New York City Hall
What to watch for this week in New York politics:
Tuesday will mark two weeks until Election Day, November 6. As the week beings, Democratic Governor Andrew Cuomo and Republican nominee Marc Molinaro have agreed to a Tuesday one-on-one debate, which will be broadcast live on CBS radio during the afternoon and aired at 7 p.m. on CBS TV. The agreement came after much jockeying, name-calling, and negotiations among the two campaigns and others, including The New York Post and CBS radio, which appeared to have significant influence in getting Cuomo to agree to a debate.
Molinaro and the other candidates for governor -- Green Party nominee Howie Hawkins, Libertarian Party nominee Larry Sharpe, and independent Stephanie Miner -- have also agreed to a debate being hosted by the League of Women Voters of New York State later this week (details to-be-finalized) that all parties are also trying to convince Cuomo to attend.
We're also awaiting more news about other debates for statewide positions of Comptroller, Attorney General, and U.S. Senator. The only debate for the four statewide positions on the ballot that has occurred thus far is one among the four candidates for state Comptroller (watch it here).
Multiple debates scheduled to air on NY1 were either canceled or thrown into limbo after Democratic candidates Letitia James, running for Attorney General, and Senator Kirsten Gillibrand said they would not participate due to ongoing labor issues between Spectrum, which owns NY1, and IBEW Local 3, wherein IBEW members have been on strike for well over a year. James' debate with Republican Keith Wofford is tentatively scheduled for later this month (Tuesday, October 30), but James said she would not participate if it means breaking a picket line. A Comptroller debate on NY1 is also still on the books for next week (Monday, October 29), with incumbent Comptroller Tom DiNapoli, a Democrat, not yet indicating any change in plans. Gillibrand and her Republican challenger, Chele Farley, have now agreed on a 30-minute debate to air on ABC TV on Sunday, October 28 at 11 a.m.
As the campaigning and debate negotiations in the statewide campaigns continue, there is much attention on the battles to determine control of the New York State Senate and in key House races that will figure into which party controls the lower house of Congress. New York Democrats are optimistic on both fronts, with State Senator Michael Gianaris, who chairs the Senate Democratic Campaign Committee, outlining roughly 10 seats he believes are in play as his party attempts to net at least one seat and take control of the chamber.
Meanwhile, there is also government happening. The City Council has a very busy week of hearings, including one on Monday to discuss one of the most controversial city bills over decades: the Small Business Jobs Survival Act, which, in its current iteration, would institute new rules for small business lease negotiations with landlords in an attempt to help more small businesses stay afloat and avoid immense increases in their rents. The hearing is among a variety of oversight and other hearings scheduled this week -- see details below.
Also, it’s Queens week for Mayor de Blasio’s City Hall in Your Borough initiative, which includes announcements, a town hall, and a resource fair, among other events and programs. Details on that and much more -- see the day-by-day rundown below.
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.
***Do you have events or topics for us to include in an upcoming Week Ahead in New York Politics?
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The run of the week in detail:
Monday
This week, the de Blasio administration will host its third “City Hall in Your Borough” of 2018, this time in Queens.
At 3 p.m. Monday at the Ridgewood YMCA in Queens, “Mayor de Blasio and Police Commissioner O’Neill will host a press conference to make an announcement on neighborhood policing.” “In the evening, the Mayor will appear live on NY1’s Inside City Hall. This appearance will be cancelled if a labor picket line is active outside of NY1’s studio.”
On Monday, First Lady Chirlane McCray will hold two public events that are closed to the press: she and Deputy Mayor Phil Thompson will visit Interfaith Medical Center and she will attend the Bring Change to Mind Gala.
At the City Council on Monday:
--The Subcommittee on Zoning and Franchises will meet at 9:30 a.m.
--The Committee on Environmental Protection will meet at 10 a.m. for an oversight hearing regarding “resiliency in the face of sea level rise,” as well as to discuss a resolution “calling on the United States Army Corps of Engineers to reconsider the proposals made in the New York - New Jersey Harbor and Tributaries Coastal Storm Risk Management Feasibility Study pursuant to the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) to consider sea rise in addition to storm surge.”
--The Committee on Small Business will meet at 1 p.m. to discuss a proposed law “creating a small business lease program for establishing an environment for fair negotiations in the commercial lease renewal process in order to determine reasonable lease terms.”
At 9 a.m. Monday, Comptroller Scott Stringer will host “International Corporate Governance Network New York Conference” at Convene Conference Centre in Manhattan.
At 11 a.m. Monday, “Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr., will head to Mercy College to urge cyclists from all over the world to participate in the 24th annual Tour de Bronx, which takes place on Sunday, October 28.”
At 1 p.m. Monday, WAMC Northeast Public Radio will host a debate for candidates in the 19th Congressional District at the Linda WAMC Performing Arts Studio in Albany. Incumbent Republican John Faso, Democrat Antonio Delgado, Green nominee Steve Greenfield, and independent Diane Neal will participate.
At 6:30 p.m. Monday, the Mayor’s Charter Revision Commission will hold a “public education forum” at Brooklyn College’s Ingersoll Hall to provide information on and explain the commission’s three proposals on the November ballot to Brooklyn residents.
At 6:30 p.m. Monday, TransitCenter will host “Time to Take it Back? Can New York City re-take control of its subways and buses?” at One Whitehall Street, discussing whether control over the city’s subways should return to local control and the positives and negatives associated with both state and local control. TransitCenter Executive Director David Bragdon will moderate a panel consisting of venture capitalist Bradley Tusk, Rachael Fauss of Reinvent Albany, and consultant Peter Peyser.
At 6:30 p.m. Monday, the Association for a Better New York will host City Council Member Carlina Rivera at its “What’s On Tap” happy hour at District Social NYC in Midtown.
Tuesday
At the City Council on Tuesday:
--The Committees on Housing & Buildings and Health will meet jointly at 10 a.m. for an oversight hearing regarding “NYC’s cooling towers,” as well as to discuss several proposed laws relating to cooling towers, including to require “an assessment of potential determinants of Legionnaires’ Disease in the city.”
--The Subcommittee on Landmarks, Public Siting, and Maritime Uses will meet at noon.
--The Committee on Juvenile Justice will tour the Horizon Juvenile Center in the South Bronx at 1 p.m.
--The Committee on Aging will meet at 1 p.m. for an oversight hearing regarding “repairs and upgrades at NYC senior centers.”
--The Subcommittee on Planning, Dispositions, and Concessions will meet at 2 p.m.
At 10 a.m. Tuesday, the Assembly Standing Committee on Education will meet in Albany for a public hearing regarding “school health, mental health, and physical education.”
At 10 a.m. Tuesday, the Board of Standards and Appeals will hold a public hearing at Spector Hall.
At 11:30 a.m. Tuesday, Mayor de Blasio and Queens Borough President Melinda Katz will hold a city resource fair at Elmcor Youth & Adult Activity in Corona.
At 1:30 p.m. Tuesday, the New York City Board of Elections will hold a commissioners’ meeting.
Governor Cuomo and Republican challenger Marc Molinaro will debate on CBS radio Tuesday afternoon, with the debate televised on CBS in the 7 p.m. hour.
At 7 p.m. Tuesday, Spectrum News will host a debate for candidates in the 19th Congressional District at the Woodstock Playhouse in Woodstock. Incumbent Republican John Faso and Democratic challenger Antonio Delgado will participate. The debate will be moderated by Spectrum’s Liz Benjamin and Jeevan Vital.
Wednesday
At the City Council on Wednesday:
--The Committee on Women will meet at 10 a.m. for an oversight hearing regarding the “Mayor’s Office to End Domestic and Gender-Based Violence,” as well as several proposed laws relating to services for survivors of domestic violence.
--The Committee on Sanitation will meet at 10 a.m. for an oversight hearing regarding the city’s “2018-2019 Snow Plan,” as well as to discuss a law relating to “increasing penalties on chain businesses for failure to remove snow, ice and dirt from sidewalks.”
--The Committee on Land Use will meet at 11 a.m.
--The Committee on Public Housing will meet at 1 p.m. for an oversight hearing regarding “preparing for the winter: heat and hot water at NYCHA developments.”
--The Committee on General Welfare will meet at 1 p.m. for an oversight hearing regarding “ACS preventive services and family enrichment centers.”
At 9 a.m. Wednesday, the MTA will hold its monthly full board meeting.
At 6 p.m. Wednesday, Mayor de Blasio and Council Member Donovan Richards will hold a town hall meeting at PS 42 in Rockaway.
At 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, the Brooklyn Historical Society will host “The Path to a Post-Rikers NYC,” discussing “questions on accountability, bail reform, borough-based jails, inmate release, and the persistent inability to operate a humane criminal justice system” that come with the plan to close the facility. The New York Times’ Ashley Southall will moderate a panel consisting of Akeem Browder, an activist and the brother of the late Kalief Browder; Michael Jacobson, Executive Director of the CUNY Institute for State and Local Governance; Dana Kaplan, Deputy Director of the Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice; and Vera Institute Program Director Insha Rahman.
At 7 p.m. Wednesday, Agora and Rebuild Penn Station will host “The Future of Penn Station” at the W83 Ministry Center on the Upper West Side, discussing proposals to alleviate the litany of issues plaguing Penn Station. Justin Shubow of the National Civic Art Society will moderate a panel consisting of writer Kevin Baker, architect Richard Cameron, Community Board 5 District Manager Wally Rubin, Dani Simons of the Regional Plan Association, and Samuel Turvey of the Rebuild Penn Station Steering Committee.
Thursday
At the City Council on Thursday:
--The Committee on Consumer Affairs will meet at 10 a.m. to discuss a proposed law “banning companies that charge a fee for ‘student debt relief’ already provided by the federal government.”
--The Committee on Justice System will meet at 10 a.m. for an oversight hearing regarding “pay parity and retention rates for ADAs and public defenders,” as well as to discuss a proposed law relating to “establishing a temporary task force on pay parity for public defenders and assistant district attorneys with city agency attorneys.”
--The Committees on Immigration and Governmental Operations will meet jointly at 1 p.m. for an oversight hearing regarding “Local Law 30 of 2017: language access implementation plans.”
--The Committee on Parks and Recreation will meet at 1 p.m. for an oversight hearing regarding “ensuring the short and long term preservation of the city’s natural forest.”
At noon Thursday, the State Board of Elections will hold a commissioners’ meeting in Albany.
At 6 p.m. Thursday, the New York City Bar Association will host a discussion on the topic of criminal discovery reform in New York State. Sergio de la Peva, of New York County Legal Services, will moderate a panel consisting of Administrative Judge Joseph Zayas, John Schoeffel of the Legal Aid Society, and Manhattan Chief Assistant District Attorney Karen Friedman-Agnifilo.
Friday and the weekend
Mayor de Blasio may make his weekly appearance on WNYC’s The Brian Lehrer Show at 10 a.m. Friday.
At 11 a.m. Sunday, the debate between Democratic U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand and her Republican challenger, Chele Farley, will air on ABC-7.
At 2 p.m. Sunday, City Council Member Ydanis Rodriguez will deliver his 2018 State of the District speech at George Washington High School in Washington Heights.
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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
What's The [Data] Point? Episode 56 -- 90%, with NYCHA Interim Chair Stan Brezenoff [You can download What's The [Data] Point? wherever you get your podcasts, including on iTunes]
90% is the share of NYCHA units CBC estimates may not be cost effect to repair by 2027 under the current trajectory of deterioration. NYCHA Interim Chair and CEO Stan Brezenoff joined CBC to discuss the policy and funding challenges facing NYCHA, and how he plans to tackle key areas in desperate need of improvement.
Listen to the conversation and let us know what you think: Ben Max of GG (@TweetBenMax), Maria Doulis of CBC (@MariaDoulis). Listen below or download wherever you get your podcasts!
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by Ben Max, Gotham Gazette
@tweetBenMax @GothamGazette
(Photo: Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office)
The Right to Know Act, a significant piece of police reform legislation passed by the City Council last December, is set to go into effect Friday and advocates who hoped it would transform street interactions between New Yorkers and police officers are worried that the NYPD may not fully comply with the new law.
The Right to Know Act comprises two laws with requirements for how officers conduct themselves in street stops. The first, sponsored by Council Member Ritchie Torres, a Bronx Democrat, mandates that officers identify themselves when questioning individuals, provide a valid reason for doing so, and provide a business card with their name and rank to the individual. The second law, sponsored by Council Member Antonio Reynoso, a Brooklyn Democrat, requires officers with no probable cause to obtain verbal consent before searching an individual or their property while informing people of their right to refuse a search. The police department will also have to compile and report data on the number of such encounters.
Developed as a response to the NYPD’s controversial use of stop-and-frisk policing, the Right to Know legislation travelled a bumpy years-long road to passage. In 2016, former City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito refused to allow the bills to come to a vote and instead struck a deal with the NYPD to implement certain provisions administratively. The move was protested by criminal justice advocates who believed Mark-Viverito had kowtowed to opposition by the police department and Mayor Bill de Blasio. Then, in 2017, when the two bills were on the verge of being approved, Torres’ bill was amended in ways that police reform advocates said diluted and betrayed its original intent by removing certain categories of interactions from its jurisdiction. The CPR coalition pulled its support for that bill before it passed, as did some of the Council Members who co-sponsored it. Nonetheless, the enactment of the legislative package was mostly celebrated as a victory for criminal justice reform efforts in the city.
Advocates and the bill sponsors have since been eagerly awaiting and preparing for the two laws to go into effect on Friday, though there have been questions raised about the NYPD’s readiness to change its ways -- concerns the NYPD is pushing back against, promising full compliance with the new laws and asserting its outreach efforts as “unprecedented.”
“We’re gearing up to see how the NYPD implements the reforms mandated in the law,” said Michael Sisitzky, lead policy counsel in the advocacy department at the New York Civil Liberties Union, in a phone interview on Tuesday. NYCLU is a member of the Communities United for Police Reform (CPR) coalition, which spearheaded advocacy for the Right to Know bills for years. Sisitzky said his organization has been conducting internal education sessions about the two laws as they await its implementation.
But he noted that the NYPD has failed to significantly engage with advocates or solicit enough community input on changing its policies to adhere to the laws, which was explicitly required by Reynoso’s bill.
“That consultation didn’t happen in any meaningful way,” Sisitzky said. “The NYPD really decided to not follow the spirit and requirements of the law and consult with communities despite these communities being involved in this for the last five years.” He said it was a “missed opportunity” to reimagine policing tactics and that more so than other reforms related to greater reporting on enforcement or the creation of outside monitors, its success depends on how it is executed on the ground. “This was an easy chance for them to work with communities to create new policies,” he said.
On Wednesday, Joo-Hyun Kang, director of CPR, told the New York Daily News that the coalition had only one meeting with the NYPD in September and that it’s recommendations were not taken into account in new guidance issued to officers. Drafted guidance in the NYPD patrol guide, which dictates officer conduct and protocols, that was seen by Kang seemed to fall short of the requirements in the law, the News reported, and Kang worried that officers were not being properly trained.
Council Member Reynoso echoed the sentiments of the advocates. On Wednesday morning, Reynoso visited the offices of the Civilian Complaint Review Board, which handles complaints of NYPD officer misconduct and abuse of power, to speak with more than 60 CCRB staffers about the Right to Know Act, what inspired it and how it will improve policing, particularly communities of color, where the overuse of stop-and-frisk was damaging to police-community relations and ruled unconstitutional by a judge.
Emphasizing the need for the Right to Know Act, Reynoso recounted his own personal experience with stop-and-frisk from his high school days, when he and his cousins were abruptly stopped and searched by police officers as they walked down the street. “That experience was very life-changing for me. I felt like I lost all dignity,” he said.
Speaking to reporters after the meeting, he noted that the NYPD should have been more collaborative as they prepare to adapt to the new laws. “I think the NYPD does want to follow through with the bills,” he said, while conceding that they have “done a very poor job” of communicating with reform advocates. “While I do believe that they haven’t done enough at this moment to engage communities the way they’re supposed to by law, moving forward I do feel comfortable that they’ll be able to engage,” he said. “But, because we’ve lost all this time, without communicating to the advocates, there are some things that they could have done better or might have overlooked that could have been addressed before implementation. Now we have to wait till after implementation to address a lot of these issues.”
Reynoso stressed that the new laws would be a valuable tool in the pockets of public defenders and New Yorkers who feel that their civil rights have been violated, and that the department’s compliance would also be ensured by the full implementation of its body camera program. De Blasio announced in January that all patrol officers would be outfitted with cameras by the end of the year.
There are concerns, however, about how closely officers will follow the new laws. “Unfortunately, the NYPD doesn’t have the best track record complying with legal mandates,” NYCLU’s Sisitzky said. The NYPD has in recent months come under fire for refusing to abide by a City Council law mandating disclosure of data on subway fare evasion arrests. And de Blasio has repeatedly chosen to defer to the department’s leadership, which cited public safety concerns, instead of ordering compliance.
Asked if the NYPD could be trusted to follow the Right to Know, which the department fought, and if the mayor could be relied upon to enforce it, Reynoso seemed to harbor some doubts. “I absolutely believe that the mayor should be on the front lines...but the mayor has shown that he cares deeply about his relationship with the NYPD.” Even when certain pieces of police reform legislation are justified, Reynoso said, “[The mayor] would err on the side of the police [rather] than the people of the City of New York.”
A spokesperson for the mayor did not respond to a request for comment. An NYPD spokesperson, asked about the concerns expressed by advocates, said in a statement, “The NYPD will fully comply with the Right to Know Act when it takes effect this Friday. As the Department developed its policies, it heard numerous recommendations from the advocacy community through discussions with the Federal Monitor. The Department also provided advocates unprecedented access to NYPD policies, forms, and trainings prior to the law taking effect. And the NYPD will of course continue to talk to advocates to fine tune the policy as it is implemented and we can assess what’s working and what might be improved.”
Advocates and the City Council say they will be keeping an eagle eye on the police adherence. “The City Council is proud of its efforts in this area and we will be watching the roll out to ensure the Right To Know is being followed,” said Jennifer Fermino, City Council communications director, in a statement.
On Thursday afternoon, the CPR coalition rallied with several City Council Members outside City Hall, celebrating the Right to Know Act but also airing their complaints about the NYPD's lacklustre engagement and promising to hold the department and the de Blasio administration accountable. "And, on Friday morning, Reynoso and members of the CCRB will hit the streets of Brooklyn and the Bronx to inform New Yorkers about their new rights under the Act.
“I think [the new laws] offer New Yorkers a real sense of control and knowledge over their encounters with the police department,” said Jonathan Darche, CCRB executive director, in a phone interview. “And we’ve been working hard with the department in order to make sure that we’re on the same page with them about how they are training members of service so that we can hold members accountable to the standard that is being demanded of them by the department.”
“I’m excited that it’s coming to fruition,” Council Member Torres said outside City Hall on Wednesday as he rushed to attend a Wednesday meeting of the full Council.
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by Samar Khurshid, senior reporter, Gotham Gazette
@samarkhurshid @GothamGazette