New York's public authorities have long been considered a kind of shadow government in the state.Created by the government and operated for a public purpose, these authorities - ranging from the Metropolitan Transportation Authority to the Overcoat Development Corporation, are exempt from many of the rules and review under which government agencies normally operate buses.
In 2005, the state enacted some measures to reform the authorities. But a report issued last month by the Commission on Public Authority Reform, known as the Millstein Commission after its chair Ira Millstein, said much more remained to be done. And some critics say even that panel did not go far enough. At a recent panel discussion, several experts discussed the problems with authorities and what could be done to fix them.
Who's Watching the Authorities? by Alan Hevesi
Authorities and Debt by Jo Brill
New York's Debt Limits by Robert Lamb
Getting Politicians to Act by Blair Horner
WHO'S WATCHING THE AUTHORITIES?
During the 2002 election campaign, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority said it had a balanced budget. Two months later, in January, 2003, when I took office as state comptroller, they had a $2.7 billion deficit. I thought that was pretty strange.
The Independent Budget Office did an analysis (in pdf format) of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. They said, in effect, "You can't have a $2.7 billion deficit; it's a phony. Worst case, everything collapses, you'll have a $900,000 deficit."
But what got my attention was the MTA's response: The $2.7 billion, it said, is the gross deficit and the $900 million is the net deficit. I spent 18 years on the Assembly Ways & Means Committee and eight years as city comptroller and I had never heard of a gross deficit. This was from the public relations office. It was a phony beyond belief.
We went to the MTA and demanded their books and records. We had a big tussle about it. We issued subpoenas, we made them produce records and material, we took them to testify. The end result is we found they cooked the books. They had a second set of books where they hid $512 million so they could get a fare increase. That increase was financially needed but they were timing for political reasons.
Katherine Lapp, the MTA's the executive director, fired the budget director. We issued recommendations for budgeting to the MTA, and required a bunch of administrative procedures. We set up four-year projections, transparent budgeting, gap accounting -- all of the things that New York City had to do after its fiscal crisis. Those regulations are now in place.
Questions of Corruption
Another problem for the MTA is 2 Broadway. 2 Broadway is an office building the authority leases. It was a good idea: The agency would move out of its expensive mid-Manhattan headquarters, sell the building, sell the air rights and move down to the cheaper building at 2 Broadway. But they had to rehabilitate the inside of the new building. The cost of the rehab was $135 million. The cost today is $450 million. The $700,000 elevators will go for $6 million.
Why? Corruption. The mob came in, they bribed MTA officials, and they ripped off the system. Four MTA officials have pleaded guilty and gone to jail. And some mob guy as well.
And the MTA's $450 million cost? They don't have cash. So they're going to borrow to pay off the rehab costs for the building they can't use now. With interest to $450 million becomes $800 million.
Anther example: The Canal Corruption, which is an offshoot of the Thruway Authority, held a no bid contract to develop the entire 520-mile Erie Canal. It's beautiful and it's got 1,048 miles of shore. The authority did a request to see if there were companies that wanted to build housing or commercial property along the canal. Thirty-six companies responded. Thirty-five out of the 36 never heard from the authority again.
One bidder was brought in for his plan, the Alpine Residential Project, to build houses. A number of years later, they did a competitive bid for the multibillion-dollar Alpine Project. Because the law requires public notification, they put an advertisement of the bid on page 62 of the Contract Reporter, a $175-a-year newsletter. No one saw the ad, so the Canal Corporation sent a Xerox to the politically connected developer. He bid it and he won. He was the only bidder, and his bid price was $32,000. Richard Brodsky, a member of the State Assembly who is hero on these issues, commented that you can't buy a used bus for $30,000. That's the kind of corruption we're talking about.
Some of the public authorities do wonderfully good work. For example, there's the Home Roswell Park Cancer Institute, a public authority. We did an audit of them. Every management measurement was terrific. The board was active, the procurements were right, the funds were reconciled, their cash flow - it was great.
There are 740 authorities in the state. The biggest are like the Port Authority, the MTA, and the bridge authorities. And then a lot of smaller ones in local governments, industrial development authorities, housing agencies, and so on. No one is watching them.
Number Two in Debt
New York State is the second most indebted state in America. Our debt is going to kill us. We are currently $48.2 billion in debt. Obligations that have already been incurred but the bonds have not been sold will raise that figure to $56.6 billion by 2010. That does not include this current budget. We analyzed the budget and beat up the governor and the legislature for spending money that we don't have, then borrowing to meet the difference and digging a deeper hole for us. What the legislature and governor did was to add $10 billion more of state borrowing.
We are second to California in debt. They have twice number of people we do. Three years ago we were ahead of California. The only reason they moved ahead of us was because their economy collapsed and Arnold Schwarzenegger got elected. Schwarzenegger borrowed $27 billion last year.
With state and local debt combined, everyone in this room owes $2,509. Ahead of us is Alaska. Alaska has lots of debt. It's a big state and they build lots of roads and bridges. They spend a lot of money, and they have no people. So you divide their expenditures by no people, you get a high per capita. In New York, you divide our expenditures by 19 million people.
Under the Constitution, that debt is supposed to go to the voters. Last November, you voted on the transportation and bond issue, which is good debt. Debt is good if you spend it for building and repairing. But of the $48.2 billion debt, the amount of debt that was actually submitted to the voters was $4 billion. Instead, a bunch of these authorities borrow money for the state - and the voters do not have to approve it.
Limits on Borrowing
We've got to get this under control. Somebody's got to be able to say to the Public Authorities, "Be independent and have your business model but this debt is not affordable." Now someone will say that authority debt is not state debt. But if the Thruway Authority can't pay off its bonds and goes bankrupt, who is picking up the debt? You are. We are. If the hospitals are going under because they can't pay off their debt, then the taxpayer is going to take this on.
So you have got to watch the authorities. They have to be audited; they have to be reviewed. Somebody has to look at their contracts and be able to say no. Somebody has to look at their debt and say no.
A Time for Reform
Elliot Spitzer, good government groups and I introduced a 165-page Authority Reform Bill, including a commission to look at the authorities to see if we really need them. After all, there's an Overcoat Development Corporation. I don't know what they do.
The governor was very reluctant to do any of this, but there was a reform movement. And we passed a bill that does some good, but was watered down. Originally, the bill created an independent budget office and an independent inspector general to follow the corruption and mismanagement in the authorities. The governor said, "The condition of my signature is they're not going to be independent."
So now we have an inspector general who is appointed by the existing inspector general, who is an appointee of the governor. And we have an independent budget office that's no longer independent; it's a unit of the Division of the Budget. In other words, we're repeating what we have already. No independence.
But a political movement is starting to bubble up to "fix Albany," to make reforms. A powerful coalition of the most sophisticated good government groups are involved. We need to fix the authorities, fix the debt, fix procurement, fix campaign finance, and fix redistricting.
I've traveled around the state talking to editorial boards and the good government groups, and said, "I have a mission for you." Make every candidate, particularly statewide, commit to being a reformer and elect people who are sincere about that. This is our chance. This is our opportunity. We will fix this state.
Alan Hevesi New York State Comptroller
The Citizens Budget Commission where I work is a non-partisan good government group that, since its founding in 1932, has worked to influence positive change in the finances and management of New York State and New York City. About a year and a half ago, the Citizens Budget Commission formed a committee of trustees to look at problems associated with public authorities.
Public authorities are important and do good work. But it was not hard to find problems, major problems.
Authorities provide a business-like organization to do a discrete activity. They are great at taking care of major capital assets and of big public transit problems at airports -- big infrastructure things. They are great at managing capital assets. They also borrow for private organizations like hospitals and universities, so that those organizations can have access to lower cost financing.
New York State's authorities are incredibly diverse in size, scope of operations and purpose. While the comptroller counts 740 authorities, we work with the number 583, the authorities that are not the subsidiaries of other authorities. Of these, a couple of hundred are housing authorities; over 100 are industrial development agencies. There are 44 that are little foundations set up at a SUNY campus to manage the faculty's fund. There are 50 transportation authorities.
Public authorities can range in size from an annual operating budget of a few million dollars to $8.5 billion for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.
Why Authorities Borrow
What kinds of borrowing do authorities do? One is "backdoor debt": They issue debt for governments -- not just the state government, but local governments too. That debt is backed up by tax revenue
Authorities also issue debt for the projects that they have undertaken on their own. This is called project revenue debt. The third kind of debt is borrowing on behalf of private entities, most often for economic development purposes.
In a report (in pdf format) issued earlier this year, the Citizens Budget Commission figured out the state government, New York's local governments and the authorities that those governments have formed owe a total of $227 billion. Out of that, $41 billion at the state level and $29 billion at the local level is backdoor debt. This is debt that is issued by public authorities but funded by the state and local governments.
Better Budgeting
We started to look at what information should be available for public authorities. Some things are easy to think of: financial reports, financial plans, the state of capital assets, what the authority plans to do in a given year and, once the year is over, how well they believe that they did it. The accountability act signed earlier this year does not require all the information, particularly on finances, that you would like to see. It leaves out the information on the state of capital assets, it leaves out performance measures that you would like to see.
The accountability act does not specify that any particular agency, such as the comptroller or the budget office, put together a big picture.
This is a big problem. The CBC should not be left to come up with that $227 billion figure. Some public entity should be in charge of this and should be making sure that the numbers can be prepared and that they can be aggregated.
And some entity should be monitoring plans and how they are reported. Planning processes are up to the individual authorities. Some have a ten-year plan some have a seven-year plan -- it's hard to tell what is going on. The fiscal years are all over the calendar.
When you see a fare increase when you see a power plant being sited, when you see economic development grants being handed out, you might wonder why the decision is timed that way. The advantage of an authority is to insulate it from short-term concerns. If you can't tell whether it'sworking, then there is something wrong.
Backdoor Debt
There is obviously more to be done. Take the problem with the backdoor debt. The good thing and bad thing about it are the same: It allows you to spread the cost of a project over multiple generations. Why is that good? Because people in the future are going to benefit and they should pitch in. Why is it bad? Because they are not born yet and so are not represented by the current elected officials.
This is why New York's constitution provides debt limits for both the state and local governments. They cannot issue debt unless the voters approve it. The debt limits for the local governments are typically some percentage of public property value.
With so much backdoor debt, clearly the limit is not working. New York's debt is one of the highest in the country. We believe that the debt limit should be based on a concept of affordability that should be calculated by an independent board on a yearly basis. That would the best way to rationally decide how much debt a local government or a state government can carry. The accountability act does not deal with that.
Debt limits are all about state supported debt. Other kinds of debt also could use some work. Some project revenue debt is controlled by the public authorities control board, but much is not. Public authorities build things that matter to our overall quality of life, but their plans are not integrated with the state's plan for capital development. You would like to think that everybody who is building and borrowing money is working together but that's not the case. So we believe that, if a public authority wants to borrow from the public and repay that debt out of project revenues, fine, but let the board decide whether it's a solid financial decision. And that project should be part of a long-term capital plan that the governor's office and the division of the budget have the opportunity to look at.
The last of kind of debt - borrowing on behalf of private entities or conduit debt -- is handed out rather cavalierly. It could be subject to a more competitive process that would also help also keep neighboring industrial development agencies from competing with one another to give the biggest tax break. Some of that private conduit debt is issued on behalf of hospitals. At the same time the governor's commission is deciding which hospitals are going to close, those same hospitals are borrowing money through the dormitory authority to build new capacity. That also needs to be fixed.
--Jo Brill, director of State Studies, Citizens Budget Commission
Two elements are crucial to the debate on authorities.
One is independence. Without independence, you do not get reform; you get the governor appointing literally 80 percent of the directors of these different authorities. As a result, you get either cronyism or people who are not trained and knowledgeable about the tasks that these authorities are taking on or the debt burden that they are imposing.
The second is debt. The amount of debt imposed by authorities is three to four times more than the amount the state and city are imposing. That is because the state and city are only allowed to issue debt that the voters pass. As a result, they are not able to issue enough debt to do things like build hospitals, bridges, tunnels, etc. Therefore, this is done off budget by authorities.
The need for cost reduction, the need for fiscal responsibility, has been pushed aside, not just in New York but across the United States. The entire United States in the 1920s and 1930s moved from debt paid by tax to debt paid by user fees. In New York City, they required people to pay a water and sewer fee. Those are user fees. Likewise with bridges and tunnels, the people who use them pay for them. The user fees would be set by authorities and the authorities would have no supervision and no control.
The problem is that the total amount of debt for all of these public authorities is so large that they are crowding out each other, and nobody is taking control of the debt burden on us now and on your children or grandchildren. This debt will escalate into the future.
--Robert Lamb, Clinical Professor of Management, NYU Stern School of Business
Until about a week ago, I was trying to figure out how to discuss advancing an issue - public authorities reform - that I thought was dead. Last year, the legislature acted incompletely on authorities. Nevertheless they acted and that's the way it works in Albany. You get one bite at the apple. There was no interest, there has been no action in the area of authority reform in Albany, because they did it last year.
Now the Millstein Report comes out with a list of legislative recommendations. I'm not going to go into detail, but let me give you my best case approach to this issue. The problems that we have with the authorities occurred because no one has been watching. When people don't watch there is mismanagement and corruption.
That leads me to my tactical recommendations. The legislators tell me that they're not hearing about reform back in their districts, as they were last year and they wonder if they are off the hook. Now clearly they don't believe this, because all of the candidates running for statewide office are tripping over themselves to position themselves as reformers. They know that the public is still unhappy with Albany, but they feel they have done enough.
So there are two things we have to try to do. First, we need to get a focused legislative rule on the issue of authorities reform. And the obvious place to go is that the so-called independent budget office they created last year that is not independent. It is just another creature of the governor, a governor who has been in office the last 12 years while all this mismanagement and corruption has been occurring. Clearly, as reformers, we want an independent budget office. Ira Millstein, the governor's appointee, says the same thing.
So, go back to your elected officials and say, "As elected officials, where have you been monitoring the authorities of New York State? Now you can show how concerned you are by acting on the call for creation of an independent budget office."
These problems with the authorities have been festering for a long time, and nobody has been paying attention. So focus on one thing, they didn't do the job, they didn't finish last year. But if they don't do anything, which is likely, it sets up a question that every incumbent should be asked: "You've been an incumbent a long time, where were you when all of these problems happened?" An almost Caponesque list of corruption has occurred in the State of New York. Where has everybody been? And what will you do to be different?
Every gubernatorial candidate should be asked the same thing. For Republican candidate John Faso: "Where were you in the Assembly for 16 years? What are you going to do differently?" For Eliot Spitzer: "You have been attorney general for eight years, and what are you going to do differently?"
Politicians are human barometers, they respond to pressure.
--Blair Horner legislative director, New York Public Interest Research Group Â
A little over a year ago, 32-year-old Samuel Maldonado was sitting in a jail cell. Today, he sits on the bed of his apartment in Crown Heights, stroking the hair of his three-year-old daughter Alyssa and proudly pointing to the nine framed certificates for completing various life-skills classes at the Fortune Society, an organization that works with ex-offenders.
There is a certificate for a course in anger management, for a nutrition class, and one showing that he works as a peer counselor for the organization. But Maldonado is especially proud of a certificate for a course in fathering.
“There is a difference between telling your children what do to – saying, `do this now!’ – and asking them to do something,” says Maldonado, who was estranged from his own father and for a time was on a course to repeat the pattern with his kids. “Children respond to respect.”
When he talks about parenting, Maldonado speaks not just from what he learned in the class, but also from years of experience.
Maldonado is the father of ten children, ages 17 to 3. Six are his biological offspring from four different mothers, and four are his stepchildren. Of the ten children, four live with Maldonado and his wife Margarita, but all of them cycle through the house from time to time.
“These certificates are reminders that things could be worse,” he says. “They are reminders of why I need to be here [with my children].”
Samuel Maldonado with his wife Margarita and three of his ten children - Melvin, 8, Celine, 7, and Alyssa, 3. |
For decades, low-income men who have little or no connection with their children have been seen as one of the daunting problems of poverty that policymakers have been unable to address.
But today, government is increasingly looking to the same men as part of the solution to society's most difficult problems.
In 2003, following the lead of other cities across the nation, New York City launched its “fatherhood initiative,” programs to encourage poor men to be more actively involved in the lives of their children.
But can government really teach men how to be better fathers?
There are 175,000 single-mother households with children living below the federal poverty level in New York City - or about 30 percent of all families, according to the Community Service Society.
These children are the ones that would ideally benefit if their fathers provided more financial - as well as emotional - support. And they are a segment of society that policy makers are struggling to help.
Across the nation, fatherless children are five times more likely to be poor and ten times more likely to be extremely poor, according to the National Commission on Children. Their risks are also greater for dropping out of school, and for alcohol and drug use, adolescent pregnancy and child bearing, juvenile delinquency, mental illness, and suicide.
Over the last half century, all levels of government have responded to these statistics with a series of programs aimed at helping single mothers and their children - food stamps, after-school programs, earned income tax credits, and welfare to work programs - but has largely ignored fathers.
“[The government] has invested $50 billion in efforts for poor women,” says Ronald Mincy, a professor of social work at Columbia University and editor of the book “Black Males Left Behind.” “There has been little done for men.”
But by the early 1990s, researchers and lawmakers began pointing to some of the critical issues associated with children who grow up without their fathers – and looking for ways to get men to reconnect with their families.
Following this trend, New York City currently allocates $3 million in federal Community Service Block Grants to 12 community organizations working with local dads. The goals of the program are modest: help 1,400 men living in the city’s low-income neighborhoods establish some kind of relationship with their children, and move the fathers toward providing some kind of financial assistance for their families.
Each social service organization that receives a grant already has a track record in the neighborhood and has some freedom in how it reaches these goals. Depending on the agency, men have access to a range of services, including assistance with family court and custody issues, job training, supervised visitations, and even “Me and Dad” field trips to the aquarium and the Queens Hall of Science.
“More broadly, we hope for an improvement in the child’s life,” says Cindy Colter, assistant commissioner for the Department of Youth and Community Development, the agency that administers the programs. “And of course, we hope that it improves the lives of the men as well.”
While fatherhood programs are new and receive a relatively small amount of government funding, they represent a growing movement.
In 2001, President George W. Bush named Wade Horn of the National Fatherhood Initiative to a high ranking position in the Health and Human Services agency to help create such programs. And when Congress reauthorized welfare reform legislation in February 2006, they earmarked an additional $50 million a year for fatherhood initiatives across the nation over the next five years.
“Hopefully, we are now are coming to a place of more concern for men, and we are including them in the solutions to address poverty,” says Mincy.
On a Monday evening in Brooklyn, five men sit at school desks in the upstairs room of a building on Wyckoff Avenue discussing what it means to be a dad in New York City in the 21st century. The group is known as the “Papas de Bushwick.”
“Now, as fathers you can do 99 good things, and then there is the one time when you lose it,” says Julio Diaz, who leads the discussion group. “What do you think your kids will remember?”
“The one time you lose it,” answers one man, shaking his head. “That’s all they remember.”
“Now what if we were able to hold back for just a few moments between that time when you feel an emotion and you act?” asks Diaz, pointing to chart entitled “Cycles of Reaction.” “How would that help us to stay out of trouble?”
For the men, it is not a rhetorical question.
Most attend the class because a family court judge has either required or strongly recommended that they do so. For 13 weeks, the men work through a support group curriculum of weekly sessions with titles like “The Roots of Fathering,” “The World of Feelings,” and “Healing the Father Wound.”
“By the third week of the class, for most men, it is no longer about the courts, but about their children,” says Franc Villalobos, who runs Papas de Bushwick, a program of the non-profit group Coalition of Hispanic Family Services and the Medical and Health Research Association of New York.
The men who have graduated from the program say they have learned tangible lessons: financial support is only a part of being a dad; discipline and punishment are not the same thing; and it only hurts the children to say negative things about their mother.
“Most men need a little coaching when it comes to parenting skills,” says Anthony Alexander, one of the veterans of the group.
The facilitators admit they face a great challenge.
“What we are really talking about is re-socializing men,” says Villalobos.
Men find that connecting with their children after a separation or divorce is not as simple as just wanting to be involved. They face a series of legal and financial barriers to being responsible dads – and poor fathers who are the focus of the fatherhood initiatives are particularly hard hit, because they often do not have the education or cannot afford the legal expertise needed to overcome them. In addition to teaching parenting skills, fatherhood initiatives also try to help address these problems for their clients.
Custody Issues
New York is one of only 13 states in the nation that does not have a joint custody statute. In New York State family courts, judges traditionally begin with the presumption that the primary caregiver - the person most directly responsible for the day-to-day care of the child - should be awarded custody, not that both parents should have an equal role in parenting. That is most often the mother.
The standard custody arrangement for many men is two weekend visitations a month.
“You have good fathers and bad fathers, and you have good mothers and bad mothers,” says Anthony Alexander, who endured years of legal battles to win custody of his children. “They should be judged equally.”
(Read an article about divorce and custody issues in New York).
Child Support
In New York, if a man named in a child support case denies being the father, he may have to go to court and take a DNA test. If it shows he’s the father, he will be ordered to pay the child support until the child is 21 years of age.
The amount of child support is based on the non-custodial parent's income and how many children are involved. (See a detailed chart of child support obligations by income level). And while child support is often a financial lifeline for single mothers and their children, it can leave many men feeling overwhelmed with debt, and even deter some from working because a significant portion of their pay can be seized.
Fathers are responsible for child support while they are in school, are unemployed, doing time in prison, or even if the mother marries someone else. As a penalty for owing child support, the government can suspend a driver’s license, refuse to grant a passport, or even sentence a man to jail for up to six months.
“The system beats us down,” says David Cortez, a father in the Papas de Bushwick program. “It sees us as a cash cow.”
(Read an article about child support issues in New York).
Employment
Over the last two decades as the national and local economy have grown, almost every demographic group – even low-skilled women with children – have seen some improvements in employment rates. One notable exception is young African-American men.
A recent New York Times article highlighted the plight of African-American men in America:
- 65 percent of black males in their 20s who drop out of high school are jobless
- 50 percent of black males in their 20s who graduate from high school are unemployed
- And 60 percent of black males in their 30s who did not finish high school have spent time in prison.
Some experts draw strong connections between low employment rates and the 70 percent fatherlessness rate in the African American community.
"One of the reasons why black males have higher incarceration rates than other populations is because they are more likely to grow up without their fathers," says Mincy.
(Read an article about employment and job training in New York).
While there is growing support for the idea of government programs encouraging fathers to be financially and emotionally invested in their children’s lives, there are also skeptics.
The National Organization for Women has raised concerns that fatherhood initiatives may divert money and efforts away from helping single mothers, who most often bear the responsibility for raising and supporting their children. And the organization is particularly suspicious of the federal policy that aims to promote the institution of marriage as part of its fatherhood efforts, arguing that it discriminates against nontraditional families.
“We should care about supporting the well-being of all families, regardless of how they are constituted,” Jacqueline Payne, policy attorney for the NOW Legal Defense Fund testified before Congress.
While some organizations like the non-profit group National Fatherhood Initiative have been instrumental in promoting men’s programs, other fathers’ rights advocates say the money and effort would be better spent reforming custody and child support laws, which they argue are rooted in a 1950s idea of family.
“We send these guys to all of these classes so they can learn to be involved with their children,” said Jim Hayes, president of the Fathers and Families in New York. “And many find that there is a whole system that prevents them from doing that.”
Even some advocates for the poor argue that the focus on fathers may be too narrow and question the notion that, if fathers just pay their child support or visit more often with their children, the problems of poverty will be addressed.
In an ideal world, men would learn how to be effective fathers from their fathers or from the other male role models in their lives. But the majority of men in the city’s fatherhood programs did not have supportive male figures in their lives growing up.
“I grew up with a single mom because my dad died at an early age, but there was a network of black men in my community,” Walter Fields of the Community Service Society said in a recent interview on WNYC radio. “Part of it is two-parent households, but we also have to rebuild the social fabric that has been destroyed.”
Can these types of programs do that?
Fatherhood initiatives are still too new – and have such modest goals – that is difficult to demonstrate their overall success, but some initial studies of similar programs across the nation have produced mixed results. (An evaluation of a program in Connecticut, for example, found that many fathers were actually deterred from establishing a relationship with their children because the program was also seeking child support compliance.)
But some experts argue that the initiatives can be useful in providing peer groups where men can talk about the challenges they face and in helping some men get jobs to support their families.
From an economic standpoint, the amount of money being spent on these programs is small, and so a few successes can add up. “If you can change one out of 30 or 40 guys, then it’s a worthwhile investment,” says Robert Lerman, economist at American University and the Urban Institute, who has done research on the issue.
The more difficult challenge, others say, is helping fathers who do not live with their children to become the kind of parent that a kid really needs.
When most non-custodial fathers get together with their kids for the few days a month, their main objective is to have fun. They go to the park, a ballgame, or the circus, and their goal is to repair – or just to maintain - a relationship with the child.
But these may not be the activities that the child needs most.
In just a few hours a week, it is difficult to discipline, follow a student’s progress in school, and know if a child is hanging out with the wrong crowd. In other words, the fathers have to figure out how to both have fun and hold a child accountable.
“I don’t think there is any father that doesn’t have trouble negotiating that tension,” says Mincy. “A guy who is a non-custodial parent is even more reluctant to go into that space.”
Still Carlos Rivera, who helps lead parenting classes at Papas de Bushwick, says he has seen first hand that fathering skills can be taught, but not always in the ways the curriculum suggests. “The younger men learn from the older ones and that can help fill that missing role,” says Rivera. “But that is also when the book goes out the window and the real work begins.”
On a Thursday morning, half a dozen men in aprons, most in the early 20s, buzz around a kitchen preparing a lunch of macaroni and cheese, chicken and egg salad, French bread, and fruit salad dessert.
The men, all with criminal records and all fathers, are participants in a weekly ritual known as “Miss Betty’s Practical Cooking Class” at the Fortune Society, a Chelsea organization that works with people who have criminal records.
Miss Betty is Betty Wilson, an instructor who teaches the men nutrition, cooking skills, as well as table etiquette.
“Sit, sit,” says Miss Betty, instructing the men to sit down at a table and taking the baseball cap off of one young father.
“I never used to eat at the table before,” says Mike Davis, the 25-year-old father of a five-year-old son and 19-month old daughter. “I always ate in my bedroom or in front of the T.V.”
“I’d be lying if I said I ate at the table,” says another man. “But I do cook for my kids.”
The goals of the cooking class are to give men practical kitchen skills, educate them about how to prepare nutritious meals, create an activity they can do with their kids, and encourage them to get in the habit of sitting and talking with their families.
“After eight weeks, the guys can’t wait to show off their skills,” said Sophia Strong, who heads up the family programs at the Fortune Society. “Before this, the best they could offer was buying their kid sneakers.”
Samuel Maldonado says that the fathering class he took has made him calmer with his children, more conscious of what he says and does, and more of a “people person.” As a peer counselor, he now helps other men who are new to the program.
But the most practical impact is that he is even around his children at all.
“If it wasn’t for this, I’d probably be in jail right now,” he says.
National Fatherhood Initiative
New York City Fatherhood Initiative
NYC Fatherhood Initiative Providers
Father’s Rights Association of New York State
New York Father’s Resources
Fathers and Families New York
Fathering Magazine
New York State Child Support Services
Interactive Tour of Child Support Services
Earlier this month the New York Times criticized the slow growth of wireless Internet access in New York City, which was the centerpiece of Andrew Rasiej's bid for the office of public advocate last year. The Times noted that free or low-cost wireless access is particularly needed in poorer neighborhoods, where the cost of DSL or high-speed service is prohibitive.
New York City's current patchwork approach to wireless access is markedly different from that of other cities and many rural communities. The national trend is toward developing free or low-cost wireless networks that are accessible anywhere within a given region. New York City has focused on wireless access in parks.
Thus far the Department of Parks and Recreation has been trying to provide wireless access in selected parks through partnerships with various non-profit and commercial groups. In addition, several organizations have worked independently to "light up" selected parks. For example, the Bryant Park Restoration Corporation provides wireless access in Bryant Park, and the Alliance for Downtown New York provides the same service in eight public spaces, including three parks, in lower Manhattan. Both groups worked with NYC Wireless, a non-profit organization that advocates universal wireless access in New York City.
The parks department first solicited bids for vendors to provide wireless access in 2003. Despite skepticism from some City Council members and NYC Wireless, the department perceived wireless access as a means of generating new revenue. The bid sought out companies willing to pay a significant license fee to outfit some of the city's largest parks, in exchange for selling subscriptions and/or pay-as-you-go wireless access. Few vendors were interested, and over a year later the contract was finally awarded to Wi-Fi Salon, a small firm in Manhattan. Although Wi-Fi Salon has successfully launched wireless service in part of Battery Park, it is almost one year behind schedule for launching wireless service in nine other parks throughout the city. The parks department has given Wi-Fi Salon a deadline of the end of this summer for completing this contract, and may approach other vendors if this is not met.
Because the original bid did not generate as much interest or revenue as anticipated, the parks department issued a second bid for wireless vendors earlier this year. The new bid has lower licensing fees, allows vendors to bid on one park at a time rather than multiple parks only, and assumes that wireless access will be free to all individuals. In addition, there are shorter deadlines for completing projects once a contract is awarded. There are early signs of success for this approach; NYC Wireless is involved in providing wireless service in Dag Hammarskjold Plaza, and a Long Island company will work on the Brooklyn Heights Promenade and in Brooklyn's Columbus Park.
Even though NYC Wireless successfully competed for the recent parks department bid, Executive Director Dana Spiegel expresses concerns about it. He believes that wireless service should be treated as an amenity that is as important as a park bench. Spiegel also worries that, because of the costs associated with responding to the parks department bid, many qualified groups have ignored it.
Spiegel feels that the city should pay for park access if no other funds are available. With that said, in many instances parks conservancies or "Friends of" groups could pay for installation and maintenance of wireless service. However wireless access is funded, Spiegel argues that it is a modest financial proposition, which pays for itself in the creation of more vibrant parks.
Most NYC Wireless projects have not included the parks department. Union Square, Tompkins Square and Stuyvesant Cove Parks all offer wireless service established by NYC Wireless and interested local groups. A similar installation at Brooklyn Bridge Park is currently in development.
One of the most important goals of universal wireless access is to narrow the digital divide. The South Bronx Overall Economic Development Corporation and Urban Communications Transport Corporation recently launched the first freely available wireless network in the South Bronx. Urban Communications Transport is a minority-owned business that was initially founded to provide wired Internet access in disadvantaged communities, and has now moved into the wireless realm. If the South Bronx network proves successful, it could serve as a model for similar networks in other neighborhoods throughout the city.
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