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Where’s the Mayor’s Jobs Plan?


de blasio jobs tour

Mayor de Blasio in the Bronx (photo: Ed Reed/Mayor's Office)


Kicking off his week in the Bronx, Mayor Bill de Blasio said May 22 that his administration’s efforts to fight inequality are working and that while unemployment has dropped significantly in the borough, there is more work to be done. “The Bronx has borne the brunt of that inequality crisis in many ways,” the mayor said, but what his administration is doing is “disproportionately benefiting the Bronx.”

The mayor told those sitting with him -- senior administration officials and Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr. -- and any others paying attention that his administration is focused on “maximizing economic opportunity.” “[N]ot just any jobs,” the mayor said, “but in fact an increasing focus on good paying jobs, which is what I devoted the State of the City to.”

De Blasio was referring to his February 13 speech, during which he announced that the city would invest in creating 100,000 permanent private sector jobs that pay more than $50,000 a year. It would be a ten-year plan, the mayor said, and while de Blasio offered a few examples of the economic sectors that would see some of that job growth -- tech, life sciences, renewable energy, manufacturing -- his announcement included few details. Soon after his State of the City, de Blasio explained that his administration would be releasing a detailed policy book, as it had done in 2014 with his 200,000-unit ten-year affordable housing plan and a few other major initiatives, to show where the jobs would come from and how.

On and off for several weeks, the mayor defended setting the 100,000 goal without a roadmap to get there, saying that it was the target city experts could ambitiously but reasonably forecast and that the specifics would follow. He also found himself defending it as ambitious enough -- critics pointed out that the city has been adding jobs at a much more rapid pace over the last ten years, but the mayor explained that job growth was already slowing and that he is focused on the wage threshold.

De Blasio has been asked about the plan, and when the public would see the details, at press conferences and his top aides were asked about it at multiple City Council budget hearings. At a late April news conference, Gotham Gazette asked when the jobs plan could be expected, whether it was imminent. “Not imminent in the sense of the next few weeks,” de Blasio said. “But, at some point this year I'll give you a better read on when."

At a May 9 City Council budget hearing, the head of the city’s Economic Development Corporation, James Patchett, told Council members that de Blasio administration officials are working diligently on the plan.

City Council Member Dan Garodnick, chair of the economic development committee, said, "We continue to have little clarity on the sources of jobs in the mayor's jobs plan.” Patchett said, “We can expect to have a plan very shortly,” but would not give an exact deadline, instead saying, “Certainly, I would love to have it come by the end of the summer. Hopefully sooner.”

As Garodnick pressed for details and whether the 100,000 goal is the right one, Patchett said, “I think you’re right to ask for the plan, I think when you see it you’ll be able to better judge that. Broadly speaking, the 100,000 jobs target is focused on the specific ways the city is encouraging job growth, as opposed to more broadly in the economy.” Almost 300,000 jobs were created over the last three years, he added, but what the de Blasio administration is focused on is jobs created through city intervention and at the “good paying” threshold of $50,000 per year.

According to City Hall, top de Blasio officials under Deputy Mayor Alicia Glen, who oversees housing and economic development, continue to meet weekly and a detailed jobs plan is indeed expected sometime this summer. Glen’s portfolio includes the Economic Development Corporation; Small Business Services, which runs workforce development programming; the Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment; and other agencies that will be integral to the jobs plan.

“Senior leadership from across the administration has met weekly on the jobs plan for months now, and our work is in an advanced stage,” said Melissa Grace, a de Blasio spokesperson, in a statement. “This is a major undertaking that will improve the earning power and professional opportunities of thousands of New Yorkers. From Vision Zero to ThriveNYC to Housing New York, we’ve consistently delivered on these big multi-agency initiatives because we take the time to do them right.”

The de Blasio administration has already released pieces of the plan, including an investment in the life sciences sector; manufacturing, garment, and fashion jobs in Brooklyn through enhanced use of both the Brooklyn Navy Yard and Brooklyn Army Terminal; and a new technology hub in Union Square. As those pieces and others have indicated, the plan will include both industry-specific initiatives and place-based efforts, leveraging city-owned land.

Another example was announced Tuesday, with the Economic Development Corporation releasing “the next phase of the Futureworks NYC advanced manufacturing initiative.” It will create more than 2,000 jobs over five years, the EDC announcement says, through “a series of partner networks and programs to increase access to advanced manufacturing technology, support startups, and help traditional manufacturing companies implement new technologies to help them remain competitive.”

De Blasio has repeatedly stressed that his government is investing and intervening in order to help New Yorkers find good-paying jobs, part of the mayor’s fight against inequality, attempt to make the city more affordable, and efforts to lift hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers out of poverty. While de Blasio has celebrated that unemployment in the city is hovering around an impressively low 4%, there are not necessarily enough middle-income private-sector jobs. The mayor argues that the city must take action to spur important types of job growth that will benefit New Yorkers.

But, as with many headline-grabbing announcements by de Blasio, the key will be planning, execution, return on city investment, and proper metrics for evaluating the program’s efficacy. It’s still not clear exactly how the 100,000 number was pegged.

When Gotham Gazette asked the mayor at a February news conference, he said, “The 100,000 plan emerged from looking at the strands that were already starting to move and asking how far we could take them, and what was a fair numerical stretch-goal to reach for. And that’s very consistent with how we did the affordable housing plan, how we did the pre-K plan – you name it. You know the question on the table is always what’s in motion, where can we take it, and then push it to its farthest extent. And I thought it was an important thing to focus on and really give people a sense of where we were going and what we could achieve.”

Pushed on whether the 100,000 number over 10 years is really a big goal, de Blasio said that critics are not really looking at the last 10 years fairly, noting that the economic crisis that began nearly 10 years ago made the subsequent job growth numbers unsustainable for many years.

“[W]e had huge job loss, and then we had impressive rebounding," de Blasio said. "We’ve gotten a little comfortable because we had such extraordinary success over the last couple of years. The first two years alone that I was in office was about 250,000 jobs. The difference now is the keep generating an intensive pace of job creation, but to focus more on the high-paying jobs. That’s going to take government stimulative effect, if you will. That’s going to take us doing smart, strategic things to keep growth high.”

EDC’s Patchett at the May 9 City Council budget hearing said the plan won’t “identify every sub-initiative of like 17 jobs here and 14 jobs there, because it’s over the next 10 years and...we need to be aware of the fact that the plan will change and the economy will change over time. But we are going to go sector by sector and talk about specific job targets and a series of specific initiatives that we can announce right away that will make up a significant portion of those jobs.”

“OK, we’ll look forward to seeing that,” Council Member Garodnick responded.

***
by Ben Max, Gotham Gazette
     

Read more by this writer.

The Week Ahead in New York Politics, May 30


640px New York City Hall

New York City Hall


 What to watch for this week in New York politics:

It’s a fairly quiet post-holiday week in New York. The state Legislature is not in session in Albany this week. Legislators will return to the Capitol on Monday, June 5, with 11 sessions days to go over three weeks. For his part, Governor Andrew Cuomo continues to hold events around the state - he starts his week on Staten Island - see  below for details. 

The City Council concluded budget hearings last week on Mayor Bill de Blasio’s $87.4 billion executive budget proposal. The two sides will now move to closed-door negotiations before coming to agreement on a final spending plan before the start of the next fiscal year on July 1. [Read more from Gotham Gazette here.] The Council does have a few committee hearings scheduled Tuesday.

As always, there are a variety of other 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?
e-mail Gotham Gazette editor Ben Max: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.***

The run of the week in detail:

Tuesday
At the City Council on Tuesday
-- The Subcommittee on Zoning and Franchises will meet at 9:30 a.m.
-- The Committee on Youth Services will meet at 10 a.m. to discuss a proposed law relating to a “disconnected youth workforce development program.”
-- The Committee on Technology and the Subcommittee on Zoning and Franchises will meet jointly at 11 a.m. for an oversight hearing regarding the “Spectrum Franchise Agreement.”
-- The Subcommittee on Planning, Dispositions, and Concessions will meet at 1 p.m.

At 9:30 a.m. Tuesday, Public Advocate Letitia James will speak at the Brooklyn College Commencement Ceremony. At 2 p.m., James will appear at a news conference regarding NYCHA, along with U.S. Rep. Carolyn Maloney and Council Member Ben Kallos.

At 11 a.m. Tuesday, Mayor de Blasio will be in midtown Manhattan to speak at the “Jimmy Breslin Way” street renaming ceremony. At 2 p.m., the mayor will speak at the Fair Workweek Rally at City Hall, and at 4 p.m. the mayor will hold a public hearing and sign 28 pieces of legislation. 

At 12 p.m. Tuesday, Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams will host a press conference at the Long Island Rail Road's East New York station to "spotlight the poor conditions his administration has observed" and to renew "his call for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) to address historic inequities of infrastructure investment in Brooklyn’s communities of color."

At 12:30 p.m. Tuesday, Gov. Cuomo will make an announcement at The Vanderbilt on Staten Island.

At 3 p.m. Tuesday, Campaign for Children will hold a rally on the steps of City Hall to “urge the Mayor and City Council to restore $16 million for after-school programs for 6,600 elementary school children.”

At 7 p.m. Tuesday, the Four Freedoms Democratic Club will announce their endorsements for the coming elections. The mayoral endorsement will be voted on; Mayor de Blasio, Sal Albanese, Robert Gangi, Kevin Coenen, and Collin Slattery are expected.

Wednesday
At 8 a.m. Wednesday, Crain’s will host its 2017 “Business Breakfast Forum” at the New York Athletic Club on Central Park South. New York City Economic Development Corporation President and CEO James Pratchett will speak on the “philosophy of economic development, his priorities for the next year, and his advice for businesses seeking subsidies or other city assistance.”

On Wednesday at 8:30 a.m. at Penn Station, "Federal and local elected officials; activists and groups will blast Donald Trump’s “public private partnership” infrastructure scheme; which would lavish massive tax subsidies on Wall Street billionaires while turning over public infrastructure such as Penn Station; bridges; roads; and even subways. The groups and elected officials will instead promote the #MillionsOfJobs Coalition’s campaign to create millions of jobs by repairing and building infrastructure including mass transit; roads; bridges; water systems; and public housing." Representative Nydia Velázquez and City Council Member Brad Lander will be among those participating, along with a variety of activist groups.

On Wednesday at 10 a.m., "Mayor de Blasio will make remarks on NYC Ferry’s new South Brooklyn Route, which launches Thursday. After his remarks, the ferry will make a ceremonial first trip from Red Hook to Pier 11 in Manhattan. Return transportation will be provided, as needed. This event it open press. There will be Q-and-A."

At 10 a.m. Wednesday, the Department of Consumer Affairs will hold a public hearing regarding the implementation of the recently passed “Freelance Isn’t Free Act.”

At 10:15 a.m. Wednesday, the New York City Coalition for Adult Literacy will hold a rally demanding city officials 'baseline $12 million in the city budget for adult literacy. Public Advocate Letitia James will be among those who speak.

At 10:30 a.m. Wednesday, City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito will speak at the Construction Kick-Off Event for Hope East of Fifth Project at Our Lady of Carmel Church Hall.

At 12:45 p.m. Wednesday, schools Chancellor Carmen Fariña will present New York Historical Society’s annual Children’s Book Prize.

At 6 p.m. Wednesday, the Pegalis & Erickson Lectureship at New York Law School will host “Can We Identify Bipartisan Common Ground That Will Deliver Quality and Safe Medical Care to All Americans?” Topics will include “health disparities and burdens, legislative and policy challenges, and potential new models of care and payment.” Panelists include Congressman Thomas Suozzi, Adam Herbst of New York Law School, and Pamela Brier of Maimonides Medical Center.

"On Wednesday, First Lady Chirlane McCray will travel to the Staten Island Mental Health Society to host the second of five Community Conversations across the City. The conversation will focus on mental health, including combatting stigma and supporting those struggling with addiction. She will be joined by Council Member Debi Rose and Deputy Mayor for Health and Human Services Dr. Herminia Palacio."

On Wednesday evening, Comptroller Scott Stringer will speak at the Communications Workers of America Local 1180 General Membership Meeting and at the Cobble Hill Association Annual Spring Meeting.

Thursday
At 8:30 a.m. Thursday, the New York Building Congress will host a “Public Building and Procurement Committee Hearing” featuring Tom McKnight, Executive Vice President of the New York City Economic Development Corporation.

At 9 a.m. Thursday, City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito, Council Members Ydanis Rodriguez and Carlos Menchaca, along with CUNY’s Center for Puerto Rican Studies, the Dominican Studies Institute, Jaime Lucero Mexican Studies Institute, and the Hispanic Federation, will host the First Annual “Summit on Latinos” at Hunter College. The event will be “a forum to discuss the challenges and opportunities facing the Latino community in New York City and a discussion on our future,” according to Council Member Rodriguez.

At 6 p.m. Thursday, Assemblymember Walter T. Mosley, City Council Member Laurie Cumbo, and District Leader Geoffrey Davis will hold a town hall to discuss public safety in Crown Heights and Prospect Heights during J’ouvert. The town hall will take place at P.S. 375.

At 6:30 p.m. Thursday, the New York City Bar Association will host “President Trump’s Guantanamo: Views from the Legal Front,” discussing President Obama’s record on Guantanamo and predicting “where the Trump administration is headed.” Panelists will include Brigadier General John Baker, Chief Defense Counsel for the Military Commission Defense Organization; Hina Shamsi, Director of the ACLU’s National Security Project; and Adam Goldman, National Security Reporter for the New York Times.

Friday and the weekend
At 3 p.m. Friday, Housing Preservation and Development Commissioner Maria Torres-Springer will hold a talk at CUNY Graduate School of Journalism discussing “the impact of possible cuts to federal funding, which accounts for 86% of HPD's budget; the Housing New York Plan; streamlining the regulatory process for affordable housing; enforcement work to address housing quality and tenant protection; affordable homeownership; Mandatory Inclusionary Housing; the rezoning of East Harlem.”

On Saturday and Sunday, JusticeWorksNY will host “A Conference for Progressive New York,” at the Desmond Hotel in Albany. Featured speakers include Attorney General Eric Schneiderman; JustLeadershipUSA and #CloseRikers president Glenn Martin; Radhika Balakrishnan, faculty director of the Center for Women’s Global Leadership at Rutgers University; J. Phillip Thompson, Associate Professor of Urban Planning at MIT; Climbing PoeTree; and Better Days.

At 9 a.m. Saturday, the New York Urban League Young Professionals will host “State of Young Black New York” at Medgar Evers College. New York Daily News writer and civil rights activist Shaun King will deliver the keynote. Other speakers include Congresswoman Yvette Clarke, State Senator Kevin Parker, Fox News host Eboni K. Williams, and others.

At noon Saturday, City Council Member Ydanis Rodriguez will host the 2017 “Tech Fair in the Heights” at JHS 52 Inwood. The fair will offer high school students interested in STEM to learn about career opportunities and meet professionals in STEM fields.

At 3 p.m. Saturday, Moms Demand Action will march across the Brooklyn Bridge to demand action on gun violence.

Concurrently, City Council Member Jumaane Williams and East Flatbush Village Inc will host the “Not In My Hood” anti-violence march in Brooklyn, followed by a health & resource fair. Several elected officials will be in attendance, including Public Advocate Tish James, City Comptroller Scott Stringer, and several Council Members, Assembly Members, and State Senators.

***
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).

***
by Ben Brachfeld and Samar Khurshid
@GothamGazette

City Council Progressive Caucus Sets 18 Policy Goals for 2018


18 for 18 progressive caucus

The Progressive Caucus conference (photo: Daniel Altschuler‏)


The City Council’s Progressive Caucus met this week to discuss its 2018 agenda, a set of 18 policy proposals that, its members say, pits them as direct adversaries to President Donald Trump and the Republican-controlled Congress.

“Now more than ever, it is crucial for local progressive leadership in NYC to set the example for our country,” said Council Member Antonio Reynoso, co-chair of the Progressive Caucus, in a statement.

The 18 policy points were posted to the caucus’s website last month, but the group of 19 City Council members hosted a policy summit on Tuesday to share more detailed goals with the public. The agenda is focused on action New York City should take this year and includes some items already in the works, like closing the Rikers Island jail complex, and others that have been stalled, such as passing The Right to Know Act, which would mandate certain communication from police officers in certain encounters with civilians.

Like Right to Know, several other items on the list are not supported by Mayor Bill de Blasio, himself an avowed progressive who has often been aligned with the Progressive Caucus, itself co-found by City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito, a close de Blasio ally. Like the caucus, Mark-Viverito has often outflanked de Blasio to his left, including on Rikers closure, on which her advocacy greatly contributed to the mayor’s recently-announced support for closing the complex in about ten years.

Any differences with de Blasio are, however, fairly minor in comparison to those between the caucus and President Trump.

The Progressive Caucus convened on the agenda with support from organizations such as the Working Families Party, Just Leadership USA, and Make the Road NY. The policy convening occurred on the same day as the release of the most recent budget proposal from the Trump administration, which stands at the opposite pole of the Caucus’, slashing funding for assistance programs such as Medicaid, the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), as well as cutting federal funding for affordable housing.

“In the age of a Trump administration, it is clear that the responsibilities of moving our country in the direction of progress will fall on the shoulders of our cities. Our new policy platform for 2018 is the Progressive Caucus’ pledge that we are up to the challenge,” said caucus co-chair Donovan Richards, a Democrat from Queens, in a statement.

In a repudiation of positions from the Trump administration, the proposal calls for a “right to counsel” for the city’s immigrants facing deportation. In a compromise with the City Council, Mayor de Blasio announced a new legal defense fund for immigrants in his executive budget unveiled last month, but the progressive caucus’ proposal would enshrine a legal right rather than simply providing funding. The caucus agenda also calls for the preservation of the city’s status as a sanctuary city, meaning law enforcement won’t turn over undocumented immigrants to federal authorities such as Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for low-level offenses such as possession of marijuana. The Trump administration has proposed withholding federal funds from sanctuary cities.

The caucus is also calling for expansion of reproductive services in the wake of threats to defund Planned Parenthood coming from the federal government.

The Progressive Caucus has challenged the mayor from the left in each budget season on certain priorities while, in large part, praising him. Compromises are often reached for the final, adopted budget, which is due by July 1.

Responding to criticisms that his mayoralty has not been as progressive as advertised, de Blasio, at a press conference in Queens on May 17, listed policies enacted during his tenure that he identified as progressive, including mandatory inclusionary zoning, the end of the “unconstitutional use” of stop-and-frisk, the end of arrests for low-level marijuana offenses, and implicit bias training for police officers.

“All those things actually are happening right now,” de Blasio said. “So I'll challenge anyone, anytime on those facts and on how progressive those changes are. And if some people want us to go farther, I'll always be honest about where I think we can and should go. But this is a thoroughly progressive record and it's not talk, it's something that actually happened."

The caucus’ proposal addresses areas of disagreement with the mayor, such as the “Fair Fares” proposal, which would provide half-priced subway and bus fares to low-income New Yorkers, and Citi Bike expansion to all corners of the city, using city funds if needed. These measures have been championed by the Council as means of transit equity, but de Blasio has pushed back, arguing that the state, which controls the MTA, should fund Fair Fares and that there is no plan to use public money for Citi Bike expansion. De Blasio has agreed, however, to eliminate some fees so that Citi Bike can expand to the South Bronx and Staten Island.

The Progressive Caucus 2018 agenda also endorses the enfranchisement of approximately one million U.S. Permanent Residents to vote in all local elections, like that for Mayor and City Council. From 1968 until 2003, noncitizens were permitted to vote in school board elections in New York; the practice ended under former Mayor Michael Bloomberg, despite the fact that he requested then-Governor George Pataki to allow noncitizen voting in local elections that same year. It’s been argued that noncitizen voting can facilitate greater diversity of representation in government, given that certain ethnic groups, such as Asians, are more likely to be immigrants and thus have minimal representation in government despite making up a significant proportion of the population.

This is a “valuable long-term policy objective” according to the progressive agenda, rather than an immediate concern, due to the Trump administration’s hostility towards immigrants. It has also mostly been implemented only in much smaller localities than New York, such as Takoma Park, Maryland and Cambridge, Massachusetts.

The proposal calls for full funding for the Worker Cooperatives Business Development Initiative, which facilitates the creation and expansion of worker cooperatives, a business model where employees own and operate the business.

The education planks are also ambitious. The “18 for 18” includes universal childcare from birth until age four, establishing a “Birth to Four” agency to “integrate early childhood services, better identify needs, and nurture children from delivery room to kindergarten.” The Caucus also proposes that the city provide three meals per day plus a snack to public school students, extensively building on a pilot program in middle schools providing free lunch to all students regardless of income level, eliminating the stigma associated with free lunches. A February IBO report on the pilot program indicated that if federal funding of school lunches switches to block grants, as Trump has proposed, then the city “could face the choice of contributing more funding or scaling back the program” in the event of increasing costs of meals, or perhaps an economic downturn.

The proposal also calls for school desegregation, something de Blasio has promised to tackle but been slow to act on; universal after-school and summer programs; and the restoration of free tuition at CUNY schools regardless of citizenship status, which will be free for families making under $125,000 per year under the Excelsior Scholarship.

Regarding housing, the caucus has a plank requiring all new multifamily developments in the city be built with an undefined number of affordable units, and “all available public land designated to include housing units should only be used for permanent, affordable housing, including deeply-affordable units.” The Council has wrestled, and made many compromises, with de Blasio on affordable housing as the mayor has pushed forward new zoning rules and a 200,000-unit 10-year plan in partnership with the Council. There have been tensions, though, around levels of affordability and neighborhood and plot rezonings.

The inclusion of a “Fair Work Week” plank pleased fast food union leaders, with new protections for industry workers such as “a right to request a flexible schedule,” a ban on “on-call” scheduling of hours, and a requirement that employers offer additional hours to existing employees before hiring new ones to fill those hours. It is one measure of the 18 that is already coming to fruition, similar to steps to end gender pay inequities that the Mayor, Council, and Public Advocate Letitia James have worked on together.

“We are proud to support the New York City Council’s progressive caucus platform,” said Hector Figueroa, president of 32BJ SEIU, one of the city’s largest and most influential labor unions. “Important initiatives like the Fair Work Week legislation that will provide important scheduling protections to fast-food workers and other workers across NYC are needed as soon as possible.

The members of the City Council Progressive Caucus are Council Members:
Antonio Reynoso (Caucus Co-Chair, District 34)
Donovan Richards (Caucus Co-Chair, District 31)
Ben Kallos (Vice Chair, Policy, District 5)
Helen Rosenthal (Vice Chair, Budget Advocacy, District 6)
Melissa Mark-Viverito (Council Speaker, District 8)
Jimmy Van Bramer (Council Majority Leader, District 26)
Margaret Chin (District 1)
Corey Johnson (District 3)
Mark Levine (District 7)
Bill Perkins (District 9)
Ydanis Rodriguez (District 10)
Ritchie Torres (District 15)
Julissa Ferreras-Copeland (District 21)
Daneek Miller (District 27)
Steve Levin (District 33)
Carlos Menchaca (District 38)
Brad Lander (District 39)
Jumaane Williams (District 45)
Debi Rose (District 49)

***
by Ben Brachfeld, Gotham Gazette

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