Max Politics Podcast: Dan Doctoroff on the Plan for a 'New' New York
Dan Doctoroff, far right, with the Mayor, Governor, and others (photo: Governor's Office)
December 15, 2022 - Max Politics Podcast: Dan Doctoroff on the Plan for a 'New' New York
Dan Doctoroff, former deputy mayor and now co-chair of the 'New' New York panel assembled by Governor Hochul and Mayor Adams, joined the show to discuss the extensive action plan put forward by the task force, governor, and mayor.
Listen to the conversation and let us know what you think, on Twitter @TweetBenMax. You can listen to the show through the embedded audio below or download the episode wherever you get your podcasts at Max Politics.
Read more: Max Politics Podcast: Dan Doctoroff on the Plan for a 'New' New York
Campaign Finance Board Promises Faster Audits at City Council Hearing Examining 2021 Election Cycle
CFB executive director Beth Rotman (photo: John McCarten/NYC Council Media Unit)
Though it's been more than 13 months since the last city election cycle ended, the New York City Campaign Finance Board has yet to conclude any audits examining the fundraising and expenditure of more than 300 campaigns. At an oversight hearing of the City Council’s Committee on Governmental Operations on Tuesday, the CFB, under new leadership, promised Council members that it is taking steps to expedite those audits as it continuously works to improve the city’s campaign finance program.
The CFB administers the city’s public matching funds program, which matches qualifying small dollar donations at an 8-to-1 ratio, in order to encourage candidate participation and limit the influence of wealthy donors in elections. The program was amended for the city’s massive 2021 election cycle by a City Charter Revision proposed by a commission and approved by voters in 2018, followed by additional changes made by the City Council and mayor in 2019. Those changes increased the matching rate for small dollar contributions, raised the amount of matching funds paid out to candidates and drastically reduced contribution limits, among other tweaks to the program.
In the 2021 election, 308 candidates took part in the program and were paid out a record-breaking $127 million in public funds, more than triple what the CFB paid out in the last citywide election featuring so many open seats, in 2013. New York State recently launched its own public campaign financing program partially modeled after the city’s.
“While the current campaign finance program is by most measures extremely successful, we can always do better,” said Council Member Sandra Ung, a Queens Democrat and chair of the governmental operations committee, in her opening remarks. As is always the case, the City Council is full of elected officials with experience in the matching funds program and in dealing with the Campaign Finance Board, which runs campaign education programming, distributes marching funds, conducts campaign finance audits, tracks spending, and more.
CFB’s executive director Beth Rotman, who was appointed to the role two months ago, detailed the success of the public funds program but had few recommendations for changes. “That is largely because virtually every piece of the program changed,” she said, referring to the sweeping amendments made in this last election cycle.
Rotman did, however, urge two changes that would have to occur at the state level, which were included in the CFB’s 2021 Post Election report, released in September. She recommended that the state prohibit cryptocurrency donations to campaigns, citing their “erratic valuations” and the fact that they are “designed for anonymity” rather than transparency. The city, she said, should not follow in the footsteps of the Federal Election Commission which has allowed Bitcoin donations since 2014. She also urged the state to take steps to prevent foreign actors from influencing ballot proposals – under current federal law, foreign donors cannot contribute to campaigns but the FEC ruled that the prohibition does not extend to ballot questions.
Council members peppered Rotman with questions about the functioning of the campaign finance program – whether the qualifying thresholds should be changed, how credit card donations are verified, how audits are triggered, and the effects of inflation on spending limits. But the main concern seemed to be that campaign audits move far too slowly. Candidates have long complained about the CFB’s auditing process, that it can be lengthy, onerous, punitive, and often penalizes them years after their campaigns have concluded.
“We are always looking for ways to make the process less stressful and I'm very happy to work with this committee and with you on that,” Rotman told Council Member Lynn Schulman, a Queens Democrat who questioned whether the CFB could do “spot audits” during campaigns to ensure compliance.
Rotman did note later that the CFB was unable to do compliance visits during the election because of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, which delayed the auditing process. “We are always looking for ways to make the process quicker, more candidate friendly, and focusing on what we really care about, which is the risk to the public fisc,” Rotman said, adding that the CFB is in the process of implementing a “big strategic plan” using new technology to expedite audits.
“We're not trying to replace people with machines but we are trying to use machines to help us accelerate and innovate so that the process is more candidate friendly and involves less stress and certainly less stress sort of after the process,” she said.
The harshest rebuke came from Council Member Kalman Yeger, a Brooklyn Democrat and former campaign compliance lawyer who has often criticized the CFB’s processes and practices. “An audit of a campaign takes a day. If somebody tells you that it takes more than a day they're lying to you,” he said.
Council Members Ung and Lincoln Restler, a Brooklyn Democrat, both raised the question of whether the thresholds for qualifying for public funds should be changed. Currently, a City Council candidate is only required to raise a minimum of $5,000 from a minimum of 75 small contributions from within the district. “As long as somebody has shown that threshold level of support, which is part of the law, then I actually think it's great that so many people qualified” for the 2021 election, Rotman said. “So from the board's perspective, we don't recommend a change to the threshold.”
But, considering the changes to the program, including increases in the matching rate as well as the maximum amount that is paid out, Allie Swatek, CFB’s director of policy and research said, “We are definitely planning to look at how the threshold has been, we think, impacted by the fact that the program expanded so greatly.”
“It's something that we've also asked ourselves, whether the threshold amount should be higher. So that's something that we're continuing to look at,” she added.
Brooklyn Democratic Council Member Shahana Hanif, however, said she would be in favor of lowering the threshold, which she said was “daunting” for her as a first-time Council candidate last year “because I did not come from any political connections and although I was organizing in my neighborhood, the electoral process was not a familiar one.”
Ung also asked whether the CFB has considered raising spending caps in the wake of high inflation rates. “The board hasn't taken a position to eliminate it, but it's definitely something that we always have to look at because, you're right, things get more expensive,” Rotman said.
Council Member Gale Brewer, a Manhattan Democrat, asked the CFB to consider newer forms of payments for campaign contributions such as ApplePay, Venmo, and PayPal, instead of continuing to rely on paper checks and credit cards. “It's something that might be able to be figured in because it will be easier to raise money…They're quicker and they're faster and I don't even know anybody who doesn't use them sometimes these days,” Brewer said.
But the CFB officials said those transactions come with challenges, since they don’t collect information that is required under the law. “If the vendor is able to work with the board about the appropriate backup documentation, then yes,” Rotman said.
The hearing also briefly touched on a pre-considered bill, introduced by Council Members Selvena Brooks-Powers, Amanda Farias, and Tiffany Caban, which would require independent spenders that attempt to influence the results of a ballot proposal to disclose their donors. Rotman said the CFB supports the bill.
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by Samar Khurshid, senior reporter, Gotham Gazette
@samarkhurshid @GothamGazette
Police Have Removed Over 1,300 'Emotionally Disturbed People’ from Transit in 2022; Where Did They Go?
Mayor Adams on the subway (photo: Ed Reed/Mayoral Photography office)
In the first 11 months of the year, the NYPD removed 1,300 people suffering symptoms of mental illness from the city's transit system, often against their will. The city is unable or unwilling to say what happened to them next.
"Dealing with people who have mental health illnesses must be a focus of any plan moving forward," Mayor Eric Adams said at an October 22 announcement of a new subway safety campaign with Governor Kathy Hochul, dubbed Cops, Cameras, and Care – a plan to flood the subways with officers, surveillance cameras, and outreach workers.
"The New York City Police Department has had to remove 1,500 emotionally disturbed persons from the system this year — 1,500 — to prevent some form of incident from taking place," the mayor said.
A month later, in a directive to law enforcement, now clocking 1,200 additional hours in the transit system, Adams instructed officers to remove any individual who appears to have a mental illness that prevents them from meeting their own basic needs.
"Let me be clear," he said at the November 29 press conference announcing the directive, "we will continue to do all we can to persuade those in need of help to accept services voluntarily, but we will not abandon them if those efforts cannot overcome the person's unawareness of their own illness."
Even before that announcement, the NYPD Transit Bureau had already made contact with 1,600 "emotionally disturbed persons" between January 1 and November 22, and removed four out of five of them from subways and buses, according to Alfred Baker, a police department spokesperson.
None of them were charged with a crime, Baker said. Instead, they were handed over to EMS teams who delivered them to the nearest available hospital. It is unclear how many went voluntarily and how many met the clinical and legal criteria for a psychiatric admission.
Spokespeople for the Mayor's Office, NYPD, and city’s Department of Homeless Services either referred Gotham Gazette to another city agency or stopped responding to inquiries about the outcomes of these cases. A spokesperson for the FDNY, which includes EMS, told Gotham Gazette to file a request for the hospital destinations of the 1,300 individuals under the Freedom of Information Law, which the department estimates will receive a response around April 2023.
The removal of individuals with untreated mental illness has been a central component of the controversial subway safety agendas of Adams and Hochul. As he outlined plans to step up the removals, Adams called it a "moral obligation" to help those suffering symptoms and to make the city safer.
"We can tell New Yorkers all the time that we have decreased crimes in certain areas, but if New Yorkers don't feel safe, we are failing," the first-year Democratic mayor said at the October 22 announcement, flanked by Hochul and top law enforcement, transit, and mental health officials. "And that's why the omnipresence of police officers and the removal of those who are dealing with mental health issues is crucial to our second phase of this important plan."
The focus on crime and disorder in the transit system has become a top political issue amid a period of increased crime rates and several instances of random violence committed by people with untreated mental illness.
Adams is now facing some backlash for that "second phase" from civil rights lawyers and advocates for homeless and disabled individuals. The new guidance, which was sent to NYPD, EMS, and Department of Health and Mental Hygiene mobile crisis teams, is based on an interpretation of existing state law from New York State Mental Health Commissioner Ann Marie Sullivan of what constitutes a danger to oneself and others – the failure to meet "basic living needs."
"It explicitly states that it is appropriate to use this process when a person refuses voluntary assistance and it appears that they are suffering from mental illness and are a danger to themselves due to an inability to meet their basic needs," Adams said on November 29 when he announced the push to increase involuntary hospitalization.
"We believe this is the first time that a mayoral administration has given this direction on the basic needs standard and official guidance," he said, referring to Sullivan's directive, which she issued to localities in February.
The people who fit that profile are predominantly unhoused people of color who have fallen through the cracks of the social safety net and live in the public spaces of the transit system.
It is unclear how effective the strategy is in getting people the help they need or improving safety underground. The Adams administration has been unable to provide information about the outcomes for the 1,300 detainments, including whether any of the individuals were admitted to a hospital, and how many ended up back on the street or in a shelter.
"The mayor didn’t 'tout' stats about those suffering from severe mental illness in the subways, but gave the simple stat where there is an overlap between mental illness and crime — not that the two are always tied because they are not," wrote Adams' press secretary, Fabien Levy, in an email responding to an inquiry about the efficacy of involuntary removals.
He did not provide any information about the 1,300 individuals removed from public transit by the NYPD or what City Hall is doing to track outcomes for those removed from the subways for mental health reasons. The city agencies Gotham Gazette was referred to by Levy or another agency were also unable or unwilling to provide any information about what happened to those individuals.
The NYPD initially referred Gotham Gazette inquiries to the Department of Homeless Services before referring inquiries to FDNY. DHS did not respond to inquiries about how many of the individuals were referred to its shelters, or how many people enter the shelter system after being released from a psychiatric commitment. FDNY said only that all patients are brought to the "closest appropriate hospital" when EMS is called.
While the city has seen multiple high-profile subway killings committed by people with reported psychosis, the mayor has drawn a tenuous connection between the majority of homeless individuals with mental health issues and violent crime in the subways. He has also made a point to say that not all people with mental illness are violent and the presence of apparently homeless and mentally ill individuals is as much a problem of disorder and unease among the broader riding public.
At the October “Cops, Cameras, and Care” announcement, Adams said the focus on mental health is in part a response to those few violent incidents. "Of the nine homicides that we've had on the subway system, this is why we're zeroing in today on mental health, 40% of those homicides came from people with a mental health history," he said, referring to four homicides, according to his office (a spokesperson for the mayor would not elaborate on what those alleged mental health histories consisted of, or whether the individuals were untreated at the time of the incident, but some have been reported by news outlets).
Adams went on to discuss the thousand-plus individuals removed from the system "to prevent some form of incident from taking place."
“Governor Hochul's top priority is the safety and well-being of New Yorkers, and we have been working collaboratively with the city on solutions to provide unhoused New Yorkers living with severe mental illness the help they need," wrote Justin Mason, a spokesperson for the governor, when asked to respond to the lack of clarity around outcomes for the 1,300 individuals removed from the transit system by the NYPD.
The governor controls the MTA and thus the subways, but, as she often notes, the city and the mayor are largely responsible for policing the transit system.
"This plan builds on our ongoing efforts together, including outreach teams in the subway system, training first responders, increasing capacity at psychiatric hospitals and residential programs, strengthening state laws, and issuing mental health guidance to ensure vulnerable populations get the care they need, and the Governor will continue working with elected colleagues, law enforcement, and medical professionals to enhance safety, support and resources," Mason wrote.
Disability and housing advocates criticized the removal regime, which they say violates individuals' civil rights and dangerously gives untrained police an invasive pseudo-clinical role in dealing with people with mental illness. Critics, including Public Advocate Jumaane Williams and members of the City Council, have raised questions about officers' ability to assess removal criteria among the vast and subtle web of experiences that fall into the category of mental illness.
"The NYPD has been illegally removing people from New York’s transit system for decades in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act and the United States Constitution," wrote Marinda van Dalen, a senior staff attorney in the Disability Justice Program at New York Lawyers for the Public Interest, in an email. NYLPI and lawyers on behalf of a coalition of organizations filed a motion in federal court Thursday to block the new policy.
"The new involuntary removal policy is a dangerous departure from the already illegal 'EDP' policy," van Dalen said, using the acronym for emotionally disturbed person. "As set forth in our request for emergency relief, it now allows police officers to detain someone who they perceive as merely acting unusual."
Police and crisis intervention teams will receive enhanced training and the city will set up a hotline of clinicians that officers can call for guidance, according to the mayor.
City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams said the policy lacked enough detail to be evaluated by the Council.
“We are still waiting for a full, comprehensive plan when it comes to the rollout,” she said Wednesday at an unrelated press conference. “What we see in the Council is an idea. What we’d like to see is a plan. We have not seen that yet.” The speaker mentioned unanswered questions about how the NYPD will make removal assessments and how the directive will interplay with the larger continuum of care that the mayor has acknowledged is a deficient work in progress.
"New Yorkers deserve transparency on the effectiveness of the approaches the Administration is taking, particularly when it has announced an intent to expand its use," wrote a Council spokesperson in response to a Gotham Gazette inquiry about the lack of information from the administration about the outcomes of 1,300 removals.
The detainments may coincide with an increase of court-ordered outpatient treatment under a statute known as Kendra's Law, which the mayor and governor have repeatedly cited as a central plank to their mental health and public safety plans. The orders are sought by city health department officials under similar dangerousness criteria as the involuntary transit removals, though it is unclear what drove the uptick in those outpatient orders.
A separate state outreach program, known as Safe Option Support, made contact with 2,700 homeless individuals in the transit system and connected 410 individuals with services, Hochul said on October 22. The state has not provided data to show whether the program has been successful in achieving its goal of getting people into permanent housing. (It is unclear how many of these individuals, if any, are counted among the 1,300 people removed by the NYPD this year.)
Another piece of the puzzle is whether hospitals have the capacity to meet demand. The low availability of psychiatric beds has been a long-time issue for psychiatrists, social workers, and more recently, Adams and Hochul, who have centered it in their public safety plans. People often wait for days to be admitted to a hospital and the lack of continuity between inpatient and outpatient services – another element Adams said he wants to address – can leave people not far from where they started when they get out of a hospital stay.
Hochul has made it a point to restore over 1,000 psychiatric beds taken offline during the pandemic, which would increase the state's capacity by roughly 17%. But the state so far has restored only about 200, a pace that has slowed to a halt in the last five months. In New York City, 415 beds remain offline, though a spokesperson for the state Office of Mental Health told Gotham Gazette last month that 200 more would come online "in the coming months.”
New York City Health + Hospitals, the city's public hospital system and its largest behavioral health provider, would not provide details about its psychiatric bed capacity, including how many beds came offline during the pandemic and how many are currently available.
"The state should be able to provide granular detail for all the health systems in NYC. We're one piece of the puzzle," wrote Christopher Miller, a Health + Hospitals spokesperson, in response to repeated Gotham Gazette inquiries.
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by Ethan Geringer-Sameth, reporter, Gotham Gazette
@GeringerSameth @GothamGazette
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