City Hall vet targets rent laws By Peter Grant 767 words 31 January 1994 Crains New York Business CNYB Pg. 33 v10, n5, Section 1 English Copyright Crain Communications Inc. 1994 New York, NY, US -Few have been more successful than Joseph Strasburg in navigating the labyrinth of New York City politics. As chief of staff to City Council Speaker Peter F. Vallone, he has been a key player in most of the major City Hall deals cut in the past five years. Now Mr. Strasburg, 42, is turning his attention to what could be the ultimate challenge to his political skills. He starts this week as president of the Rent Stabilization Association, the city's largest organization of apartment building owners. In that job his main priority will be the great mission impossible of New York politics: engineering a phase-out of rent regulations. The deck has always been stacked against landlords on this issue because tenants far outnumber landlords, a fact not lost on the city and state legislators who would have to approve decontrol. Nevertheless, owners are so elated with Mr. Strasburg's RSA appointment that they are stressing new optimism that long-sought- after legislation that would decontrol apartments as they become vacant might be within reach. "If anybody could put together the coalition necessary to implement vacancy decontrol Joe Strasburg's the guy," says John J. Gilbert 3d, the former president who left the job in April. Mr. Strasburg's supporters note that he has pulled off some seemingly impossible political victories in the past. "He's one of a kind," Mr. Vallone says. "He had to deal with 51 City Council members and all of them felt they could trust him." Mr. Strasburg was instrumental, for example, in lining up enough council votes to pass the Brooklyn Navy Yard incinerator, despite bitter opposition from environmentalists. He also balanced the competing interests on the restructuring of the civilian complaint review board for the Police Department. Council members and staff credit Mr. Strasburg's successes to his instincts for knowing what is politically possible."Joe is great at walking through political mine fields," says Marc V. Shaw, who served with him on Mr. Vallone's staff and was named finance commissioner by Mayor Giuliani. "He was one of the quickest reads of situations and how things would play out politically." LAUDED FOR CANDOR AND TRUST Even those to opposed to Mr. Vallone on issues praise Mr. Strasburg for his candor and trustworthiness. They note that he publicly stated last fall that he believed voters would approve term limitations despite Mr. Vallone's opposition to the measure. "This is a guy people liked dealing with even when they were tearing their hair out about what the council was planning to do," says Gene Russianoff, senior attorney of the New York Public Interest Research Group. Page 1 of 2 © 2016 Factiva, Inc. All rights reserved. Mr. Strasburg, the son of a baker, moved to New York from Israel at age six. He grew up in the Bronx and graduated from City College of New York and the University of San Fernando College of Law in California. Mr. Strasburg was first hired to the council staff in 1978 by then-Majority Leader Thomas Cuite, who belonged to the patronage school of personnel decisions. "I went for an interview and was ready to answer all kinds of questions. But Mr. Cuite only had one: Who are the leaders of your Democratic club?" Mr. Strasburg recalls. "I told him and that was enough. He told me I got the job." After he was hired, Mr. Strasburg rose through the ranks of the council staff. He was made counsel in 1984. Mr. Vallone's first action after he was elected majority leader in 1986 was announcing that he wanted Mr. Strasburg to remain in that position. ACHIEVABLE GOALS ON AGENDA Lately, Mr. Strasburg has been thinking about ways to parlay his talents into victories for the landlords' lobby. He acknowledges that repealing rent control is a "very tough issue." But he also notes that there are more achievable goals on RSA's agenda, such as establishing government guidelines for owners on lead-paint protection. At the same time, Mr. Strasburg does not concede that significant change in rent regulations is impossible. He notes that the Legislature passed a law decontrolling apartments rented by rich individuals. "It was a symbolic victory, but one that syas rent law should not be applied blindly," he says. Also, the politics of housing is changing. With thousands of New Yorkers buying condominiums and cooperative apartments over the past decade, regulation of rentals is becoming less sacrosanct. "You have a constituency emerging that is going to be fighting the same issues as landlords," he says. Illustration: photograph Document cnyb000020011029dq1v0001m Search Summary Text joe strasburg Date 01/01/1994 to 12/31/1994 Source All Sources Author All Authors Company All Companies Subject All Subjects Industry All Industries Region All Regions Language English Or French Or Polish Results Found 6 Timestamp 9 November 2016 16:47 Page 2 of 2 © 2016 Factiva, Inc. All rights reserved.