Mayor Zohran Mamdani warned that, without Albany’s blessing for higher taxes on millionaires and major companies, New York City may resort to a 9.5% property tax hike—an unlovely fix targeting 3 million homes and 100,000 businesses to mend a $12 bil…
Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s $127 billion budget envisions plugging New York City’s multibillion-dollar deficit with higher property taxes—unless Albany taxes the wealthy, to which Governor Kathy Hochul remains reliably allergic. While the City Council and Comptroller Mark Levine propose belt-tightening over fresh levies or dipping into the city’s record $8.5 billion reserves, we suspect the city’s fiscal “conversation” will produce more talk than new taxes—at least for now.
Construction crews on New York’s $16 billion Gateway tunnel, meant to replace the rickety Hudson rail link used by 200,000 daily commuters, have swapped hard hats for protest signs as work freezes amid a funding spat between Donald Trump and state officials. Washington released a trickle—$107 million of the $200 million owed—but unless full funds flow, concrete will set only in protest, not progress.
With the last prison barge finally gone from the East River, New York City is floating a “Blue Highways” pilot, enlisting diesel-powered barges to move tonnage from Hunts Point Market—source of nearly half the city’s fish and a quarter of its produce—by water rather than by the 15,000 trucks that roll in daily. If the plan holds water, fewer Bronx kids may need their asthma pumps—but we’d settle for smoother traffic.
After two of Eric Adams’s picks politely withdrew, we find newly minted Mayor Zohran Mamdani reshaping New York City’s Rent Guidelines Board—installing five of nine members, including nonprofit leader Chantella Mitchell as chair. This casts the “freeze the rent” promise into the hands of his appointees rather than his own, pleasing tenants and rankling landlords, though the city’s infamous housing headaches rarely soften for long.
Zohran Mamdani, in his debut budget as New York City’s mayor, brandished the spectre of a property tax hike—unless Governor Kathy Hochul backs taxing the wealthy to plug a $5.4 billion hole blamed on Eric Adams’ “planning.” Hochul and fellow Democrats are unconvinced; fiscal hawks see fat to trim. Still, New Yorkers may soon pay more for the city’s creative attempts to dodge insolvency—plus the FIFA security bill.
After months of legal wrangling, $77 million in federal funds has finally trickled to the $16 billion Gateway Hudson River tunnel—but construction remains suspended as planners dither over deployment. The Gateway Development Commission still won’t say when thousands of idled workers, casualties of stop-start politics and President Trump’s financial qualms, can don their hard hats. We suspect Amtrak commuters may be getting tunnel vision from all this waiting.
Zohran Mamdani unveiled a preliminary fix for New York City’s $5.4 billion budget gap: his preferred route is taxing affluent residents and corporations, though Governor Kathy Hochul remains cool to the idea. Failing that, he’d hike property taxes and raid city reserves—a strategy Deputy Mayor Dean Fuleihan and Budget Director Sherif Soliman discussed at length, presumably bracing for howls as wallets and rainy-day funds alike inch toward the guillotine.
If the U.S. Department of Transportation releases the final $98 million of a frozen $205 million, Gateway Development Commission will restart work next week on the $16 billion rail tunnel linking New Jersey and Manhattan—vital for thousands of weary commuters and at least 1,000 laid-off workers. New York Governor Kathy Hochul remains vigilant; for megaprojects, fiscal drama seems more dependable than the trains themselves.
