David Seifman began covering City Hall for The Post in 1982, during the second term of the Koch Administration and extending through the regimes of David Dinkins, Rudy Giuliani and Mike Bloomberg. He became the City Hall bureau chief in 1989.
The city's call for austerity in all parts of the government hasn't stopped a few City Hall staffers from landing significant raises. Records show that Brian Mahanna, a senior adviser to the mayor, as well as...
August 28, 2011 12:00 AMA small group of psychiatrists at Kings County Hospi tal piled up astonishing amounts of overtime after a shocking case of fatal neglect in 2008 -- captured on videotape and seen worldwide on the Internet -- had...
August 21, 2011 12:00 AMSome upscale street-food vendors are getting no ticed and making a name for themselves. Then there are those vendors who are taking new names and hoping to never get noticed. Health Department officials say...
August 14, 2011 12:00 AMBlame it on the high cost of living, the lure of country life or even the weather, but nearly a third of the city's own employees are hightailing out of here first chance they get. Figures compiled by the city's...
August 07, 2011 12:00 AMIt's a long time to go be fore the 2013 mayoral race, but the leader of the city's largest municipal union is already talking up the candidacy of Comptroller John Liu. Sources said Lillian Roberts, executive...
July 31, 2011 12:00 AMTwo Republican state senators who voted against gay marriage are collecting the same hefty campaign contributions from Mayor Bloomberg as the four who bolted their party to pass the historic law that takes effect today...
July 24, 2011 12:00 AMHe beat the system -- and pinned the city taxpayer to the mat. A firefighter who retired on a $74,624 disability pension, only to compete in mixed-martial arts matches, will be allowed to keep collecting his tax...
July 17, 2011 12:00 AMMunicipal labor leaders facing difficult contract negotiations are openly talking of "waiting out" Mayor Bloomberg to reach more favorable settlements with the next mayor. "If you're telling us we already have zero...
July 10, 2011 12:00 AMPublic Advocate Bill de Blasio is making improbable friends in an industry that's far removed from his progressive politics: real estate. "Bill's going to be on the other side of almost every issue, but he'll...
July 03, 2011 12:00 AMMayor Bloomberg lost the battle of the budget in March when Albany wouldn't give him a pass to lay off teachers without regard to seniority. That didn't stop the mayor from continuing to threaten massive layoffs in...
June 26, 2011 12:00 AMA New reality descended on the city's municipal labor lead ers yesterday from Albany. In a remarkable feat, Gov. Cuomo persuaded officials who run the Civil Service Employees Association to accept a five-year...
June 24, 2011 12:00 AMTo ex-comptroller Bill Thompson, a comput erized system for settling small claims against the city was a godsend that saved $94 million over five years and won awards for innovation. To the current comptroller,...
June 19, 2011 12:00 AMThe humiliating melt down of Rep. Anthony Weiner has reshuffled the 2013 mayoral race, with political insiders nominating City Council Speaker Christine Quinn and former Comptroller Bill Thompson as the new front...
June 12, 2011 12:00 AMThe city awarded a $175 million contract to Verizon, just nine days before the communications giant was cited by special schools investigator Richard Condon for "facilitating" a $3.6 million fraud by a technology...
June 05, 2011 12:00 AMSome officials in the nonprofit world did a double-take last week when Mayor Bloomberg flatly ruled out asking cultural institutions here to pay a share of city taxes. "Nobody can ever say never, but our cultural...
May 29, 2011 12:00 AMIn an explosive development for the city's crippling pension crisis, doctors have determined that a firefighter who retired on a $75,000-a-year disability pension in 2003 -- and went on to compete in brutal kickboxing...
May 22, 2011 12:00 AMAt the same time that Mayor Bloomberg is pressing the state for urgent pension reforms, four of the city's five pension systems are hiding basic data about their members from the public. The bizarre situation began...
May 15, 2011 12:00 AMMayor Bloomberg's foresight in socking away billions in a thinly disguised rainy-day fund is going to complicate his budget negotiations with the City Council. The fund was authorized in 2006, ostensibly to help...
May 08, 2011 12:00 AMThe Manhattan judge who infuriated city officials last year by blocking the layoffs of 150 hospital workers is now scolding the Buildings Department for revoking the license of a crane operator over a felony conviction...
May 01, 2011 12:00 AMThe city's top lobbyist has been retained to restore the battered reputation of a national company at the center of the CityTime scandal, one of the biggest rip-offs in municipal history. Records show that Suri...
April 24, 2011 12:00 AMAnother group is grumbling about the city's flawed property-tax system -- big-time real-estate developers with close ties to Mayor Bloomberg. The immediate issue on the table is a request from the Real Estate Board...
April 17, 2011 12:00 AMHe's been the mayor's right- hand man on education for more than nine years, but Dennis Walcott wasn't consulted before Mayor Bloomberg made his ill-fated decision to appoint Cathie Black as schools chancellor last...
April 10, 2011 12:00 AMAnother year, an- other new record for challenges to the city's property-tax assessments. Tax Commission President Glenn Newman said his agency received 50,079 appeals by the March 15 deadline, up from 47,030 the...
April 03, 2011 12:00 AMBrooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz is taking taxpayers for a very long ride -- 16 hours a day, to be precise. In an unusual arrangement, the ebullient beep has placed his three drivers on staggered, 16-hour...
March 27, 2011 12:00 AMThe cost of renovating City Hall has zoomed another 12 percent to an eye-popping $119 million, leading officials to abandon plans made just a year ago to install solar panels on the roof. The increase comes at a...
March 20, 2011 12:00 AMHe's positioned himself as a fearless voice for the Democratic Party, willing to tackle the touchiest national and international topics, but there's one local issue Rep. Anthony Weiner won't touch-- bike lanes and...
March 13, 2011 1:00 AMAnother former offi cial at the city's Board of Elections is telling tales out of school -- and one is a doozy about how the agency once hired politically connected illiterates who had a hard time with the alphabet....
March 06, 2011 12:00 AMAn uprising by co-op owners furious at crushing proper ty-tax assessments has led the Finance Department to recalculate the values for 114 of 500 co-ops in Queens, The Post has learned. Co-op leaders have been...
February 27, 2011 12:00 AMAt the same time he was forecasting lay offs and issuing dire warnings that the city couldn't afford the size of its work force, Mayor Bloomberg was also nailing down a $110,000-a-year city job for the girlfriend of...
February 13, 2011 12:00 AMSen. Chuck Schumer may be an avid cy clist, but he's no fan of the bike lane the city installed along his Prospect Park West street last summer. Sources said Schumer -- who has yet to take a public position on the...
February 06, 2011 12:00 AM