"This has now truly become a regional, if not national, effort."

Thus spoke City Council Speaker Christine Quinn at a press conference yesterday. Former-governor-turned-state-senator Richard Codey and New Jersey Assemblyman Ruben Ramos came to City Hall to join her in previewing their own version of a bill announced in New York City less than a month ago: a measure to boost the age at which you can buy cigarettes to 21. Quinn is a forerunner of the bill that has placed her directly in front of an issue Bloomberg has championed--a position that could injure her campaign more than help it.

"Less than a month after our initial announcement, our great neighboring state of New Jersey is planning to introduce legislation to do exactly the same thing: raise the age to purchase tobacco to 21," Quinn said. The provision has also been introduced in Albany to apply on a statewide level.

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Between 2009 and 2011, approximately 450 people died crossing the street in New York City. Whether to reckless driving, not looking both ways, or sheer confusion, the city lost 450 residents. And that's not counting bicycle fatalities. Needless to say, like subway deaths, it's become a problem that demands fixing ASAP, especially with the advent of CitiBike next weekend.

Enter Christine Quinn.

In a statement released yesterday, the City Council speaker and mayoral frontrunner laid out her platform on the issue of ground-level urban planning. Her goal is straightforward: By 2021, Quinn wants to cut New York City's street fatalities in half.

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With the primaries in four months, this is probably a good idea.

By now, the controversy over John Liu's run for comptroller in 2010 is an old wives' tale in recent New York City scandal history. His campaign's treasurer and one of its fundraisers set up straw donors--which is when a person illegally taps into another person's cash funds and makes donations in their name. By doing so, they paid themselves thousands in fraudulent kickbacks. But don't worry: Kustice was served earlier this month when the two were found guilty of campaign fraud in federal court.

As damage control, Liu has been trying to distance himself from that story since it happened, stating time and time again that he had no part in the scheme and could not have known about it. Naturally, the mayoral race has kicked that PR effort into high gear. According to his most recent campaign filings, it's been discovered that Liu refunded every cent in his fundraising treasure chest left over from the scandal.

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"I'm trying to gauge not only what's right and what feels comfortable right this second, but I'm also thinking, How will I feel in a year or two years or five years? Is this the time that I should be doing it? And then there's the other side of the coin, which is, am I still the same person who I thought would make a good mayor?"

These were the questions Anthony Weiner asked himself in a New York Times Magazine profile published last month that sparked widespread interest in the former Congressman's future political aspirations. The hints came two years after the sexting scandal that brought down Weiner's congressional career. And, since then, the politician from Queens has played his cards strategically.

His admissions on television interviews have painted him as a man begging to look past the scandal that rocked him and his family a year ago. He reactivated his Twitter. His hypothetical polling in the race has given him good reason to take himself seriously. So who cares about the Clintons? This is a candidate with the potential to change everything.

And, if indications are what we're going on here, that shift might come as soon as next week.

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Wikimedia Commons

A few weeks ago, we wrote a post entitled "Cuomo's Women's Equality Act Brings The A-Word To New York State Politics." The headline basically tells the whole story.

It focused on the brewing controversy evoked by a tiny stipulation in Cuomo's new bill that calls for writing Roe v. Wade protections into state law - an immediate reaction to anti-abortion provisions being enacted in statehouses across the country. It's the only part of a ten-point bill that's aroused widespread opposition, led by Senate GOP leader Dean Skelos of Long Island. Because, duh, it's abortion.

In New York, Republicans' frustration on social issues is only surpassed by the Catholic Church, which holds a firm stance against abortion. So this should be no surprise: Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the man who informed his followers in 2009 to totally disregard federal and state abortion laws, is not a fan of the Women's Equality Act.

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In late January, Mayor Bloomberg released plans for his twelfth and final budget. In it, we see an attempt on behalf of the Mayor to leave the City in a fiscally solvent manner when he leaves next year, including a culmination of spending preferences (higher city agency budgets) and an unfortunate reality of cutback measures (layoffs, attrition, etc.). We're left with a budget totaling about $70.1 billion to close a $1.1 billion deficit shortfall.

On a larger scale, City Council is exactly like most ordinary Americans (read: us). New York City's budget racks up bills that eventually have to be paid off one way or another, all of which are promises made in the past by politicians to give this amount money to so and so. Following this trend, the IOUs gradually take up a larger portion of the budget. And this time around, it looks like these "legacy costs" will suck up nearly 25 percent of all of our government's funds in the next two years.

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C.S. Muncy

At this point, it goes without saying the controversy that is stop and frisk will be a staple of the 2013 mayoral race.

Floyd v. New York - a case that seeks to upend the controversial practice - is heating up, as the NYPD seeks to justify its usage through intimidating tutorial videos. The Community Safety Act, which would implement serious transparency measures on the boys in blue, is currently making its way through City Council, with each major figure in New York City politics taking a stand on it. And, of course, we learned last week that stop and frisk numbers are actually dropping as we move closer to the ballots.

The momentum is evident here but, for voters, their options are limited. As of now, Comptroller John C. Liu is the only candidate that has called for the complete repeal of stop and frisk across the five boroughs. Christine Quinn and Bill de Blasio has called for its reform, holding themselves back from full elimination of a policy that has racked up 5 million tallies since its inauguration.

So, when it pertains to stop and frisk, what better time for civil rights groups to call on the youth vote to get things done?

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You probably know the rules by now: in New York City, if you're caught in public view with pot, or in possession of 25 grams or more, you're getting a violation. Because of this (well, at least, partially), New Yorkers made up 99.2 percent (149,951) of the entire state's marijuana-related arrests (total: 155,048) last year. And, in 2012, getting thrown in the can for the reefer was still No. 1 in New York with the highest amount of arrests.

But lately, the external pressures placed on internal agencies by the incredibly high rates has become an engine for policy shifts. This is why Governor Cuomo continues to try to outlaw the public view provision in the criminal code last year. And why Bloomberg has opted out of the 'stay overnight in jail, be at court in the morning' situation for marijuana offenders. And why NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly has even told his officers to chill (brah) with the pot arrests.

Luckily, it looks like these efforts are actually showing real-time results.

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At the end of last August, former State Senator Shirley Huntley called for a press conference in her home district of Jamaica, Queens. There, she informed her supporters that she would be arrested the following day for an extensive criminal investigation into her personal expenses.

Turns out, between 2007 and 2008, Huntley was embezzling $90,000 through an educational non-profit she set up to spend on herself, her family and her friends. And the FBI knew all about it. So yesterday, Huntley was handed her sentence: a year and a half in state prison.

She begged the judge for a more lenient term, arguing "that you give me another chance. I vow to spend my remaining years to redeem myself in the eyes of those I have embarrassed." This sentence even comes after Huntley agreed to help the Gmen with an action that could lead to a whole new row of scandal.

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Sam Levin

We remember when it was supposed to be July 2012. Then we heard maybe it'd be March 2013. That didn't happen. Then the Department of Transportation released a map of where the 293 stations would be built. And we heard it would be some time in May. So we were kinda/sorta convinced: New York City's bike share program - the largest of its kind - would become a reality in our lifetime.

Now, we have ourselves an official release date: Memorial Day.

We checked our calendars: that's only three weeks from now. The three-day weekend just got that much more cherish-able.

On that day, thousands of CitiBikes will be rolled out onto the streets, occupying the empty stations that have already been spotted all over Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens. And it looks like the Tourists Gone Wild criticism isn't stopping anyone: according to a DOT press release yesterday, eight thousand people have already signed up to flex their pedals come Memorial Day. Good luck getting to the barbecue.

But, seriously, the bike share program is real now. Ride accordingly.

[jsurico15@gmail.com][@JohnSurico]