On one channel, the titles of the shows have a tang – there is “Secrets of New York,” “Cool in Your Code,” “Globe Trekker,” even “Tommy Tang’s Modern Thai Cuisine.”
In the other channel, there are hours and hours of a show called: "The Council." (One recent highlight: “The NYC Council Subcommittee on Housing”)
The first is channel 25; the second is cable channel 74. They are both part of the NYC Media Group; they are both owned by City Hall. And they both are being criticized, for nearly opposite reasons.
Don’t misunderstand. Both are also praised.
The NYC Media Group, conceived by Mayor Michael Bloomberg in 2003 and consolidated into its present form in early 2005 and housed within the Department of Technology and Telecommunications, is comprised principally of flagship broadcast channel 25, and cable channels 71, 73, and 74.
Channel 74, which focuses on the doings of government -- hearings, press conferences -- now is also available online, certainly an innovation. (Channel 73 mostly offers programs in languages other than English geared for immigrants, and channel 71 is run by the New York off-track betting corporation.)
Channel 25 offers outstanding production values and broadcasts a schedule of cultural and entertainment programming with a New York slant that is so various and popular that, beginning in September 2006, some of the most popular night-time shows on 25 also began airing during the daytime hours on broadcast giant WNBC-TV. This was a first in city history.
But Gale Brewer, head of the New York City Council’s Committee on Technology in Government, argues that the government-oriented programming -- which is the reason behind municipal television in the first place, required by the City Charter (page 227) -- is often of poor quality and aired at inconvenient times.
From 1992 to 2003, the city’s first official municipal cable station, Crosswalks Television, exclusively aired government programming. NYC Media has departed considerably from this tradition, and this has led to clashing perspectives about the proper function of city television.
Brewer would like to see NYC Media devote some of the creativity that is evident on channel 25 to its government programming on channel 74. ( Despite popular opinion to the contrary, she does not believe that public affairs television must be stodgy and boring. Rather than a cooking show that is similar to those on the Food Network, for example, Brewer might broadcast a discussion with a member of the City Council about how the health department's proposed ban on trans-fats at restaurants would affect their district.
Brewer’s vision is directly at odds with that of Arick Wierson, the general manager of NYC Media Group. “We have to look like regular TV, TV that people are used to watching. So we made it hip, we made it flashy,” Wierson said following a recent council hearing to discuss the direction of NYC-TV. He noted that cities such as Chicago, Los Angeles and Houston are looking to New York for lessons about how to revitalize their municipal television productions.
Brewer suggests just the reverse, that New York can look to other municipalities for suggestions on how to enliven government programming. Among the innovations done elsewhere:
Brewer also proposes other ideas that are not so common around the country:
Whatever changes occur on channel 74, Wierson plans to continue channel 25 as it is. As he succinctly stated at the recent hearing, "Television is meant to be watched". Â
At each of the City Council's stated meetings, council members introduce bills, most of which will never become laws (for the process by which bills become laws, click here). As a regular feature, Gotham Gazette discusses some of the legislation proposed at each meeting.
At its most recent stated meeting on October 11, the City Council introduced several bills and proposed resolutions dealing with affordable housing, nightlife safety, civil service, and Con Edison.
With sales of large apartment complexes threatening to change the character of those developments, Councilmember Rosie Mendez introduced a bill that addresses the diminishing stock of low- and middle-income homes in the city. Intro 454 calls for a 120-day review period once a sale of any large-scale development is proposed. After conducting the review, the city’s housing preservation and development department would submit recommendations to the council and the mayor’s office on how to minimize the effects of any major sales, according to Mendez’s office.
The bill had been prompted by MetLifes decision to sell Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village on Manhattan’s East Side. But the announcement on October 17 that Tishman Speyer was buying the developments for $5.4 billion presumably limits any impact the measure could have on that. Mendez’s office said she is still moving forward with the bill in order to prevent future large-scale real estate deals from moving ahead without the city’s input.
In its continuing focus on New York’s nightlife, the council got its first piece of public safety legislation coming out of the nightlife summit held last month by Speaker Christine Quinn. Intro 455, by Councilmember Peter Vallone, would require clubs to hire one bouncer per every 75 patrons. There currently is no law on the number of bouncers required. The legislation is one of several pieces already introduced regarding club security personnel, including the “Bouncer Control Act” that was passed in August.
Many city employees who started working after September 1986 are required by city law to live in the five boroughs. At the request of Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Councilmember Joseph Addabbo introduced legislation to alter this residency requirement and allow more public workers to live in counties surrounding the city. Intro 452 would allow certain unionized employees to live in Nassau, Westchester, Suffolk, Orange, Rockland or Putnam county. The move to relax residency requirements comes as many city employees find it increasingly difficult to find affordable homes within the five boroughs.
Just one day before Con Edison released a report that deflected blame for the blackout in Queens in July, the council urged the federal government to investigate the utility. Vallone, who criticized the report, proposed Resolution 551, which calls for the federal government to look into Con Ed’s past and present failures, including its questionable response after nearly 100,000 residents lost power for almost two weeks. The resolution also calls for the possibility of a federally appointed monitor for the company.
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Every two weeks the New York City Council meets for its Stated Meeting both to introduce and pass legislation. As a regular feature, Gotham Gazette covers these meetings.
The City Council took a small step to ease the cost of housing for low-income New Yorkers.
The council unanimously expanded an existing law that reduces property taxes exemption for low-income senior citizens and disabled New Yorkers who own their homes. Currently, seniors and disabled people must have incomes must have incomes of less that$32,400 to be exempt from paying part of their property tax. Council now has raised that limit to $34,400 for this year and will gradually increase that to $37,400 in 2009. To receive the maximum benefit, the homeowners have to have income of $24,000 or less now. That will go up to $29,000 in 2009.
The changes, said Councilmember Maria del Carmen Arroyo of the Bronx, chair of the committee would help people who may not be below the poverty level. (See related story on how that level is defined, The Poverty Commission: Measuring Up?) But she said, those who could benefit “still suffer day in and day out, making difficult decisions” on how to spend their limited incomes, sometimes having to choose between food and medicine.
Arroyo estimated that currently only about 40,000 of the possibly 60,000 New Yorkers eligible for the exemption apply for it. “We have to do a better job of informing seniors and disabled New Yorkers,” Council Speaker Christine Quinn said.
While praising the property tax exemption for low-income property Councilmember Gale Brewer urged her fellow members to try to provide some relief for elderly or disabled renters, who rent includes payments for their landlords’ property tax.
The council vote on the measures, Intro 445-A, was 47 to 0
There was also discussion of other, possibly more controversial, matters relating to affordable housing.
Saving Stuyvesant Town?
Councilmember Rosie Mendez introduced a bill, which if passed, would require that, when any large scale development is put up for auction, the city housing department conduct a study of what impact that sale would have on housing in the city. The measure is clearly aimed at the impending sale of Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village, onetime middle-income housing developments on Manhattan’s West Side. “It is good public policy that would allow the city of New York to find out what is happening with our housing situation, “ Mendez said.
The possible loss of so many rent regulated apartments is “too important for the city to sit back and simply watch it happen,” Councilmember Daniel Garodnik, who lives in the development said,
But some question whether, even if is approved, any such law could take effect in time to affect that sale.
Tax Breaks for Developers?
Shortly before the meeting, the council received a report from the Bloomberg administration proposing changes in the 421-A program that gives a tax break to developers. Currently most builders who construct housing in the city get a tax break. But in a few sections of Manhattan and Brooklyn, they must build affordable housing, usually along with their other project, to earn their exemption from some tax increases. Now, the administration is recommending that those areas be expanded to include such desirable sections of the city as Lower Manhattan, parts of Harlem, Brooklyn Heights and other places on the Brooklyn and Queens waterfront. The administration would also set other new limits on the tax break.
Many of the proposed changes are aimed at encouraging developers to build more affordable housing. Some in the real estate industry have claimed such rules could hamper development in the city, while some housing advocates have criticized the administration for not going far enough.
The changes must be approved by the council.
At a press conference, Quinn did not take a position on the recommendations other than to say 421-A should be “as sharp and focused as possible.” She said council had just received the report on 421-A from the city and would be reviewing the recommendations. “Some changes are necessary, absolutely,” she said.
In other action, the council approved a package relating to the Hudson Yards project on Manhattan’s West Side. The measures extended the project’s boundary westward, and would allow the area – including the proposed site of the rejected Jets football stadium – to be part of the planning process. “This moves us ever closer to having the rail yards come before us in the land use process,” Quinn said. Council must approve land use changes and, during the fight over the stadium, Bloomberg had sought to keep the project out of the land use process.
The measure, resolution 547, which Quinn defined as consisting of “technical actions,” elicited little debate or controversy, indicating how things had changed since the furor over the stadium ended with its being rejected by a state panel. “What a difference 18 months makes,” said Councilmember David Weprin, chair of the Finance Committee.
The resolution passed by a vote of 43 to zero, with Councilmembers Charles Barron, Lew Fidler, Letitia James and Darlene Mealy, all of Brooklyn, abstaining. James, an outspoken opponent of the huge Atlantic Yards project in her district, said she was withholding her vote. Alluding to the fact that that basketball arena and housing development will not come before council, James said, “any yards in Manhattan and Brooklyn should be treated the same….In the borough of Brooklyn, we are treated differently.”
In a follow-up to its approval earlier this year of a solid waste plan for the city, the council approved a bill to encourage and improve composting of yard waste. Sanitation committee chair Michael McMahon of Staten Island said the new law will reduce the amount of garbage generated in the city and so reduce truck traffic. It requires that homeowners separate yard waste, putting it in garbage bins or paper bags, Currently many people use plastic bags for grass clippings and the like, requiring that the waste be removed from the bags before it can be used for compost. In addition, the clippings tend to become smelly when they are tied up in plastic. Under the new law, private landscaping companies will have to bring their waste to a composting site if possible.
The vote on Intro 431-A was 47 to 0.
“A green city is a clean city and when you combine a clean city with a safe city you have a happy city,” McMahon said.
Well maybe we need one more thing – a World Series championship. Many council members took advantage of the meeting just before the start of the League Championship Series to urge the Mets on to victory. Eventually even lifelong Yankees fan Councilmember Joel Rivera said, “Let’s go Mets.”
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