In the months since last year’s elections, Charles Barron has: Gotten into a shouting match with a CUNY trustee at a groundbreaking ceremony; launched into his latest tirade against Council Speaker Christine Quinn with another chorus of fist-raisers egging him on; and became the only Democrat in the Council to lose his committee chairmanship.

Costa Constantinides surveyed the crowded second floor of Queens Democratic Party headquarters in Forest Hills and marveled at what he saw. It was the 2010 kickoff meeting of the Queens County Young Democrats, and the after-work meeting had drawn more than 50 people—a head count several degrees of magnitude greater than what Constantinides was used to from just a few years before.

MTA chairman Jay Walder and Transport Workers Union Local 100 president John Samuelsen, both new to their jobs, got together for their first meeting in mid- January. On the agenda: the broad disagreements about the MTA’s budget policies over the next year and what that will mean for the union’s workforce.

For the first two years that New York City’s new lobbying restrictions were in existence, William Rapfogel had no idea he was violating them. Figuring that the landmark 2006 law applied to big, professional lobbying firms, Rapfogel did not register anyone from the non-profit he heads, the Metropolitan Council on Jewish Poverty, as a lobbyist. After all, Rapfogel reasoned, his employees spent just a few hours lobbying lawmakers each year.

When Rep. Gregory Meeks reached out to Gov. David Paterson last September to convey concerns the White House was having about the governor's re-election, many saw the move as the Obama administration's most overt attempt to muscle Paterson out of the race, in favor of a much safer candidate in Attorney General Andrew Cuomo.

New Jersey’s basketball team may be the worst in the nation, but the state’s incoming governor seems like a popular guy.

With the future of the office still very much in question, though, Gotbaum says she has much to be proud of—and a few things to regret. While trying to conclude some leftover business, Gotbaum took a moment to discuss her time in office, failing her fingerprint test and the hair issue.

The elder Towns recently sat down with City Hall to talk about the perks of chairing a committee, hosting his own Internet talk show, his feelings about Sammy Sosa and why he may owe his career to car trouble.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s election night party at the Sheraton was one that befit a billionaire. There were long lines to get in, guests were wanded, food and drink were brought around on trays.

Miringoff, who loves going inside the numbers on elections the way others obsess over baseball statistics, explains how the polls accurately predicted Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s slim margin of victory, why Bill Thompson’s pollster Geoff Garin’s poll was way off, and what to do about cell phones and young people without landlines.