Category Archives: Debi Rose

Photo Highlights of The Decade



As the decade rolls to an end we’ve compiled a brief photographic retrospective with a few of our favorite photos of the 2010s.

Political foes Mayor Bill de Blasio and Governor Andrew Cuomo shake hands, seemingly at the urging of RWDSU’s Stuart Appelbaum, as they march in the 2016 Labor Day Parade. 9/10/16

Our decade highlight gallery is available here.

Our focus is on New York politics, both city and state, but the gallery includes other shots of New York.  Among the campaigns we’ve covered are the 2013 and 2017 mayoral races, the 2014 and 2018 gubernatorial races, congressional primaries in 2014, 2016 and 2018, the 2016 New Hampshire Republican presidential primary and the 2019 public advocate special election.  NYTrue.com began in late 2012, with mostly video and little photography in 2012 and 2013, so this is a somewhat truncated decade retrospective that covers 2014-2019.

Special Bonus – Unabridged Gallery:

For those of you who really love New York politics we have an expanded decade retrospective gallery with lots of great shots that didn’t make it into the decade highlight gallery.  Take a look, and a walk down memory lane, here.

We’ve included a few 2013 iPhone shots in a brief addendum at the end of the expanded gallery.

Our 2019 year in photos is available here.

All of our photo galleries are available here.

City Council Protest & Die-in



Approximately 20 members of the City Council staged a die-in in front of City Hall before briefly, and not quite completely, blocking traffic on Broadway this afternoon.  Clearly angered by the Eric Garner grand jury decision, the council members came out of City just before their scheduled 1:00 council meeting to chants of “Black lives matter” and “Hands up, don’t shoot.”  After reading aloud names of people killed by the police in recent years, they moved out to Broadway.  After briefly blocking traffic, Council Member Debi Rose spoke briefly and the group then returned to City Hall.

Speaker Selection: The Staten Island Bipartisan Edition (Updated x 2)



Tonight the speaker candidate forum road show rolled out to Staten Island, with the seven publicly declared contenders appearing together for the sixth, and presumably final, time. For the first time, Republican council members joined as hosts.  Ben Max, of DecideNYC.com, moderated.

Three of the 51 incoming City Council members will be Republicans, with two of those three representing Staten Island.  So few in number that they have virtually no influence simply through their numbers, the Republican council members nonetheless have managed to succeed and maintain a presence exceeding what their tiny minority would be expected to generate.  In the selection of the next speaker, they may well be irrelevant.  If, however, the selection is a close race decided by a floor vote the three Republicans could be a meaningful bloc.

After tonight’s forum we spoke with Vincent Ignizio, a Republican council member just elected to his third term, about the role, if any, that council Republicans may play in the selection and about his view of the race.

Update – Steven Matteo:

We also spoke with Steven Matteo, Staten Island’s second Republican member of the city  council.  I began by asking Matteo for his reaction to the speaker candidate public forums.

Update #2 – Debi Rose:

We spoke with Debi Rose, Staten Island’s sole Democratic member of the City Council.  Rose described her high regard for many of the speaker aspirants and lamented the challenge of choosing among them.  The public forums have caused Rose to expand the list of candidates that she personally is open to, although she notes that she is committed to voting with the “Progressive Bloc.”  We also discussed the Progressive Bloc’s timing and the reaction of council members not part of the Progressive Bloc as the Bloc has organized itself.

Be sure to watch our coverage of all five prior forums, held in Manhattan at the Talking Transition Tent and Baruch College, in Brooklyn, the Bronx and Jackson Heights.  Our coverage includes conversations with many council members/member-elects about the selection process, including, in addition to Ignizio, Matteo and Rose, Corey Johnson, Karen Koslowitz, Andrew Cohen, Brad Lander, Carlos Menchaca, Ritchie Torrres and Helen Rosenthal.