "nice guy" who finished first, but the State Legislature's dealings to put him in place makes our head spin. The Legislature, and more importantly the Assembly, had agreed to select someone an outside panel would find qualified. The thing is, no one on the shortlist was an Assembly member, so the Democratic-run Assembly which calls the shots in Comptroller selection, decided to pick Assemblyman DiNapoli......

After Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver blocked Governor Pataki's Moynihan Station plans last October, we wondered how Governor Spitzer would take up the task and spar with Silver. To refresh your memory, Spitzer's problem with Pataki's Moynihan Station plans was that they were incomplete, given that developers had more extensive ideas about a Farley Post Office and Madison Square Garden revitalization (known as "plan B"); Pataki, on the other hand, wanted to get the plan A......

We couldn't even get through Governor Spitzer's first month before a "showdown with Assembly Speaker Silver." State Democrats have been saying they feel betrayed - or, in the words of Manhattan Assemblyman Keith Wright to NY1, "totally, totally disrespected" - because the panel formed by Spitzer to select State Comptroller candidates didn't select any of their choices. State Democrats claim the panel was supposed to pick five candidates, including a Democratic Assemblyman interested in......

If you didn't catch it the first billion times Governor Eliot Spitzer mentioned "reform" during the campaign trail, his State of the State address brought it up 31 times according to the NY Times count. His address emphasized a "one New York" that would spend far less, and mentioned things like the lack of progress at Ground Zero, longer school years, a property tax cut, bringing health insurance to the uninsured and lots of......

The Public Authorities Control Board votred to approve the Atlantic Yards project. This means the last minute effort to convince Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver to vote yes on the project worked, and Governor Pataki can leave office knowing that the project passed during his term. However, expect lawsuits to delay the project from going forward. The Brooklyn project will span 22 acres in downtown Brooklyn and will cost $4 billion. Here's the Atlantic Yards......

Dun dun DUN! It turns out about NY1 reported that Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver might try to delay a Public Authorities Control Board vote on the Atlantic Yards project, planners from the Empire State Development Corporation went to his office to plead their case! Now it looks like the vote will happen today and that Silver may, in fact, okay the massive $4 billion project as long as Governor Pataki "doesn't tie it to other......