Bronx Borough President Vanessa Gibson (photo: William Alatriste/City Council)

Vanessa Gibson ran for Bronx Borough President in 2021 on a platform focused on improving public housing and jumpstarting COVID-19 recovery. Now, just over one year into her term, she is advancing her agenda with a focus on public health, economic and housing development, and more. Gibson recognizes the Bronx’s many challenges, including as the borough with the highest rates of unemployment, poverty,

Bronx BP Vanessa Gibson (photo: Kevin P. Coughlin/Governor's Office)

March 3, 2023 - Max Politics Podcast: Borough President Vanessa Gibson on the State of the Bronx

Bronx Borough President Vanessa Gibson joined the show to discuss her first State of the Borough address and her agenda for the Bronx, including economic and housing development, major infrastructure projects, and more.

Listen to the conversation and let us know what you think, on Twitter @TweetBenMax. You can listen to the show

Officials touring the Kingsbridge Armory (photo: William Alatriste/NYC Council Media Unit)

The Kingsbridge Armory, the largest of its kind in the world at 520,000 square-feet, has sat vacant for more than three decades as plans to redevelop the structure have repeatedly failed. But the city is undertaking yet another attempt to reenvision the armory for modern use, and local lawmakers are optimistic that this time they will succeed.

Built in 1917 for the New York National Guard, the armory had been used for myriad purposes until it was decommissioned in 1991 and then given over to the city

City Council hearing on maternal health (photo: Emil Cohen/NYC Council)

At a hearing this past week, New York City Council Members discussed a package of legislation related to maternal health, mortality, and morbidity and seeking to address healthcare inequities as well as the Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade constitutional abortion protections. The joint hearing held by the Council’s Committee on Health and Committee on Hospitals dealt with...

Blood Center project rendering (image: Ennead)

As current and future leaders of four of New York City’s five boroughs, we strongly urge the full City Council to vote “yes” at the upcoming meeting, Tuesday, November 23, on the New York Blood Center’s proposal to modernize and expand its antiquated Upper East Side building to secure the future of a nonprofit that is essential to hospitals across the city and position our city as a global public health capital.

For projects of citywide importance like the Blood Center’s, we must balance the needs of

A celebration of women heading to City Hall (photo: @21in21NYC)

Triumphant speeches and words of solidarity filled the air at City Hall Park on Tuesday morning. A historic expected majority of women likely to fill City Council seats in January gathered at a press conference, pledging to bring a culture of mutual support and a commitment to underrepresented constituents to the legislative body. They were joined by current and former elected officials, advocates, and others who had been part of the yearslong effort to bring the 51-seat Council, where there are

City Council Member Vanessa Gibson (photo: William Alatriste/City Council)

City Council Member Vanessa Gibson is likely to become the Bronx’s Borough President after winning the Democratic primary in the overwhelmingly Democratic borough. Gibson had centered her campaign around the Bronx’s recovery from the devastation of COVID-19, focusing particularly on the needs of low-income residents facing food insecurity and housing instability.

She would make history as the first woman to serve as Bronx Borough President, and Gibson, who is Black, would

Elvin Garcia, Vanessa Gibson, Nilka Martell (photo: Gibson campaign)

The 2021 election cycle will elect a new mayor, a new City Council, a new Bronx Borough President, and more. This new decade represents a new era on the other side of a pandemic that has forced us to reflect on the kind of future we all deserve. Going back to normal is not viable, neither is politics as usual.

As Puerto Ricans and Dominicans of The Bronx, from the community and government perspective, respectively, we are proud to support Vanessa Gibson for Bronx Borough

Council Member Vanessa Gibson, left, is a coauthor (photo: Jeff Reed/City Council)

The pandemic is setting women back and eroding years of progress, particularly for women of color in New York City. The pressure is coming from two places: women of color are more likely to work in sectors that have been hit hardest by layoffs, and women of color are more likely to have had to leave work or reduce hours to care for

Bronx Democrats (photo: Benjamin Kanter/Mayor's Office)

The Bronx’s political landscape is undergoing major shifts, full of electoral upsets and unexpected political departures. While Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie remains one of the most powerful elected officials in the state, the borough’s Democratic County Party that he has been leading, in essence, for many years is faltering amid election losses and retirements from politics, all setting the stage for what will be an immensely important 2021 New York City election cycle with a great

An eviction nightmare looms as housing court reopens (Benjamin Kanter/Mayoral Photo Office)

A new threat is looming for the very Black and brown communities in New York City that have been hit the hardest by the dual pandemics of coronavirus and racism in policy: a massive wave of evictions. 

That’s because phase 1 of New York “reopening” didn’t just apply to construction and curbside retail. It also applied to housing courts. This could have disastrous consequences for tenants. Housing court personnel have already started

Another chapter between Mayor de Blasio and the NYPD (photo: Edwin J. Torres/Mayor's Office)

A long-stalled bill meant to shed light on the surveillance equipment used by the NYPD has suddenly moved through the City Council with the support of Mayor Bill de Blasio, despite being virtually unchanged since the mayor and NYPD leaders raised dire alarms about it in recent years. Now de Blasio is breaking with his own police department, which he has maintained has been on board with a slew of recent changes to NYPD oversight and discipline in the wake of national

Mayor de Blasio & Speaker Johnson (photo: Ed Reed/Mayor's Office)

With the city facing a severe budget crunch because of the coronavirus pandemic, Mayor Bill de Blasio’s executive budget proposal released last month cut $6 billion in planned spending, tapped $4 billion from reserves and delayed major capital investments to future years when another mayor will be in office. On Wednesday, about eight weeks before a deal must be reached between the two sides, the City Council held a virtual hearing on the mayor’s spending plan. Council members questioned de Blasio administration

NYCHA is on the brink (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office)

Despite significant attention from Mayor Bill de Blasio and some from Governor Andrew Cuomo, the New York City Housing Authority, public housing home to more than 400,000 New Yorkers, continues to crumble. While both the mayor and governor, as well as many others, point to federal disinvestment in NYCHA, dissatisfied elected officials say that initial drafts of next fiscal year’s state and city budgets aren’t sufficiently addressing the problem.

As they push for more funding to

Council Members Dromm & Gibson with Speaker Johnson in between (photo: John McCarten/City Council)

The City Council held its first hearing on Mayor Bill de Blasio’s $95.3 billion preliminary budget on Monday, calling on the administration to find more agency efficiencies and savings and to fund the Council’s own priorities, while also asking for a contingency plan should potential state budget cuts and cost-shifts go through this year.

The mayor’s budget proposal this year increases spending by $2.5 billion over last year’s adopted budget,

Council Speaker Johnson at a food pantry (photo: John McCarten/CityCouncil)

The City Council is expected to pass a package of food policy legislation on Tuesday, central components of an agenda laid out by Speaker Corey Johnson last August to strengthen relevant governance and food policy planning, while combating inequality and waste in the food supply chain.

One bill, sponsored by Council Member Vanessa Gibson, would require the Mayor’s Office of Food Policy to develop a ten-year plan to address food access and build a sustainable

Council Member Ritchie Torres (photo: Jeff Reed/City Council)

Bronx City Council Member Ritchie Torres is touting $3 million in city funding he secured for a residential complex that falls outside the Council district he represents, but within the Congressional district where he’s seeking votes.

The money will go to Concourse Village, Inc., a nearly 1,900-unit housing cooperative located in the south Bronx, over a mile away from the border of Torres’ district. The second-term Democratic Council member is running for Congress in the primary that will

Council Member Dromm and Speaker Johnson (photo: John McCarten/City Council)

The New York City Council and budget officials from Mayor Bill de Blasio’s administration engaged in a familiar push-and-pull on Monday, at the first hearing on the $92.5 billion executive budget proposal for the 2020 fiscal year that begins July 1.

The Council, disappointed that many of its priorities were not included in the latest spending plan presented by the mayor, pushed for more funding and pointed to hundreds of millions in revenue available to the city, but

OMB Director Hartzog testifies (photo: William Alatriste/NYC Council)

As usual, the City Council’s March agenda was mostly dominated by preliminary budget hearings, evaluating the mayor’s initial spending plan for the next fiscal year, which begins July 1. This stage of the city budget process started and finished with a general hearing held by the Council’s Finance Committee, along with its Capital Budget Subcommittee, with a series of more specific agency- and service-related hearings in between.

The preliminary budget hearings finished where

(photo: Edwin J. Torres/Mayoral Photo Office)

Many New Yorkers know the city has trouble completing construction projects on time and under budget. Projects like school renovations and the build-out of park facilities are capital projects, the subject of increasing scrutiny and some reform, with more promised, as frustrations persist and residents, watchdogs, lawmakers, and other city leaders seek answers.

Top officials from the administration of Mayor Bill de Blasio to City Council Speaker Corey Johnson to Comptroller Scott Stringer have taken a fresh

(Photo: John McCarten/City Council)

City Council Speaker Corey Johnson appeared frustrated on Wednesday with the de Blasio administration budget at the Council’s first hearing to examine the mayor’s $92.2 billion preliminary budget proposal for the 2020 fiscal year, which begins July 1 of this year.

Mayor Bill de Blasio released his preliminary budget proposal last month ...

Council Member Gibson (photo: William Alatriste)

As the New York City Council continues to examine Mayor Bill de Blasio’s $88.67 billion preliminary budget for 2019, a newly created committee under Council Speaker Corey Johnson is paying extra attention to the ‘other’ budget - the capital plan - the administration’s proposed spending on schools, parks, jails and other long-term infrastructure projects.

Over the last few weeks, the

Jerome Ave corridor rezoning, via City Planning

The City Planning Commission voted January 17 to approve a comprehensive rezoning plan for the Jerome Avenue corridor in the Bronx, putting the proposal before the City Council for scrutiny in the final stretch of the lengthy land use review process. The rezoning would follow four others ushered through by the de Blasio administration as it somewhat controversially seeks to add housing density, including thousands of new affordable units, and make other investments in mostly low-income communities across the five

Council Member Vanessa Gibson (photo: John McCarten/City Council)

A City Council bill that creates an alternative to the state’s “disorderly conduct” statute, and mandates lower punishment for the infraction, became law on Friday along with numerous other bills relating to protecting undocumented immigrant New Yorkers. The bill, sponsored by City Council Member Vanessa Gibson, chair of the public safety committee, also adds another plank to the Council’s broad agendas of criminal justice reform and

Mayor de Blasio & law enforcement officials (photo: Edwin J. Torres/ Mayor’s Office)

At a recent hearing, New York City Council members discussed the effectiveness of NYPD responses to “emotionally disturbed person” (EDP) calls, the slow pace of implementation for new NYPD crisis intervention training, and the tragic outcomes of several recent interactions between NYPD officers and emotionally disturbed individuals.

At the hearing, held Sept. 6 jointly by the Council’s Committee on Public Safety and Committee on Mental Health, Developmental