Redistricting Commission Sends New Map to City Council for Review
The Mayor & City Council (photo: John McCarten/NYC Council)
In a near-unanimous vote, the New York City Districting Commission voted on Thursday to send its latest plan for redrawing the 51 City Council districts to the Council for its review. The Council now has three weeks to either approve the map or reject it and send it back to the Commission with proposed changes.
The Commission’s latest proposal made few major changes to a proposed map that a majority of members voted down last month in a surprising turn of events in part based on influence from Mayor Eric Adams’ administration. That draft map had undone or altered a number of controversial aspects of the preliminary map the commission passed in July, which was then the subject of extensive public feedback.
Commission members who voted against the recent proposal cited various concerns, including about the dilution of political power among certain communities and a slight weakening of Staten Island’s influence in the Council.
After that proposal was rejected, the Commission held two hearings where they publicly redrew district lines, seemingly assuaging members’ concerns despite making just minor alterations. On Thursday, of the 15 members on the commission, 13 voted in favor of the new map. Only Michael Schnall, who was appointed by Council Speaker Adrienne Adams, voted against the proposal, while Maria Mateo, a mayoral appointee, had to leave the meeting before casting her vote due to a professional commitment.
“I think we have done a really excellent job,” said Commission Chair Dennis Walcott, who was appointed by the mayor, at the meeting, “in the amount of time we both devoted to the mapping but also I think the respect that we've shown each other as commissioners in trying to make sure the various issues have been addressed to the best of our ability.”
“Redistricting stems from the concept of political equality,” said Marilyn Go, who was also appointed by Speaker Adams, as she voted for the proposal. “The districting commission has tried to pursue this road to political equality by making it a more open process. We've tried to be upfront with each other. We've been open to hear comments from the public. But to paraphrase Abe Lincoln, we can't please all of the people all the time with all of the lines.”
The Commission was charged with redrawing the city’s 51 Council districts to accommodate an increase in the city’s population by 630,000 residents reflected in the 2020 Census. The body had to follow strict guidelines set by the U.S. Constitution, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, state law, and the New York City Charter. Commissioners are appointed by the Mayor (7), Council Speaker (5), and Council Minority Leader (3).
Commissioner Marc Wurzel, who was appointed by City Council Republican Minority Leader Joe Borelli, pointed to those restrictions as he explained his vote. “It is not perfect, it's far from perfect, but I am satisfied with the work product and I'm happy to lend my name to it,” he said of the approved proposal.
In particular, Wurzel and others have criticized a recent state law change that reduced the allowed population deviation between the most and least populated districts from 10% to just 5%. “If people are upset, don't direct your ire at us,” he said. “Look at the governor and look at the Legislature who adopted a poorly worded law in October that severely limited this Commission's ability to keep as many communities of interest together.”
Asian Americans were the largest growing population in the Census and the new map creates a new “Asian American opportunity district” in Brooklyn, bringing the number of minority opportunity districts in the city to 29. Previously, that new district had been carved in a way that separated historically Latino communities in Sunset Park and Red Hook, and would also likely pit Democratic Council Members Alexa Avilés and Justin Brannan against each other by combining their bases into the new district. But the latest map undid those lines and maintained both Avilés’ and Brannan’s bases while increasing the possibility of Asian American representation.
The map also reunited other neighborhoods that had been divided among several Council districts. That includes Hell’s Kitchen in Manhattan, which had been split into three districts in the Commission’s preliminary July proposal. And it also reversed the drawing of a district on the East Side of Manhattan that extended into Queens, maintaining the district’s lines in Manhattan alone.
Among the most contentious issues in the initial map was the proposal to keep the three Council districts on Staten Island intact at virtually the largest allowable undercount population deviation, which had a domino effect across other boroughs that had to then fit the city’s population increase. But the latest map, just like the one that was voted down in September, extends Staten Island’s Mid-Island District 50 into parts of South Brooklyn with a few changes.
Schnall, the sole vote against the proposal, cited that as the basis for his objection. “There are no other reasons why I oppose these maps,” he said.
The new lines could help strengthen Republican representation in the Council, where they currently hold five seats out of 51. In South Brooklyn, in particular, Democratic Council Member Ari Kagan stands to see his district gain thousands more Republican voters, putting him in a precarious position as he heads into reelection next year.
Murad Awawdeh, executive director of New York Immigration Coalition (NYIC), an immigrant advocacy group, expressed support for some of the “positive changes” made by the latest map and the transparency through which they were enacted. But, he said in a statement, “it’s clear that more work needs to be done.” He said the city should heed calls for representation by the growing South Asian and Indo-Caribbean communities in Southeast Queens. “To accomplish this, the city should consider a Charter Review Commission to potentially create more council districts, so that all groups can get fair representation,” he said. And he said the commission failed to create a new majority minority district in the Northwest Bronx, where there has been a significant increase of Latino New Yorkers since the last Census.
The map will now head to the City Council, which has the option of approving it and bringing the redistricting process to a conclusion. The Council could also choose to reject the map and return it to the Commission with suggested changes. The Commission would then hold another round of public hearings before having the final say on the map that will be in place for the next ten years.
The deadline for the final map is December 7. It will then dictate the political lines for City Council elections in 2023 for all 51 seats, with party primaries in June of next year, and the governmental lines as of January 1, 2024.
The new maps were created after a months-long process that involved an initial proposal released in July, the revised proposal from September, and now the latest map approved Thursday. The commission received more than 9,600 submissions from the public, involved more than 35 hours of public hearings, and 77 hours of actual drawing of the maps.
Citizens Union, a good government group that has been closely monitoring the redistricting process, applauded the Commission for finalizing the map in public hearings and celebrated the level of public input that went into the process.
“Since the Commission released their first draft of City Council district maps in July, thousands of New Yorkers have offered feedback on the proposed district lines. This is a testament to how important this process is to the future of our local democracy,” said CU Executive Director Betsy Gotbaum, in a statement. “It is imperative that the public remain engaged in this process. The City Council must expeditiously review these maps and submit its response. They should be free to do so without outside interference.”
Seven of the Commission's members, including Chair Walcott, were appointed by Mayor Eric Adams, a Democrat; five were appointed by City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams, a Queens Democrat; and three were picked by Council Member Borelli, a Staten Island Republican.
At Thursday’s hearing, the Commission’s executive director, Dr. John Flateau, only outlined “modest changes” that were made to the previous proposal. Dr. Lisa Handley, a national expert on Racial Bloc Voting Analysis retained by the commission, noted that the new map “doesn't make many changes to the districts with significant minority populations.”
There was a last-minute attempt to make a technical amendment to the proposal from Joshua Schneps, a mayoral appointee. Schneps pushed for consolidating into the new District 47 the Warbasse Houses, an affordable Mitchell-Lama co-op in Coney Island, which are split between the new Districts 47 and 48. Despite significant discussion of the proposal, it was rejected, with only five members voting in favor, eight voting against, one member abstaining and one absent. That change could still be incorporated into the final map if the Council rejects this version and the Commission gets another shot at changes.
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by Samar Khurshid, senior reporter, Gotham Gazette
@samarkhurshid @GothamGazette
Fires, Storms, Covid, and Asylum-Seekers: Emergency Spending and the New York City Budget
Mayor Adams at a City Hall press conference (photo: Violet Mendelsund/Mayor's Office)
Earlier this year, Mayor Eric Adams pleaded with the federal government for $500 million in emergency funding to address the “humanitarian crisis” of thousands of migrant asylum seekers who have arrived in New York City in the last few months. But despite the clear health and safety risk to thousands of people, who have the right to shelter under New York law, the crisis is not the type of emergency – like the COVID-19 pandemic or Hurricane Sandy, for instance – that would easily qualify for federal emergency funds.
In a typical year, New York City projects spending somewhere between $30-60 million to respond to emergency incidents of varying scale, from structural fires and construction accidents to hazardous material leaks, utility breakdowns, criminal incidents, and extreme weather events. But the last few years have been anything but typical and the city’s emergency spending ballooned amid COVID-19 devastation and ongoing effects.
New York City is expected to receive as much as $26 billion in federal relief funds through fiscal year 2026 through the various pandemic relief programs, stimulus bills, and reimbursements from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), according to New York City Comptroller Brad Lander’s office. Those funds have been and will be distributed across city government and its many agencies for purposes that range from the emergency health response to the pandemic to filling revenue shortfalls, covering essential services, and spurring recovery.
Of the various pots, there is little flexibility in how the city can spend emergency funds. FEMA, for instance, reimburses costs that have already been incurred for qualifying purposes like response to the pandemic or the effects of hurricanes that hit the city. The series of federal aid and stimulus bills also awarded funds for purposes like education that must flow through the Department of Education, but with some city discretion in programmatic, supply, and other expenditures. Where the city did have flexible funds to spend, much of it has already been allocated, leaving a limited amount for the next few years.
In response to covid, Congress passed several major pieces of legislation, including the $2.2 trillion Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act in March 2020; the $900 billion Coronavirus Response and Relief Supplemental Appropriations Act (CRRSAA) in December 2020; and the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) in March 2021, which included the $350 billion Coronavirus State and Local Fiscal Recovery Fund (SLFRF), money sent to governments to fill tax revenue gaps.
“All three of those directed recovery funds to the city and the state and other places for different things with different levels of flexibility,” said Ana Champeny, vice president for research at Citizens Budget Commission, a nonprofit fiscal watchdog.
The New York City budget adopted in June 2020 for the 2021 fiscal year only allocated less than $29 million to the city’s Office of Emergency Management, but by the end of that fiscal year, NYCEM’s spending was as high as $557 million. The next budget approved in June 2021, for the 2022 fiscal year, allocated $54.2 million to NYCEM, though actual spending would later be revised to almost $780 million. The increase in those budgets was paid from federal funds.
Similarly, the fiscal year 2023 budget passed in June of this year allocated only $60 million to the Office of Emergency Management, which has quickly been strained as it responds to the influx of asylum seekers in the city and even sent teams to help Puerto Rico and Florida in the aftermath of recent hurricanes.
Mayor Adams has repeatedly insisted that the influx of asylum seekers constitutes exceptional circumstances that require not just local efforts but a national emergency response. “This is not an everyday homelessness crisis, but a humanitarian crisis that requires a different approach,” he said on September 22, when he announced that the city would set up “Humanitarian Emergency Response and Relief Centers” to provide immediate services to the migrants. As the New York Post reported, the mayor’s administration had quietly requested the White House for $500 million to cover its emergency response.
On September 27, after the mayor returned from Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic to survey the effects of Hurricane Fiona, he justified the funding request. “We requested money to deal with the crisis. That's what we did. And that's what we are going to continue to do,” he said. “It's expensive and we should not have to trade off dealing with the needs of New Yorkers and dealing with the needs of migrants and asylum seekers. That is not fair to New Yorkers…The national government has a responsibility in assisting in this national problem.”
Comptroller Lander has similarly called on the federal and state governments to do their fair share. “New York State and the Federal government must not continue to take advantage of the City’s expeditious action; each should step up immediately to bear its share of the costs,” Lander said in a statement as he approved emergency contracting rules for the Office of Emergency Management to respond to the crisis. In an interview with Bloomberg News, Lander estimated that sheltering the migrants could cost between $500 million to $1 billion in one year alone.
SLFRF Funding
The city is due to receive $5.88 billion from the SLFRF fund, half of which was delivered in May and June last year. The fund allowed the city the latitude to spend the money on four broad categories: responding to the public health emergency or its negative economic impacts; providing premium pay to essential workers; providing necessary city services impacted by a loss in revenue; and investing in infrastructure like water, sewer, or broadband internet.
“That's what we call, not unrestricted, but flexible spending,” Champeny said. “That’s what was used to fund the Cleanup Corps, a lot of small business incentives, and other things like that. It was also used just for fiscal relief…to fund essential services instead of city funds.”
According to estimates from the City Comptroller’s office, in an August 2021 report to the federal government, the city had already allocated almost all the funds to be used during Fiscal Years 2021-2025, though how much has been spent is harder to track since the allocations are not attributed in budget documents.
As of August 2021, the city planned to spend about $3.2 billion, or 55%, of the total on revenue replacement to provide government services, $1.2 billion (21%) on the negative economic impact of the pandemic, $1.12 billion (19.2%) on public health, and about $277 million (4.7%) on disproportionately affected communities.
A recently-released analysis by State Comptroller Tom DiNapoli’s office found that the city had “obligated” about $2.5 billion, or 86%, of the $2.9 billion in SLFRF funds it received through March 2022. “That is among the fastest rates among the nation’s 10 largest cities and is higher than the average for the more than 14,000 local government recipients (55.6%) reviewed,” the report states.
More than half of that allocation went to revenue replacement, largely for salaries and wages at the Department of Education and the city’s four uniformed agencies (Corrections, Fire, Police, and Sanitation) as well as towards waste collection and removal services. Another 27% went to businesses, nonprofits, households, and workers while 16% went to public health services.
An analysis of city data by Citizens Budget Commission showed a more detailed breakdown of the actual spending, which occurred through most of the 2022 fiscal year but not through the end (the final tally of that spending will likely be available this month in spending reports required by the Department of the Treasury after each quarter).
On revenue replacement for government services, the city spent roughly $945 million in Fiscal Year 2021 and $356 million in Fiscal Year 2022; on negative economic impact, the city spent $266 million in FY21 and $326 million in FY22; on public health, the city spent $119 million in FY21 and $237 million in FY22; and on disproportionately affected communities, the city spent $15.7 million in FY21 and $8.9 million in FY22.
“It's not uncommon for actual spending at the end of the fiscal year to be below the budgeted or projected level, and for that money to get moved over in November,” Champeny said, referring to the city’s annual mid-fiscal-year budget update required each fall. “So what I would expect is that in the November modification, or at the end of October when we get the audited financials for the city, we’ll know what the actual [FY22] revenue is and what's the variance that can be moved over.”
Education Funding
Through the different stimulus packages – CARES, CRRSAA, and ARPA – the city was given almost $8 billion in federal pandemic relief for education, including $7.7 billion for the Department of Education and about $274 million for CUNY.
Education funding has been a particularly contentious issue in the city budget this year, with the Adams administration cutting roughly $469 million from individual school budgets based on falling student enrollment. The cuts caused widespread consternation among the City Council, which voted to approve the budget though members have said they were misled about the size of the cuts that would later be instituted by the Department of Education.
City Comptroller Lander has been among the leading voices arguing that the city has sufficient federal funds to restore those cuts (which would mimic actions taken during the end of the de Blasio administration). According to data from Lander’s office, the city has committed about $3.2 billion of the federal aid to the DOE, leaving the city another $4.5 billion that it must use by Fiscal Year 2025.
FEMA Funding
New York City was awarded nearly $8.2 billion in FEMA reimbursements for costs incurred in response to the pandemic.
According to a breakdown of FEMA awards, compiled by the city’s Independent Budget Office at Gotham Gazette’s request, the biggest expenditures include about $1.7 billion for the city to run vaccination centers, almost $1.3 billion for emergency sheltering, about $1.2 billion to support NYC Health + Hospitals, $930 million for the city’s Department of Citywide Administrative Services, and more than $503 million for personal protective equipment for NYC H+H.
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by Samar Khurshid, senior reporter, Gotham Gazette
@samarkhurshid @GothamGazette
Max Politics Podcast: Amy Loprest on 16 Years Running the New York City Campaign Finance Board
Amy Loprest, center (photo: @NYCVotes)
October 4, 2022 - Max Politics Podcast: Amy Loprest on 16 Years Running the New York City Campaign Finance Board
Amy Loprest, retiring after 16 years running the New York City Campaign Finance Board, joined the show to reflect on campaign finance reform in the city over the last two decades, how the city's public matching system has improved local democracy, other aspects of the CFB's mission, and potential changes ahead.
Listen to the conversation and let us know what you think, on Twitter @TweetBenMax. You can listen to the show through the embedded audio below or download the episode wherever you get your podcasts at Max Politics.
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