The man who calls himself the candidate "for Harlem and for Wall Street" while praising Romney's fondness for oil a few months ago is on the hunt for great PR. And, as a Republican with tons of money in New York, he's decided to pull a move straight out of the Bloomberg campaign playbook.

Leave it to billionaires to fully embrace the whole "a friend of an enemy is a friend" idea.

According to Politicker, Gristedes founder and City Hall contender John Catsimatidis has employed an oddly-titled firm called Millennial Strategies LLC, which specializes in Democratic candidates (and '90s nostalgia?). Mr. Catsimatidis is the only Republican client they've hired but, apparently, the firm's partner has known the grocer for some time.

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Last week, we told you about the introduction of former Bronx Borough President Adolfo Carrion as this upcoming mayoral race's third party presence. Chosen by the Independence Party, Mr. Carrion had made it clear that he was gunning for both Republican and Democratic support. And one of the ways he would do this was by attempting to get on the Republican primary ballot.

In that original story, it was stated that Mr. Carrion needed the support of three Republican county chairmen to make this happen and that seemed an unlikely case. The City's GOP affiliate was not about to let this ex-Democrat walk right onto the ballet. But, of course, like with any good political event, things can change like that (snaps finger).

Yesterday, Capital NY reported that Robert Scarmadella, Staten Island's Republican head, had stepped down from office. He was a firm supporter of Joe Lhota's candidacy and refused to let Mr. Carrion enter the race. With him out, the probability of having this third party candidate on the GOP ballot in a few months just got turned up a notch - a threat that should not settle well with anyone over at the Lhota camp.

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Facebook

As City Council contenders gear up for the race to City Hall, they want to make sure we know that they have lots and lots of friends. Because only popular kids are allowed to eat at the City Council table, right?

Ari Kagan, currently the district leader of Brooklyn, recited names from his Facebook friends list to Politicker, stating, "I'm very happy to have the support of so many of my friends like Hakeen Jeffries, you know like Congressman Hakeem Jeffries, he calls me 'bro.' We ran together and we're close, close, close friends and I believe he is rising star in Brooklyn politics. ... I'm very close to Senator Diane Savino, Assemblywoman Helene Weinstein, Councilman David Greenfield and Assemblyman Alec Brook-Krasny."

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The City Council wants answers: What has the New York City Housing Authority done with $65.4 million?

This afternoon City Council held an oversight hearing, which typically do not take place during the summer, to receive an update from the New York City Housing Authority on how it has allocated funds to install security systems in public housing.

NYCHA is the largest public housing system in the nation, with over 178,000 units and 400,000 residents.
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Ian Culley

This week in the Voice, we talk to current and former law enforcement officers who have actually faced stop-and-frisk themselves when they are off-duty, walking home in their neighborhoods or driving around the city in their cars. These retired and active cops say that stop-and-frisk is such a common experience for young black and Latino men in New York City, that it's almost inevitable that men of color are stopped and questioned by a cop at some point -- even if they are officers.

With stop-and-frisk an increasingly hot topic in the news lately -- and an important battleground for the 2013 mayoral hopefuls trying to secure minority votes -- we thought we'd bring you some reflections on the policy and its implementation from some New York Police Department officers who actually conduct the stops.

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Sam Levin

From left to right, Google CEO Larry Page, Cornell President David Skorton, Technion's Director Craig Gotsman, and Mayor Mike Bloomberg.

Move aside, Silicon Valley! Or, you know, watch your back. New York City is trying to compete with the tech-y town to be the tech center of the universe -- and Google is helping.

(FYI: New York City is still second to Silicon Valley, but it's trying!)

Today, Mayor Mike Bloomberg joined Google CEO Larry Page and Cornell President David Skorton to announce that Google will be doing something outside of its typical scope of activities: providing space for a temporary university campus in New York City.

As a central part of its Applied Sciences initiative -- aimed at attracting industry jobs and startups and expanding the Big Apple as a tech hub -- the city is building a campus on Roosevelt Island for CornellNYC Tech, an engineering and applied science campus that will be run by Cornell University and the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology.

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Sam Levin

City Council Speaker Christine Quinn and Mayor Mike Bloomberg at a press conference.

Governor Andrew Cuomo announced today that he is ending a controversial policy that requires food stamp applicants to be fingerprinted -- a move that has pitted him squarely against Mayor Mike Bloomberg. The news today is also one that puts Bloomberg in direct opposition with City Council Speaker and mayoral hopeful Christine Quinn (and a handful of other local politicians).

At the center of the debate is the policy that requires all food stamp applications and recipients in New York State to be fingerprinted, which the governor, along with a group of advocates, says creates a stigma around receiving welfare, slows down the process, and creates barriers to reducing hunger. But Bloomberg, who butted heads with Cuomo on the policy back in January, has repeatedly defended fingerprinting, arguing that it stops New Yorkers from abusing the benefits and saves the city millions of dollars by stopping fraudulent recipients.

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Sam Levin

Mayor Bloomberg takes questions at 30 Rockefeller yesterday.

After mounting pressure, the mayor's office last week released a 133-page report on the city's emergency response protocols, which says that the 9-1-1 system struggles with inefficiencies, errors, and delays.

Questioned about the findings and recommendations of the consultant's report yesterday afternoon, Mayor Bloomberg said that the city's record of responding to emergencies is better than ever and that his administration takes the report seriously.

That doesn't, however, mean he actually read it.

Pushed on some of the specifics of the 9-1-1 report at a press conference on the set of Saturday Night Live, Bloomberg ultimately blurted out, "I didn't even bother to read it!" as his press secretary tried to move along the news conference to a different question.

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Sam Levin

SNL writer and actor Seth Meyers watches Mayor Mike Bloomberg speak Spanish at a press conference at 30 Rockefeller.

Forget the cast of Gossip Girl, Miss Piggy, Kermit the Frog, and Lady Gaga.

Mayor Mike Bloomberg brought in some serious entertainment power to really spice up his press conference this afternoon: Saturday Night Live.

Well actually, it was just Seth Meyers. But he got to use the whole stage of SNL at 30 Rockefeller Plaza! We were hoping for some Kristen Wiig or maybe even a Bloomberg-impersonating Fred Armisen, but oh well, you can't have it all, right? And Meyers certainly managed to make it more colorful and comedic than, well, the average mayoral announcement.

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Sam Levin

Mayor Bloomberg taking questions from reporters outside City Hall today.

Mayor Mike Bloomberg today declined to give an endorsement to Charlie Rangel, a longtime incumbent fighting to keep his Harlem seat in one of the more heated congressional races in New York City this election season.

But the mayor still had (somewhat) nice things to say, and left the door open for a possible endorsement closer to voting day.

Rangel, 81, is facing what is shaping up to be the toughest opposition he has encountered since the 1970s, including campaigns from State Senator Adriano Espaillat and Clyde Williams, who is a former political director of the Democratic National Committee.

Today, a reporter asked Bloomberg -- who was at City Hall to discuss the new bike share program -- for his thoughts on Rangel's candidacy, noting that Espaillat has nabbed the endorsement of former Bronx borough president Fernando Ferrer, who was also a Democratic mayoral nominee in 2005.

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