Equality rally at City Hall (photo via Council Member Cumbo)
The Women’s Caucus of the New York City Council announced a legislative package Tuesday aimed at equal rights and opportunities for women. With an “equality rally” outside City Hall before the full Council held a meeting at which some of the bills were introduced, legislators, advocates, and service providers expressed support for the legislation and argued for its necessity in light of Donald Trump’s election as President.
The co-chairs of the Women’s Caucus, Council Members Laurie Cumbo and Helen Rosenthal, spearheaded this first-of-its-kind legislative effort by the caucus. The 11 bills and resolutions range widely, while some have already been passed into law and others are completely new. The entire package should be enacted at the city level in conjunction with other state and federal policies, those who rallied said. The concern, though, is that the federal government will not be advancing gender equity under President Trump. Council Member Cumbo, who represents District 35 in central Brooklyn, said she’s worried about Trump’s treatment of women and his misogynistic language.
The legislative package seeks to address issues like the needs of unpaid caregivers, access to feminine hygiene products, services for victims of domestic violence and sexual assault, the gender pay gap, and more.
“We have seen all across this nation the challenges that women face when attempting to become leaders,” Cumbo said. “All across this country we have seen the level of disrespect. We have seen women who want to have families, who want to have babies, and a president-elect saying that pregnancy in the workplace is a problem.”
While Council Member Rosenthal praised the City Council and the de Blasio administration for their efforts to help women achieve equal opportunities through legislation and by creating the Committee on Gender Equity, she said advocacy groups and public officials should still push for progress.
“With the challenges that we now face, it is critical that we redouble our efforts towards the promise of equality and we refocus our outreach and organization as a caucus to ensure there’s a success in that effort,” said Rosenthal, who represents District 6 on the Upper West Side. “This legislative package will make a difference in the lives of not just women, but all of New York.”
Council Member Margaret Chin, who represents District 1 in Lower Manhattan, said this presidential election served as a reminder of the long fight ahead for equal rights under a Trump presidency: “When a President-elect with a record of belittling, harassing and abusing women is about to take office, we have the responsibility to act now — to demand equal rights in our city and across the nation.”
Last July, Governor Cuomo signed legislation to eliminate sales tax on feminine hygiene products in New York. One of the bills in the package, sponsored by Council Member Julissa Ferreras-Copeland, would provide feminine hygiene products at no cost for students on Department of Education premises. Ferreras-Copeland has been at the forefront of other city legislation to improve access to feminine hygiene products at city schools, shelters, and jails.
Additional components of the legislative package include a new resolution, sponsored by Rosenthal, pushing the state to give domestic violence survivors greater ability to break leases with landlords; legislation, sponsored by Chin and already passed into law, that helps address needs of unpaid caregivers; and a resolution, sponsored by Council Member Annabel Palma that calls for passage of a state law to prohibit employers from asking salary history. (Public Advocate Letitia James, a former Council member, has such legislation at the city level.)
According to a report released by James, women in New York City earn annually approximately $5.8 billion less in wages than men. Women of color face the greatest wage gap, with Hispanic, black, and Asian women experiencing a gap of 55, 54 and 37 percent, respectively, relative to white men. New York City ranks higher for racial disparities in salary than most cities in the country, according to James’ report.
Council Member Rosenthal said she was especially impressed by the show of support on Tuesday from so many advocacy and nonprofit groups. “In the city, nonprofits are hungry to do what they can to support anyone who might suffer consequences of a Trump administration....based on outcomes of his misogynistic view of the world,” Rosenthal said in an interview.
The Women’s Caucus, which includes 14 members in the 51-seat Council, said the package serves not only women of New York, but all of its residents by providing improved transparency into city programs, support for families, and efforts to reduce sexual assault and domestic violence against all genders.
“As a national model, we must maintain our upward momentum to end gender and racial inequality through public policy that celebrates our diversity,” Council Member Cumbo said at the rally, pointing to other city and state efforts like the municipal identification card program and a higher minimum wage.
The Women’s Caucus includes the Council Speaker, Melissa Mark-Viverito, who is one of several women term-limited out of the Council at the end of 2017. Mark-Viverito, Rosenthal, James, Ferreras-Copeland, and other city elected officials have been involved with efforts to encourage more women to run for elected office.
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by Devin Gannon and Milka Nissinen
@GothamGazette
The first day of school (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayor's Office)
In New York City, nearly half of elementary school children are overweight. The city’s Department of Education is in charge of the largest school food service program in the country, serving over 177 million meals per year. But despite the city’s efforts, such as providing free breakfast for students and placing restrictions on snacks sold in school vending machines, childhood obesity continues to pose a major challenge. In recent decades there have been significant improvements in the quality of school food, but the need for more progress is evident -- both for the general physical health of young people and the effects it has on learning.
Studies show that food quality has an impact on children’s learning and mental growth. According to the American Psychological Association, “A hungry child between the age of 6 and 12 is more likely to receive special education services, repeat a grade in school or receive mental health counseling, than a child who is not hungry.”
There have been efforts in New York City to see implementation of universal free school lunch to help ensure every student eats during the day, to improve the healthfulness of the food that is offered in schools, to make sure that students have access to healthy snacks, and to allow students to eat “breakfast after the bell” inside their classrooms, not just the cafeteria before school begins. These initiatives have been implemented to varying degrees.
Still, school meals are not the only contributor to children’s eating habits — many schools are surrounded by fast food restaurants and small corner markets, which children are likely to frequent before or after school hours, and sometimes during lunch breaks. Various solutions have been suggested to decrease the density of fast food outlets near schools, including zoning and conditional licensing. Some establishments selling fast food also receive subsidies from the city, which some believe should be directed at healthy food retailers instead.
In New York City, the availability of healthy food options is often related to income. In low-income neighborhoods such as East Harlem, grocery stores are scarce compared to bodegas and fast food retailers. The same inequality goes for schools, where children coming from food-insecure families rely heavily on the school meals. But, despite being eligible for a reduced-priced or free school meal, the fear of stigma for being poor leads some students to skip meals. This has been part of the argument behind universal free school lunch, a program that the administration of Mayor Bill de Blasio has not agreed to, though a middle-school pilot program is underway.
“The three-tier system stigmatizes students who eat free or reduced-priced meals. The system creates conditions in which some students can look down on others,” said Janet Poppendieck, the author of “Free for All: Fixing School Food in America” and senior faculty fellow at the CUNY Urban Food Policy Institute, at a food policy event at CUNY School for Public Health.
Poppendieck also said that despite the changes that some schools have made to protect the identity of those who receive school lunch assistance, the stigma around those students still persists. Some students wind up skipping what might be their only potential proper meal of their day.
Poppendieck is also part of an advocacy campaign called Lunch4Learning (L4L) that is behind the push to make free school lunch universal. L4L and other advocacy groups recently rallied at City Hall to demand Mayor de Blasio keep his campaign promise of ending the relationship between school lunch and family income. Public Advocate Letitia James has been supportive of the recommendation, as have several City Council members. Three prominent union leaders, including the teachers union president, wrote a joint op-ed on Monday in The Daily News pushing Mayor de Blasio to include universal free lunch in his upcoming budget.
"We live in one of the richest cities in the world, but we still are having trouble convincing some local lawmakers that it is not OK for children to spend the majority of their time in school hungry,” said Pamela Stewart Martinez, Co-President of the Citywide Council on Special Education. “In a city where 40 percent of the homeless population is school age children, why should universal free lunch even be an unfulfilled campaign promise?”
Usually discussed around city budget season, universal free lunch would have an additional cost, but L4L says it would require a little over a dollar per child per school day for the city to be able to provide free lunch for all. There are more than one million public school students in the city. The de Blasio administration has said it is unsure if moving to universal free school lunch would cost the city in related federal funds. According to Poppendieck, “the higher the participation rate, the lower the unit cost of producing each meal. So basically, by moving to this we would free up more of the federal reimbursement for food.”
Advocates say that in other cities where school districts have implemented universal free lunch, there have been positive results and more investment into fresh and local food. “So that’s why I think even for people whose primary concern is the food quality and healthfulness, nutrition, rather than the experience of the kids or the participation rate, it’s still a pathway to better school food,” Poppendieck said.
Nutrition value of school meals has been a concern for a long time. A recent study conducted on Finnish 6-8-year-old elementary school students suggested that there is a positive correlation between a healthy nutritious diet and reading skills. Since a school meal might be a student’s only full meal of the day, advocates and health experts want to make sure that meals provide as much nutritional value as possible.
The New York City Department of Education’s website states its “nutrition standards always meet, and many times exceed, USDA Nutrition Standards for School Meals.” These standards allow schools to serve meals headlined by pizza, cheeseburgers, chicken tenders and mozzarella sticks. The “Eat Your Colors” part of the meal is usually a healthy vegetable, like broccoli, but sometimes also french fries or another starch. Salad bar with fresh vegetables is available everyday to students across the city.
“If you want paying kids to buy the food, the feeling has been that you have to offer foods that they are familiar with and recognize, and that’s...your tacos, burritos, burgers and pizzas and what have you,” said Poppendieck. “If you move to universal, you could gradually shift to include more soups and stews, which, among other things, make it possible to use leftovers."
“School food professionals have an opportunity to leverage their collective buying power for a better food system,” said Toni Liquori, founder and executive director of SchoolFood Focus, a Manhattan-based organization aiming to improve the quality of school food by working with school districts, food producers, and advocates, in a statement to Gotham Gazette. “Through working with school districts and food suppliers, we’ve helped reformulate and create new nutritious products for school purchase — from poultry raised with responsible antibiotic use to a more wholesome bean burrito. All of which are available nationwide for purchase.”
Beyond formal meals, there are often school vending machines for student use, and they regularly offer so-called “copycat products”, which are usually lower fat and lower sodium versions of popular junk food snacks such as Doritos.
A UConn Rudd Center study showed that the similar packaging of these products was confusing to children and parents alike, and that many struggled to differentiate the original product from the healthier one. The study reasons that selling these products contradicts the schools’ nutrition and health education and may fuel the misconceptions many of the participants had about the healthiness of the products.
Of note are a couple other positive developments in the healthfulness of school food: food additives such as artificial colors or flavors are no longer used in city school meals and in fiscal year 2015 DOE spent 6% more of its budget on local products than the year before. Locally sourced and produced food is offered on the menu every Thursday.
There is still much more to do, both in and near schools, though, to improve healthfulness for young people in New York. Some want to see the city take new steps to use legislative tools.
Licensing and Creating Healthy Food Zones
Food insecurity and food access are major problems in many neighborhoods. According to the 2015 Food Metrics Report nearly one in five children in New York City live in food insecure households. Grocery stores are often scarce in the city, especially in lower-income neighborhoods, which makes access to fresh and healthy food challenging. Fast food outlets, however, are abundant in almost every neighborhood.
Ending public subsidies for fast food establishments has been presented as one potential way to improve healthy food access in low-income neighborhoods. Businesses can be eligible to receive financial support such as tax benefits from the city and fast food restaurants are included. According to a food policy guide by CUNY and Corporate Accountability International from 2012, the city “provided support to 13 fast food establishments, including six McDonald’s and two Burger King chains. Most of the supported establishments were located in East and Central Harlem, communities with among the highest rates of obesity and diabetes in New York and the nation.”
According to a plan from The National Policy and Legal Analysis Network to Prevent Childhood Obesity (NPLAN), Model Healthy Food Zone Ordinance, a study showed that students with fast food restaurants within a half-mile of their school are more likely to be overweight.
Another way to prevent students from eating unhealthy food during or after school hours might lie in the use of zoning. By creating so-called “healthy food zones,” fast food and chain restaurants can be prohibited from establishing new outlets within a certain distance from a school.
The zoning approach is preventative, but in New York City it is nearly impossible to find neighborhoods without existing fast food outlets. Zoning may help limit new unhealthy or less healthy options from moving in, though. This practice is not currently in use.
Conditional licensing can be used to restrict the operation of already existing establishments, and might therefore be a better option than restrictive zoning for urban centers like New York City. “Licensing is more flexible because you can apply it to businesses that already exist,” said Jennifer Pomeranz, Clinical Assistant Professor at College of Global Public Health. “You could use this authority to license restaurants and also stores that are near schools to say ‘you have a license to operate as long as you agree to our conditions,’ for example not selling sugary beverages,” Pomeranz said. This method would allow existing establishments to continue their operations with a healthier agenda, whereas zoning would be used to prohibit these establishments from operating in a certain area.
Arguments against limiting fast food restaurants include fears of possible job losses and other economic damages. Advocates, however, point to the fact that healthier food retailers would have an opportunity to open in their place and hence improve healthy food access in underserved neighborhoods. Some also worry about interference with the free market and individual choice -- there has often been pushback against the “nanny state.”
To help retailers improve healthy food access, the city launched a program called Food Retail Expansion to Support Health (FRESH) in 2009 to provide “zoning and financial incentives to promote the establishment and retention of neighborhood grocery stores in underserved communities throughout the five boroughs.” For eligible operators, FRESH offers additional development rights, reduction in required parking, and permission for larger stores to operate in light manufacturing districts. The financial incentives include real estate tax reductions, sales tax exemption, and mortgage recording tax deferral. These make it easier for new retailers to open a new grocery store in underserved areas and for existing businesses to stay in operation.
The city has also moved forward with the green carts initiative, providing more options for healthy food in underserved neighborhoods without the major capital and overhead costs of a traditional store or restaurant.
A move to replace fast food outlets with healthier retailers would meet strong resistance. The fast food industry’s lobbying powers have regularly made sure that efforts to limit its operations are defeated. For example, in 2014 the city lost its battle to limit the sizes of sugary beverages that could be sold in certain circumstances -- an effort started by former Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who has backed regulation of sugary beverages around the country. In New York, there was strong pushback from both the public and the restaurant industry.
Changes in food options for students rely on viable alternatives to unhealthy options now being offered, and where the city has the most control is indeed in schools themselves.
On Tuesday, the New York City Council announced $595,000 in funding for 16 new school food pantries across the city. The pantries, which will be placed in high-needs schools in partnership with Food Bank for New York City, are largely aimed at “combating food insecurity,” according to a press release from the Council. They will offer food that can be taken home as well as personal hygiene products like toothpaste and tampons.
“Thousands of students across New York City rely on schools to provide their nutritional needs for the day,” New York City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito said in a statement accompanying the school food pantry announcement. “Lacking access to these supplies can leave our children and young adults stressed and unable to focus on their education.”
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by Milka Nissinen, Gotham Gazette
@GothamGazette
Mayor de Blasio (photo: Edwin J. Torres/Mayor's Office)
Mayor Bill de Blasio indicated on Tuesday that he has cut down his contact with Jonathan Rosen, a campaign consultant who has remained a top advisor to the mayor since de Blasio took office in 2014. Earlier this year de Blasio told reporters that amid controversy and investigations into his behavior he had reduced his communication with lobbyists. It appears that the mayor has also adjusted his approach to controversial political advisors like Rosen who are not on the government payroll but who have nonetheless been influential.
The relationship between de Blasio and Rosen, as well as other advisors, has raised flags since Rosen represents clients with city business while acting as a de facto member of the mayor’s cabinet, advising de Blasio on all manner of political and governmental decisions.
City Hall has restricted access to email correspondence between the mayor and his staff and Rosen, putting new limits on Freedom of Information Law requests and calling Rosen an “agent of the city” even though he is not paid by the city. The city has also extended that designation to several other outside consultants that helped get the mayor elected and remain important to de Blasio, but are not on the city payroll.
The day before Thanksgiving, as part of a lawsuit wherein NY1 and The New York Post are suing for access to the aforementioned communications between City Hall and these outside ‘agents,’ the city released hundreds of emails involving Rosen. The correspondence, from 2014 and at times significantly redacted, shows Rosen’s inclusion in de Blasio’s inner circle and influence at City Hall.
Rosen, who is co-founder of the firm BerlinRosen, helped guide de Blasio to victory in the 2013 mayoral race. His firm is now leading the mayor’s reelection efforts, which recently kicked into higher gear on both fundraising and early endorsements. Between the two campaigns, Rosen has had the mayor’s ear and de Blasio has sought his guidance. His firm has also represented a variety of clients with city business, including not-for-profits and real estate developers. The emails show some blurring of the lines between Rosen’s formal and informal roles.
The Wednesday document release led to new questions for de Blasio about transparency, conflicts of interest, and Rosen’s special designation -- first on NY1’s Inside City Hall on Monday evening, then at a Tuesday press conference where de Blasio took whatever questions the assembled press wanted to ask.
De Blasio continued to defend the relationship, arguing its validity, importance, and integrity. “I’m absolutely certain that there’s no representation of clients involved in those discussions,” de Blasio said. “And these are folks who I have known for years and years who have been providing me advice that I long ago came to the conclusion was objective, thoughtful advice. But it’s just advice. I listen to advice from many quarters, and I make the decisions.”
But, asked by Gotham Gazette if he was still in such regular communication with Rosen and other top outside advisors, the mayor implied that he had cut back on such contact. “Each situation is individual,” de Blasio said. “I think it’s fair to say that it’s pretty rare I’m talking to people, but each situation is individual.”
Reminded that the emails show very regular contact with Rosen, de Blasio said, “The emails go back a ways.”
Asked then about the current state of things, he told Gotham Gazette, “I’m saying – I think it’s pretty rare that I’m talking to those individuals, but again, I think each case is individual.”
When Gotham Gazette followed up with the mayor’s press office, a spokesperson confirmed that Rosen is no longer attending meetings with the mayor and his top governmental staff -- the 2014 emails that were released showed Rosen regularly included in high-level calls and meetings. The de Blasio spokesperson did not answer additional questions or offer further comment. De Blasio’s campaign spokesperson at BerlinRosen declined to comment on the shifting dynamics of the relationship.
While de Blasio continues to insist that Rosen never discusses his clients with the mayor, top de Blasio aides and others in the administration know Rosen’s importance to de Blasio, giving him and his clients a major advantage. Every mayor comes into office with friends, advisors, and colleagues, not all of whom take jobs in the new administration. But, Rosen’s level of influence on de Blasio and city policy while representing clients with city business appears to be highly unusual.
De Blasio has continued to defend the situation, though, even as he acknowledged Tuesday having scaled back Rosen’s involvement in government decision-making. The change is similar to both the mayor’s affiliation with political nonprofits, like the Campaign for One New York, that Rosen and others established in partnership with de Blasio, and the mayor’s relationship with lobbyists, especially top city lobbyist James Capalino.
Amid controversy, criticism, and law enforcement investigations, de Blasio saw to the shutdown of the Campaign for One New York, though he has steadfastly defended its existence and did so as recently as Monday on NY1. When his relationship with Capalino and the access of lobbyists at City Hall came under heightened scrutiny, especially around the problematic sale of Rivington House, de Blasio said he had cut down his contact with Capalino and others.
“I have not been in touch with Mr. Capalino,” de Blasio told reporters in August. “You know, he – going into the mayoralty – was someone that I respected and was a friend, someone I talked to a lot over the years. But I do not have contact with him anymore.”
De Blasio explained it was “because of the atmosphere we’re in, and the ongoing investigations.” He wasn’t able to say when that new approach had begun, but said it was “a while back.”
It should be noted that neither de Blasio nor any of his close allies have been charged with a crime, and the mayor has insisted everyone has acted both legally and ethically. There are ongoing investigations, though, including into whether government favors were given or promised in exchange for donations to the Campaign for One New York.
After the mayor indicated Tuesday that he had limited Rosen’s involvement in government decision-making, a de Blasio spokesperson did not answer Gotham Gazette’s inquiry about when that distance had been created. It’s also not clear how often de Blasio is currently emailing with Rosen, or to what extent they’ve moved communication to phone calls, which are not subject to Freedom of Information requests. As de Blasio is now more engaged in his reelection campaign, he is more involved with BerlinRosen on a regular basis.
“I think what you guys have to recognize is we’re very, very comfortable saying ‘no’ to anyone,” de Blasio told reporters Tuesday, explaining that Rosen and others can suggest ideas or recommend actions related to their clients, but should not expect undue influence. “And we have no problem with putting an idea on the table, no problem with recommending someone or offering an event. We’ll make a decision based on what we think is right.”
“These are individuals who advise me for years and years,” de Blasio said. “They’re offering ideas. There’s nothing about that that is out of the ordinary. Everyone who holds high office has advisors, and they offer advice. And again, I make the decisions.”
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by Ben Max, Gotham Gazette
@tweetBenMax @GothamGazette