Flooding of the Gowanus Canal could require toxicity assessments, according to the comptroller's report. Photo by Hunter Walker.

Economic costs related to Hurricane Sandy could top $18 billion in New York State, Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli said today in a statement. Those costs include the disruption of business and loss of property and wealth, though estimates remain in flux due to the continued power outages, especially in lower Manhattan.

"Our daily infrastructure of highways, power, sewer and water—the elements of modern life that we take for granted—have all been altered by this storm," Mr. DiNapoli said in the statement. "Though the rebuilding effort may offset some of these losses, we must continue to monitor what the long-term economic impact to New York will be."

The catastrophe modeling firm Eqecat is estimating total U.S. economic costs from Hurricane Sandy at between $30 to $50 billion.

Some other highlights from Mr. DiNapoli's report:

Despite the closure of U.S. markets for two days at the beginning of the week, ongoing disruption to the financial sector is expected to be limited, though the importance of the industry to the state's economy would amplify the effects of further disruption in Sandy's wake.

The storm may prevent New York City's tourism industry from breaking records for spending and attendance, while the state—already projecting total tax revenue $436 million below initial projections—is like to see reduced revenue due to the storm.

Damage to infrastructure, meanwhile, including highways, airports, seaports and sewer and water systems is estimated in the tens of billions of dollars, though much of those costs will be covered by insurance or federal aid.

And flooding may raise health concerns, including potential need for toxicity assessments at such sites as Newtown Creek or the Gowanus Canal.

A shady deal! (Getty)

Apple has been one of the hottest companies on the planet for going on a decade now, and that includes its retail stores. That glass cube on Fifth Avenue is perhaps the architectural icon of the city this century.

When The Observer learned that Apple was thinking of bringing its biggest iStore to Grand Central Terminal last year, it was viewed as a coup for both the company and the MTA—could there be a more desirable shop in a more desirable location? The fanfare that greeted the store's opening rivaled that of an Apple product launch, with lines for days.

But then it was revealed that Apple was not paying a share of its profits to the MTA, as every other retailer at Grand Central does. The MTA insisted it was a good deal, but State Comptroller Tom DiNapoli promised an investigation last fall, and he has concluded in a new audit [PDF] that Apple got a sweetheart deal that is rotten for the MTA and tax payers.

The audit found that as far back as November 2008, nearly three years before an official RFP was released for the project, the MTA's real estate department (MTA RED in the words of the audit) had begun negotiating with the Cupertino-based tech giant. There were a number of negotiations between that period, not only with the MTA but also Metazur, the Mediterranean restaurant that occupied the concourse Apple would later take over for a $5 million buyout.

"Our analysis shows that the playing field was not level and fair for all vendors," the audit reads. "We conclude that the competitive process reported by MTA RED in this instance was significantly slanted in Apple’s favor."

Among the more damning passages in the audit is the fact that Apple agreed to front $2 million to Metazur five days before the RFP was released, suggesting it already had a lock on the space. It also suggests that there were no other respondents to the RFP besides Apple in part because it was tailored expressly for the company.

According to the audit: "One vendor’s correspondence to the MTA dated June 17, 2011 stated that the upfront cost of $5 million was too great of an investment and precluded the vendor from submitting a formal bid on the space. The vendor further indicated that only an entity with a lot of liquid capital would be able to afford the lease under these terms."

In a fiery statement, MTA chairman and CEO Joe Lhota said that the agency followed the letter of the law in issuing its RFP and the comptroller's report demonstrates an ignorance of real estate negotiations.

“The Comptroller's audit staff clearly has no understanding of how high-profile commercial real estate works, given the shockingly inaccurate and clearly biased audit they issued," Mr. Lhota said. "Remember Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan's old adage, 'You have the right to your opinion, you don’t have the right to your own facts'?  This audit is not fact-based, and accordingly, the auditors’ opinion is worthless."

It is true that the RFP process presents its own problems for finding a tenant in a market-based way closer to what private landlords can undertake, but that means the RPF process needs reform, not subversion.

There is a political dimension to the audit in that the comptroller is now seeking authority to oversee similar RFPs in the future. Currently, that authority only extends to non-competitive contracts. While this one was deemed competitive, the comptroller is arguing that was merely a sugar coating—the MTA spent two years negotiating with Apple, then essentially used the agreed upon terms to issue the RFP.

Yet the comptroller is not saying this is necessarily a bad deal for the agency so much as a matter of bad practice—what if next time the insider is not Apple but someone less impressive? Had the process been a single-source contract, which would have been reviewable, so be it.

“While Apple may turn out to be a good tenant, the MTA set a troubling precedent when it played favorites and gave Apple a competitive edge over others for the Grand Central space,” Mr. DiNapoli said in a release. “Apple was directly involved in setting the terms of the lease and given exclusive access to information more than a year before any other vendor knew the Grand Central location was available."

In fact, the comptroller is quite fond of Apple: the state pension fund owns more than 3.1 million shares of the company's stock worth $1.9 billion.

Boehner and Obama.

It would almost seem that the stars had finally aligned. After weeks of stalled talks and contentious meetings between House Republicans and Democrats that escalated into a public spat between Speaker John Boehner and President Obama, a bill finally made it through the House and into the Senate, where it was speedily approved Tuesday morning thanks to backing from Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Majority Leader Harry Reid, just in time for the Cinderella-esque stroke-of-midnight deadline. The anthropomorphic bill from Schoolhouse Rock! had nothing on this drama.

So, the good news is that the country isn’t going to default on its debt obligations, which puts us at least one step ahead of Teresa Giudice from the Real Housewives of New Jersey. The bad news is that just as everyone was making nice and learning to compromise, Vice President Joe Biden made an offhand comment that Congress’s Tea Party Republicans “acted like terrorists” during negotiations, an ill-timed gaffe that not even the heartwarming sight of Gabrielle Giffords casting her first vote on the House floor after nearly getting assassinated in January could correct. Oh, Joe. To paraphrase The Princess Bride, you fell victim to one of the classic blunders—of which the most famous one is “Never get involved in a land war in Asia,” and an only slightly less well-known one is: Never go in against the Tea Party when debt is on the line.

But at least the Dems aren’t buying Twitter followers, which is more than we can say for beleaguered 2012 hopeful Newt Gingrich. After bragging to the Marietta Daily Journal that, despite abysmal poll numbers, he has “six times as many Twitter followers as all the other candidates combined,” a former staffer submitted an anonymous tip to Gawker claiming that 80% of Mr. Gingrich’s 1.3 million followers are either inactive or dummy accounts (this figure was later amended by networking firm PeekYou to a whopping 92%). File this under #YouKnowYouWon’tWinTheNominationWhen …

Also stepping in it this week: Bronx principal Frank Borzellieri, a white supremacist who, despite having published racist essays, somehow worked at a largely black and Latino Catholic school for two years before anyone noticed; Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky, who did not do a very good job of apologizing to the vacation rental company’s disgruntled clients whose apartments were trashed (it’s O.K., now you can rent swaths of Lower East Side grass for $50/hour, courtesy of N.Y.C.’s own Timeshare Backyard!); British comedian Johnnie Marbles, who got sentenced to six weeks in jail for memorably pie-ing Rupert Murdoch during July’s News Corp. hearing in Parliament; and the M.T.A., which is responsible for screwing up repairs and slowing service, according to a joint report released last weekend by state and city comptrollers Thomas DiNapoli and John Liu. (And here we thought we were just getting a complimentary sauna with our subway fare.)

So perhaps we were too hasty about the whole “stellar alignment” thing. Turns out mercury is in retrograde, and not to get all Dionne Warwick on you, but something has seemed … off the past few days. First, in the midst of an oppressive heat wave, baseball-size hail rained down on Queens (adding insult to injury for the hapless Mets). Then, a peacock escaped from the Central Park zoo and began terrorizing (read: sitting calmly on) a Fifth Avenue window ledge. Not one but two adult men made the news for wearing inappropriate full-body animal costumes (but on the upside, only one, David Wu, was a member of Congress). Mark Zuckerberg added a creepy pregnancy feature to Facebook. And just as the debt ceiling legislation went through, assuaging Wall Street’s fears about market stability, the Dow dropped 265 points. Maybe it’s just our bad fortune.

In another era, under different leaders, an unexpected bonanza of nearly a billion dollars would be the very definition of a good-news, bad-news scenario in Albany. The good news: The state collected $800 million more than it expected. The bad news: Same thing. Why? Because legislators and governors invariably used the unexpected cash to avoid hard decisions or to pay off politically wired constituencies.

Those days, we can only hope, are gone—at least for a decade or so. Mr. DiNapoli made that clear as he announced the windfall. The economic forecast over the next few months is iffy at best—especially if Washington can’t get its act together over the debt ceiling. It’s possible, Mr. DiNapoli said, that revenues could plunge over the next six to eight months if the economy stalls. As it stands, the state very likely will have to close a $2 billion deficit next year, significantly less than the original projection of $10 billion, but no small task in any case.

Thanks to the tone that Governor Andrew Cuomo established on day one of his administration, Albany did not conduct business as usual during this spring’s legislative session. Unions agreed to painful concessions involving pay and benefits. Legislators, every mindful of the two-year election cycle, submitted to strict budgetary discipline in the hopes that voters will have short memories come election day next year.

News that there is an unexpected pile of cash in Albany’s coffers could prompt dreams of reversing some of the tough decisions that the governor and legislators made this year. There is no end of causes and constituencies that would love to stake a claim to a few million here and there.

Fortunately for all concerned, it seems like the $800 million will be put aside in anticipation of harder times to come. That’s sensible and wise. If the worst doesn’t happen, however, and if the state cannot resist the urge to spend the extra cash, priority must be given to programs and policies that create jobs and stimulate the private sector. In other words, no handouts to favorite causes, no givebacks to unions, no reversals of hard decisions already in place.

Over the past few months, Albany lawmakers have shown themselves to be responsible and even courageous. If that continues, the Empire State may yet return to its former glory.

Sumberg has worked for state Senator Tom Duane since March of last year, serving as spokesman during the near-passage of the same-sex marriage bill.

"We've had some great victories and some disappointments, but a great experience overall," Sumberg told me

He'll join the DiNapoli camp on Tuesday, and try to help the appointed comptroller beat back a challenge from Republican former hedge fund manager Harry Wilson.

DiNapoli announced this morning that his office would seek to be a lead plaintiff in a class action lawsuit against BP. The office recently estimated that the state pension fund, which owns BP stock, lost about $30 million in value on account of the oil spill. In a statement, DiNapoli suggested the suit would argue that the oil company was misleading about its preparedness to contain a spill, a contention made by at least one of the other class action suits to pop up thus far.

"BP misled investors about its safety procedures and its ability to respond to events like the ongoing oil spill and we're going to hold it accountable," DiNapoli said in a statement.

The move would seem ripe to gain some attention, as it seems this is the first major pension fund to announce that it is suing BP over the spill.

DiNapoli, a former Assemblyman who was appointed to his job in 2007, is facing what many in the political world view to be a formidable challenger in Republican Harry Wilson come the fall elections.

During an interview on Inside City Hall, Thompson said, "I guess there is a chance, or a very good chance eventually I'll run for office again."

He went on to say, "I think within the next month I have to make a decision. I think that that is fair to everybody and fair to myself." Thompson added that it is a "decision that has to be made; it has to be made next month."

Next month, candidates for state office, like comptroller Thomas DiNapoli, will disclose their latest fund-raising numbers, which will help determine how strong a position they're in. Right now, DiNapoli has $1,219,852.40 on hand. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, whom Thompson is considering challenging, has $5,524,614 on hand.

State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli has decided that the senators will not collect paychecks until they put asides their petty grievances. It’s just the right message to send to these egregious hacks. New Yorkers are going to suffer because of their shortsighted shenanigans. So why should taxpayers subsidize this nonsense?

Mr. DiNapoli’s actions are welcome, but once the Senate gets its act together, senators will get their back pay and their regular paychecks. In the end, they will not have suffered a great deal. If the comptroller really wants to show his disgust, he should pledge to campaign against the Senate’s leaders, regardless of party, next year.
State legislators can deal with a few missed paychecks. But an abrupt end to a lucrative part-time job? That’s too awful to contemplate.

Here's the full report in PDF.

Suozzi, the Nassau county executive, has openly declared an interest in running as Paterson’s lieutenant governor, should he be asked. Cunningham is Suozzi's ally and former counsel.

Suffolk County Democratic chair Richard Schaffer thinks the chances that Suozzi will land in Albany, or even Washington, are high.

“Tom, in his own right, has established himself—I think he’s on a track for something higher,” said Schaffer in a brief telephone interview last night. “He did the Property Tax Commission, and is recognized as someone who did a good job consolidating his base, which makes him viable on any level—either the state level or federal level. Barack Obama may come calling because of what Suozzi represents: a Democrat coming out of the suburbs.”

Schaffer referred to Cunningham as a friend and former adversary. Schaffer was the county chairman when Cunningham unsuccessfully sought the Democratic nomination for Suffolk county executive. Steve Levy, who currently holds the office, won.

Still, Schaffer said, Long Islanders like him are pleased to have one of their own so close to the governor. Schaffer, at one point, said he was simply delighted to be going into state budget negotiations with a top gubernatorial aide who “knows where places like Bohemia, Mattituck and Smithtown are.”

At the same time, geography might be the most compelling reason to keep Suozzi off Paterson’s shortlist of potential running mates.

As one Democratic official from New York City told me, “It completely says, ‘Fuck you, upstate.’ No upstate elected officials anymore."

As Albany Republicans are fond of pointing out during election season, all of the dominant figures in the ranks of the Albany Democrats are from the city and Long Island. Paterson is from Harlem. Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver is from the Lower East Side. Democratic State Senate leader, Malcolm Smith is from Queens. Attorney General Andrew Cuomo grew up in Queens and lives in Manhattan. State Comptroller Tom DiNapoli, like Suozzi, is from Nassau.

“If you’re going to go for someone outside the city, I don’t think Long Island is the place to go. Go upstate, or even to Rockland County or Westchester,” said the city-based Democratic lawmaker. Suozzi “doesn’t balance the ticket enough.”

Schaffer acknowledged that geography is a consideration in balancing the ticket, but said, “I don’t know how you can ignore Long Island. We have 16 percent of the gubernatorial vote at the convention, and we’ve got a great deal of say.”