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david seifman

David Seifman

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.  

Latest Columns

  • Homeless-housing business booming

    Homeless services might just be the best business in town these days. A nonprofit agency that operates 23 homeless facilities under city contracts has doubled its revenues in just two years, even though it was the...   June 09, 2013

    From Local
  • Gropez gal’s $alary bloat

    In the years when ex-Assemblyman Vito Lopez was still a kingmaker in New York, his campaign treasurer ran the government-funded Ridgewood Bushwick Senior Citizens Council and her annual salary at one point topped $685...   June 02, 2013

    From Local
  • Who’s screwed by Weiner’s entry

    It’s hard to find anyone in politics who thinks Anthony Weiner can actually become mayor. But just about everyone views him as a factor in the multi-candidate race who, if there are no more sexting surprises, could have...   May 26, 2013

    From Local
  • Pervy pol’s hefty ‘harass’ets

    The playing field may not be level when disgraced Assemblyman Vito Lopez makes his audacious move for a City Council seat.  Like everyone running for the council, Lopez will be able to claim as much as $92,000 in public...   May 19, 2013

    From Local
  • Pension politics

    Call it the $1 billion bungle. About a year and a half ago, a minor miracle occurred in city government. Comptroller John Liu and Mayor Bloomberg put aside their long-held animosities and jointly proposed a...   May 12, 2013

    From Local
  • Blast from the past

    No matter what Anthony Weiner does to rehabilitate himself, he won’t be getting the vote of Adele Cohen.  The former congressman is on a political-comeback tour and appears days away from announcing his entry into the...   May 05, 2013

    From Local
  • Cig-nificant arm-twisting

    Five weeks before he announced his support for ground-breaking legislation that would raise the legal smoking age from 18 to 21, Mayor Bloomberg was dead set against the move. City Councilman James Gennaro (D-Queens),...   April 28, 2013

    From Local
  • Dem joins Lhota prop-tax smack

    Bill Thompson and Joe Lhota usually aren’t on the same political wavelength. But a startling thing happened a couple of weeks ago at a Democratic mayoral forum: Thompson charged that property assessments were being...   April 21, 2013

    From Local
  • Et tu, Dems?

    The political organization he once commanded is about to turn on disgraced Assemblyman Vito Lopez, The Post has learned. Sources said the Brooklyn Democratic Party is close to endorsing Antonio Reynoso for the City...   April 14, 2013

    From Local
  • Scandal-stung GOP loses out on Bloomy bucks

    Republican Party leaders enmeshed in a corruption scandal are about to get another kick in the stomach: Mayor Bloomberg isn’t going to fund the local GOP county committees anymore. Bloomberg is by far the single largest...   April 07, 2013

    From Local
  • Feud caught on ‘camera’

    It didn’t seem like such a big deal — 20 speed cameras that would be located around city schools and only the state Senate’s sign-off was needed to get them up and clicking.  “This was a small and reasonable ask,”...   March 31, 2013

    From Local
  • $3.4M is Liu’s to lose

    Operating largely under the radar, Comptroller John Liu has pulled off an amazing feat in the race for mayor by filing claims that would entitle him to $3.4 million in public matching funds. Liu’s accomplishment is...   March 24, 2013

    From Local
  • Safety minded Democrat making the frisk case

    The most electric moment on the mayoral campaign trail occurred this week when Bill Thompson, a concerned father of a teenage son, found himself vigorously defending stop-and-frisk before a predominantly African...   March 23, 2013

    From Local
  • De Blasio ‘running-for-office’ politics

    There’s a thin line between government and politics, and Public Advocate Bill de Blasio is making the most of it. After operating for nearly a year with a single press secretary, de Blasio last month decided to add a...   March 17, 2013

    From Local
  • Indie big nabs $weet new gig

    The No. 2 official in the state Independence Party has landed on his feet after losing a $100,000-a-year job in the state Senate two years ago.  His new gig? What else but a new job with the state Senate, this time at...   March 10, 2013

    From Local
  • Comptroller ‘calls out’ agency on phone waste

    Emily Lloyd resigned as Environmental Protection commissioner in November 2008, but the city kept paying $153.76 in recurring monthly charges for four mobile phones assigned to her until July 2011.  That’s $4,920.32...   March 03, 2013

    From Local
  • Lucky first Stringer

    He’s the luckiest guy in New York City politics. As of now, Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer is likely to become the next comptroller without facing a single opponent in the Democratic primary. And no matter...   February 24, 2013

    From Local
  • ‘Rate rat’ cabbies still jacking up fare

    Yellow-cab drivers overcharged nearly 2,000 passengers last year by setting their meters to the higher suburban rate for in-city trips — the very same scam that rocked the industry two years ago. City officials are...   February 17, 2013

    From Local
  • Cop-count $quabble

    Put up, or shut up. An unexpected fight has broken out between mayoral candidates Bill de Blasio and Bill Thompson over Thompson’s pledge to grow the NYPD by more than 2,000 cops if he takes over City Hall. Public...   February 10, 2013

    From Local
  • Subway ‘shut’ threat

    It may soon take more than a MetroCard to get into some overcrowded subway stations. The MTA has told community leaders in Midtown Manhattan that it could one day be forced to follow London’s policy of shutting subway...   February 03, 2013

    From Local
  • Golden’s parachute

    It’s the government’s way of blessing the departed. Elected officials who have accumulated hefty campaign accounts get to keep them when they leave, spending the leftover money as they please, under rules that no one...   January 27, 2013

    From Brooklyn
  • Rudy $laps Dems

    A “fisc” fight has erupted between Bill Thompson and Joe Lhota — and right in the middle is Rudy Giuliani.  The former mayor threw down the gauntlet to the Democratic field of mayoral candidates, which includes Thompson...   January 20, 2013

    From Local
  • Getting $oaked

     Thousands of homeowners don’t realize it, but they’re about to get hit with another fiscal tsunami from Hurricane Sandy.  For the last six weeks, federal officials have been working with the city to redraw maps and...   January 13, 2013

    From Local
  • Blunt-talkin’ Lhota

    While serving as the top deputy to former Mayor Giuliani, Joe Lhota (inset) urged the chancellor of the City University to expel students editors of the Hunter College newspaper who published disquieting pictures of...   January 06, 2013

    From Local
  • Mayor Mike’s parting shots on reform

    Mayor Bloomberg is planning a graceful exit from City Hall in 2014 and doesn’t intend to meddle in the next administration even if it tries to undo some of his signature reforms.  “If the public wants bad government,...   December 30, 2012

    From Local
  • Hosp big immune

    They got what they wanted.  The board of the municipal hospital system has given its president a clean bill of ethical health based on a report it refuses to release.  Three weeks ago, The Post reported that Alan...   December 09, 2012

    From Local
  • Andy, Mike fight for spotlight

    They’re getting high marks for their responses to Superstorm Sandy, but there have been some tensions along the way for Gov. Cuomo and Mayor Bloomberg.  With the stakes so high and their careers on the line, both men...   December 02, 2012

    From Local
  • New ‘Vito district’ unlikely

    Vito Lopez had better start looking for a real-estate agent if he intends to run for the City Council next year in the Brooklyn neighborhood he most covets.  Sources said Council Speaker Christine Quinn wants to undo...   November 25, 2012

    From Local
  • HHC probes its boss

    The municipal hospital system has hired an outside investigator to look into an allegation that its president, Alan Aviles, didn’t act on a complaint claiming a senior administrator was harassing and demeaning female...   November 18, 2012

    From Local
  • Hosp union’s griping drama

    In the middle of one of the worst calamities in New York history, officials at the city’s largest municipal union fired off a four-page gripe memo to the Health and Hospitals Corp.  It included many petty complaints,...   November 11, 2012

    From Local

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