Ex-Syracuse Mayor Stephanie Miner got unwanted kisses from bully Andrew Cuomo: It was about power with him

The former mayor of Syracuse says then-Gov.Andrew Cuomo forcibly kissed her several times when she was in office, and she angrily describes the encounters as “all about power.’’Longtime Cuomo foe Stephanie Miner, speaking to The Post on Monday about her new book, “Madam Mayor,” recounted passages in her tome in which she claims she was kissed against her will by the then-governor while they were at loggerheads over policy issues during her two terms.“It was clearly unwanted.

It was about power with him,” the Democrat said of the encounters — while blasting Cuomo’s administration as a total “failure.”Miner, 54, called the busses a “kiss from a bully” in her book.“I did not find Andrew Cuomo’s kisses any more objectionable than the other ways he bullied me.It was part of the rules of engagement as a politician,” wrote Miner, who was mayor from 2010 to 2018.

“I chose to be in the arena, and his kisses were the least of his control tactics.”Miner recalled being invited to a Cuomo announcement regarding his Start-UP NY program at the SUNY Upstate Medical Center campus in 2013.Under the program, firms could relocate tax-free, including being exempt from local property taxes — which Miner opposed because she said it deprived Syracuse of revenues to fund city services.She had previously written an op-ed column critical of the governor, 67, and they were at loggerheads.“I seethed.

At the end of the event, the governor’s staff grabbed me and ushered me to the receiving line, ensuring the media could see the governor greet me, thus confirming my support of the program,” Miner claimed in her book, the details of which were first reported by Politico.“I was being manipulated but had no real choice,” she said.“If I refused, it would cement me as someone who could not work with the most powerful elected official in the state.

I felt like a trapped animal, and I knew my face gave away exactly how I was feeling.”She noted that ...