New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani made a bold pledge last month: Within weeks, he would send state lawmakers a plan to fix the city’s broken property tax system.

A failed attempt by his predecessor, Eric Adams, shows why that won’t be easy.

The city’s property tax system is widely considered acknowledged to be unfair because it taxes lower-income neighborhoods at higher rates than wealthy ones, and taxes big apartment buildings, where tenants tend to live, at higher rates than expensive co-ops and condos. Last spring, the Adams administration pitched state lawmakers on a set of reforms, but the effort died after the mayor was unable to find any legislators willing to even sponsor the bill.

Over his more than two decades as a clean energy entrepreneur and commentator, Jigar Shah has established himself as one of the most prominent voices calling for a more decentralized, flexible grid. From founding the company SunEdison in 2003 to heading up the US Department of Energy’s Loan Programs Office under former President Joe Biden, Shah has helped finance a generation of clean energy projects. He also had a hand in shaping New York’s energy policies as a board member of the state energy authority NYSERDA from 2014 to 2017, when the agency was building up its rooftop solar program and pursuing a deeper electric grid overhaul known as “Reforming the Energy Vision.” (That effort remains unfinished, as New York Focus recently reported.)

An overdue update to New York’s benefit cards that could prevent food stamp theft could launch as early as next February.

Last month, Governor Kathy Hochul officially came out in support of transitioning to chip-enabled benefit cards, reversing the state’s stance from just a year ago.

The cards New York currently uses for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and cash assistance lack the encrypted chips that have been standard in credit and debit cards for over a decade, leaving users prone to a form of theft called skimming.

An anti-development New York City Councilmember approved a project in her district rather than risk being overruled by a new appeals board — the first sign of a potential sea change in the city’s housing landscape caused by the ballot questions that voters approved in November.

Vickie Paladino, a firebrand Republican who has railed against past efforts to increase housing density, announced Sunday that she would support a rezoning to build an eight-story building in Bay Terrace, Queens with 248 apartments.

In a six-minute Facebook video, Paladino noted that her opposition could have been enough to kill the project in the past when the council generally deferred to members on projects in their districts. But that changed with the passage of Question 4, which created a three-person appeals board including the mayor, council speaker, and local borough president, with the power to overturn the council’s rejections.