New York City Hall
What to watch for this week in New York politics:
This week we're continuing to watch the fallout of Mayor Bill de Blasio's controverisal decision to fire Department of Investigation Commissioner Mark Peters. De Blasio's nomination to replace Peters, Margaret Garnett, will testify before the City Council on Monday afternoon, a normal part of the process given that the DOI commissioner is the only agency head where the City Council votes to approve or disapprove the mayor's nominee. That hearing is among several especially interesting Council meetings set for this very busy week at City Hall.
We're also watching for further signs about the Democratic agenda for Albany in 2019, when the party controls the governor's office and both houses of the state Legislature. Senate Democrats will meet Monday in Albany to discuss their agenda and decide their leadership, at which time Senator Andrea Stewart-Cousins is expected to make history and be voted to lead the chamber come January.
Meanwhile, protests against the Amazon-to-Queens deal are set to intensify this week. And, we're waiting to see how the field for the Public Advocate special election continues to take shape. Most candidates expected to run have already either declared or formally said they are exploring it, other than former City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito, who is expected to announce her candidacy in the coming weeks. The election will be in February.
There's a lot more that could move ahead this week, from pay raises for state legislators to next steps around negotiations over NYCHA between federal prosecutors and the de Blasio administration, and much more. And, it's Housing Week in AGENDA 2019, the ongoing project from Gotham Gazette and City Limits.
Also, Mayor de Blasio is scheduled to head to Vermont at the end of the week, he'll be speaking at a summit of progressive leaders pulled together by Senator Bernie Sanders and his wife, Jane Sanders.
As always, there's a great deal happening all over the city, with many events to be aware of - see our day-by-day rundown below.
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The run of the week in detail:
Monday
On Monday in Albany, State Senate Democrats will meet to vote on their leadership as they prepare to hold the majority come January. Senator Andrea Stewart-Cousins is set to become the first woman and first woman of color to lead a legislative chamber in New York.
Mayor de Blasio will appear on NY1’s Inside City Hall on Monday evening in the 7 and 11 p.m. hours. At 8 p.m., “the Mayor will deliver remarks at the Citizens Crime Commission of New York City’s Annual Awards Ceremony where he will be receiving the Theodore Roosevelt Leadership Award.”
At the City Council on Monday:
--The Committee on Small Business will meet at 10 a.m. to discuss a proposed law “in relation to microbusinesses.”
--The Committees on Hospitals and Health will meet jointly at 1 p.m. for an oversight hearing regarding “access to transgender- and gender nonconforming-friendly health services.”
--The Committee on Veterans will meet at 2 p.m. for an oversight hearing regarding “discharge characterization upgrade assistance,” and two proposed laws relating to offering discharge upgrade assistance to veterans discharged due to their LGBTQ status and creating a “Discharge Upgrade Assistance Unit” at the Department of Veterans’ Affairs.
--The Committee on Rules, Privileges, and Elections will meet at 3 p.m. to discuss the nomination of Margaret Garnett as Commissioner of the Department of Investigation.
At 5 p.m. Monday, activist groups will converge at Court Square in Long Island City to protest the deal to bring Amazon to Queens, including the state and city tax incentives and subsidies to attract the company, and the potential for gentrification, among other things.
At 5:30 p.m. Monday in Manhattan, “Lieutenant Governor Kathy Hochul Attends Winter's Eve at Lincoln Square Festival and Tree Lighting,” at Dante Park.
At 6:30 p.m. Monday, Comptroller Scott Stringer will host a Diwali Celebration.
Tuesday
At the City Council on Tuesday:
--The Committee on Fire and Emergency Management will meet at 10 a.m. to discuss proposed laws relating to “requiring the fire department to report on emergency medical services divisions and stations,” “requiring the fire department to annually report on the potential impact of certain rezonings on department services,” and “creating online applications for fire alarm plan examinations and inspections.”
--The Committee on Youth Services will meet at 10 a.m. to discuss a proposed laws requiring the Department of Youth and Community Development to create a “Runaway and Homeless Youth Immigration Information Plan.”
--The Committee on Standards and Ethics will meet at 10 a.m. to discuss a proposed law “amending reporting and donor disclosure requirements for organizations affiliated with elected officials.”
--The Committee on For-Hire Vehicles will meet at 10:30 a.m. to discuss a proposed law requiring the city to study debt owed by owners of taxi medallions.
--The Committee on Criminal Justice will meet at 11:30 a.m. to discuss a proposed law “informing persons released from city jails of their voting rights.”
--The Committee on Immigration will meet at noon to discuss two resolutions in opposition to the federal government’s proposed “public charge” rule.
--The Committee on Governmental Operations will meet at 12:30 p.m. to discuss proposed laws relating to “the Department of Probation informing persons of their voting rights” and “agencies assisting eligible parolees with voter registration.”
--The Committee on Transportation will meet at 1 p.m. to discuss several proposed laws relating to curb cuts and other matters related to sidewalks.
--The Committees on Governmental Operations and Civil Service & Labor will meet jointly at 1 p.m. for an oversight hearing regarding the Provisional Employee Reduction Plan, as well as to discuss a proposed law relating to that plan and calling on the state to pass a law automatically enrolling “optional employees” in the City’s BERS system after 90 days of employment.
--The Committees on General Welfare and Justice System will meet jointly at 1 p.m. for an oversight hearing regarding “parent-child separation in family court.”
At 10:30 a.m. Tuesday, the Assembly Standing Committees on Banks and Consumer Affairs will meet jointly in Albany for a public hearing regarding the “practices of the student loan industry.”
At 10:30 a.m. Tuesday, the Joint Commission on Public Ethics will meet in Albany.
Wednesday
The City Council will hold a stated meeting on Wednesday. Council Speaker Corey Johnson is expected to host a pre-stated press conference at City Hall beforehand.
Also at the City Council on Wednesday: the Committee on Finance will meet at 10 a.m. to discuss the creation of a Throggs Neck Business Improvement District, and increasing the size and expenditure on the Hudson Square BID.
At 11 a.m. Wednesday, the Assembly Standing Committee on Agriculture will hold a public oversight hearing in Albany regarding the 2018-19 State Agriculture Department budget.
On Wednesday at 5 p.m. on WBAI radio, this week's Max & Murphy will air. The show will focus on the major housing policy issues facing the state and the city in 2019.
At 6 p.m. Wednesday, the Panel for Educational Policy will meet at Long Island City High School in Queens.
At 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, the New York City Bar Association will host a talk on fees associated with state courts and whether courts should be used as “revenue raisers.” Panelists will consist of State Supreme Court Judge Daniel Conviser, Ashika David of Brooklyn Defender Services, Ashley Gantt of JustLeadershipUSA, Claudia Wilner of the National Center for Law and Economic Justice, and University of Washington professor Karin Martin.
At 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, City Comptroller Scott Stringer and State Senator Brad Hoylman will hold a town hall on “the future of rent regulation” in New York City. The town hall will take place at the Celeste Auditorium at the New York Public Library’s main branch in Midtown.
Thursday
At the City Council on Thursday:
--The Subcommittee on Zoning and Franchises will meet at 9:30 a.m.
--The Committees on Finance and Civil Service & Labor will meet jointly at 10 a.m. for an oversight hearing regarding the city’s Healthcare Savings Agreement.
--The Subcommittee on Landmarks, Pubic Siting, and Maritime Uses will meet at noon.
--The Committees on Economic Development and Cultural Affairs will meet jointly at 1 p.m. at One World Trade Center’s TWA Lounge for an oversight hearing regarding “the economic impact of the city’s tourism infrastructure and cultural attractions,” as well as to discuss a proposed law relating to “the creation of a tourism economy dashboard.”
--The Committees on Criminal Justice and Justice System will meet jointly at 1 p.m. for an oversight hearing on the city’s bail system, as well as to discuss proposed laws requiring the city to inform inmates, defense attorneys, and court personnel when bail is set at $1, to remove fees associated with bail payments by credit card, and to allow “online bail payment to be made by direct deposit and electronic check.”
--The Subcommittee on Planning, Dispositions, and Concessions will meet at 2 p.m.
At 6:30 p.m. Thursday, City & State will unveil its “Manhattan Power 50” at The Mezzanine at 55 Broadway. Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer will deliver keynote remarks.
At 6:30 p.m. Thursday, the Brooklyn Historical Society will host “Malls vs. Bodegas: Resisting the Suburbanization of the City,” discussing the simultaneous phenomena of the proliferation of chain stores, high-rent blight of storefronts, and displacement of small businesses due to high rent and other factors. Panelists will consist of Jonathan Bowles of the Center for an Urban Future, Jeremiah Moss of Vanishing New York, and Lena Afridi of the Association for Neighborhood and Housing Development.
Friday and the weekend
Mayor de Blasio may make his weekly appearance on WNYC’s The Brian Lehrer Show at 10 a.m. Friday.
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Have events or topics for us to include in an upcoming Week Ahead in New York Politics? E-mail Gotham Gazette executive editor Ben Max any time: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. (please use "For Week Ahead" as email subject).
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by Ben Brachfeld and Ben Max
@GothamGazette
BOE ED Michael Ryan (photo: John McCarten/City Council)
Embattled City Board of Elections Executive Director Michael Ryan testified before the City Council's Committees on Oversight and Government Operations on Tuesday, explaining that a perforated two-page ballot, never before used anywhere in the United States, was primarily to blame for the issues at polling sites across the city on Election Day.
In a combative hearing initially presided over by City Council Speaker Corey Johnson, Ryan apologized, after being asked to do so, for the poor administration of the general election but defended the BOE by noting it was forced to work under tight timelines and restrictive administrative law, which required the center perforation on the two-page ballot and did not allow ballot questions, of which there were three this year proposed by the mayor’s Charter Revision Commission, to appear on the same side as candidates.
“The board has been advised that an initial analysis points to the perforated ballot requirement as the major cause of the increased ballot jams,” Ryan said in prepared testimony to the joint committees. “Such a ballot configuration has not been attempted in any jurisdiction in the United States for use with a poll site scanner. The perforated two page ballot presented a series of problems never before experienced by the Board or anywhere in the country.”
These problems included malfunctioning scanners without adequate tech support to fix them and lines so long that some voters simply went home without casting a ballot.
The timing of the submission of the ballot questions proposed by the Charter Revision Commission caused the ballot to not be finalized until October 9, and the hundreds of different "ballot styles" across various different overlapping jurisdictions for different offices, prevented adequate testing and the ability to upload different styles on the same machine, Ryan said.
In Manhattan alone, there were 924 different ballot styles, Ryan testified, owing to the various different combinations of overlapping districts for different offices such as Senate, Assembly, and Judgeships, among others.
Staten Island was the lone borough with a single sheet ballot, and did not experience the poll site issues that the other four boroughs did on Election Day.
Though still only about 38 percent, voter turnout in New York City for the general election was substantially higher than in recent non-presidential elections. Ryan said that state law dictates that there must be one scanner for every 4,000 voters, while BOE protocol stipulates one scanner for every 1,400 voters.
Because of both the abnormally high turnout and the two-page ballot, which when separated doubled the amount of paper that machines needed to process, “ballot bins” in the voting machines filled up much quicker than normally. In fact, most of the issues were related to simple overcapacity of ballots in the bins, rather than technical malfunction, Ryan said.
Ryan noted that about 4,000 scanners were in use on Election Day, while about 1,000 were left in the warehouse; they could not be brought out to poll sites due to transportation issues and the fact that individual ballot styles take an hour to upload onto the machine’s ballot reading software.
Ryan said that a two-page ballot was considered a possibility in 2016, but was ultimately not used. Nonetheless, Ryan was criticized for not testing a "generic" perforated ballot in that two-year span.
“There’s nothing that prevents you from testing the machines for a generic two-page perforated ballot,” said City Council Member Ritchie Torres, chair of the Oversight Committee. “For about two years, you’ve had the opportunity to test your equipment for a two-page perforated ballot, and it sounds like over the course of those two years, you’ve failed to do so.”
In fact, Ryan said that the Board did not test for potential malfunctions at all, citing a lack of adequate time between the ballot finalization and Election Day and the inability to predict voter behavior.
“We had just enough time to test the DS200 scanners for functionality,” he said, referring to the scanners that the state has used since switching from lever voting in 2010. “We did not have any time to do any kind of random testing to try to replicate the voter experience.”
Speaker Johnson, who called on Ryan to resign during the Election Day fiasco, expressed displeasure and distrust in Ryan but also condemned the election process in New York generally.
“I am embarrassed as a New Yorker about what happened on Election Day,” Johnson said. “I feel like this happens over and over and over again. I can’t remember an election where people said ‘you know what, it was done in a thoughtful, calm, professional, easy manner.’ New Yorkers deserve that. I don’t have confidence that that is gonna happen.” Johnson noted that he is not confident that the Board can competently administer the upcoming special election for Public Advocate, likely to occur in February.
Johnson was just one of several Council members to detail his own experience voting, noting that his polling place had only a single functioning scanner by 11 a.m., resulting in a significant line that stretched outside into the rain, which was another factor in the day’s issues.
"I expect to hear a plan forthcoming from the city and the state to rectify the issues of this election, and to improve tenfold the election operations for the next election, and the one after that, and the one after that," Johnson said.
Another problem beyond ballot design and machine capacity was staffing, which failed on multiple levels on Election Day, ranging from poll workers unable to handle the influx of voters or scanner malfunctions or a greatly deficient number of tech support workers to fix the mounting issues with the machines. The BOE supplied tech staff commensurate with the number staffed in the 2016 presidential election, which Ryan called a bad idea in retrospect.
"There was an avalanche early in the morning and we just could never catch up,” he said.
Ryan disclosed that the BOE had received nearly 10,000 calls on Election Day, with most related to technical issues, a number he said was much higher than previous elections.
The problem was most significant in Brooklyn, where the Board fielded 3,362 calls and wait times for a technician averaged an hour and 15 minutes. The average wait time citywide was 52 minutes.
Ryan, who is hired by the city BOE to run operations and be non-political, did not take an explicit position on some of the more talked-about election reform proposals for the state, such as early voting, no-excuse absentee voting, or automatic voter registration. However, he urged Council members on multiple occasions to work with the Board to establish a municipal poll-worker program modeled on a similar program in Los Angeles, where municipal workers at city agencies would get a bonus or a day off to work the polls. This could include techs from the city’s technology department, DoITT, or other agencies, who could supplement the existing tech support workers.
In the meantime, however, Ryan wants to staff poll sites in future elections with workers trained to fix malfunctions, rather than relying on a finite number of outside techs.
Brooklyn Council Member Kalman Yeger questioned why the existing poll workers themselves couldn’t be trained to clear ballot jams, comparing the issue to a printer malfunction.
"You make a straightforward and reasonable suggestion. The reluctance going back to 2010 was that we were losing poll workers because of their fear of the new machines,” Ryan said. “So a decision was made in that moment, which carried through to this election, have the poll workers do less with the machines, not more. This election, in a very hard way, taught us a difficult lesson."
Other testifiers, such as Douglas Kellner of the State Board of Elections, agreed with the municipal poll worker suggestion, while also suggesting that staffing in general needed to be improved to comply with the “30-minute rule,” a federal rule which stipulates that no voter should wait more than 30 minutes to vote.
“New York City has not complied with this regulation in its presidential general elections since the regulation was adopted in 2007,” Kellner said. “And I see no meaningful efforts by New York City to come into compliance in 2020.”
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by Ben Brachfeld, Gotham Gazette
@GothamGazette
CityLights, second building from right (photo: King of Hearts/Wikimedia Commons)
Amazon’s announcement that it will locate one of its two new “headquarters” in Long Island City, Queens triggered immediate backlash among some elected officials and residents of the community who fear the effects it will have on local housing prices and already strained infrastructure, among other consequences. But the residents of CityLights, the largest affordable co-op in Queens, are particularly incensed by the deal, and are calling out city and state officials for giving the nearly trillion-dollar technology giant billions in public subsidies while continuing to deny their own demand for an extension of a property tax abatement that they enjoyed for two decades.
Amazon, CityLights residents also say, will pay far less for leasing land for its new campus than the co-op does each year.
CityLights is a 42-story, 522-unit building home to 1,000 mostly middle- and fixed-income New Yorkers, and is managed by Queens West Development Corporation, a subsidiary of the state-run Empire State Development (ESD), a non-profit economic development agency. The building phased out of a 20-year tax abatement program in July and also saw a nearly doubling of its tax assessment by the city. The building now faces a $5.1 million tax bill -- it was $5.8 million but was reduced after the residents appealed to the city -- which threatens, they say, to push residents out of their homes because of a roughly 60 percent increase over five years in payments-in-lieu-of-taxes (PILOT). (The Amazon deal with the city and state also includes a PILOT program, whereby instead of paying taxes an entity contributes to some other fund, such as an infrastructure bank.)
Built on state-owned land, CityLights’ ground lease alone costs nearly $500,000 annually for the 700,000-square-foot building. By comparison, Amazon is expected to pay about $850,000 for the roughly 4 million square feet that the company will occupy in Long Island City.
In a letter sent Tuesday to ESD President Howard Zemsky, Citylights Board President Joanna Rock called for the CityLights ground lease to be forgiven. “It is absurd that we are forced to pay half-a-million-dollars a year to ESD when our apartments were sold to us by the State under the guise of affordability,” she wrote. “But it adds insult to injury that Amazon will be charged far less than our “affordable” complex for the privilege of being in Long Island City.”
In a phone interview, Rock said it was “shameful” that CityLights residents have had to fight the city and the state for over a year-and-a-half for much-needed relief while Amazon was enticed with untold incentives (the negotiation process was in secret, with non-disclosure agreements signed).
“We watched the neighborhood go from dilapidated warehouses to high-rises and we’re being valued based on the rental buildings around us because that’s how the city does it,” she said, “and then Amazon comes in, and not only are they getting all these incentives, but [their ground lease] is like 85 percent less than what we pay. We’re a co-op, a not-for-profit. They are one of the wealthiest companies in existence.”
In a letter to CityLights residents in June, Zemsky indicated that ESD was working with the city “to craft a tailored solution.” But, he noted that the state could not act without approval from the city’s Department of Finance. Neither ESD nor the city Department of Finance responded to requests for comment for this article.
“I’m not even sure how to put into words how upsetting this is,” Rock said.
Local elected officials also took umbrage at the plight of CityLights residents in light of the Amazon deal. “Empire State Development is supposed to promote and protect our local economy, not pad the pockets of the richest man in the world,” City Council Member Jimmy Van Bramer, who represents Long Island City, said in a statement on Tuesday. “It is ridiculous that the bad HQ2 deal would charge Amazon a significantly lower rate per square foot for its ground lease than Citylights, the largest affordable housing co-op in Queens. The State must preserve the affordability of Long Island City and prioritize longtime residents and working families when dishing out tax breaks, not large corporations.”
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by Samar Khurshid, senior reporter, Gotham Gazette
@samarkhurshid @GothamGazette
Note - This article has been updated to note that CityLights' tax bill was $5.1 million, not $5.2 million.