Mayor Zohran Mamdani claims he doxxed a quarter-million New York City homeowners for the sake of “transparency,” but the only thing transparent about Mamdani’s action is its falsehood.
The Department of Finance sent notices to just 17,000 owners of homes that it suspects don’t live there full-time, units it thinks are valued above the cutoff lines for the new tax.
Sending those letters should have been all the city’s tax collectors needed to do.
Instead, reportedly at the mayor’s personal urging, the DoF released a list of hundreds of thousands of names, addresses and property market values, saying that people subject to the state’s new pied-a-terre tax “may” be listed on it.
Huh? If the city already mailed bills to the 17,000 people being levied, what’s the point of creating and publishing a list that’s at least 95% inaccurate, by the DoF’s own measure?
But early reports indicate that even many tax bills were sent to the wrong people, who now have three weeks to jump through hoops to prove that their apartments or houses are occupied by full-time residents.
More From Post Editorial Board
Putting out sloppy, mislabeled data revealing personal information isn’t transparency — it’s intentionally opaque and confusing.
The sole explanation for this intentional data dump is that the mayor’s office wanted to embarrass and frustrate people who have the bad taste to own something in a city ruled by socialists who believe that all housing should be public housing.
Plus of course the mayor circulated videos of him smirkily warning absentee fat cats to check their mail.
Let’s not forget: This is the same City Hall that issued normally hard-to-get press credentials to some lunatic Luigi Mangione fans; the Mamdani team favors folks who worship an accused assassin.
Get opinions and commentary from our columnists
Subscribe to our daily Post Opinion newsletter!
Thanks for signing up!
This is a target list. Consider:
The NYPD doesn’t release a list of the day’s arrests, including mugshots and arrest records, though other major cities do.
The Human Resources Administration doesn’t publish a list of everyone who applied for cash assistance or food stamps.
The Department of Housing Preservation & Development doesn’t list the names of everyone living in a rent-stabilized apartment.
It isn’t the government’s job to wage a campaign of embarrassment or stir up resentment against segments of the population.
That’s demagoguery, by definition.
Mamdani was inaugurated on a promise to bring New Yorkers together.
He lied.
