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Crains New York reports New York City has always had its share of pricey boutiques and upscale shops. And if a proposed expansion of the city's living-wage law moves forward, it might see even more—hardly the result its proponents intended.


In his State of the City address last week, Mayor Bill de Blasio pledged to extend the existing law, which currently excludes tenants of city-subsidized development projects, to cover "tens of thousands of additional New Yorkers." The law, enacted in 2012, forces developers receiving substantial city subsidies for projects to pay its workers at those sites at least $10 an hour plus benefits, or $11.50 without benefits. But commercial tenants—notably retailers—are exempt, a major carve-out that now faces elimination.

Experts say that would make projects harder, if not impossible, to put together, as stores would avoid leasing space where the additional labor costs are required. Developers would have to turn to retailers that already offer higher wages: luxury shops and high-end mass-market retailers, rather than the discounters that sell the items that ordinary New Yorkers can afford.

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NY Daily News reports the clergyman sprung from a Brooklyn police precinct after a call from City Hall bailed out Saturday on a promise to address the controversy.

Bishop Orlando Findlayter was a no-show at the Rev. Al Sharpton’s National Action Network, leaving the veteran activist to defend his cleric colleague.

The well-connected Findlayter, in a Friday message to the Daily News, said he planned to answer questions on Saturday about the phone call from Mayor de Blasio that helped spare him a night behind bars.

But the 50-year-old bishop did not appear at Sharpton’s Harlem headquarters, and NAN officials said they had not invited Findlayter to appear. He has yet to speak about the incident.

Sharpton invoked the name of longtime nemesis Rudy Giuliani when asked about the mayoral phone call to police following Findlayter’s arrested on outstanding warrants.

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New YorkPost

  “We’re going to use every recourse we have — legal or otherwise — to guarantee a vote.”

NY NewsDay reports Mayor Bill de Blasio led a battle cry Tuesday against Republican State Senate co-leader Dean Skelos and others lining up against his plan to raise city taxes on high-earning New Yorkers to fund universal prekindergarten.

"The gauntlet's been thrown down in Albany," he told a cheering crowd of clergy at a Bedford-Stuyvesant breakfast. "We will respond."

Skelos, from Rockville Centre, has said he wouldn't permit a vote on de Blasio's plan, which requires state legislative approval.

An angry de Blasio called on the 200 clergy members -- including the Rev. Al Sharpton -- to appeal to their congregations in a four-week lobbying effort to be launched Sunday.
New York City shouldn't be "treated like a colony that doesn't even get to decide its own future," the mayor said.

Skelos' office declined to comment.

The city requires the state legislature's permission for an income tax hike on those making more than $500,000, with revenue to go toward de Blasio's plan for universal pre-K and after-school programs.

Skelos had told reporters Monday, "The constitution of the state has specifically given the legislature oversight of these types of [tax] issues and we have seen in the past when New York [City] went under with bad management."

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NY DailyNews reports Mayor de Blasio took political fundraising to new extremes during his come-from-behind campaign, a Daily News review has found.

Deep-pocket donors showered him with checks far in excess of the usual campaign finance limitations, thanks to loopholes that allowed for double and even triple-giving.

De Blasio was able to raise money on three fronts in the same election cycle: first for his campaign, then for a $300,000 fine he still owed from a 2009 campaign, and finally for his inauguration and transition costs.

That meant individual donors limited to giving no more than $4,950 per election cycle were able to give the maximum amount again and again, writing checks to de Blasio — who railed at loopholes as a candidate — twice and even three times

"It compounds the influence one (donor) might have," said Dick Dadey of the non-partisan watchdog Citizens Union. "This the shortcoming of the program that allows current donors to make contributions toward fines that go back to prior campaigns and allows donors to increase their impact on the campaign."

Most of those able to come up with that much cash just happened to be lobbyists, real estate developers and a lineup of special interests who do business with the city.

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