The Daily News City Hall Bureau Chief, Chief Adam Lisberg, is departing for the top editing job at Manhattan Media, publisher of City Hall News and The Capitol. The Daily News confirmed the Gawker item about Lisberg's departure, which had been making the rounds online.

(Lisberg fills the vacancy created when Edward-Isaac Dovere decamped to Politico.)

Lisberg, in a brief interview with me, denied saying the "cheap" quote that appears right after him attributed to him in the Gawker item. "I never spoke with Gawker and would never say that," he said.

With his new job, Lisberg moves from the hard-scrabbled world of tabloid journalism into the roomier pastures of a thoughtful periodical.

City Hall News and The Capitol churn out spacious pages with lots of room for lengthy, investigative stories; just ask the Working Familes Party. (City Hall News, comes out every two weeks; The Capitol, once a month.)  The publications also host more public events with newsmakers than practically any other news outlet in New York.

Lisberg, a general assignment reporter with the Daily News before taking the City Hall beat (and Sunday column that goes with it), says he's glad for the change of venues.

"I think one of the strengths of City Hall News and The Capitol is that they're not snarky, they're not slanted," he told me in a brief interview just now. "They don't do cheap shots. It's serious and substantive and they do fair work. There's not enough places for long-form, serious journalism that doesn't necessarily slam one side or the other, but really presents issues."

And in true, feisty, adoration, his long-time colleague, blogger Celeste Katz wrote to wish him well, and to warn Lisberg that she is already planning to "clea[n] your clock!" [fixed]

The president and CEO of the company that publishes City Hall News, Tom Allon, told me Dovere "joins a long line of distinguished journalists who have started their careers at Manhattan Media" including Jim Rutenberg, Andrew Jacobs and James McKinley.

Dovere was, for many, the face of that publication, writing (at length!) about, for example, the Working Families Party and previewing the would-be Senate candidacy of Steve Israel.

But Allon said his outlet is already planning to "expand our coverage of city and state politics" with new initiatives in the coming weeks and months.

Update: Dovere emails his contacts, saying, "We’ve broken news, gained an increasingly large following, and won our fair share of awards. And though I know I’ve personally caused quite a bit of trouble for a number of the people getting this email, I’ve enjoyed working with all of you."

The forum was the candidates’ first and last chance to debate each other directly, and they wasted no time in setting themselves apart from their fellow candidates and scuffling directly with one another.

Before the debate began, Liu set what proved to be the sometimes edgy tone of the morning by thanking the moderators, Edward-Isaac Dovere of City Hall and Michael Scotto of NY1, for allowing the four candidates to appear onstage together. He added, deadpan, “We’ve become really good friends these past few months,” earning snickers from his rivals and raised eyebrows (literally) from aides frantically emailing on their BlackBerrys. 

The candidates were first asked what they would do differently from Thompson. Katz answered diplomatically, praising Thompson’s diversification of pension funds and adding that she would “truly use the power of the investment in order to get more than a balance sheet back.” Liu voiced the need to take a “very, very close look at how the Department of Education operates with its finances and some of the procedures it follows,” and added that “there are not enough checks and balances with regard to the Department of Education.” Weprin called for comptroller offices in all five boroughs, and bemoaned the difficulty of gaining access to Thompson’s current offices at 1 Centre Street, even as a councilman. Yassky shared his plan to get rid of wasteful spending and focused on cutting back energy consumption, adding that he would put 5 percent of the city’s portfolio into green technology.

Following this round of abridged stump speechifying, the talons came out—relatively speaking; this was a comptroller debate, after all—when the discussion turned to such issues as last spring’s Council slush-fund scandal and the candidates’ support of Tier 5 and placement managers.

Katz, Liu and Weprin were all firm in their rejection of Tier 5, but Yassky dissented, stating: “I don’t think we should take anything off the table. I’m not a George W. Bush that says, ‘Read my lips, no new taxes.’’” Weprin glowered as Yassky railed against those responsible for the slush-fund scandal, encouraging New Yorkers to be “outraged and disgusted about what apparently happened to the state pension funds” under former comptroller Alan Hevesi. 

While Katz made it clear that she supported the ban of placement agents due to the “clear crisis in confidence among the people of the city of New York” following the scandal, the men were not so quick to make such a definitive statement. Liu conceded that “bad news came out about placement managers” but argued that this “doesn’t necessarily mean we should get rid of them.” Yassky admitted that placement agents have a “real possibility for mischief” but can have value for small funds, not “the Carlyles of the world.”

  The candidates had lots to say each others’ long-term political ambitions.

“As far as ambition and stepping stones,” Liu confronted Yassky with a smirk, “you’ve got to admit, this is like the fifth office you’ve run for.” Yassky did not return the smile. He counted off the offices on his fingers and held up three, repeating tersely, “It’s three. But five is close to three.”

Weprin interrupted him to say, to much laughter and applause, that Liu had previously run for public advocate. (Liu originally planned to run for public advocate before declaring for comptroller.) From her temporary peanut gallery, Katz piped in: “As the only woman here, and since most teachers are women, can I ask for a detention for these men?”

Liu argued, defensively, that he “lived and breathed” finance before becoming a councilman and said that seeking a third-term, Bloomberg-style, would be “an abysmal assault on democracy.” Yassky expressed enthusiasm for the comptroller job by saying it allows “someone who is deeply into policy” to have “as big an impact as pretty much any job in the city, save,” of course, “the mayor.”

The candidates continued to tussle when they were permitted to ask each other questions directly. Yassky in particular produced his queries in the form of mini-speeches, elaborating on his policy plans and asking, as Dovere rushed him along, whether or not the candidate he was grilling would support his proposals on, among other initiatives, energy efficiency.

Liu called Katz’s proposal of a total ban on placement managers a “knee-jerk reaction.” He seemed to be asking for just the kind of address Dovere prohibited when he called into question Yassky’s “actual financial” experience, to which Yassky replied with a two-minute run-down of all his work with the city budget. Liu asked Yassky to name two Fortune 100 companies he represented as a lawyer. Yassky named four.

At the end of the debate, Weprin, responding to his fellow candidates’ reminders to the audience of his role as Finance Committee chairman during the slush-fund scandal, committed one last act of aggression. He called into question Yassky’s consistency on the Atlantic Yards Project. Yassky was quick to clarify that his support was for an arena in downtown Brooklyn, but not for the 60-story buildings accompanying that arena. Yassky also claimed that “none of the facts” that Weprin slung at him were correct.

“Well, correct me,” Weprin said, testily. “Well, I will,” Yassky said, grinning.

As Dovere concluded the forum and the candidates shook hands stiffly, he joked with the crowd: “Who says municipal finance can’t be exciting?” 

With a little over a year left in office, Mr. Lieber said during an interview in City Hall at the time, the administration would rapidly press forward on its projects, particularly Willets Point, the planned $3 billion housing and retail complex by the old Shea Stadium. He said he planned to bid out and award the site to a developer some time in 2009.

Of course, the world—and the political scene, with Mayor Bloomberg now bidding for a third term—has shifted dramatically. The administration has now revised its approach to the project, which would redevelop the long-neglected hub of auto repair shops and other industry. 

With an eye on the economy, the city is following a more gradual strategy at Willets Point than it once planned, according to officials involved. Rather than pick a developer to build out the entire project, as previously considered, the plans now call for the 61-acre site to be developed in three successive phases. The city plans to wait until the economy has sufficiently stabilized before bidding out the project to private developers—a bidding that could start in 2009 or later.

Such a revision comes as financial institutions have been loath to lend a dime to the real estate industry for more than six months now, stopping almost all large-scale development that did not have financing in place pre–Sept. 15. Taken with the broader decline in the economy, the city has had to reevaluate numerous projects in its portfolio, as developers and landlords have come back with pleas to renegotiate earlier deals. Some have been successful—Related Companies asked for, and was granted, added incentives for a Bronx retail project, according to the city—while others have scrapped their plans, as did Time Equities on a Brooklyn project.

With Willets, the city now is planning to start taking bids for design of about $150 million in infrastructure work later this month, and is prepared to bid out development of a portion of the site later this year, if the market should improve by then. That section would be the southwest corner of the site—which sits across the street from Citi Field and the No. 7 line—where a developer could build up to 2.5 million square feet of mostly housing and retail. The developer ultimately selected for that section would likely have an option on the second and third phases.

This would seem to give the city some room to breathe financially and put less weight on a single developer. Expensive acquisitions would not be necessary all at once.

“Given the state of the economy, the $150 million in the budget for off-site infrastructure, and the 5,300 permanent and 18,000 construction jobs it will allow us to create, will help set the table for development at a time that will coincide with economic recovery,” said Seth Pinsky, president of the city’s Economic Development Corporation, in a statement.

Whatever path the Bloomberg administration takes at Willets Point, it is bound to face a lengthy legal battle, as more than 50 property owners there have yet to reach deals with the city to buy their property. The others would likely face eminent domain if they do not sell, and many are vowing to fight back with lawsuits as long as they are able.

Willets Point United Against Eminent Domain, a group which includes numerous landowners in the area, last month filed a challenge to the city’s environmental review of the area, and has enlisted the successful environmental attorney Michael Gerrard.

“Let’s face reality,” said Jake Bono, a spokesman for and member of the group, “no one here is going anywhere."

ebrown@observer.com

So, if you ever decide to search for it: it's Andrew J. Hawkins who wrote the piece for the Press, and Andrew Hawkins for the News.