Some folks have suggested that we stay in business to monitor Bloomberg’s third term. We don’t have any plans to continue Bloomberg Watch after today. New Yorkers won’t have to surf the web to understand the consequences of Bloomberg’s reelection—they’ll be plain to see. We suspect, too, that the mayor won’t bother quite as much with the bogus explanations and deceptive politics that have characterized his first eight years. (Those of you who have read Joyce Purnick’s semi-authorized biography will recall Bloomberg’s modus operandi – “Make the customer think he’s getting laid when he’s getting fucked,” New Yorkers, especially tenants, should know the deal by now.

Bill Thompson is the only alternative to four more years of Marvin “Markup” Marcus rent hikes. We think it’s likely that Bloomberg will back a move in Albany to end rent regulation. Whatever draconian policies are awaiting their post-election announcements, rent-stabilized tenants who don’t go out to vote for Bill Thompson tomorrow will deserve what they get—and get it they will. Those who do vote will get it right along with them.

We thought we’d end with a story of why we began. Readers already know that I was the president of a Mitchell-Lama tenant association at Independence Plaza, a 3,000-3,500-person rental complex in Tribeca.

Gifford Miller, Christine Quinn’s predecessor had agreed to sponsor a bill that we had drafted and negotiated with him and his staff. Its main provisions required owners to mitigate the damages caused by going to market rents, and to establish that they had complied with the program while they were in it. If the owner and tenants agreed, the provisions of the bill could be waived. The bill provided that if courts found any of its provisions beyond the Council’s authority, the remaining provisions would survive.

I won’t go into the legal arguments as to whether the bill exceeded the Council’s authority. It was a debatable issue. A distinguished NYU law professor and several legal experts testified in its favor. Real estate industry representatives and the Bloomberg’s housing commissioner opposed it on grounds that it was illegal and unfair to owners. If the Council passed it and overrode a mayoral veto, the owner would have to try to overturn the legislation in court. That was the idea. The delay and uncertain outcome would have forced a good faith negotiation. Until then, owners had enjoyed all the leverage. They would force tenants into owner-take-all outcomes where rents quickly doubled and tripled. The Working Families Party had helped Julie Miles, a talented political organizer who worked for us, round up enough votes to pass the bill and override a mayoral veto. We were set to pass the bill. First, there would be a hearing, and by Council rules, a second hearing.

Miller scheduled an October 29, 2003 press conference for noon. Surprisingly, at 10 a.m. Bloomberg, who had been adamantly opposed to any tenant initiative, held his own press conference in City Hall’s Blue Room. With HPD commissioner, Jerilyn Perine, standing alongside, he announced a state legislative “initiative” that would extend rent stabilization to all Mitchell-Lama apartments.

Reporters asked Republican senate majority leader Joe Bruno’s spokesman to comment on the Bloomberg proposal. The senator hasn’t had a chance to review it [there was no proposal], he said, but “we have not been supportive of efforts to expand rent regulation in the city.” Exactly.

At the hearing later that afternoon, Martin Connor, the former Democratic Senate minority leader, whose district included Independence Plaza, testified that the Bloomberg proposal would “have a long wait” in Albany. “I serve in the State Senate and I can tell you the likelihood of passing legislation opposed by the real estate lobby is nil,” he testified. “The City Council legislation is needed and needed now.”

Every political reporter, council member, lobbyist and housing bureaucrat understood that Bloomberg’s Albany proposal was a sham. It was advanced to block our legislation and give the mayor political cover to argue that he, too, supported rent stabilization for all the threatened Mitchell-Lama tenants.

Bloomberg, the non-politician, was engaging in one of the sleazier political tactics, a variation of the one-house bill, an Albany art form: Legislation is passed in one chamber knowing that the other chamber will let it die. Sometimes both chambers have passed bills knowing the governor will veto. The bill’s passage serves as a press release for its sponsors rather than a law that protects constituents.

When it came to exposing the sham, especially where Bloomberg was concerned, the New York Times could be counted on to take a dive.

Here is how David Chen, who is covering Bloomberg and New York politics in this campaign, reported it:

Bloomberg and Council Seek More Protections for Tenants

Chen’s lead was as follows:

“Making a bid to win over the City’s sizable and vocal tenant population, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg yesterday proposed adding 32,000 units to the number of rent-regulated apartments in New York City.”

Chen outlined the Bloomberg proposal: It would extend rent stabilization to all Mitchell-Lama developments, whether pre-or post-1974, whose owners were exiting the program, remove the 6 percent ceiling, and give the owners tax breaks to encourage them to stay in the program. (In fact, the proposal didn’t protect voucher tenants. If their vouchers were lost, the base from which future increases would begin would be the market rate that their leases called for rather than what they were actually paying.) Chen gave Miller’s bill short shrift.

Miller didn’t mind. He seized the opportunity to take the political cover that Bloomberg had provided. He would soon abandon his own bill. The real estate lobby would finance his Democratic primary campaign for mayor.

It’s instructive to compare the Times story with the editorial published in the Nov. 18, 2003 issue of the Downtown Express, our local paper. Here are a few excerpts:

The [Bloomberg] legislation, assuming it were passed, would likely produce the desired effects… So what’s the problem? As [many legislators] have pointed out, the prospects of the mayor’s bill passing the Republican-controlled state Senate are slim, if they are that good.

The editorial reviewed Bruno’s long history of opposition to rent regulation, and then described the council legislation.

The Bloomberg administration and the real estate industry argue that the council bill is illegal because the city can’t pass a law changing the state law. We can’t be sure who is right, but we are confident the Independence Plaza tenants stand a better chance defending this proposed city law in court than waiting for Bruno to get an 11th hour conversion and back new rent protections….

Bloomberg pledged last year to preserve or build 65,000 affordable apartments. It’s substantially cheaper to preserve than to build affordable units. We have seen far too little action from the mayor since his announcement last year. He has let Independence Plaza continue down the path away from affordable housing and he has not indicated any desire to save the affordable units in Gateway Plaza, which face a similar dilemma in 2005.

If Tribeca and Battery Park City become places where only the wealthy live, if Mitchell-Lama complexes switch to market rates around the city, Lower Manhattan and the rest of New York will lose something profound—its balance, its diversity, and we believe, part of its soul. Bloomberg has talked the talk about not letting that happen. Now we’re waiting for a real plan from him. It’s time to walk the walk, Mr. Mayor.

Putting aside the sometimes murky distinctions between editorial opinion and news, something for journalism classes to ponder, the Downtown Express had given its readers the true state of play while the New York Times readers wouldn’t have a clue.

On November 19, 2003, David Chen’s byline appeared on another story. What follows is a partial deconstruction of that story. Rupert Murdoch’s agenda is clear. Not so for more credible political actors—in this case, Bloomberg and the New York Times.

The headline on Chen’s piece read:

Bit by Bit, Government Eases Its Grip on Rents in New York

A government that “eases its grip” suggests a good government. A story written from the tenant perspective, would have carried a different headline, maybe something like, “Government stands aside while taxpayer-financed developers reap windfall profits.” But the headline writer took his cue from the piece.

Chen characterizes rent stabilization as follows:

a “vast rent-regulation system, which has guaranteed rent ceilings for tenants at all income levels for decades.”

What fair-minded person can be in favor of a vast, unwieldy and inequitable system that protects even the wealthy from rent increases? This is the classic Ronald Reagan Welfare Queen idea, the lady who picks up her welfare check wearing a mink coat while her boyfriend waits outside in his Cadillac.

Every large system is gamed to some extent. Just as some landlords game the system to remove apartments from regulation, some high-income tenants pay less than they should. The vast majority of rent stabilized tenants are moderate-income people who live in their apartments and if the rents weren’t regulated, they would be forced out of the city or at the very least forced out of their communities. The median annual income for our Independence Plaza tenants was $22,000.

Chen frames the arguments for and against rent stabilization as follows:

Perhaps the poor and middle class will be pushed out of Manhattan in overwhelming numbers, as tenant advocates warn. Or perhaps the end of artificially low rents will encourage a new building boom, and supply will quickly catch up to demand, as free-market groups predict.

For landlords and free-market advocates, all of this is simply the comeuppance of a failed social experiment in which temporary aid turned into an entitlement, creating bewildering inequities in rents and discouraging construction of housing.

For tenant advocates and their political patrons, however, these events signal something frightening: the passing of an era in which government believed that part of its essential mission, along with dispensing welfare checks and Medicaid, was helping to provide shelter, particularly in New York, where the cost of living is steep.

These are presented not as Chen’s views. Rather, they are assertions he puts into the mouths of tenants and landlords. Examine the phrasing: Landlords and free-market advocates are finally seeing an end to a “failed social experiment that became an “entitlement, one that created “bewildering inequities” and “discouraged construction of new housing.”

Tenant advocates “and their political patrons” regret “the passing of an era”…in which the government saw its essential mission as “dispensing welfare checks and Medicaid.”

Tenants are in league with politicians, while landlords are associated with free-markets. Tenants are associated with dispensing welfare checks and the passing of an era. Landlords just want to get rid of entitlements, inequities, and failed social experiments.

Chen was just warming up: “…there seems to be little disagreement that a new New York is in the offing, shedding its longtime identity as a place whose rental-housing market – a complicated thicket of regulations and politics – is like no other in the nation.”

What right-thinking person could oppose getting rid of a “complicated thicket of regulations and politics,” especially when there is little disagreement? Phew, glad that era is coming to an end and we can get on with our lives in a “new New York.”

The City Council Hearing—Bloomberg Continues the Deception

A city council hearing followed the introduction of Miller’s bill. Jerilyn Perine, the HPD commissioner, testified. She lauded the Council’s concern over the loss of affordable housing. Regrettably, she would have to oppose the bill. Perine had a better idea: Let’s all work together with the governor and the state legislature “to achieve passage of this crucial legislative initiative [the Bloomberg proposal] and protect the viability of this important housing stock.”

“If you don’t get your proposal passed in Albany, what’s plan B?” one council member asked. “We’ll do everything we can to pass the bill. There is no plan B.” What nobody came right out and said was that there was no plan A either. Bloomberg didn’t even have a bill drafted. It would be months before the administration actually sent something to Albany where, as I said, it died a predictable death in the state senate, a wholly owned Bloomberg subsidiary.

The Bloomberg Press Release and the New York Times Again

Miller had abandoned his own bill. Eventually, we entered into negotiations with the owner. In exchange for our not carrying through on the threat to march to City Hall carrying signs that said “Speaker With Forked Tongue,” Miller agreed to mediate the negotiations. A deal was struck.

A March 15 Bloomberg press release announced the deal, suggesting that he had engineered it. In fact, he had thrown his weight behind the landlord.

Here are the relevant portions of the press release:

MAYOR MICHAEL R. BLOOMBERG ANNOUNCES AGREEMENT BETWEEN OWNERS AND TENANTS OF INDEPENDENCE PLAZA NORTH

Agreement on Rents Maintains Affordability for Existing Tenants

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg today announced an agreement between the owners and tenants of Independence Plaza North (Independence Plaza) on a plan to keep rents affordable at the 1,332-unit Mitchell-Lama development in Lower Manhattan.

Former HPD Commissioner Jerilyn Perine was instrumental in bringing the two parties together to ultimately reach this agreement, and this resolution will keep rents affordable for tenants, thereby relieving the anxiety that comes with the sale of the development,” said Mayor Bloomberg….

We are pleased to announce another important step in maintaining affordable rental housing for New Yorkers,” said Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) First Deputy Commissioner John Warren. “Preserving the City’s stock of middle income housing is crucial to making New York more livable for our hard working families and more attractive to new businesses…

The administration had actively opposed everything we tried to do. When we finally made some headway, Bloomberg staged a press conference and announced a bogus Albany “initiative.” Neither HPD, Perine, nor anyone in the Bloomberg administration had anything to do with the deal.

“We were pleased to arrive at a settlement with Mr. Gluck; however, this is only the first step,” said Independence Plaza Tenants Association President Neil Fabricant. “We are absolutely determined to maintain the long term survival of the vouchers.”

I had received a phone call from one of Bloomberg’s press people. She asked me for a quote. I gave her the statement that appears above. I hadn’t seen the release and didn’t realize that it would be a part of the larger myth that they were weaving:

The Independence Plaza deal is evidence that the administration cares…it is exercising its power to keep rents affordable…

I had been had.

David Chen reported on the deal in the New York Times on March 9 under the headline:

Deal Would Limit Increases in Rent at a Tribeca Complex

Chen’s account was brief. Bloomberg hadn’t yet issued his press release. But three months later, on June 29, 2004, in another article on Mitchell-Lama, Chen wrote: “In March, for instance, the city helped to broker a deal between the tenants and owner of the Independence Plaza North housing development in TriBeCa to protect tenants from escalating rents once the development leaves the Mitchell-Lama program this year.”

He quoted me as having said that tenants “are delighted that this settlement will enable them to continue to live in affordable housing for years to come.” I never met Chen nor did I issue such a statement. If he based the quote on the Bloomberg press release, not only did he add his own spin, but he dropped out the main point I had made, namely, that this was only a first step on the way to protecting the voucher tenants.

Chen was simply writing the Bloomberg script as the Affordable Housing Mayor and the New York Times was pleased to publish it.

On August 3, 2005, the Downtown Express had a new reporter covering Independence Plaza’s story. In reporting on a tenant meeting, she wrote, “…Mayor Mike Bloomberg and City Council Speaker Gifford Miller helped negotiate a settlement agreement between Gluck and Independence Plaza tenants.”

Bloomberg’s role is now the official history. Such is the power of a lone reporter working for the New York Times, which in turn has partnered up with Bloomberg to bamboozle the voters and their own readers.

- Neil Fabricant