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Max & Murphy Podcast: Adem Bunkeddeko Runs Again in Brooklyn's 9th Congressional District


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Adem Bunkeddeko out campaigning (photo: @adembunkeddeko)


May 13, 2020 - Max & Murphy Podcast: Adem Bunkeddeko Runs Again in Brooklyn's 9th Congressional District

adem bunkeddeko140wbaiAdem Bunkeddeko almost upset Rep. Yvette Clarke in the 2018 Democratic primary in Brooklyn's 9th Congressional District, coming within about 2,000 votes, and is trying again this year. He joined the show to discuss his campaign, what's changed since 2018, and why he believes Clarke is not performing well as the district's representative in the House of Representatives. The primary is set for June 23, with early voting beforehand from June 13-21.

Listen to the conversation and let us know what you think -- we're on Twitter @TweetBenMax and @JarrettMurphy. You can listen to the show through the embedded audio below or download the episode wherever you get your podcasts, under "Max & Murphy," and listen to Max & Murphy live on Wednesdays at 5 p.m. on WBAI radio, 99.5FM or wbai.org.

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by Ben Max, Gotham Gazette
     

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Max & Murphy Podcast: Rep. Yvette Clarke on Why She Deserves Another Term in Congress


 

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Rep. Yvette Clarke (photo: @RepYvetteClarke)


May 13, 2020 - Max & Murphy Podcast: Rep. Yvette Clarke on Why She Deserves Another Term in Congress

yvette clarke wbaiRep. Yvette Clarke survived a close challenge in 2018, where in the Democratic primary the incumbent won by 2,000 votes against challenger Adem Bunkeddeko. As Clarke pursues another two-year term in the House of Representatives this year, Bunkeddeko is challenging her again, and several other candidates have jumped into the race as well. Clarke joined the show to discuss why she believes she deserves another term, how she responds to his critics, how the COVID-19 outbreak has changed things, what she learned from 2018, and more. The primary is set for June 23, with early voting June 13-21 and all voters eligible to vote by absentee ballot.

Listen to the conversation and let us know what you think -- we're on Twitter @TweetBenMax and @JarrettMurphy. You can listen to the show through the embedded audio below or download the episode wherever you get your podcasts, under "Max & Murphy," and listen to Max & Murphy live on Wednesdays at 5 p.m. on WBAI radio, 99.5FM or wbai.org.

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by Ben Max, Gotham Gazette
     

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New York City Could Receive $5.3 Billion from First Four Federal Coronavirus Packages


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Mayor de Blasio & Senator Schumer (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayor's Office)


As the coronavirus crisis drains city coffers with an enormous level of emergency government spending and the mandated shutdown of the economy has led tax revenues to plummet, New York City faces an estimated $8.7 billion budget gap. Mayor Bill de Blasio has said the hole is dire and the extent to which the city will be shored up to weather the storm depends largely on what it will receive in federal aid.

While lobbying and negotiations continue that question is still up in the air, but a new report from the New York City Independent Budget Office (IBO) estimates the city government will receive $5.3 billion from the four federal coronavirus ‘stimulus’ packages that have been passed thus far, mostly over the course of the current and upcoming fiscal years. The federal funds have been targeted toward reimbursements for expenditures in the coronavirus fight, not to make up for missing tax revenue, which is the source of an ongoing push by city and state elected officials.

The funding falls into four categories identified by IBO: public health, community development and housing, education and child care, and social services and criminal justice. Other public agencies that provide government services but fall outside the city budget, like the transit and housing authorities and the city's public hospital network (a huge expenditure), have or will receive federal funding but are not included in the IBO's estimate.

The report also does not account for reimbursements to city government from FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Administration, money from which flows outside the ‘stimulus’ packages. (And the report's final tally also does not include the $620 million IBO estimates will go directly to individual New Yorkers through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or food stamps, among other direct aid to individuals and families.)

As of May 7, New York City had already spent $1.4 billion in response to the coronavirus outbreak and in the executive budget proposal for Fiscal Year 2021 the administration estimated up to $3.5 billion could be spent on the effort by the end of this calendar year. That estimate may be dwarfed by the reality, as city spending has doubled over the last three weeks. The IBO predicts the city's tax revenue shortfall over the current and next fiscal years will total $9.5 billion.

"The majority of the $5.3 billion in aid that IBO projects the city will receive must be used to cover direct costs incurred by the city due to the Covid-19 pandemic or to fund programs that provide aid to city residents impacted by the resulting downturn, such as increased funding for existing food and rental assistance programs," the report reads.

At his press briefing on Sunday, de Blasio continued to stress the need for a federal “bailout” of the city’s budget. "We have to get support to allow us to keep going in this city, to be made whole to be able to provide those services,” the mayor said. “But especially since we don't know what's going to happen in Washington, we right now are absolutely dependent on whatever resources we can get.” De Blasio has also stressed the need for federal aid for some of the most essential components of getting the economy restarted, including COVID-19 testing and contact tracing of those who test positive.

"Everything hinges on the stimulus, our ability to support the people of this city," he added. "And if it comes, you know, we're going to be able to be helpful in a lot of ways. If it doesn't come, it's going to be very, very difficult."

New York State has been hit harder by the outbreak than any other state and New York City represents the worst of the crisis. As of Monday afternoon, almost 179,000 people have tested positive, and nearly 45,000 have been hospitalized citywide to date, with nearly 20,000 confirmed or suspected deaths.

The city has already received $2.3 billion from federal stimulus packages for the current and upcoming fiscal years, according to a spokesperson for the mayor. The spokesperson could not confirm the IBO's estimates, which peg another roughly $3 billion due to the city.

A significant portion of the federal funding the IBO estimates the city could receive will be given to the state to be distributed to localities, though the amount is not specified. As of a recently-released budget plan, Cuomo is planning to slash billions of dollars in aid to localities and this year’s budget language gives him the authority to do so throughout the fiscal year, though the governor has stressed he prefers for the federal government to come to the state’s rescue.

Governor Cuomo has said that, while the federal aid is useful in responding to the immediate public health needs raised by the crisis, it does little to address the state's massive revenue losses, which are estimated to be between $10 and $15 billion this year, which could mean significant reductions in state aid to localities.

A majority of the federal funding the city will get comes from Washington's third and largest ‘stimulus’ bill, the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act, which set aside $2 trillion "in direct support to households, businesses, states, some local governments, and the health care industry," according to the IBO report.

"The federal stimulus bills have provided significant funding, but most is to cover new pandemic related spending,” wrote Ana Champeny, Director of City Studies at Citizens Budget Commission, a nonprofit fiscal watchdog, in an email to Gotham Gazette. “The City plans to use about $2 billion in federal aid to help close its budget gaps. But this will not solve the whole problem or address the significant risks that the economy will be worse than projected and that the State may make significant local aid cuts. The City should identify significantly more recurring savings to manage this fiscal crisis, even if it receives additional federal aid in the future.”

The IBO notes uncertainty in its report. "New data is being released on a near-daily basis, however, and details of many of the local funding formulas have yet to be published," the report states.

Over $1.5 billion, a full quarter of the estimated funding, will come from the CARES act directly to the city under a provision that allows local governments with populations over 500,000 to receive funding directly, which would otherwise go to states. The act mandates these funds go to “necessary expenditures incurred due to the public health emergency with respect to the Coronavirus Disease 2019,” and spending from this pot must happen within the calendar year and only for costs not included in the city's budget before the law was signed, according to the IBO report. That amount is almost identical to what New York City government says it has spent so far, mostly through the city’s Department of Citywide Administrative Services and the city’s public hospital system, NYC Health + Hospitals.

Public Health
The largest federal funding area is for the city's public health response. The IBO estimates the city will get $1.9 billion from health-care provisions across the four stimulus packages. Half of that is likely to come from restructured Medicaid funding, which is controlled by the state and can be passed onto the city by an "expected" $1 billion "if the state allows the savings...to flow through to localities across the state," according to the IBO report.

The IBO estimates another $845 million to go to the New York City health department for COVID-19 testing and another $44 million could go to contract tracing, personal protective equipment, and expenses related to monitoring the virus' spread. In a controversial move, Mayor de Blasio recently announced that Health + Hospitals would run the contact tracing program instead of the health department, though health department leaders will be involved, per the mayor’s plan.

Community Development and Housing
The second largest funding category is for community development and housing, totaling roughly $972 million, almost half of which (nearly $473 million) is in new Community Development Block Grants. The IBO notes requirements on spending the block grant funding is "relatively flexible" and can go to anything from new construction to economic development and professional training programs. Another portion of roughly the same amount will go to homelessness and housing programs.

Education and Child Care
About $927 million from the CARES Act will go to education and child care services in New York City. A vast majority of that, $716.9 million, comes from the federal Education Stabilization Fund to the state to be passed on to the city. This new funding is offset in the state's enacted budget for Fiscal Year 2021, which Cuomo signed one week after the CARES Act became law, by a "Pandemic Adjustment" -- a reduction in school aid to the tune of exactly that same amount: $716.9 million.

While the federal funding "represents a considerable sum to help pay for the city’s Covid-19 response, it does little to address the $9.5 billion shortfall in city tax revenue that IBO expects to result from the economic downturn caused by the pandemic over the 2020 and 2021 fiscal years," the IBO report notes.

Roughly $131 million more will go to supportive programs like child care, student nutrition, and head start programs for children below school age.

Social Services and Criminal Justice Programs
The smallest of the four broad categories of aid the IBO identified is for social services and criminal justice initiatives, which account for almost $84 million in federal support. Over a third of that comes through the Community Service Block Grant and will go mostly through the city's Department of Youth and Community Development, according to the report. A little over $18 million more will go toward senior meals services. Almost $14 million will go to housing assistance and support for low income individuals and people living with HIV/AIDS. Federal lawmakers allocated $1 million in additional child welfare funding.

IBO estimates the CARES Act will allocate just under $13 million for Justice Assistance Grant funding, which is used by the NYPD, Department of Correction and the Mayor's Office of Criminal Justice to fund criminal justice-related expenses.

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by Ethan Geringer-Sameth, reporter, Gotham Gazette
     

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As 2020 Count Proceeds, New York State Census Plans Haven't Launched


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Gov. Cuomo at the NY Census Conference (photo: governor's office)


According to plans, New York state government would have spent the equivalent of $70 million this year on its effort to ensure that all New Yorkers are counted in the 2020 Census. But as the state has experienced a devastating coronavirus outbreak, that effort has, for all appearances, never gotten off the ground, and Governor Andrew Cuomo’s administration has done little to inform residents that it is in their best interest and that of the entire state to fill out the Census.

The decennial population count, mandated by the United States Constitution, determines the amount of federal funding states receive for all manner of programs from children’s insurance and food stamps to transit infrastructure and public housing. It also forms the basis for drawing electoral districts at the local, state, and federal levels, dictating how many seats each state will hold in the House of Representatives for the next decade.

Owing to the pandemic, city, state, and federal officials have been forced to cancel on-the-ground efforts to conduct outreach and to physically count households. Instead, they are focused on ensuring a greater self-response rate, particularly since the Census can be filled out online, making it easier to be counted than in previous censuses. (It can also be filled out by phone and through a paper questionnaire that the U.S. Census Bureau mailed to every household that did not respond online or by phone by April 8). The self-response deadline was also extended from July 31 to October 31.

But, among New York’s population are many “hard-to-count” communities, which tend not to respond to the census on their own in large numbers, either because of a general mistrust of government, apathy, or unfamiliarity with the process. They include seniors, African Americans, Native Americans, immigrants (particularly the undocumented), people experiencing homelessness, public housing residents, and others. Those segments of the population all tend to be undercounted, which also means they lose funding for valuable services and their voices in the political process. Already, because of a loss of population over the last ten years, New York could lose one Congressional seat, and two in the case of a severe undercount.

New York is already lagging behind. As of May 9, the state’s self-response rate was 52.7%, compared to a national rate of 58.3%, according to the CUNY Mapping Service’s Census data project.

Now more than ever, because of the coronavirus, activists have stressed the need for a broad campaign to make New Yorkers aware of the importance of filling out the Census. Federal funding for health care programs and social services will be vital after the pandemic passes. For future outbreaks and other crises, census data will be indispensable. For instance, during last year’s measles outbreak in New York City, health officials relied on census information to decide where vaccinations were needed.

New York City took heed of this urgency well before the pandemic. Mayor Bill de Blasio’s administration and the City Council together committed $40 million to outreach, with $19 million awarded to community-based organizations that could reach hard-to-count populations on the ground and millions more in advertising and other efforts. After the pandemic hit, they quickly suspended all in-person outreach and shifted strategies, launching phone-banking and text-banking efforts, and altered an ad campaign that was already in the works.

New York State has shown none of the same commitment, even though Governor Cuomo and the Legislature added another $10 million in census outreach funding in the state budget that was passed in April. The state had intended on providing $20 million in grants to nonprofits around the state, money that had been appropriated a year prior, in April 2019, but delayed the grant process till even after the 2020 Census count had already begun. When the coronavirus outbreak began, not a single dollar had gone out.

Cuomo also announced in November that state agencies would be committing $40 million worth of their time and other resources to ensuring a full count, but those agency-by-agency plans, which the governor said would be formed and pledged to release publicly, do not appear to exist -- recent Gotham Gazette requests for them have been ignored.

“Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and in order to protect the health and safety of all New Yorkers, the federal government and New York State have suspended in person census outreach at this time,” said Kristin Devoe, a spokesperson for Empire State Development, the state quasi-agency that is now overseeing the grant process. “The State remains committed to ensuring a complete and accurate count and will be advancing media outreach targeted at our hard to count populations. Every New Yorker counts and ESD hopes to safely restart the NYS 2020 Census Complete Count Outreach Grant funding as soon as possible.”

Devoe said the grants had not been awarded because they were meant for in-person outreach, which is effectively impossible at this point during the pandemic. “Until we can safely have face to face interactions, this grant is on hold for public health reasons,” she said.

The state census effort had earlier been under the auspices of the Department of State and Division of Budget. There is also meant to be a work group coordinating agency plans. But, despite repeated requests, state officials have not provided any details of how those plans have evolved after the outbreak. Devoe also did not say why ESD is now in charge of the process or respond when asked about who sits on the workgroup and who leads it. There is no public information to suggest the workgroup exists. The governor’s office did not respond to a separate request for comment. 

Activists who have spent the last two years preparing for the Census, and are still doing all they can to spread awareness of it and encourage New Yorkers to fill it out, have been disappointed by the state’s lack of commitment.

“It's unfortunate. Obviously, the funds would be necessary at this point and certain areas of the state, we know they are not doing the work just because they don't have the money to do the work,” said Meeta Anand, Census 2020 Senior Fellow at the New York Immigration Coalition, a statewide organization that advocates for immigrants. NYIC is a member of NY Counts 2020, a statewide coalition formed to ensure an accurate census count.

Anand noted that with the self-response deadline extended, the state could dole out the $20 million in grants to help community-based organizations conduct the types of outreach that New York City and its grantees have turned to, including phone-banking and text-banking. “There's still a lot of time to turn this around and get New York out of the basement,” she said.

As Anand noted, Cuomo has spent weeks criticizing the federal government and Republicans in Congress for their recalcitrance in bailing out New York from the fiscal devastation of the coronavirus. He has repeatedly pointed out that New York sends billions of dollars more in tax revenue to the federal government than the federal funding it receives every year. An accurate census would help mend that imbalance. “He's the governor of New York and he wants us to have our fair share of resources. I'd like to believe that he cares, but I would need to see some words and action to give me that belief,” Anand said.

In January, Cuomo kicked off state census operations and created a Census Council -- headed by Martin Luther King III, Lucy Liu, and Lin-Manuel Miranda -- to convene conferences and direct census outreach. “As this federal administration continues to disenfranchise immigrant communities and use every means possible to stop them from filling out this year’s Census questionnaire, we are taking aggressive actions to ensure every single New Yorker is counted,” Cuomo said at the time. He has since fallen silent on the issue and it’s not clear the council has done anything.

Rachel Bloom, director of public policy at Citizens Union, a government reform group, and a member of the steering committee of NY Counts 2020, reiterated the governor’s relative indifference to the Census. “He's never been that invested in the Census,” she said. “I think that’s evidenced by the fact that he has these press conferences every day where he talks for an extended period, he has an enormous platform, and he hasn't yet discussed the Census.”

Besides a simple “fill out the census” message at his daily briefings, Bloom said the state could be doing much more even in the current circumstances. “People are interacting with the government more than ever,” she said, citing the millions of people filing for unemployment insurance and the many thousands lining up at food pantries. “They're getting government services more than ever,” Bloom said, “so it’s a ripe opportunity in those interactions to remind people to fill out the Census.”

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by Samar Khurshid, senior reporter, Gotham Gazette
     

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

Coronavirus Crash Prompts Renewed Calls for New York Divestment from Fossil Fuels, But Comptroller Stands Pat


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A protest to push for New York pension system divestment from fossil fuel stocks (photo: @350)


The oil and gas industries are experiencing significant upheaval as the coronavirus pandemic decimates economies across the globe. The price of crude oil in the United States temporarily fell below $0 per barrel for the first time ever last month, prompting renewed energy among activists and elected officials in New York who want to rid the state pension fund of all investments in the fossil fuel industry.

But the one person they must convince, State Comptroller Tom DiNapoli, has remained steadfast that the stocks remain good investments, though he's made a number of concessions, investing in more renewable energy companies and studying options around divestment.

In recent years, as the threat of climate change becomes evermore urgent and parts of the world have made moves away from fossil fuels, New York State has passed sweeping energy sector reforms and set goals and regulations to transition towards renewable sources of energy. 

But the New York State Common Retirement Fund, the public pension fund for over a million current and retired New York employees, continues to invest heavily in fossil fuel company stocks. Currently worth $210.5 billion, the fund had more than $13 billion invested in fossil fuel companies at the end of March last year, according to an analysis by 350.org, an international climate change advocacy movement that has been at the forefront of the push to get public entities to divest from fossil fuels. The group’s report found that, in the last year, the pension fund has lost more than $1.5 billion in value in its investments in 16 oil and gas companies, a trend that they said is unlikely to be reversed even after the coronavirus pandemic passes. 

As the sole custodian of the pension fund, Comptroller DiNapoli, a Democrat who has held the seat since 2007, has taken steps towards investments in fighting climate change through the pension fund. In June of last year, he released his Climate Action Plan, which aimed to double the pension fund’s investment in sustainable climate solutions from $10 billion to $20 billion over ten years, and to promote climate risk management and assessments in the companies under the pension portfolio, among other steps.

DiNapoli has resisted calls for divesting the fund from the fossil fuel industry, even as some New York City public pension officials have moved aggressively toward divestment. DiNapoli has consistently argued that fossil fuel industry investments continue to produce sound returns, satisfying his number one obligation to retirees, and that he can be an activist investor and push companies to adopt more environmentally beneficial policies.

“Climate’s a big issue and just selling stock in fossil fuel companies is not gonna solve it,” he said in a general election debate in 2018 when he was running for reelection. “[W]e have to go through a societal change and for now, in the short run, we still are making money from the oil and gas stocks.” 

Even after the value of oil went negative in April, DiNapoli indicated no change in his approach. “Our position remains the same on divestment,” said Jennifer Freeman, a DiNapoli spokesperson, in an email. “Across the board, industries have been hurt by COVID-19. We continue to move forward on our Climate Action Plan. No developments that we'd comment on.”

DiNapoli’s arguments don’t hold water for activists, who point out that fossil fuels have been a bad financial investment for years overall. The fund’s investments in companies that use fracking to extract fossil fuels are also seen as particularly hypocritical in a state where the governor banned the practice five years ago and with the Legislature codified it into law in this year’s budget. 

“Yes, divest for moral reasons, but my goodness, you really should be divesting for financial reasons,” said Mark Dunlea, co-founder of New York’s Green Party, who ran against DiNapoli in 2018 on the single issue of fossil fuel divestment. 

“When you have world leaders saying, ‘We have to stop using fossil fuels, whether it's five years from now or 15 years from now’...That's not a viable business model moving forward,” he said about maintaining those investments.

In recent weeks, activists and elected officials have escalated their push for the Fossil Fuel Divestment Act, sponsored by Manhattan State Senator Liz Krueger and Brooklyn Assemblymember Felix Ortiz, both Democrats, that would require the comptroller to divest the pension fund from major oil, gas, and coal production companies over five years.

The New York Youth Climate Leaders, a statewide youth coalition, held a virtual lobby day on April 21 ahead of Earth Day, speaking with nearly 40 members of the Legislature in virtual and phone conferences. They blasted out to lawmakers and on social media a video that features pensioners and high school students supporting the divestment call.   

Both Ortiz and Krueger have pledged to push for the bill’s passage in the limited time remaining in the Legislative session this year, though most legislation has been put on the backburner because of the pressing conditions imposed by the coronavirus outbreak. 

“I think the timing cannot be better in these horrible circumstances,” said Assemblymember Ortiz, in a phone interview, noting that the adverse impacts of climate disproportionately harm communities of color. “A tough time can give us the opportunity to bring vision solutions...I think we need to make sure that we continue to move the ball forward and continue to embrace this conversation.”

The Senate version of the bill recently gained majority support in the chamber, with 33 sponsors; the Assembly version has 52 sponsors and would need 76 in total for a majority. Even Governor Andrew Cuomo has supported divestment since 2017, though Cuomo has not been especially vocal about divestment nor taken up the Divestment Act in his lengthy annual agendas. The governor has taken his own efforts to pursue similar measures by the parts of state government he controls, made the aforementioned fracking moves, and worked with the Legislature to pass the sweeping Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act.

Krueger said though the bill has not passed, there have been similar models followed in other jurisdictions. “So we are moving the world while we're perhaps not speeding ahead of the rest of the world,” she said in a phone interview. Just the discussions around the bill and the pension fund’s investment in “stranded assets” like oil and gas that are slowly losing value have been effective in pushing DiNapoli towards their goal, she said. 

As Krueger noted, DiNapoli hasn’t completely ignored the advocacy efforts. In January of this year, DiNapoli announced that he would review whether 27 coal companies that the fund has invested in are moving towards more sustainable business models. “Investors who fail to face the risks and seize the opportunities presented by climate change put their portfolios in jeopardy,” DiNapoli said. “We are assessing minimum standards for transition readiness at coal mining companies first, because they face the greatest risk as the world turns to cleaner and renewable energies. If a particular company is not ready to move away from its reliance on thermal coal mining for profits, we may divest our holdings in that company.” The review was expected to last several months. 

“I would say it's probably five years too late for the coal industry,” said Richard Brooks, campaign coordinator with 350.org, who otherwise praised the move. “But if he's going to continue to do these reviews, he needs to accelerate these reviews and do it across all of the energy sector.”

Krueger echoed Brooks’ urgency. “If you look at [DiNapoli’s] handling of our pension funds, you can't really say he's not paying attention to the issue. He just doesn't want the Legislature to be able to insert itself into what he defines as his authority,” she said. “And he thinks that he is moving us in exactly what direction we should be going. I don't disagree with him on the direction, I disagree with him on the speed at which we are getting there.”

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by Samar Khurshid, senior reporter, Gotham Gazette
     

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Democratic State Senators Call for Raising Taxes on Wealthy, Passing Coronavirus Relief Measures


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Senators Ramos and Gounardes (photo: NY Senate)


A group of Democratic state senators, mostly from New York City, gathered in a digital forum Wednesday night to discuss the government’s COVID-19 response. The virtual event, held in partnership with the Fiscal Policy Institute (FPI), a nonprofit liberal think tank, covered topics including the state budget, impending cuts and proposals to raise revenue, and legislation to address ramifications of the virus.

Eight senators, or a fifth of the Democratic majority in the 63-seat chamber, participated in the online discussion.

New York’s new state budget, passed in early April by the Legislature in partnership with Governor Andrew Cuomo, a third-term Democrat, was a main topic of conversation, including critical comments from the senators about the governor. Many state legislators, mostly in the Assembly, voted against budget bills this year, despite the fact that they were representative of compromise among two Democratic majorities and the Democratic governor. Some senators voted against certain pieces of the budget, while others criticized the deal but voted for it anyway.

The budget included significant cuts to planned spending as the state faces a massive drop in tax revenue -- estimated at roughly $10 billion to $15 billion - due to the coronavirus fallout, which comes on top of a roughly $6 billion budget gap that the state had to close leading up to adoption of the spending plan.

The budget agreement included no significant new revenue-raising measures, such as tax increases on higher earners, nor did it include as grave cuts as some feared. But it also gave the governor significant leeway to make budget changes throughout the year, depending on the tax revenue picture (the Legislature retained the right to overrule the governor, but it would have to come up with its own plan to slash spending).

And on April 25, the Cuomo administration announced an additional $10 billion in cuts, mostly -- at $8.2 billion -- in aid to localities, a category that covers education and much more, as well as a $1.6 billion cut to state agency operations and $293 million to debt service, according to information provided during the senators’ event.

“It’s very bleak, it’s very difficult,” Queens Senator John Liu said of the budget situation.

“The Cuomo cuts are fake austerity, and we’ve been living with this fake austerity for a while,” said Queens Senator Jessica Ramos. “Before the pandemic, we were already in a deficit. There’s nothing worse than saying we don’t have the money when we’re not proactively wanting money.”

Brooklyn Senator Andrew Gounardes agreed, saying that now is “not a time to practice and preach austerity politics, this is not a time to be cutting budgets, this is a time to be investing in people.”

Ron Deutsch, the executive director of FPI, blamed the “austerity” on Cuomo’s “arbitrary” 2% cap on annual state spending increases.

“We’re still maintaining this austerity mindset, this scarcity mindset that we can’t possibly spend more than 2%,” Deutsch said. “This 2% is an arbitrary figure, it has no basis in reality. It’s just something the governor wants and pushes for. And what has it resulted in. It has decimated human services programs across this state. We’ve seen a significant reduction in human services.”

The participants moved from the state budget to federal stimulus money with senators discussing why they believe New York didn’t get more aid from the $2 trillion package, and if New York could receive more aid going forward.

“The state cannot pull us out of the hole that we are in, we’re not allowed to run a deficit, we have to balance the budget,” said upstate Senator Rachel May. “And when we’re talking about $13 billion that we’re in the hole, even with the great ideas people have mentioned about raising revenue, we need help from the federal government.”

The recent $2 trillion federal aid package provided $150 billion for state aid, which was distributed based on population. This, many of the senators agreed, was the inherent issue with it.

“We got anywhere from $6-7 billion out of the $150 billion, and that’s the problem, we didn’t get treated fairly,” said Liu. “How do you allocate state aid based on population when at the time we had between one-third and one-half of the [coronavirus] cases. If we had gotten one-third of the $150 billion, we would have gotten $50 billion. And that right there would have solved many of our problems. Not only to provide enough aid to our state government and to localities, for schools, for firefighters, for teachers, for police officers, for ambulances. It also would have helped us in our programs to cancel rents, and with mortgage payments. That is the kind of assistance, real assistance, we need in a federal stimulus package. We are a very rich state, that’s for sure, but even the richest state can't get out of this humongous disaster by ourselves.”

Manhattan Senator Robert Jackson agreed, saying, “when you talk about fair share, you can talk about population, but when you talk about that, New York City and New York State as the epicenter of this pandemic, that’s where the resources should have come to.”

“We need assistance from Washington,” said Liu. “I don’t want to take away from that argument, I don’t want to be negotiating against ourselves. We absolutely need the aid from Washington in the form of unrestricted state aid. But we also need our own proposals, because [the federal government] might not give us enough to fill the $13 billion hole we’re in. Rather than suffer ridiculous cuts to schools and healthcare and other vital state services, we need to think of these proposals as quickly as possible and keep them on the front burner.”

The conversation then turned to ways in which the state could raise revenue to help plug its deficit and avoid making huge cuts to education, health care, and more. The most heavily discussed revenue raising policy was an ‘ultra-millionaire tax.’

“The wealthiest 1% pay a smaller percentage of their income in taxes than do the poorest 20% of New Yorkers,” said Deutsch. “How do we justify that in a state with so much wealth. Our tax system is completely upside-down and we need to reverse that. We are behind numerous other states when it comes to the progressivity of our income tax structure.”

Such an action would be far from unprecedented, it was noted. After September 11, 2001 the Republican leader of the Senate and the Democratic leader of the Assembly came together to propose higher taxes on the wealthy, overriding Governor George Pataki’s veto, according to Deutsch.

Similarly, after the financial collapse in 2008, the state was facing a huge budget gap. Governor David Paterson led the institution of higher taxes on millionaires, which became known as the first “millionaires tax” surcharge, which has been in place since, renewed several times despite the original notion that it would be temporary.

Ramos added that she introduced, and is working with partners on a soft rollout of, a worker bailout that would tax billionaires’ asset growth. “It could generate $5 billion for us every year,” Ramos said. “So this year we would want to use it to help those who don’t have any safety net,” and give $3,300 per month during the pandemic to those who aren’t eligible for or don’t qualify for a wage assistance program, she said. Liu called it a good proposal on top of the revenue raising proposals that have already been put forward.

He added that taxing millionaires more in New York is not out of the question, reiterating what Deutsch had said previously, that New Yorkers are not taxed as high as top earners in other states. In California for example, top earners are taxed 5% more than top earners here, he said.

Cuomo and the Senate Democratic conference have been against raising taxes on higher earners, and as the coronavirus recession set in just before the budget was negotiated, there appeared to be little discussion of it as a possibility.

Liu also emphasized what he sees as the importance of a pied-a-terre tax and that it should be “at the very top of the list,” imposing a tax on non-primary luxury homes, which Liu pointed out are owned by wealthy people and are often not lived in. He says it could raise many millions of dollars per year. Brooklyn Senator Julia Salazar and Bronx and Wechester Senator Alessandra Biaggi agreed with Liu.

Biaggi also made a push for two policies that would bring in state revenue and have been discussed in Albany for quite a while -- legalizing adult use of marajuana and legalizing mobile sports betting. She said both would be good opportunities to use well-considered legislation to raise revenue in a time when it is necessary.

Salazar said there are more than a dozen serious proposals to raise revenue and it’s a “shame that in the budget these revenue sources were not considered.” During this crisis, she said, the Legislature has an “ethical obligation” to help New Yorkers make ends meet.

Biaggi mentioned her push for a bill that is a constitutional amendment that would allow the Legislature more power to amend the budget before its adoption. New York’s budget law and process is notoriously governor-dominated, what Biaggi called “an inordinate amount of power over the budget.”

She said her bill seeks to equalize the power between the executive and legislative branches of government, and rebalance the power. Before it can be put into the constitution, the amendment needs to pass through two consecutive legislative sessions and go to a public vote.

Gounardes agreed with the importance of Biaggi’s bill and said that in the current system “we don’t have the ability to submit our own budget document” and it “ties our hands when it comes to the budget.” May added that “the other articles in the constitution say the Legislature shall provide for basic education or all our children, for roads and bridges, all kinds of things -- it’s our responsibility, but we don’t have the power to put together a budget that can allow us to carry out our responsibility.”

Jackson said he is putting forward a bill that would allow for tenants to use their security deposits to pay rent during the pandemic. “If your situation is such that you can’t afford to pay you rent, the first thing you should do is communicate with your owners,” said Jackson. “If the landlord says no, then it’s our job to pass the legislation.”

Salazar has also put forward a rent bill, the Emergency Coronavirus Affordable Housing Preservation Act, colloquially known as Relief for All.

“What this bill proposes is not only relief for residential tenants and also commercial tenants, making sure that for property owners whose tenants have been impacted they will also have relief,” she said during the digital forum. “Additionally, and this is to address the concerns of nonprofit affordable housing, we are also providing relief to them, looking out for them, because they are going to be experiencing long term effects from the economic crisis that we’re facing.”

Another senator, Queens’ Michael Gianaris, who the deputy majority leader and was not part of the event, has been leading a “cancel rent” push, with his own legislation to enact a rent moratorium for those significantly impacted financially by the coronavirus fallout, with the state stepping in to help make landlords whole. Gianaris has also said he wants to see the federal government step up so the state doesn’t have to shoulder the burden on top of its existing budget hole.

Brooklyn Senator Zellnor Myrie, who also participated in the forum, has put forward a bill, the Do No Harm Act, to “prevent disproportionately impacted populations from being further victimized in the wake of budget cuts resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic,” according to the bill text.

“This has not begun with COVID-19, this was a process decades in the making, particularly for black and brown communities where we refused to invest in preventative care, we refused to invest in affordable housing, education, nutrition,” Myrie said. “All of those comorbidities were brought into sharp relief at the advent of this crisis.”

His bill “requires that any budget cuts due to the COVID-19 pandemic that disproportionately affect certain populations identified by disparities in rates of infection and death due to race, age and zip code based on demographic data provided by state and local departments of health be accompanied by a remediation plan to offset the disproportionate impact of those cuts.”

Myrie also said he has a bill pending that would provide the New York Attorney General more investigatory power to look into nursing homes during this pandemic. Myrie explained that nursing homes “have been their own epicenter” and in need of more oversight.

Senators also mentioned a variety of worker protection bills. Jackson said he put forward in January an amendment to labor law, seeking to redefine employment. The bill seeks to “reclassify more workers as employees rather than independent contractors in order for them to receive benefits such as healthcare and retirement,” Jackson said, also connecting the definition to times of crisis with so many independent contractors also losing work but having a harder time with unemployment benefits.

Ramos mentioned her legislation to expand the whistleblower law. There have been cases in the news of healthcare workers saying they don’t have enough personal protective equipment (PPE) and getting fired. Ramos said she wants to ensure that these individuals don’t suffer consequences for speaking out.

“We have not been physically in Albany, but that does not mean we have not been at work,” Liu said. “Answering constituents’ requests everyday, talking amongst ourselves about the legislation that has been proposed.” Either virtually or physically in Albany, he said, “Either way we are going to get work done and pass bills that are needed.”

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by Katie Kirker, Gotham Gazette

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Brooklyn Candidates Say Democratic Party Leaders Booted Them from Ballot for Not Gathering More Signatures During Pandemic


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Christina Das and John Wasserman collecting petition signatures in March (Wasserman's Facebook)


Two Brooklyn candidates say their names were removed from the June ballot for party positions in retaliation for pushing back against local Democratic officials asking them to canvass during the pandemic as one of them experienced coronavirus-like symptoms.   

John Wasserman and Christina Das — who were running for reelection as 42nd Assembly District Alternative Judicial Delegate and Judicial Delegate, respectively — believe they were kicked off the ballot by the Brooklyn Democratic Party after they pushed back against the signature total demands made by District Leader Josue “Josh” Pierre.  

"I told Josh I was sick. I told Josh that I have coronavirus symptoms and was unable to collect any petition at that point in time,” said Wasserman, former president of Brooklyn Young Democrats.

“[Josh] told me, ‘Look, if you don’t collect 250 signatures, I’m going to disassociate from you,’” Wasserman recalled of his conversation with Pierre, a City Council candidate who is a cousin of, and co-district leader with, Brooklyn Democratic Party leader Rodneyse Bichotte, who represents central Brooklyn’s District 42 in the State Assembly. 

Despite an executive order from Governor Andrew Cuomo on March 14 that lowered the petition threshold, Pierre told them on March 15 that “she,” referring to Bichotte, still wanted 250 signatures from them, according to a text from Pierre.

Pierre did not respond to several requests for comment. A spokesperson for the Brooklyn Democratic Party, which Bichotte was elected to lead in January, declined to comment.

Wasserman, 27, said that on March 5 he came down with possible COVID-19 symptoms, including coughing and fatigue, which prompted him to stop petitioning out of concern for his health and that of others. He went to the doctor on March 10, when he took a flu test that came back negative, so he decided it was best to practice social distancing, he said.

Wasserman told Pierre about his symptoms and Pierre — who is running in the 2021 election to represent the 40th City Council District, which includes Prospect-Lefferts Gardens, Flatbush, and part of Midwood — asked about his signature count, according to text messages between the two.

Two days later, on March 13, Pierre encouraged Wasserman and Das, a 28-year-old CUNY law student and the current Brooklyn Young Democrats president, to go out to canvass that weekend.

The pair, who live together in Flatbush, say they obliged, and went to Newkirk Plaza to ask voters for signatures for ballot petitions including their names as well as those of other local candidates. They fell significantly short of the 250 signatures Pierre demanded, they said. That weekend, Wasserman collected 13 signatures and Das gathered 18 of them for the slate, they said. 

Wasserman called and texted Pierre several times to express his concerns about petitioning during a pandemic — and while potentially being a vector for the virus — but received no response. Pierre repeatedly asked Wasserman and Das for updates on their signature count.

"You and Rodneyse want us to collect signatures during a national health crisis, that's concerning," he texted Pierre on Sunday March 15. 

That day, Wasserman’s and Das’ petitions were delivered to the Board of Elections by Pierre, according to Wasserman. 

Just over a month later, Wasserman received a letter, dated April 15, from the Board of Elections informing him that his judicial delegate candidacy had been terminated because he did not file a cover sheet with his petitions. Das later found out via the city ledger that her judicial delegate candidacy had also been terminated for the same reason. Das did not receive a letter, she said. (Both will appear on the June ballot to retain their county committee posts.)

"We collected petition signatures, and [Pierre] filed our petition signatures without a cover sheet, kicking us off the ballot," Wasserman said. 

After his efforts to obtain it from Pierre were unsuccessful, Wasserman contacted the Board of Elections on April 18, he said, requesting a copy of the ballot petition cover sheet that was supposed to have included his name, along with fellow Democrats who had agreed to petition together for ballot spots. He said he received it via e-mail on April 20.

The sheet, reviewed by Gotham Gazette, showed Wasserman’s and Das’ names covered with what appears to be whiteout, while every other candidate’s name remained legible on the sheet.

On April 20, when Wasserman received the cover sheet after contacting the BOE on Saturday because his efforts to get the from Pierre were unsuccessful, he found that his and Das’ names had been covered with what appears to be whiteout. Every other candidate's name remained on the cover sheet.

Wasserman and Das believe it was a coordinated attack on their candidacy that was hatched by party officials, not a clerical error, because they were the only candidates from their petitions who were booted from the June ballot.  

"There's really no way that this was incompetence," Das said. "Every single other member of the 42nd [Assembly District] are all filed with cover sheets other than two individuals who spoke out about petitioning during a pandemic."

The move was a deliberate act of retaliation, according to a Brooklyn elections lawyer, who said he had never seen a similar maneuver in his 40 years working in the borough’s politics. 

“Is it an illegal practice? I don’t think so. Is it an immoral practice? Well, that’s between those involved and their maker,” said Howard Graubard, the lawyer, who is familiar with the situation but isn’t involved in it in an official capacity. “Is it unseemly? Damn right it is.” 

“To go through the trouble of doing that is just astonishing,” he added. “It’s extraordinarily silly.”

The sheet, which prominently displays Bichotte’s name twice and Pierre’s once, is signed by attorney Jonathan Harkavy.

While Wasserman and Das on Wednesday challenged the ruling at a video hearing held by the Board of Elections, the termination was upheld, and both candidates remain off the ballot. According to Wasserman, their only mode of recourse is now State Supreme Court — an avenue they are considering. Several other candidates kicked off the ballot are also considering a suit.  

“Leading up to a really monumental election, this can’t be how youth leadership and young people are treated,” Das said in an interview. “We should be uplifted and have a transparent, open process for all constituents.” 

“This is not how district leaders and our county representatives should be treating constituents.” 

Asked why he continued to canvass while he could have been a vector of the potentially deadly coronavirus, Wassermann said he “felt pressure from [Pierre].” 

“We didn’t go door-to-door, and that’s probably why we got less signatures,” said Das. “I made sure to get gloves and masks. I wasn’t exhibiting any symptoms.”

“We felt pressured to go out,” she said. 

After under two hours of canvassing on Saturday March 14, the two realized they couldn’t successfully or safely petition, they said, so they stopped.

Both candidates said they have heard from two other judicial delegate candidates who got on the ballot without collecting any signatures. They also heard from other candidates that they had not been asked to provide 250 signatures, meaning to them the number Pierre asked for was an arbitrary one. 

Das and Wasserman are among a number of young candidates who have run into challenges of their candidacy amid the pandemic, which has thrown the petitioning process into disarray. Despite pressure from progressives and other Brooklyn lawmakers, Bichotte has refused to halt petition challenges filed by the party she leads. 

"Candidates who failed to meet the lowered threshold should not take advantage of this health emergency to force their candidacy on the community," she wrote in a Daily News op-ed published on April 8. 

Among the booted candidates are Sandy Nurse, a progressive running in the open City Council special election to replace Rafael Espinal in District 37, and all others in the race but the one candidate with the Party's backing. Nurse had been coalescing support among a number of groups and officials to take on the Brooklyn Democratic Party’s chosen candidate, Darma Diaz, and, like Wasserman and Das, says she is considering going to court to secure her spot on the June ballot.

Note: this story has been corrected to remove erroneous mention of Samy Nemir-Olivares being kicked off the ballot and to clarify which positions Wasserman and Das were seeking.

Cuomo Orders All Voters Get Absentee Ballot Applications and Polls Open for June Elections, While Presidential Primary Canceled


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All voters will get an absentee application for the June elections (photo: Kevin P. Coughlin/Governor's Office)


Governor Andrew Cuomo on Friday, April 24 signed an executive order mandating that the State Board of Elections send every registered voter in the state an absentee ballot application with paid postage to facilitate voting in elections slated for June 23 without increasing the risk of exposure to the novel coronavirus, COVID-19.

The June election, with an early voting period preceding it, will feature party primaries for congressional, state legislative, and local races, after several elections on New York’s calendar were delayed because of the coronavirus outbreak. The executive order also cancelled special elections for the state Assembly, state Senate, and Queens Borough President that were slated to take place that day -- but the primaries for all those races will still happen.

On Monday, April 27, the state Board of Elections also cancelled the Democratic presidential primary since all the candidates have conceded to former Vice President Joe Biden. The Republican presidential primary had already been cancelled in February. The power to cancel the Democratic primary had been granted to the Democratic BOE representatives by new language inserted into a state budget bill by the governor and legislators and passed in early April with the rest of the budget.

There is no guarantee that the risk of exposure to the coronavirus will be eliminated by June, which has prompted steps by the governor to ensure that New Yorkers can still participate in the democratic process. “We've seen elections held where we have people on lines for a long period of time. It makes no sense to me to tell people, ‘You have to put your life at risk, violate social distancing to come out to vote,’” Cuomo said at this daily coronavirus briefing in Albany on Friday, just under two months from the June election day. 

The governor has already signed an executive order allowing all voters to request an absentee ballot for the June primary based on the risk of contracting the coronavirus. But that still requires voters to obtain a ballot application from the BOE, return it, receive the absentee ballot, and return that too.

Some local county boards of elections have begun to move to online applications. The New York City BOE launched an online portal for city residents and is also accepting applications by email, fax or phone. But concerns were raised by legislators and election reform advocates that the measure was insufficient, particularly if voters don’t have access to the internet or printers at home, and obtaining a physical application from the relevant board would be unfeasible as people shelter at home. 

The new order would mandate that applications are sent to registered voters, but not a ballot itself, which would have been unconstitutional, said Melissa DeRosa, secretary to the governor, at the briefing. “I know some people thought that this should be, ‘You send everybody an actual ballot to vote,’ and we don't think that that's within our constitutional right, for the governor's directive powers to override the constitution and create a mail-in voting system where one otherwise doesn't exist,” she said. 

Advocates like those at Common Cause NY were also concerned that a vote-by-mail program alone could be riddled with problems if implemented on such a quick timeline – the BOE could fail to mail ballots to 970,000 ‘inactive’ voters who are registered with political parties; mailed ballots wouldn’t provide accommodations for the visually impaired or those with limited English proficiency; residents sheltering out of state may never receive a ballot. But the governor’s order should allay those fears, since in-person voting will still continue and all voters, active and inactive, will receive a ballot application, according to the executive order. “We're saying you have both options. You can go to the poll or you can vote absentee,” Cuomo said. 

Asked by reporters about any possible opposition to his order, Cuomo said, “If you’re against absentees, then everybody goes to the polls. Is that what they want?” 

Prior to the governor’s announcement, State Republican Party Chair Nick Langworthy had expressed several criticisms of a possible vote-by-mail program for the entire state, worrying without evidence that it could lead to voting fraud. He had promised to sue the governor if he should mandate that ballots are mailed to voters, calling such a move “an illegal and unconstitutional political power grab that will severely undermine the integrity of our elections.” 

But Langworthy supports the new order, and will not file any legal challenges, according to a spokesperson. “New York is the global epicenter of this public health crisis, which creates the obvious need to change some of our normal course of business, including political campaigns and voting,” Langoworthy said in a statement, agreeing that the state should act to protect both voters and poll workers. “While I strongly prefer that people vote in person, on Election Day, temporarily suspending the normal procedures for absentee ballots during this crisis is a practical necessity.”

Good government group Citizens Union applauded the governor's move in a statement on Friday afternoon. "This action will go a long way to ensure that this coming June, New Yorkers aren’t asked to choose between their health and their vote," Executive Director Betsy Gotbaum said. “Ensuring that our 2020 elections can proceed without putting the public’s health at risk will require resources, creativity and flexibility. Today’s announcement is an important step.”

The early voting period for the primary is from June 13 to June 21. Early voting sites have not been confirmed and, by law, must be made public 45 days before the election.

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

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

Note - this article has been updated with information from Governor Cuomo's executive order.

Note - this article has been updated to note that the Democratic presidential primary was cancelled. 

Note- this article has been updated with information on the NYC BOE's new online portal for an absentee ballot application.

Coronavirus Death Toll at State Psychiatric Facilities Climbs Quickly


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Kingsboro Psychiatric Center (photo: New York State Office of Mental Health)


The death toll from the novel coronavirus at state psychiatric facilities is rising, according to what scant official figures are available, hinting at a nightmare unfolding inside some of New York's least visible institutions. In just over a week, the number of residents confirmed to have died from the virus has tripled, according to data provided by the state Office of Mental Health (OMH), which runs the 23 centers.

Thirty residents are dead and another seven are suspected to have died from COVID-19, out of roughly 3,500 patients living in state-run inpatient psychiatric facilities. Another 259 current residents, many of whom are there involuntarily after being diagnosed with a severe mental illness, have tested positive for the coronavirus as of Wednesday, April 22. An OMH spokesperson said the agency is in the process of updating the number of employees who have tested positive. On April 17, officials reported 283 out of about 14,400 staff members had contracted the virus.

Citing privacy laws, OMH would not report on staff deaths or even comment on a tip that an employee at Manhattan Psychiatric Center had died of the virus. The agency has also denied requests for a breakdown of positive cases and deaths by facility, county, or region.

This snapshot of the virus' wreckage, now common in other contexts, has only begun to surface 55 days after Governor Andrew Cuomo declared a state of emergency in New York, and only after inquiries. Asked by Gotham Gazette, OMH acknowledged 10 resident deaths at its facilities on April 14. For more than a week after, OMH did not provide updated numbers on its facilities until Thursday, April 23, when the 37 confirmed and suspected coronavirus-related deaths were reported.

People with knowledge of the facilities say the pace at which officials are releasing information and the amount left undisclosed is part of a pattern of obscurity that is able to flourish around a population with few people advocating for it on the outside. It may also suggest an agency without a firm grasp on conditions in its facilities, where the virus is claiming many lives.

Gotham Gazette had identified close to 20 resident deaths in just two psychiatric facilities in downstate counties, when OMH was still reporting just ten. An OMH spokesperson wrote in an email Thursday that the initial ten referred only to confirmed cases.

Meanwhile, the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases and deaths statewide, and in other congregate living sites like nursing homes, ticks up by hundreds each day.

"OMH said that there were ten deaths in all 24 facilities?" asked an employee with direct patient contact at Rockland Psychiatric Center in an interview Wednesday. "No. It's more like ten deaths per facility."

"They are officially acknowledging at least 9 deaths at my facility. I think we are currently up to ten or eleven," the employee told Gotham Gazette.

Members from the Public Employees Federation, a union representing thousands of employees working in the state-run psychiatric centers, have reported to union leadership that at least seven residents at Pilgrim Psychiatric Center on Long Island have died from COVID-19. A patient advocate who works with residents at Pilgrim said they were aware of nine patients who have died there since the outbreak began. (The New York Times reported Friday that the state had confirmed that 10 patients at Rockland and nine patients at Pilgrim have died.)

Everyone who spoke with Gotham Gazette for this story spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear of reprisal from OMH or for the protection of their clients.

"I think Manhattan Psychiatric also [has] about nine or ten" residents who have died, said the Rockland employee. That information came to them through an informal grapevine of doctors, nurses, and other direct care workers who have become increasingly concerned about the conditions in facilities and the silence surrounding them.

"We talk to each other," the Rockland employee said. "The administration does not communicate that information."

OMH inpatient facilities have been among the hardest hit but most under-discussed congregate living settings in New York. Throughout the months of March and April, patients have continued to gather in close quarters and employees have struggled to get sufficient personal protective equipment (PPE), as Gotham Gazette first reported, creating a fertile environment for spreading the virus. Reports from various service-providers say patients, also lacking PPE, do not have the resources to maintain sanitary conditions and many do not apprehend social distancing and hygiene guidelines.

Patients in New York's psychiatric institutions suffer from severe mental illness like bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. Most residents are admitted through the criminal justice system and are held involuntarily. Many have underlying medical issues that exacerbate the risk of dying from COVID-19.

According to union officials, in the last week of March OMH leadership told labor unions they were still in the process of assessing how much PPE was available at each facility. The Rockland Psychiatric Center employee told Gotham Gazette it wasn't until the second week of April that staff with direct patient contact began receiving one N95 mask per week. Multiple accounts from union leaders and psychiatric staff suggest employees were not allowed to wear certain PPE, even if it was available, until April. Only last Friday, April 17, did employees at Rockland Psychiatric who worked with patients start getting one N95 mask, one surgical mask, and one gown per day.

With the supply of PPE low statewide, the new arrangement is as much as workers feel they can hope for. "This is the first week where we feel we are adequately staffed and have adequate PPE," said the Rockland employee. "But we've had many, many patients get sick, many, many staff get sick in that time."

As in the general population, the distribution of coronavirus cases and deaths at psychiatric centers is not even across New York. While downstate institutions like Rockland, Pilgrim, and Manhattan have many positive cases and deaths, upstate centers have not been hit as hard. Some upstate facilities have had few if any positive cases -- Rochester Psychiatric Center, for example, has not had any positive cases as of Sunday, according to an employee there.

Other facilities have been ravaged. Mid Hudson Psychiatric Center, in Marcy, New York, is one of the biggest and most notorious psychiatric institutions in the state. With a high number of so-called forensic patients -- residents who have come in involuntarily through the criminal legal system -- the facility is already prone to violence and chaos. Since the outbreak began, at least 89 employees there have called out sick, according to a Public Employee Federation leader.

At Rockland Psychiatric, only three units out of 14 are without COVID-19 positive patients, according to an internal report from union leadership that was reviewed by Gotham Gazette. Forty union members have tested positive there and at least one staff member, a mental health therapy aide, has died, the report says. At Kingsboro Psychiatric Center in Brooklyn, staff members exhibiting COVID-19 symptoms could not take paid sick leave unless they tested positive, even if they had a note from a doctor, per emails among employees shared with Gotham Gazette.

OMH has not released information on how many facility-based workers have died of the novel coronavirus, despite numerous requests for that information from Gotham Gazette. In the most recent response, on Friday April 24, OMH Director of Public Information, James Plastiras, wrote: "Suspected COVID-19 related employee death totals at the facilities do not meet the data privacy reporting threshold." In response to a tip that an employee at Manhattan Psychiatric Center had died after contracting the coronavirus, Plastiras last week wrote, “OMH is prohibited by State and Federal privacy laws from providing protected health information.”

But an OMH employee newsletter sent in the beginning of April and obtained by Gotham Gazette includes the names and biographies of four "heroes," workers at OMH psychiatric facilities "who were lost to us during the epidemic." The employees -- a secure care treatment aide at Rockland Psychiatric; a security officer at Kirby Forensic Psychiatric Center; and two mental health therapy aides, one at Kingsboro Psychiatric Center and one at Manhattan Psychiatric -- had a collective 86 years of service, according to the newsletter.

Plastiras said OMH had gotten permission from the employees' families to publish the information, and that the newsletter was only meant to be seen by OMH staff, not the general public.

Cuomo has faced intense pressure from members of the media to provide detailed information on testing, positive cases, and deaths in nursing homes, where residents live closely to one another and are already highly susceptible to the virus because of their age and underlying conditions. In response to scrutiny about incomplete information on where nursing home deaths have taken place and other details, Cuomo has repeatedly said the state can only report to the public what nursing homes, most of which are privately run, report to the state Department of Health. But the Office of Mental Health runs the state's 23 public psychiatric institutions directly and is not dependent on outside entities for information about its facilities.

OMH is not the only government agency restricting information about inpatient mental health facilities, and their patients and staff. Gotham Gazette has been seeking data from New York City Health + Hospitals, the city's public hospital system, about the number of patients transferred since the start of the coronavirus outbreak from city hospitals to OMH inpatient centers.

A Health + Hospitals spokesperson did confirm to Gotham Gazette that psychiatric patients that could not be discharged from hospitals were transferred to state institutions as part of the city's effort to free up hospital beds for COVID-19 patients.

"We have not disclosed the number of inpatients psychiatric transfers to State facilities," the spokesperson wrote in an email. The spokesperson did not directly respond to questions about why they are not publishing the figures, writing, "We haven't shared this data publicly. We'll let you know when it's available."

***
by Ethan Geringer-Sameth, reporter, Gotham Gazette
     

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Questions and Concerns About Potential Shift to Vote-By-Mail as New Yorkers Await Further Action from Cuomo


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Voting in New York is undergoing major shifts, with more possibly to come (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayor's Office)


Amid reports that Governor Andrew Cuomo plans to allow or require voting by mail for all New Yorkers in primary and special elections set for June 23, government reform advocates have raised concerns that the measure could end up adversely affecting the election, while the State Republican Party has promised to sue if the governor follows through.

The coronavirus pandemic has forced several delays in the state’s election calendar and in-person voting may continue to be a risky endeavor in June when the state holds primaries for all the seats in the state legislature and House of Representatives, and possibly for the Democratic presidential nomination, as well as a handful of special elections. In lieu of that, according to a NY1 report on Monday that the governor’s office refuses to confirm or deny, Cuomo is expected to sign an executive order mandating that local Boards of Elections mail out ballots to all registered voters.

Such a measure by the governor would, in theory, help New Yorkers avoid the risk of exposure to the coronavirus while still exercising their right to vote. But with no details yet about the executive order, government reform advocates are anxious that the order could do more harm than good. Asked about the NY1 report, Cuomo spokesperson Caitlin Girouard said only, “We're looking at all options​.”

Cuomo had previously issued an order expanding absentee voting to all who decided to request such a ballot over fears of the virus and in-person voting.

Among the concerns from advocates about the possibility of full-on vote-by-mail are that the local BOEs may only mail ballots to active voters registered with political parties in the state, and miss the more than 970,000 ‘inactive’ voters who are nonetheless registered to vote with party affiliation. (In total, counting voters with no party affiliation, there are 11.7 million active and 1.2 million inactive voters in New York.) Mailed ballots would not make special accomodations for the visually impaired or be an effective substitute for translation services at poll sites. The ballots may also fail to reach the mass of New York residents who have chosen to shelter outside the state or populations like college students who are now living at home.

“We would love to be able to move to a vote-by-mail system in New York, but there are very significant obstacles to a wholesale transition,” said Susan Lerner, executive director of Common Cause New York, in a virtual news conference on Wednesday afternoon, insisting the the state should only take the step if it’s done in conjunction with in-person voting. “Unfortunately, jumping to an entire vote-by-mail system in New York state would be setting up our elections for failure.”

A majority of Americans, 58% in fact, support voting by mail, according to an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll released Tuesday amid ongoing questions about what form this year’s presidential and other elections will take. But Lerner pointed out that effective vote-by-mail programs, like the ones used in Washington and Colorado, depend on accurate voter rolls, and that elections administrators in New York have been notoriously bad at maintaining their records. The most high profile example of that is the New York City Board of Elections, which illegally kicked 200,000 Democratic voters off its rolls ahead of the April 2016 presidential primary. Voters are often also improperly placed on inactive status, and the BOE may not send a ballot to those voters, who’ve been labeled ‘inactive’ after they fail to respond to a mailer from the BOE requesting confirmation of their current place of residence.

“If New York hastily Institutes a vote-by-mail system, hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers and the inactive, over 1 million voters, may never receive a ballot,” Lerner said, calling for an expansion of absentee ballots and doubling the number of early voting days from 9 to 18. The early voting period extends from June 13 to June 21. The city Board of Elections has yet to confirm early voting sites, which it is required to make public 45 days before the election, and there is no information on its website.

The solution is one that the governor has already undertaken, Lerner argued. On April 9, Cuomo signed an executive order that expanded the criteria for requesting an absentee ballot. Voters who are either ill from coronavirus or fear contracting it at the polls can now apply for an absentee ballot.

The New York City Board of Elections is also getting ready to allow voters to for the first time apply for absentee ballots online, according to spokesperson Valerie Vazquez. “The Board is in the final stages of releasing not only an email address to allow voters to send in their application but also an inclusive, user friendly portal that will allow voters to submit their application electronically,” she said in a text message on Monday.

In the news conference led by Common Cause NY, Monica Bartley, community outreach organizer at The Center for Independence of the Disabled New York, pointed out that mailed ballots won’t be available in braille or large print, disenfranchising the visually-impaired. “It would be necessary for the state to provide accessible options for people with disabilities so that we can all vote and not be left out of the process,” she said.

Amy Torres, director of policy and advocacy at the Chinese-American Planning Council, warned against the “false choice between the health of voters and the health of our democracy.” She noted that immigrants with limited English proficiency could be accidentally disenfranchised, and called for “doubling down on the successful reforms like early voting, and expanding options like vote by mail so that our democracy is not only healthy during this time of crisis, but is stronger in the years ahead.”

Just as with immigrants, African-Americans could be particularly impacted in a full vote-by-mail system, said Lurie Favors, general counsel at the Center for Law and Social Justice at Medgar Evers College, CUNY. African-American communities have been disproportionately affected by the coronavirus, she pointed out, and would be hard-pressed to mobilize and educate voters about the changes to the election.

There were also operational concerns. A mail voting system would require the BOE to print and send out millions of pieces of mail, a herculean task for an agency often criticized for its inefficiency and that advocates say is underfunded for its mandate.

Mostly, the experts had questions that have yet to be answered by the governor’s office, but they broadly agreed that it’s too soon to implement voting by mail for the June primary. “Right now, in the middle of the pandemic, New Yorkers do not need to be experimenting with a complete overhaul of their elections against the advice of all experts,” Lerner said.

Torres added, “If advocates are left in the dark on this, it means that even more voters are left in the dark as well.”

The June 23 election day is now just under two months away, with early voting set to kick off even sooner.

The New York Republican Party also shared some of the aforementioned concerns about a potential vote-by-mail program this week, but also worried that it could lead to fraudulent voting, though there is little evidence of that from other states. Nick Langworthy, chair of the New York GOP, said in a statement that such an executive order would be “an illegal and unconstitutional political power grab that will severely undermine the integrity of our elections.”

“Throughout this pandemic, I have worked in good faith with the Governor to make necessary adjustments to our electoral system to protect the safety of New Yorkers, but this executive action crosses a red line,” he added, responding to the NY1 report of Cuomo’s impending action that has still not materialized. “I have been willing to support a system that allows for all New Yorkers to use the threat of coronavirus to vote by absentee ballot, but automatically mailing ballots without proper security measures in place most certainly invites fraud.”

Though he referred to “numerous cases” of problems in a vote-by-mail system, he did not cite any specific examples. He also said he had spoken with elections commissioners across the state who oppose the measure and say it is impossible to conduct a vote-by-mail election, but he did not name them.

Among the issues he noted were ballots arriving late or going to the wrong address, more than one ballot being delivered and bins of ballots that were never delivered – which was apparently the case in the recent Wisconsin primaries where ballots were found after the election at a USPS processing center – and so-called “ballot harvesting'' where an individual collects absentee ballots from several people and delivers them. Collecting a ballot from a voter is not illegal in New York, where someone can be designated for the task by a voter. The only recent example of ballot harvesting fraud was in the 2018 midterms in North Carolina, where it is illegal, and involved a Republican operative who used the tactic to help a Republican congressional candidate.

Langworthy’s concerns echo those of Republicans across the country and even President Donald Trump, who has questioned efforts by several states to expand voting by mail and said it should not be considered for his reelection bid. “Mail ballots are a very dangerous thing for this country, because they're cheaters. They're fraudulent in many cases,” Trump said at a White House briefing after the primary election in Wisconsin, which was held with in-person voting despite the risks from the pandemic, though he did not cite evidence. In March, when Democrats were seeking funding to expand absentee and mail ballots in the federal stimulus package, Trump indicated vehement opposition to it based on politics, rather than principle. “The things they had in there were crazy,” he said in a Fox & Friends interview. “They had things — levels of voting that, if you ever agreed to it, you’d never have a Republican elected in this country again.” Neither Trump nor Langworthy seemed to take note that members of the military have voted by mail since the Civil War.

Should Governor Cuomo actually sign an executive order to implement the program, Langworthy said his party would file suit. “The ‘never let a crisis go to waste’ mentality has permeated the Governor’s office and Cuomo is using this pandemic as a reason to expand his powers and force his political agenda through,” he said. “If he goes forward with this, we will be prepared to legally challenge it at every level.”

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

Read more by this writer.

Largely Absent from Cuomo's Coronavirus Briefings, Lieutenant Governor Hochul Charged with Western New York Role


briefing covid daily

Gov. Cuomo and Lt. Gov. Hochul (photo: Darren McGee, Governor's Office)


As Governor Andrew Cuomo garnered national attention while leading briefings on New York’s response to the novel coronavirus outbreak each day for well over a month, often from Albany and sometimes from Manhattan, one top state official was conspicuously absent: Lieutenant Governor Kathy Hochul.

Not only was the lieutenant governor not present for any of the governor’s first 40-plus daily coronavirus briefings, she was curiously never mentioned as part of the Cuomo administration’s emergency efforts, even as the governor brought several former top members of his team back into the fold to help out.

Though in recent weeks Hochul has been busily making the rounds on radio and television, giving updates on behalf of the Cuomo administration, she had not joined the governor and his top aides and confidants at one of the now-famous COVID-19 briefings until Tuesday, when Cuomo held one in Buffalo, not far from where Hochul resides.

As Hochul, one of just four statewide elected officials, has explained during some of her frequent media appearances and in an email exchange with Gotham Gazette, she has been designated to monitor conditions upstate, representing the administration in parts of New York far less impacted by the pandemic, which has hit New York City and its suburbs particularly hard. Hochul has been all over the airwaves -- mostly upstate but also at times downstate -- providing updates and getting out the administration’s message, informing New Yorkers on state efforts to contain the outbreak, attempting to clear up misunderstandings and reassure New Yorkers.

On Tuesday from the Roswell Park Cancer Institute, Hochul was seated directly, though with several feet of distance, to Cuomo’s left, and the governor heaped praise on his lieutenant, whom he called “my partner in state government,” and explained that she was going to spearhead the planning to ‘reopen’ western New York, which will happen when public health officials believe it is appropriate and the governor gives the go-ahead.

“We'll ask her to take charge of western New York, monitor the public health issues, make sure if there's a problem in terms of public health, we're marshalling all the resources from across the state to help western New York and also to start to work on the reimagining and reopening plan for western New York,” Cuomo said of Hochul, while also putting his first-term lieutenant governor, Robert Duffy, now the CEO of the Rochester Chamber of Commerce, in charge of the same for the Finger Lakes region. Over the course of Cuomo's initial 25-minute briefing, neither Hochul nor anyone else seated on the dais with the governor had a speaking role; and there were no questions directed at the lieutenant governor in the 12 minutes of media Q-and-A that followed.

On Tuesday in Buffalo, Cuomo and Hochul were joined by, among others, Jim Malatras, Cuomo’s former director of state operations, who left the administration to become president of SUNY Empire State College, but has returned to work with Cuomo on the coronavirus crisis. Not there on Tuesday, but typically at Cuomo’s briefings have been Secretary to the Governor Melissa DeRosa and Health Commissioner Dr. Howard Zucker. Several other aides and advisors, such as Gareth Rhodes, have been among those taking on new responsibilities and deeply involved in the state coronavirus response, and at times Cuomo’s briefings. Typically, Cuomo is flanked by DeRosa, Malatras, and Zucker.

Last week, Gotham Gazette inquired about Hochul’s role in the Cuomo administration's response to the pandemic, which has taken a greater toll in New York than anywhere else in the country.

“I’m Upstate between Buffalo and Albany focused on coronavirus efforts and response in close coordination with Governor Cuomo and his team,” Hochul wrote by email. “As you know, the situation with the coronavirus continues to change day-by-day and transparency is a priority, so I’m focused on communicating the most accurate and complete information, whether it's keeping New Yorkers updated through local media interviews or offering mental health tips through newer social media avenues like Instagram Live. I’m regularly in touch with Commissioners, senior staff and have numerous daily briefing calls with emergency operations command centers, county executives and local elected officials throughout the day to keep communication channels open.”

Hochul, a Democrat who briefly represented her home Erie County district in Congress, joined Cuomo’s ticket for his initial reelection in 2014, then the duo won her second term and his third in 2018. The lieutenant governor’s portfolio has previously included economic development and a variety of other issues, including a child care task force she’s currently co-chairing.

As COVID-19 has been ravaging New York, largely downstate and in New York City especially, Hochul has been hunkered down at her upstate home, while Cuomo has lived out of the governor’s mansion in Albany, holding briefings at the Capitol building and other locations around the state, such as several at the Javits Center in Manhattan, which has been home to a pop-up hospital created largely by the federal government at Cuomo’s request. The governor has focused a great deal of attention on New York City, which has been the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak in the United States.

Amid her frequent recent appearances, on April 15 Hochul went on 98PXY radio and said New York City has been so hard hit by coronavirus in part because of reliance on public transportation and the density of the downstate area, and it was to be expected.

“Everybody’s on top of each other,” she said. “Everyone wants to be in New York City, a lot of people want to be in New York City, it's a fascinating and fabulous place to live but it’s also the most congested place in the country, and that’s really why the numbers are so much higher there. We’re not on top of each other, we’re not in high rises with a thousand other people, We’re not on public transportation to the degree they are in New York City, that’s one of the reasons why we’re not seeing the numbers upstate.”

Hochul’s uptick in media appearances, several dozen over the course of a few weeks, also coincided with controversy that erupted after Cuomo on April 3 announced plans to issue an executive order that would allow him to redirect medical resources, such as ventilators, to areas of the state that need them, at the governor’s discretion. In essence, this meant from upstate to downstate, and sparked concern and criticism from some in various places across upstate, including western New York.

Many of Hochul’s radio appearances have focused on clearing up the details of the order and ensuring residents of upstate areas that they are not being raided by the state to help New York City and left vulnerable to the outbreak.

“He simply said that he was looking at an executive order which would authorize him to be able to take an assessment of where all the ventilators are, the needs of the hospitals in those communities, and also be able to redeploy if necessary. So he was just simply reserving the right to do this,” Hochul said on WBFO NPR Morning Edition with Jay Moran, on April 6. “No ventilators have left western York despite people trying to politicize this issue and trying to scare people. There's fear-mongering going on and people putting out all this information that there's been 50 confiscated in the middle of the night. All of that is false.”

She likened the order to what would happen if a bad snowstorm were to hit upstate and snow plows are sent from the downstate region to help out.

“It reminds me of a snowstorm scenario where Buffalo gets smacked,” Hochul said on A New Morning with Susan Rose and Brian Mazurowski on WBEN on April 6. “We could shut down for days, even weeks, people stranded...and boy are we glad when those utility trucks show up from Long Island and Westchester and New York City and people bring generators and national guard flowing into our communities to help us. And you know what? They don't say we need to stay downstate cause the snow might come here. It's not snowing yet...they come and help. And the governor shows up and I show up and that's what we're talking about. When there's a need, we'll be there to help because there is no way that we'll leave western New York unprotected.”

The controversy subsided some when Cuomo’s order was less dramatic than some had feared or made it out to be, and when the COVID-19 numbers started to look better than projected downstate, with hospitalizations and intubations somewhat stabilizing.

“We’re monitoring the numbers literally by the hour and how many new cases, people testing positive, how many hospitalizations and certainly the number of people that have been discharged from the hospital as well,” Hochul said on WBZA’s The Morning Buzz on April 6. She went on to discuss coronavirus-related fatalities, stressing that “the vast majority of which were in New York City,” and noted some positive trends in terms of the number of deaths dropping, albeit still at a high number, and “reduction in hospitalizations and the number of people in ICU. And so those are trends that we’ve been desperately looking for. And we finally started to see them. Actually to call it a trend may be premature, if we could see this go out over the next few days and be very positive.”

Even with some positive signs, the numbers remain quite high, and Hochul has spent significant energy warning people to not let the relatively good news reduce their commitment to staying at home and social distancing.

“There's still a lot of lives being lost,” she said while noting some “progress” and stressing that “the governor says this is all driven by science and data. We can't predict anything. But what also could be a scenario is you hit a plateau where you stay at this rate of still losing those high numbers. Even if they don't start getting higher, that's still a high number. But that could continue for a number of days. We don't know when it would start dropping. We can keep this centrally located downstate and deal with it there and that's where the need is the greatest and prevent it from spiking up and those numbers upstate. But this is where social responsibility is what's going to protect us.”

Along with the public health crisis, an economic crisis has unfolded, with mass job loss and New Yorkers filing for unemployment insurance in huge numbers, facing problems with the state Department of Labor’s website and being able to reach a representative on the phone.

Hochul has spent significant portions of her time on the airwaves reassuring New Yorkers that the state was very aware of the problem and taking steps to fix it. She says the bulk of the problem is capacity of the system, which has all of a sudden been experiencing millions of calls a day.

“We've hired Google to redo our websites and make it easier. We have people working from other agencies, hired over a thousand new people [at Department of Labor]. So I know there's frustration, which the governor said it's not acceptable and we're going to get this right,” Hochul explained on News 12 Bronx and Brooklyn, in one of her handful of recent downstate appearances. “And I know it's been a long way and it's hard to be patient because we're all under tremendous stress. But in the end, at the end of it all, be aware that your benefits are going to be retroactive to the first day that you needed them, not the day that you connect with the state agency.”

Hochul described the efforts to modernize the website as an area they’ve been “prioritizing more than ever” because it’s how they “can directly help New York families.”

With Cuomo extending his “New York on PAUSE” order to mid-May, protests have begun cropping up, in Albany and in Buffalo (and other places around the country), with protestors calling for a reopening of the economy. When asked about the protests on Spectrum News Buffalo, Hochul said she and the governor want to reopen the economy as much as everyone else, but it has to be done carefully and on a timetable.

“This is an opportunity for us to be unified, to stand together as Americans who are all having to encounter a global pandemic together at the same time. This isn’t a time to be divisive and have political winds blowing here,” Hochul said.

As she continues to have a focus on the economy given her past portfolio and is now taking on more of a focus regarding the idea of a western New York “reopening,” Hochul said that she has begun talking with various chambers of commerce across the state as the administration develops plans.

Reopening has to be done in a “thoughtful and responsible way,” she said.

Cuomo has also recently announced a coordinating council among seven northeastern states — New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island — to work together to come up with a regional plan to reopen the states, though he then said New York would start planning its own region-by-region framework within the state, tasking Hochul with the western New York region.

“The coordinating group - comprised of one health expert, one economic development expert and the respective Chief of Staff from each state -- will work together to develop a fully integrated regional framework to gradually lift the states' stay at home orders while minimizing the risk of increased spread of the virus,” a press release from Cuomo’s office said.

Though she is not one of the three New York members on the regional council, Hochul said she is also focused on the effort as the chair of the state’s Regional Economic Development Councils (REDC), a major Cuomo initiative that awards millions in local funding each year, and speaking with chambers across the State to add to the reopening plan for New York State.

“I'm already talking to our chambers and business leaders all across the state how we talked about a recovery ‘cause we're anxious to get that economy started again. But it's how long that's going to take and when that'll start all depends on whether or not people practice what we've been talking about,” Hochul said on WBEN. “Because every time you leave your house, you and your family and others are exposed to this and we're just asking for this level of sacrifice longer.”

According to Hochul and Cuomo, the key to reopening will be testing capacity.

“Testing is going to be key,” Cuomo said at his daily coronavirus briefing on April 13. “That's a new frontier for us, also. This state is probably the most aggressive state in the nation in actually getting the testing up. We test more than any other state. We test more than other countries. We test more than the other leading states combined in testing. But, that's still not enough. We have to do more.”

Two days later, Hochul was getting the message out. “A lot of it is going to be based on testing. If we could have broad based testing, we’ll know who already has this and those people, they would be able to get back to work and normal life. We want to start introducing those concepts and working with our neighboring states on a policy,” the lieutenant governor said on 98PXY on April 15.

Hochul told Gotham Gazette that opening would also require help from the federal government. Governor Cuomo “is also asking the federal government, in a bipartisan effort, for $500 billion in aid to states to help with our economic recovery,” Hochul said by email. “We need the federal government to step up and take action for the future of our economy. Much of the recovery will come with continued support for the Paycheck Protection Program, additional support for hospitals and healthcare. We will need significant investments to rebound from this unprecedented effort.”

Hochul said on 98PXY that by the time we develop a vaccination, that’s when we know for sure we can go back to normal life. So we don’t want to backslide before that and work to begin reopening the economy.

Hochul was set to make another eight public appearances on Wednesday, including six on radio or TV, one at The Ivy Network's Wise Women Zoom Conference and one at the North Country Chamber of Commerce town hall.

***
by Katie Kirker, Gotham Gazette

Read more by this writer.

Ben Max contributed to this article.



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