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Citywide Electeds Make Social Media Moves Ahead of Election Year


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Mayor de Blasio at Facebook (photo via Mayor's Office)


If there’s an undeniable takeaway from the 2016 presidential election, it’s that social media can play a crucial role in how candidates for public office communicate. Nationally and locally, political candidates and elected officials have for years recognized the role that platforms like Twitter and Facebook can play in public engagement and influencing traditional media.

For New York City’s three citywide elected officials -- Mayor Bill de Blasio, Comptroller Scott Stringer and Public Advocate Letitia James -- this holds true as well. And, ahead of the 2017 city election cycle when all three will be on the ballot, they are reconfiguring their online presences. This involves new accounts, increased tweeting, and navigating sometimes unclear or nonexistent rules. Using social media for campaign communication does require creating distinct accounts for government and campaign purposes.

De Blasio and James have taken steps in recent months to set up separate Twitter accounts for their government and campaign communications. Stringer has not yet done so. The comptroller is also the only of the three who has not yet declared with the city Campaign Finance Board which seat he will run for next year and is a potential challenger to de Blasio in a Democratic mayoral primary.

Stringer’s tweets of late have taken on a stronger personal tone, particularly in opposition to President-elect Donald Trump’s proposed policies and campaign rhetoric. The shift also coincided with the hire of a new communications director, Stringer brought Devon Puglia on board in mid-October. 

As of October 19, de Blasio separated his official Twitter account, creating @NYCMayor, from his campaign account, @BilldeBlasio. Playing on the ‘Tale of Two Cities’ slogan from his first campaign, the campaign account tweeted: “A tale of two Twitter accounts — I’m back at @billdeblasio. Follow updates from me at City Hall at @NYCMayor. Tweets from me signed -bdb.” That was the only one of the account’s first 108 tweets signed by the mayor himself, as of earlier this week.

The campaign account, which had been @deBlasioNYC in 2013, has more than 66,000 followers while the mayor’s official government account has about 720,000 followers and has tweeted nearly 7,900 times.

Eric Phillips, the mayor’s chief spokesperson, confirmed that the official account is run by their digital communications team and would eventually be transferred to the next mayor. The @BilldeBlasio account is run by de Blasio’s reelection campaign staff, campaign spokesperson Dan Levitan said in an email. The campaign account has become very active as de Blasio has launched his re-election bid.

Public Advocate James’ office set up an official account, @NYCPA, in April this year with an eye on keeping James’ official communiques separate from her personal account, @TishJames. De Blasio, James’ predecessor as public advocate, had used only his @BilldeBlasio account.

“Whether it be Talk to Tish town halls or engaging on Twitter and Facebook, Public Advocate James goes where the people are,” said spokesperson Anna Brower, in an email. “The Public Advocate has expanded her social media use to ensure that she is reaching every New Yorker in every corner of our City.” The official account, run by her staff, has tweeted 336 times and has 1,251 followers, while James has posted more than 7,550 tweets on her personal account, active since 2009, and has a following of more than 26,200.

The contrast between the two accounts is most apparent with regards to the presidential election. James used her personal account to tweet and retweet her support of Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, but her official account did not broach the issue at large. De Blasio’s official account did not address the presidential race either but his campaign account did so liberally.

Comptroller Stringer is an outlier with his single account, @scottmstringer, which he has used since his days as Manhattan borough president, his prior position. He has been on Twitter roughly as long as James, but has been more prolific tweeting, with 10,300 tweets as of December 5. He has more than 23,500 followers, a few thousand fewer than James.

“The Comptroller has a real success story to tell about his fight to make New York a fairer place and his efforts to make government work better for everyday families,” said Puglia, Stringer’s communications director, in an email. “Our staff is working to communicate with New Yorkers in new and innovative ways on every platform. And we’re working to make government more transparent than ever before. In 2016, that means having an active, engaging Twitter account.” It’s unclear whether Stringer will set up a separate social media account once he officially declares a run for office, which may be re-election as comptroller or a mayoral bid.

[Update: during a February exchange on Twitter about the story after a new Conflicts of Interest Board advisory opinion was released that relates to social media use by elected officials and their aides, Puglia told Gotham Gazette, "our twitter account is and has always been the comptroller's official account. It was never for personal or political use."]

James is the only one of the three who appears to personally use her Twitter account on a regular basis. The public advocate is likely to run for re-election, but has not held any campaign events other than fundraisers.

Although social media cuts through the bureaucratic red tape and often helps elected officials engage directly with the public, it has its pitfalls as well. There are well-documented cases wherein elected officials have posted messages they should not have. Some are able to blame an intern and move on; others have seen their careers or candidacies torpedoed. 

Meanwhile, the law does not evolve as fast as technology, creating legal and ethical grey areas at times.

At the federal level, the U.S. Office of Government Ethics issued a set of guidelines last year for federal employees and their usage of social media. But no such guidelines exist in New York for city employees or officials. A spokesperson for the New York City Conflicts of Interest Board said its advisory opinion from 2012, right before the last municipal election, would only generally apply in this case. As per the opinion, a government official may not use city time, resources or staff for campaign-related activities.

The COIB spokesperson could not say whether the board is currently studying the issue of social media use or if they would do so in the future.  

“It is sort of a brave new world in terms of how a public official conducts the people’s business,” said Hana Callaghan, director of the government ethics program at the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University, stressing that it’s essential for officials to have separate accounts for their official work and their campaign activity. Last year, the Markkula Center held a roundtable to analyze social media from a government ethics angle and examined the accompanying dilemmas of transparency and accountability.

In a phone interview, Callaghan noted that social media usage has thrown up unique questions about governance and public communication. For instance, in California, she said, communications on Twitter and by email can now fall under the Brown Act, the state’s public meetings law, if there are a significant number of exchanges between elected officials. The law requires that any public meetings are posted publicly and accessible to the public.

Callaghan also said elected officials should be careful about over-reliance on social media since it’s not available to everyone and “they have a responsibility to all their constituents.”

New York City Council Member Ben Kallos, chair of the governmental operations committee, is an avid social media user who often solicits questions through Twitter during committee hearings. He’s well aware of the intersection of technology and governance and the issues that can arise with an elected representative’s use of social media. “Its pretty confusing to the public because they don’t know who to tweet sometimes,” he said of his own experience with separate accounts for official and campaign purposes. “So I have to spend double duty making sure I’m managing both, paying attention to both and ensuring that whether a constituent tweets my campaign or government [account], they get the services they need.”

He said officials should generally ensure that the distinctions between accounts are clear and they “respond from the right places and retweet from the right places.”

“It can be a little bit of a minefield,” Kallos said, “but you just have to be extra cautious.”

***
by Samar Khurshid, senior reporter, Gotham Gazette
     

Read more by this writer.

Note: this story has been updated with further comment from the comptroller's office during a February exchange.

De Blasio Undermines Own ‘Highest Standards' Claim


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Mayor de Blasio (photo: Edwin J. Torres/Mayor's Office)


In a surprise move on Monday, Mayor Bill de Blasio declared during a NY1 television appearance that going forward his communications with five outside advisors would be subject to public disclosure. In doing so, the mayor betrayed his own rhetoric from a week prior when he vigorously defended his actions in keeping those communications confidential and maintained that “the highest standards were adhered to” in his dealings with unpaid consultants, some of whom have clients with city business.

For the last several months, the mayor has pushed back against allegations of a pay-to-play culture emerging at City Hall stemming from his close relationships with multiple consultants that have clients with city business and the mayor’s political nonprofit, the Campaign for One New York, for which some of those consultants also worked. Much of de Blasio’s explanation around the Campaign for One New York and his relationship with outside consultants has indicated a bare adherence to legal and ethical guidelines, not to the “highest standards.”

The Campaign for One New York, which de Blasio has repeatedly said was OK’d by the city’s Conflicts of Interest Board, raised unlimited funds from wealthy donors who have business with the city, including labor unions and real estate developers. The now-defunct group, which voluntarily disclosed its donors, is under federal and state investigation to determine whether donors were offered or received political favors from City Hall. No one has been charged with wrongdoing and the mayor has insisted that he and his allies sought proper guidance and conducted themselves ethically and legally.  

The administration has sought to keep the communications with his unpaid consultants, termed “agents of the city,” exempt from disclosure under the Freedom of Information Law, inviting a lawsuit from the New York Post and NY1 for their release. Two weeks ago, the day before Thanksgiving, the administration released some of those communications, just over 1,500 emails dating back three years, exchanged with one of the consultants, Jonathan Rosen of the BerlinRosen firm.

At an unrelated news conference on November 29, de Blasio argued that his exchanges with Rosen were appropriate and did not present conflicts of interest. “I’m absolutely convinced that the highest standards were adhered to,” he told reporters. “Everything we did – I said it last night, I’ll say it again. Everything we did, we did with legal clearance for the way to approach things – in the case of Campaign for One New York, with pre-clearance from the Conflict of Interest Board. I am convinced everything was done appropriately.”

But the mayor’s argument has not swayed good government groups who would like to see a higher standard of conduct and more transparency from a mayor who campaigned on that very promise.

“It's common sense that you can't serve two masters,” said Susan Lerner, executive director of Common Cause New York, in an email. “The Mayor's closest advisors, so called “Agents of the City,” represent private interests with business before the city, and they're not accountable to anyone other than their clients. They should not also have a prominent role in public policy.”

On Monday, the mayor sought to make a move towards more openness, telling anchor Errol Louis on NY1’s Inside City Hall that he would no longer shield communications on government matters with outside consultants. He described the move as necessary since the email issue had “obviously become a distraction” to his administration, but in doing so, he effectively acknowledged a higher standard to follow.

Meanwhile, earlier communications with those “agents” are still being held confidential and the lawsuit continues.

“It’s hardly the highest standard when the response of the administration, in my opinion, is inconsistent with law,” said Robert Freeman, executive director of the state Committee on Open Government, which provides guidance on the state’s Freedom of Information law. “A consultant according to the state’s highest court refers to persons or entities retained by the city,” he added, pointing out that the mayor’s advisors are private citizens who are not on the city’s payroll, which is the basic requirement for shielding communications.

De Blasio similarly undermined his own argument about high standards when he shifted the policy of including Rosen in high-level government cabinet meetings, with a spokesperson telling Gotham Gazette Rosen is no longer attending such meetings (BerlinRosen is again running communications for de Blasio’s campaign) after de Blasio himself told Gotham Gazette at the Nov. 29 news conference that he is rarely talking with those termed “agents of the city.”

Christina Greer, political science professor at Fordham University, faults de Blasio for not matching his lofty rhetoric, but believes he hasn’t done anything untoward. “He should probably refrain from using superlatives in explaining what he’s done,” she said. “But I don’t think it’s been illegal or detrimental.” If there was any illegal conduct, Greer is confident that U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara, whose office is investigating the Campaign for One New York, would have found it by now.

Though de Blasio never admitted that the Campaign for One New York was a mistake, he had it shuttered when it too had become a significant distraction. He said it had accomplished its goals, chiefly helping to secure state funding for pre-Kindergarten.

“I think [de Blasio] has an Obama problem,” Greer said. “He cares about the city, he has time constraints, and in his expedience to try and implement policy, he doesn’t necessarily explain how or why.” She said that approach creates two negative consequences: constituents are unaware of the positive changes the mayor is making and, because of the lack of transparency, they are skeptical of whether the mayor’s actions are “above board.”

But the mayor’s bigger problem, Greer said, is that he faces different pressures than his predecessor, billionaire Mayor Michael Bloomberg. “I really do wonder if this is just the cost of doing business for someone who is not a billionaire and can’t finance his own projects,” she said, insisting that the mayor has to be able to make deals. “If he doesn’t get in bed with wealthy capitalists, how is he going to help poor people. That’s the question for American politics,” Greer said.

Back when de Blasio was public advocate, he made a show of calling out city agencies for their lack of transparency. He issued a “Transparency Report Card” in which he gave failing grades to agencies that consistently failed to comply with the law. “The City is inviting waste and corruption by blocking information that belongs to the public,” de Blasio said, in April 2013. “That’s the last thing New York City can afford right now. We have to start holding government accountable when it refuses to turn over public records to citizens and taxpayers.”

Mayor de Blasio is a far cry from that public advocate when it comes to transparency. “We’d like to believe that he is holding himself and others to the highest standard, but we don’t have any independent verification of that,” said Dick Dadey, executive director of Citizens Union, a government reform group. “When one is devising his own rules to shield people from public information, it raises questions about the validity of such claims. He cannot be the arbiter of whether he is doing so or not particularly when it involves protecting his closest associates.”

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by Samar Khurshid, senior reporter, Gotham Gazette
     

Read more by this writer.

Note: Gotham Gazette is an independent publication of Citizens Union Foundation, sister organization of Citizens Union.

Airport Noise Footprint Exposed, Path to Mitigation Unclear


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Hope Marina regretted it as soon as she bought her house in northern Queens.

“When I moved here, I used to cry,” Marina said. “I said to my husband, ‘Oh no, we can’t stay here, we have to look for someplace else.’ So, he said, ‘Don’t worry, honey, you’ll get used to it.’ But he used to work on an aircraft carrier, he slept right on the landing deck and he didn’t hear anything.”

The Marinas’ home is 1,500 feet away from one of the two runways of LaGuardia Airport, where there are over 1,000 airplane take-offs and landings every day. When they fly over the Marinas’ home in East Elmhurst, they are so close Hope Marina says she can read the registration numbers displayed on the aircrafts. They pass every two minutes, creating a lingering thunder that lasts 15 seconds and makes it challenging, if not impossible, for residents to watch TV, talk on the phone, or sleep.

In July, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which runs the area airports, published the first-ever noise map of LaGuardia and John F. Kennedy, New York City’s two main airports. In August, the Port Authority estimated that 47,843 people reside in the worst affected areas near the two airports, enduring a level of noise that is harmful to their health.

“I have lost some hearing from all the noise,” says Marina. “We have complained a lot, all the neighbors.”

In the coming months, the Port Authority will decide which measures to take to alleviate this noise problem. Possibilities include insulating affected households, buying land, or rerouting aircrafts. Funding will come from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). But since 17,151 households are affected, federal officials warn there will be not enough money to reach all of them.

“We would like to do everybody at once, but we don’t have the money to pay for it,” said Andrew Brooks, FAA regional manager. “Nor are there people that can actually do construction work to insulate all houses at the same time.”

The FAA approved a similar program in Buffalo in 2003. It took eight years to soundproof 474 houses in a $60 million project funded by the FAA, Buffalo Niagara International Airport, and the New York State Department of Transportation.

In New York City, some houses will get soundproofed, others won’t. “The Port Authority will have to identify the area where they want to start,” Brooks said. “And, as you can understand, there will be politics involved there,” he added, referring to the competition among local officials who will want to deliver for their constituents.

The World Health Organization (WHO) states that noise can cause a number of short- and long-term health problems. Sounds over 70 decibels can cause hearing impairment. And high levels of noise increase people’s risk of cardiovascular diseases such as myocardial infarction, according to a WHO study published in 2011.

A quiet residential neighborhood produces noises that average 40 decibels, while vacuum cleaners go up to 80. But when an airplane takes off, it produces 140 decibels of noise. The WHO considers this over the threshold of pain, and harmful.

New York City revamped its Noise Code in 2005 for the first time in 30 years. “The making of excessive and unreasonable and prohibited noises is a menace to public health, comfort, safety, welfare and prosperity,” states the code.

This local law regulates construction, animal noise, food vending vehicles, air conditioners, music from bars, motor vehicles, and more. Fines range from $50 for using cellphones in school to $3,200 for blasting excessively loud music from a commercial establishment.

But when it comes to aircraft noise, the noise code only requires the city to propose strategies to reduce sound levels associated with airports.

John F. Kennedy Airport, located in southern Queens, generates about 284,500 jobs and contributes $42 billion in economic activity, according to the Port Authority. LaGuardia Airport generates 129,100 jobs and contributes $17.1 billion in economic activity.

From the revamp of the Noise Code in 2005, it took 10 years for the Port Authority to start the first study to quantify aircraft noise exposure levels in the vicinity of those airports and to evaluate methods to minimize the effects.

In September, the Port Authority finished LaGuardia’s noise report and published an interactive map to allow people to find out if they live within the airport’s noise shadow. The noise contours spread over East Elmhurst, Jackson Heights, and Flushing in Queens; and Clason Point and Hunts Point in the Bronx.

Around LaGuardia, 3,655 households and 9,787 people live within the 65-70 decibels noise area. Two households and six people live within the 70-75 decibels contour.

Rafique Tabassum is one of those six. He lives on 83rd Street in East Elmhurst. “The noise bothers me,” Tabassum said. “Sometimes the airplanes come every minute.”

John Scotti lives a few houses away, within the 65-70 decibels area. “The only thing that saves us is that they don’t come all the time,” Scotti says. “When they do, it’s boom! boom! boom! They wake you up. If it was steady, all day, there’s no way we could live here.”

planes noise graphTwo schools lie within the 65-70 decibels area, and one within the 70-75 decibels area. All three were insulated as part of previous soundproofing efforts conducted by the Port Authority, but that didn’t solve all the problems.

“The kids can’t play outside, it is unpleasant,” said Susan Carroll, who lives near a school right outside the 65 decibels area in Flushing.

Even though sound insulation is a key measure to mitigate airplane noise, it doesn’t always work.

“If you have a new house, most likely sound insulation would bring noise below federal levels even within the 70-75 decibels area,” said Peter Byrne, deputy director of the noise study commissioned by the Port Authority. “When you have a house that is 100 years old, probably not,” Byrne added.

The Port Authority hasn’t calculated yet how much money will be required. “In California, they gave money in the billions and it took 20 years to do it,” said Kelly Mitchell, Port Authority manager for this project, of the noise study and subsequent mitigation efforts.

“The other problem is that the maps are only good for five years,” said Brooks, of the FAA. “So what may happen is that in 2023 we would say, ‘OK, you need new maps before we can approve additional funds.’ And they will have to start all over.”

Some New Yorkers won’t even have the chance to fight for a shot at inclusion. Rikers Island, home to most of the city’s jails and jail population, is located within the 65-70 decibels area. It is just 500 feet away from LaGuardia’s runways. The entire island is classified as institutional land, used as the primary correctional facility in New York City. It currently has an average daily inmate population of about 7,500 individuals accused of crimes or sentenced to one year or less of jail time.

“Rikers is not included in the sound program, it is considered not residential,” said Brooks. “It is transient population, people come and go. There is always someone there, but it is like a motel.”

While there is some discussion in the city about closing the Rikers facilities, which are notorious for their dysfunction and violence, for the foreseeable future those held on Rikers will be subject to excessive airplane noise. (There has even been some discussion of turning Rikers into additional airport space.)

Already, LaGuardia is currently undergoing a $4 billion renovation that will be completed by 2022. According to Peter Byrne, deputy director of the noise program, it won’t change the noise contours.

Hope Marina has become accustomed to the noise and appears to love her neighborhood nonetheless. “I moved here about 50 years ago, it is a very nice area, you can stay outside, you can leave your door open at night,” Marina said from her front porch. “But I hear the planes all the time over the house. Either you get used to it, or you lose your mind.”

***
by Bruno Gallo for Gotham Gazette
@GothamGazette



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