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By Colin Campbell 7/11/12 1:57pm

The PA

Dan Squadron last night, reportedly bowling a strike. (photo: @pristind)

Dan Squadron Picks up Upper East Side Support

At a Brooklyn Bowl fundraiser last night, State Senator Dan Squadron may have very well picked up his first endorsement from an elected official in his unannounced campaign for the Public Advocate’s Office: Assemblyman Micah Kellner. Bill de Blasio, the current inhabitant of that office, is widely expect to mount a campaign for mayor, leaving a vacancy behind him, and Mr. Kellner is openly backing him to fill that position.

“I am definitely urging him and encouraging him and trying to draft him to run for Public Advocate,” Mr. Kellner said, offering to head efforts to round up votes for Mr. Squadron on the Upper East Side. “We’re going to have a new mayor in 2014, and probably a new public advocate and we need somebody who’s smart enough to stand with the mayor when he or she is right, and we need someone who is strong enough to stand up to the mayor when he or she is wrong.” Read More

By Colin Campbell 5/29/12 1:10pm

The PA

Bill de Blasio at today's press conference

Bill de Blasio Has Another Taxi Beef With Bloomberg

Public Advocate Bill de Blasio doesn’t only oppose Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Taxi and Limousine Commission David Yassky’s choice of Nissan for the “Taxi of Tomorrow,” but he also thinks Mr. Bloomberg’s efforts to expand the fleet and allow outer borough street hails were illegal to begin with. And, at a press conference today, he announced he’s filed an amicus with a lawsuit against the new taxi initiatives.

“The actions of the mayor and of Chair Yassky have undermined the city’s relationship with Albany and have set a very negative precedence for the future of that relationship,” Mr. de Blasio explained. “If we let this legislation by the mayor stand, what it means is that we’re making that dependency on Albany even worse. This lawsuit simply says we have to stop the implementation of the legislation in Albany because this process failed to include the City Council.” Read More

By David Freedlander 2/14/12 2:23pm

The PA

BillDeBlasio-GettyImages-300x199

De Blasio Calls For Pension Funds To Invest Locally

Public Advocate Bill de Blasio unveiled a plan today for the city’s largest pension fund to dramatically expand local investments in housing and infrastructure.

“We are leaving resources on the table that we should be putting to work right here in the five boroughs. This is a very real opportunity to do right by our bottom line as a pension fund and spur job creation at the same time,” said Mr. de Blasio in a statement.

Using the pension fund to address critical local needs is something that politicians talk about all the time, but end up seldom enacting  because the funds attempt to get the greatest return. Mr. de Blasio’s office said that this is the closest such plans have come to being enacting, and note that the rate of return on what he proposes is similar to other pension investments. Read More