Arguments For and Against Questions 2-4 on the 2022 New York City Ballot, Racial Justice Proposals
Out to vote (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office)
As the ballots turn this fall, New York City voters will decide the fates of three proposed amendments to the City Charter intended to lay the groundwork for greater racial equity.
Voters throughout the five boroughs are able to flip their ballots and vote "yes" or "no" on three separate questions to, respectively, codify a statement of equity and racial justice principles as a new preamble to the City Charter; establish a city government office dedicated to racial equity and require a regularly-updated racial justice plan from city government; and recalibrate the city's cost of living measurement.
If approved, the amendments will become part of the city's highest governing document and would, as designed, be used as the basis for policies aimed at reducing racial disparities in how New Yorkers are served by their government.
The measures were developed by the New York City Racial Justice Commission, created by then-Mayor Bill de Blasio in his last year in office after promising to address wholesale systemic racism of New York's past and present during protests against police brutality in 2020. The proposals now have the backing of Mayor Eric Adams, a fellow Democrat, who allocated $5 million to voter education around the referendums.
The three proposals appear on the New York City ballot as Questions 2, 3, and 4, coming after a statewide referendum on a $4.2 billion Environmental Bond Act. The bond act was passed by Governor Kathy Hochul and legislators in the state budget earlier this year but requires voter approval to move ahead.
What’s In Questions 2-4
Question 2 asks voters whether the preamble to the City Charter should be amended to include a statement of values to help create "a just and equitable city for all."
It outlines basic non-binding rights to a safe and healthy environment, affordable housing, culturally-tailored healthcare, and other supports and services. The amended preamble would also acknowledge the legacies of American slavery and the displacement of indigenous peoples, and the ongoing injustices of racial segregation, mass incarceration, and other forms of systemic oppression. The authors of the proposal envision the potential new language to serve as a guideline for policymakers.
Question 3, if approved, would create an "Office of Racial Equity" led by an appointee of the mayor and responsible for drafting and overseeing the implementation of a citywide racial equity plan every two years. The plan would be based on individual blueprints developed by city agencies with the purpose of closing gaps between white and Black New Yorkers, and other marginalized groups.
The office would establish metrics for city agencies to measure these gaps and identify priority neighborhoods in need of intervention. It would codify the Taskforce on Racial Inclusion and Equity, established by de Blasio in 2020 largely to address disparities revealed by the COVID-19 pandemic, and place it within the Office of Racial Equity.
In an effort at oversight and accountability, the amendment would also set-up a 15-member Commission on Racial Equity responsible for offering guidance to agencies and the new office on the racial equity plans, and to publicly track compliance with the planning process. Members of the commission would be appointed by the mayor, City Council, comptroller, and public advocate, with the chair appointed jointly by the mayor and Council.
Question 4 on the ballot, if approved, would require the city to design a "true cost of living" measurement that would provide a more accurate baseline than the federal poverty line, which has used the same criteria since the 1960s without accounting for regional variances.
The metric would take into account the costs of basic needs like food, housing, healthcare, and childcare, without considering public benefits and other forms of assistance toward an individual's income. The city would be required to report on the measure annually.
Raising Awareness About the Proposals
As statewide races narrow and the fate of Congress appears to rest on turnout in some New York swing districts, the ballot questions have garnered relatively little attention.
In addition to the city funding from the Adams administration, the referenda have the support of much of the City Council, the Public Advocate, and civil rights advocacy groups, who have held rallies and distributed materials.
Jennifer Jones Austin, the chair of the Racial Justice Commission appointed by de Blasio, has done a long series of interviews and public appearances to raise awareness about the proposals and advocate for their passage, and several other commissioners have also been active.
“Equity and justice go hand in hand and are key to building a prosperous city that serves all New Yorkers. And while our city has come a long way, we have more work to do,” Adams said in a statement in May when he announced the $5 million for public education. “I am proud to support the Racial Justice Commission’s efforts to ensure New Yorkers can fully participate in our democracy with full transparency. These three ballot initiatives intend to place racial equity at the heart of New York City government.”
On Friday, the Racial Justice Commission and 22 Democratic members of the City Council, including Speaker Adrienne Adams, held a "Day of Action," to raise awareness of the racial justice proposals.
“As early voting gets underway, it is critical that all voters who head to the polls remember to flip the ballot and cast their vote on the ballot proposals,” said Speaker Adams, a Queens Democrat, in a statement, while avoiding saying whether New Yorkers should approve them or not given she is not supposed to do electioneering from her government post. “I urge all New Yorkers to learn about the proposals and how they will impact our communities.
Arguments For and Against Questions 2-4
“In November, voters will decide on several ballot measures that address racial equity," said Council Member Nantasha Williams, a Queens Democrat and chair of the Council’s Committee on Civil and Human Rights. "We need to work together to ensure that these measures pass so that we can begin to make real progress toward creating a society where all voices are heard.”
"It is about time to address the barriers Black, Indigenous, Latinx, Asian, Pacific Islander, Middle Eastern, and all People of More Color in New York City face on a daily basis, as well as the additional barriers faced by LGBTQ+ and Disabled People of Color, antisemitism, islamophobia, just to name some," said Public Advocate Jumaane Williams in testimony at a City Council oversight hearing on the ballot questions, three days before polls opened for early voting. "If these proposals pass, we will be able to move towards an equitable and just city."
Spokespeople for the state's Democratic and Republican parties did not return requests for comment on the racial justice ballot measures (the Democratic Party has come out in support of the Environmental Bond Act, the other question on the ballot). A spokesperson for the Conservative Party did not comment on the party's position and told Gotham Gazette it had not issued any statements on the racial justice measures (the party is against the Environmental Bond Act).
A smaller faction of conservative New York City elected officials and advocacy groups have come out against the proposals.
“With crime spiraling out of control, inflation at all-time highs, and the many other important issues plaguing this city, these ballot proposals are out-of-touch with the realities of what New Yorkers need the government to do," said Council Member Robert Holden, a Queens Democrat who often aligns with Republicans, in a statement to Gotham Gazette.
"Any idea from the worst mayor of all time, Bill de Blasio, must end up in the wastebin and be ignored,” Holden added.
Council Member Inna Vernikov, a Brooklyn Republican, recently told the New York Post that residents “don’t need more equity because equity is a Marxist lie and is the opposite of equality.”
“A guarantee of equal outcome has throughout history been dangled before the populace but has ultimately produced tyranny, corruption and trampled on liberty. It is not the American way,” said Vernikov, who was born and partially raised in Soviet Ukraine (the proposals do not include “a guarantee of equal outcome”).
The Council's Republican minority leader, Joe Borelli of Staten Island, declined to comment through a spokesperson.
A Republican-affiliated group called the Asian Wave Alliance is against all four ballot questions. In a statement, the group called the proposed Charter amendments "racially divisive" ideas that could be used as a "constitutional justification to discriminate against Asians."
The group said the "true cost of living" measure would "have the intended effect of giving more to those already on welfare and allowing more people to qualify for government funded housing, food and childcare. This measure aids in the redistribution of income and proliferates the financial burden on working and middle class taxpayers, and would trigger another wave of people exiting the City."
The measure would not create any direct or indirect right of action, commissioners have stressed, but could be used by policy-makers to adjust public benefits and services and factor into labor negotiations. The commission designed the proposals to be aspirational with neither the cost of living or statement of values intended to create commitments that could expose the city to lawsuits.
"The intention here is not to give everybody a right to a slice of the pie, if you will," Jones Austin told Gotham Gazette of the new preamble, during a recent podcast discussion, "but to set forth the value base, where New York City can actually govern and structure itself to ensure that everybody has real opportunity, has real access."
The language of the proposals was reviewed by the city Law Department, Jones Austin said. "It does not create a private right of action,” she said. “It does not."
Other long-term plans created by city policy-makers, through executive action or legislation, have been criticized for receiving fanfare when they are announced only to fade into obscurity. Asked how the proposed Office of Racial Equity would be held accountable for its equity plans, Jones Austin said in addition to the commission's oversight role the city comptroller would also be responsible for auditing the plan and city agencies "to ensure that they are beholden to it and are proving themselves responsible in administering it."
With New York City led by Democrats, many of whom profess commitments to the racial-justice principles contained in the referendums, some observers have asked why these proposals should be enshrined in the City Charter.
"Racism, and bias and inequity, have persisted from government to government, leadership to leadership, executive to executive,” Jones Austin said. “And so if we do not set a vision and then embed it in the laws of this city, then we're going to be beholden to where a particular Mayor may sit on an issue, or where legislators may sit. And we won't get ahead."
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by Ethan Geringer-Sameth, reporter, Gotham Gazette
@GeringerSameth @GothamGazette
City Council Progressive Caucus Announces 2023 Legislative Agenda Focused on Solitary Confinement, Affordable Housing, Police Accountability, & More
City Council Progressive Caucus Co-Chairs Hanif & Restler (photo: John McCarten/NYC Council)
The New York City Council’s Progressive Caucus is announcing its legislative agenda for 2023 on Thursday, pursuing 20 bills in seven categories on criminal justice reform, police transparency, housing affordability, public banking, waste and emissions reduction, and gig worker benefits.
The Progressive Caucus’ membership, all Democrats, is the largest it has ever been in the 51-member City Council, with 35 members in its ranks, including Speaker Adrienne Adams as an ex-officio member, up from 12 members when it was first created in 2010.
The Caucus’ influence in the Council has grown over the years. In 2014, it was instrumental in selecting Melissa Mark-Viverito, one of its founding members, as the Council Speaker, an immensely powerful position in forging the city’s legislative and budget agendas. Though its power has ebbed and flowed in the years since, seeing some high-profile defections at times, it now boasts a majority that, if cohesive, could even override a mayoral veto.
But the new agenda is ambitious and just because the caucus has such numbers does not mean that the full package of legislation is by any means a slam-dunk. There is a fair share of political diversity in the Progressive Caucus, and not all members are as far left-leaning as others. And Mayor Eric Adams, a moderate Democrat who has already clashed with the Council and its Progressive Caucus on several fronts, may be especially unwelcoming of several pieces of the agenda, having already expressed opposition to the top priority, a ban on solitary confinement in city jails.
“Working-class New Yorkers, immigrant New Yorkers, and Black and brown New Yorkers are buckling under the weight of multiple intersecting crises in our City,” said Council Member Shahana Hanif, who co-chairs the Progressive Caucus with fellow Brooklyn Council Member Lincoln Restler, in a statement. “They are demanding a real comprehensive response from their City government, and where the Mayor is failing to act, the Council will step in.”
“The time is ripe for a bold progressive agenda to take hold in this Council that addresses economic justice, racial justice, criminal justice, environmental justice, housing justice, and more,” Restler said in a phone interview.
“With an unprecedented number of Progressive Caucus members together representing a veto-proof majority in the Council, we have the power to advance and enact the policies that New Yorkers are clamoring for and that we were elected to implement,” he added.
The 20 pieces of legislation in the Caucus’ 2023 agenda have all already been introduced before the Council, and several set up clear battles with the mayor.
At the top of the agenda is the proposal to ban solitary confinement in city jails, introduced by Public Advocate and former Council Member Jumaane Williams and Council Member Carlina Rivera, who chairs the Committee on Criminal Justice. Though former Mayor Bill de Blasio, under pressure from the Council and criminal justice advocates, took steps towards reforming the practice, Mayor Adams came into office pledging to retain the use of what he calls “punitive segregation.”
While the mayor has called such tactics essential for protecting both detainees and correction officers, his administration is facing widespread criticism and calls for a federal takeover of the jails given that 17 detainees have died this year, some of whom have been in solitary confinement.
“We are laser-focused on ending this torturous policy in our own city jails,” Restler said.
The second proposal on the agenda, introduced by introduced by Council Member Keith Powers of Manhattan, is the Fair Chance for Housing Act, which would prohibit housing discrimination on the basis of arrest record or criminal history. According to a release from Powers’ office, citing a study by John Jay College’s Data Collaborative for Justice, there were nearly 750,000 New York City residents with a conviction history in 2019, almost 11% of the city’s adult population. Under current law, landlords and brokers can deny housing to those individuals, who are also ten times more likely to become homeless than the general population.
“New Yorkers who have paid their debts still experience severe discrimination, no matter how minor the offense or how long ago,” Powers said in a statement in August, when he introduced the bill. “The Fair Chance for Housing Act will finally give these folks a place to sleep a night—and the opportunity to rebuild their lives.”
Two other bills, also introduced by Council Member Powers, would require reporting by the city on its bank deposits and use of non-depository city financial services, with the aim of establishing a New York City Public Bank. But that would first require approval from the state Legislature, where a public bank proposal has languished for years.
The “Progressive Agenda” includes six bills that would require greater transparency from the NYPD, which has traditionally been resistant to most attempts at greater oversight by the Council. They include proposals to mandate reporting on use of force incidents involving an NYPD motor vehicle; banning the department from deploying the Strategic Response Group, a counterterrorism squad, to nonviolent protests; requiring monthly reports from the NYPD on complaints of police misconduct; requiring the department to report on instances where an individual denied an officer consent to a search; requiring reporting on police-civilian investigative encounters; and abolishing the gang database. Lead sponsors of the bills include Council Members Crystal Hudson, Chi Ossé, Tiffany Cabán, Alexa Avilés, Althea Stevens, Rivera, and Public Advocate Williams.
“The vision of the Caucus is to put together different packages of legislation that we feel will be transformative for New York City,” said Manhattan Council Member Carmen De La Rosa, co-vice chair of the Caucus, in a phone interview.
“When you look across the board, what these bills seek to address, they’re systemic, historic issues that our communities have been dealing with and viable solutions for those issues,” she added.
Restler expects that many of the bills will receive pushback from Mayor Adams. “The mayor’s all over the place,” he said. “What I know is that this is the most progressive Council that has ever been elected in New York City, and that when we are organized as a caucus, that we can and will get transformative pieces of legislation through the finish line.”
Under de Blasio, who was decidedly more progressive than his successor, the Progressive Caucus had a closer ally on legislative priorities, though the two sides of City Hall clashed nonetheless on issues like NYPD reform. With Adams, the Caucus finds itself pursuing its original mission in the Bloomberg years of pushing leftward a more centrist ideology in the Mayor’s Office. “It's the role of the Council to counterbalance what is coming out of the administration,” De La Rosa said. “So this is our opportunity to fight back on behalf of the communities we represent.”
What’s not lost on Restler is that the entire Council is yet again on the ballot next year, with June primaries barely 18 months after dozens of new members were seated, because of the decennial Census and redistricting cycle. Many of the Caucus members are first-timers on the Council, giving the legislative agenda that much more urgency.
“I certainly think that a four-year term is a more sensible timeframe to give elected officials the opportunity to fully focus on legislating and serving their communities rather than in constant election mode,” Restler said. “As a predominantly newly-elected body, we need to show real results to our constituents in advance of next year's election. And this is a package that I believe my colleagues and I can proudly run on in our reelection campaigns if we can get these pieces of legislation across the finish line.”
Another five bills in the agenda, the Zero Waste legislative package, aim to codify and achieve the city’s goal of sending zero waste to landfills by 2030, which was first set by Mayor de Blasio in 2015 but is far behind schedule. Among the proposals are a citywide curbside organics program for residential buildings, enshrining the zero waste by 2030 goal into law, requiring regular reporting on progress towards that goal, and mandating that the Department of Sanitation establish at least one community recycling center and three organics drop-off sites in each community district.
Though Speaker Adams is technically a member of the Caucus, and she has embraced many of the proposals including the zero waste package and the solitary confinement ban, she has not yet endorsed the entire agenda. “I think she is a natural ally for the caucus in helping to make this happen,” Restler said.
Three other bills aim to create and expand access to permanently affordable housing in the city. They include the Community Opportunity to Purchase Act, introduced by Council Member Rivera, which would give nonprofit and community housing developers a right of first refusal on purchasing certain residential properties; the Public Land for Public Good Act, introduced by Restler, which would give nonprofit developers and community land trusts priority when the city sells public land for affordable housing; and a bill introduced by Council Member Gale Brewer that would establish a Land Bank to acquire, warehouse, and transfer property to develop, rehabilitate, and preserve affordable housing.
Building on previous efforts to expand paid sick leave, the agenda includes a bill introduced by Council Member Hanif that would extend the benefits of the Earned Safe and Sick Time Act to gig workers under certain conditions.
The Progressive Caucus — including its director, Emily Mayer, who was hired in June to help guide and organize the large and mostly-new group — and a number of allies including Public Advocate Williams, Legal Aid Society, and other groups will hold a press conference on Thursday at noon outside City Hall to formally unveil the agenda.
[LISTEN: Max Politics Podcast: City Council Progressive Caucus Co-Chairs Shahana Hanif & Lincoln Restler]
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by Samar Khurshid, senior reporter, Gotham Gazette
@samarkhurshid @GothamGazette
'In Almost Every Measure We Are Doing Very Well': City Releases New 'Snapshot' Tracking Economic Recovery
Mayor Adams and city officials talking jobs (photo: Ed Reed/Mayoral Photography Office)
Many indicators tracked by New York City’s economic development agency to chart the health of the local economy are showing signs of growth, according to a new monthly report being released Thursday.
The initial data shows some major gains in job creation and business start-ups in the last year, and a multi-year increase in venture capital funding. It also indicates a sluggish return to the office amid ongoing hybrid work models.
The city has seen an explosion of new businesses in the first year of the Eric Adams mayoral administration, with 27,500 new ventures, or 10% of all businesses, opening in the last year. "That's a pretty extraordinary stat," said Andrew Kimball, president and CEO of the New York City Economic Development Corporation (EDC), in an interview.
The report, titled "New York City Economic Snapshot" and previewed by Gotham Gazette, is the first in a monthly series from EDC, a mayor-controlled public benefit corporation. The snapshots are aimed at capturing the city's economic progress since the start of Mayor Adams’ administration and tracking the city’s recovery from the many challenges of the covid pandemic. The report shows monthly metrics on the labor market, business activity, real estate, tourism, and transit, with the first iteration painting a picture of a slow but persistent mend.
"In almost every measure we are doing very well,” said Kimball. “When you look at our national competitors -- Boston San Francisco Dallas Miami -- we are competing very strongly."
"The point of this report is to share with the broader business community, elected officials, and policy-makers our view on a monthly basis of what the most important metrics are and the metrics we look to as we measure where the economy is and where we need to take it," Kimball said of the snapshot.
New businesses are not launching as much in Manhattan's commercial hubs as they are in burgeoning sections of the other boroughs, like Jamaica, Queens, Broadway Junction in Brooklyn, and Morris Park in the Bronx, Kimball said. Those areas are more vibrant now than they were in the pre-pandemic era, he added.
"When you map where the new businesses are [it] shows where we have work to do," he said. "And a lot of that is in midtown and downtown [Manhattan] right now.
"Having more thriving commercial hubs outside of Manhattan, and our other central business districts like Downtown Brooklyn and Long Island City, is only going to strengthen the city from a long-term sustainability point of view," said Kimball, who was appointed to his position by Mayor Adams earlier this year after serving as Industry City's longtime CEO.
The exact direction city government – and EDC as its primary economic development arm – will take to strengthen these commercial districts will be informed by a panel of business, nonprofit, and labor leaders convened by Mayor Adams and Governor Kathy Hochul in June. The group, known as the 'New' New York Panel, is expected to make recommendations to policymakers some time in the coming weeks, Kimball said.
In Manhattan, the mayor and governor have talked about making commercial centers in midtown that have seen significant drops in commuters into more residential neighborhoods, which they say could revitalize parts of the city that were built to serve a different kind of work-life model. The process of converting office and retail space into housing and business districts into livable neighborhoods is a complicated process that would involve billions in capital investment, local buy-in, and navigating New York's cumbersome land use regulations.
"Central Manhattan will remain our business district, but we are going to have to do a zoning rethink the way we did with downtown after September 11,” Adams said at a breakfast hosted by Crain's New York Business in September.
The office vacancy rate -- meaning unleased office space -- in New York City has increased less than a percentage point to 12.7% during the Adams administration, per data covering the first two quarters of the year. That average vacancy rate in 2019 was only 7.6%.
Transit and tourism indicators have also moved in a positive direction during the Adams administration, according to the report. Subway ridership in October has been at roughly 64% of pre-pandemic levels, Times Square saw 80% of foot traffic return, and Broadway attendance similarly reached 80% of pre-pandemic levels. Hotel occupancy has increased by 5.2 percentage points since the start of the Adams administration. The only travel metric in the report to remain stagnant since the beginning of the year was bus ridership, which has remained frozen at 63% of pre-covid levels since January.
"We know it's not going to be the same as before covid but there's been steady increases," Kimball said of the return to commuting. "But if you have more live-work [neighborhoods], that will also encourage more local business start-ups in those areas, which is something we care a lot about."
EDC is focused on the fastest growing industries including "green tech," life sciences, machine learning, cybersecurity, and fintech, he said. The level of venture capital investments has grown significantly in New York City since the onset of the pandemic, particularly in these sectors. That trend is "reassuring," Kimball said, despite a recent downturn.
Total venture capital funding -- meaning private investment in companies headquartered in New York City -- reached $9.4 billion in the second quarter of 2022 and dropped to $5.8 billion in the third quarter of this year, according to the EDC report. That's still higher than the pre-pandemic level of $3.9 billion, measured in the third quarter of 2019. Overall this year, venture capital funding reached $23.6 billion, compared to $34.5 billion during the same period in 2021. That year set a record, with venture capital investments nearly doubling what they were during the same period in 2019, before the pandemic.
"We think that's a shift that's here to stay," Kimball said of the increase in venture capital investment in new businesses.
"It's no surprise that big tech companies, while they've slowed down hiring in recent months, continue to expand their real estate footprint throughout covid, and it's because this is where the talent wants to be," Kimball said.
New York City is adding jobs at a faster rate than much of the rest of the country, leading all metropolitan areas in the number of new jobs created in the last year, according to the EDC report.
The New York City metro area added over 450,000 jobs in the last year and 34,500 last month. The city's unemployment rate, while still well above the national average, continued to fall, reaching 5.6% in August, down from 7.4% at the beginning of the Adams administration, but still higher than the 3.7% before the pandemic. In recent months, however, labor force participation has been relatively stagnant and the number of job postings in the five boroughs decreased from nearly 90,000 in August to 85,000 in September.
The numbers echo findings in another recent economic report from New York City Comptroller Brad Lander, which shows overall private sector employment reached 97% of pre-pandemic levels in August.
"Sure that does give pause," Kimball said, chalking up the dip to cyclical oscillations in the job market and inflation pressures in national and global markets. "I would say in that context we are doing very well," he said.
But the unemployment rate among Black New Yorkers, particularly Black men, is still "unacceptably high," Kimball added. (At just six pages, the EDC 'snapshot' does not include demographic breakdowns.)
"In every instance where we have a project or initiative on the ground in New York City we're making sure we're putting in place the kinds of career pathways that are most likely to support those populations," Kimball said. That often means partnerships with local high schools, universities, and workforce development programs.
He gave the example of SPARC Kips Bay, a recently-announced plan to develop a life sciences campus on the East River incorporated with three CUNY schools – a two-year school, four-year school, and graduate school – focused on healthcare and biotech careers along with a new public high school with a public health theme. The project is a joint endeavor by Adams and Hochul.
Overall, Kimball said the data in the report offers important insight and perspective, and is complementary to other focus areas for Mayor Adams.
"The mayor has been relentlessly communicating around more direct quality-of-life issues, you know, public safety, cleanliness, those issues," he said. "This is really a complement to that."
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by Ethan Geringer-Sameth, reporter, Gotham Gazette
@GeringerSameth @GothamGazette
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