Council Member Jumaane Williams, the author (photo: William Alatriste)

Governor’s budget epitomizes the need to define what "progressive" means

The new state budget, like almost all budgets, has some beneficial things that should be celebrated. However, to call this budget “progressive” clearly means that in this era of Trump, the term is being stretched to the point of possibly having no meaning at all. And frankly, we should also examine what it means to be part of the "resistance."

The main example being touted is “Raise the Age,” which of course we should take time to celebrate and give credit where it’s due. It should also be put in perspective. This state was the second to last state to raise the age of adult criminal responsibility from 16 -- meaning 48 other states have been progressive on this years before us. So if this makes New York progressive, what were they? Additionally, what was just passed is a watered down version of what most advocates say would be most helpful.

Let’s also look at tuition-free college. Again, it sounds good when Governor Cuomo talks about it, and it is better than what we had -- but how many people does it impact? If you don’t finish your degree in four years, you’re not eligible, or you have to repay any scholarship money. This is unacceptable. For example, only 10.4 percent of first-time/full-time students from CUNY City College graduate on time.

The Excelsior Scholarship also doesn’t help the poorest students, who need the help the most. As we celebrate this win with pictures of Bernie Sanders, we must ask if this is really what he had in mind when he brought the issue to prominence last year.

Then there is 421-a, which has been euphemistically re-branded as the “Affordable New York” housing program. This is perhaps the single worst item in the state budget. The governor missed the mark completely and aligned himself more with Donald Trump, who helped create 421-a in the first place, than the New Yorkers in need of affordable housing.

First, the new program is completely unlinked with the renewal of rent regulations -- the only real leverage tenants had in extending rent stabilization laws along with the real estate tax break that is 421-a. Next, the revival of the 421-a tax abatement gives away billions to real estate developers without spurring true affordable housing. The new program is worse than the old one, which expired two years ago.

This tax break gives away a lot for very little. In essence, it takes away valuable resources from effective affordable housing strategies to instead line the pockets of wealthy developers, like the current president, who is one of the biggest recipients taking advantage of city taxpayers.

Over 10 years, this tax abatement will cost the city nearly a billion additional dollars in unrealized tax revenue, causing similar pain to the cuts we are facing from the president.

Adding insult to injury, the governor aligned with Senate Republicans and took away the city’s ability to do anything to shape the program -- an ability that existed in the previous version.

What’s worse still is that even after 421-a expired, new construction permits continued without pause, proving this tax abatement is an inexplicable, unnecessary billion-dollar gift to developers.

Let’s be clear, those touting this as a “progressive” state budget had the power to do all of this before the Trump Era, but chose not to. And even these measures are overly compromised, half-loafs of what they could and should be.

On a separate note, it’s unclear what benefit, if any, the Independent Democratic Conference (IDC) played through aligning with Senate Republicans. Their existence doesn’t seem to have been necessary in getting a weaker than requested Raise the Age in exchange for a thorough tax giveaway to developers. The Assembly and Senate Democrats could have done that deal on their own.

Credit is deserved to the Senate Democrats and particularly to Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie for any progress we do now have. With that said, they also must immediately begin work on strengthening Raise the Age, and go back to the drawing board with the failed new 421-a.

I don’t write any of this to say that there is nothing good in the state budget. But, my constituents and I expect more. New York City and New York State deserve better.

As an experienced community organizer, I am trained to celebrate the small victories along the way to the final goal. And yes, people who are pushed to do things they otherwise wouldn’t should be rewarded as well. That is part of the political game. But, it should be put in context.

We should see and acknowledge the differences between someone who has conviction to fight at all costs for progressive values and someone who wears whatever cloak is politically expedient.

The new state budget includes some good, even some historic things. But to tout it loudly as a “progressive” budget seems more on the expediency side than any true conviction. These false proclamations should make us question what the word “progressive” even means today. Are we allowing mediocrity in the name of the people, more for self-gain than public service?

I remember just a few years ago New York residents were too proud to let Rudy Giuliani get away with using New York to tout a vastly inflated record as a passport to the presidency. At this point, I hope that aligning with “progressive” actually ends up delivering what advocates truly want and residents desperately need. If not, I hope that people of conscience in New York, who kept Rudy in check, will have the same pride in 2020.

***
Jumaane Williams is a City Council member representing parts of Brooklyn. On Twitter @JumaaneWilliams.

(photo: Demetrius Freeman/Mayor's Office)

The NYPD released its new body-worn camera policy last week. For the first time ever, the department relied on public opinion to help guide that policy. With help from the Policing Project, a New York-based organization dedicated to bringing the public voice to policing policy, more than 25,000 New Yorkers and 50 community-based organizations gave their input.

Unfortunately, many of those New Yorkers were disappointed to see that their top recommendations were not accepted by the NYPD. But while we sympathize with the desire to see the NYPD adopt more of the public’s views – and while some of our own preferences diverged from the policy adopted by the NYPD – it’s important to recognize that the NYPD’s policy process was an important step in the right direction and offers significant lessons moving forward.

The public was clear in its views on how the cameras should be used.

For example, members of the public thought officers should not be able to view body camera footage before writing a report on a use-of-force incident. The public also thought a broad array of police interactions should be recorded. And, importantly, the public felt strongly that body camera footage should be more accessible.

The NYPD policy did not accept the public’s recommendations on those key issues.

However, it is important to separate out two issues here: the process and the results. Many New Yorkers may not like the results, but the process offers many guideposts for how to do public input correctly.

In general, we don’t really have a system for public input in policing policy. The only place where we have any form of public accountability in policing today is after something has already gone wrong. There, we have inspectors general and grand juries and civilian review boards. Even body cameras themselves are a form of back-end accountability. This system can help ensure that rules are followed, but it says nothing about what the rules should be in the first place.

The NYPD’s process on body camera protocols proves that democratic engagement on the front end of writing policing rules is both possible and desirable. The NYPD made a number of changes to its policy in response to public opinion, including requiring officers to notify members of the public when they are being recorded, and increasing how long it will retain video, from six months to one year.

Even where it did not follow public opinion, the NYPD responded thoughtfully and in great detail.

The Department should be commended for engaging in this effort. It shows that democratic process around policing is possible, and should become the norm.

But what about the fact that the NYPD ultimately did not follow public opinion on some critical issues? That raises hard questions about what form the public voice in policing should take. Here, there are no easy answers. The very idea of the public having any voice in policing rules is so new that we have no clear models for how to proceed.

Elsewhere in government, we have two very different models for obtaining public input into government decisions. Each gives us something in the way of outcomes.

Decisions made by legislatures tend to be quite responsive to public input. But legislative bodies also can be beholden to special interests, such as police unions. And it can be tough to get legislative bodies to even act in the first place. Look how long it took the City Council to do anything about stop and frisk. And one thing is for sure: legislative bodies never respond to public input in the thorough way the NYPD did here.

On the other hand, administrative agencies are not required to follow public input, even though they are required to obtain it. Their obligation is to make rational decisions, which includes offering reasons—that later, if necessary, can be evaluated by courts—to support the conclusions they come to. Agencies have to open themselves up to public opinion, and respond to it, but they don’t have to follow it. Agencies just have to have a basis for their decisions in fact, even if the public disagrees. Here, the NYPD acted more like an administrative body.

So, which way of incorporating public voice into policing is appropriate? Each system has its advantages and disadvantages. Neither will make everyone happy. For policing we may need a combination.

This process makes clear that it is better to get public input into policing than to have police departments simply do as they choose without consultation.

This process did not make everyone happy. But it was certainly much better than no process at all.

***
Barry Friedman is the Director and Founder of the Policing Project at NYU Law School. Maria Ponomarenko is the Deputy Director. They recently led the writing of Report to the NYPD Summarizing Public Feedback on its Proposed Body-Worn Camera Policy.

Gov. Cuomo (photo: Kevin P. Coughlin/Governor's Office)

Victory for middle class New Yorkers! The state budget finally passed and it includes a number of college affordability reforms for middle class students. Despite some of the shortfalls of these reforms, they are an exciting step forward in reinvesting in the state’s public university systems after years of structural disinvestment, flat financial aid, and tuition hikes.

These reforms must be treated as initial progress toward greater investment into SUNY and CUNY that will truly eliminate cost as a barrier to access and success.

The newly established Excelsior Scholarship will cover the remaining cost of tuition after SUNY or CUNY students have used their Tuition Assistance Program (TAP) and their federal Pell grant awards. Only full-time students who come from families with incomes of less than $125,000, who take 30 credits a year, and who graduate on-time will be eligible by the end of a three-year phase-in.

The budget also established a Part-Time Scholarship (PTS) that is available to community college students based on financial need who take more than six credits but less than 12 credits a semester. Students who qualify may receive an award up to $1,500 for up to four-consecutive semesters only, which would likely leave them without any aid to finish the second half of their degree.

The final deal also includes an idea originally proposed by Senate Republicans called Enhanced TAP (E-TAP), which is an award granted to residents attending private college in the state. Students with family incomes less than $125,000 attending non-profit, degree-granting institutions will receive $3,000 in additional state aid. If the student already receives TAP grants, E-TAP will cover any additional funding needed to meet, but not exceed, the full $3,000 allotment. If the student doesn’t receive TAP, E-TAP will cover the full amount.

Further, the same legislation makes it so the school cannot raise tuition for that student during their time of study and the school must match the award granted under E-TAP in an effort to ensure that an increase in state aid doesn’t reduce the institutional aid a student receives. The rules of the program make it so a student would be eligible for a total of $6,000 in E-TAP, TAP, and institutional aid. However, the program does give schools the opportunity to opt-out of E-TAP and simply offer their students regular TAP awards, should they qualify.

While Governor Cuomo and middle class families are celebrating this victory, there is still a great deal of work to do to make this initiative more inclusive, less penalizing, and more accessible to disadvantaged students who continue to struggle.

Under the new plan, for students who cannot take a 30 credit courseload every year, resident tuition at SUNY and CUNY will increase by $200 annually until 2021 while their TAP awards remain unchanged. And unfortunately, the state’s undocumented students are still excluded from receiving TAP, and by extension, any of the new reforms passed this year such as the Excelsior Scholarship, E-TAP, and the Part-Time Scholarship.

For the most disadvantaged, the news and widespread attention of offering free tuition may encourage more low-income students to consider college as an option -- and that’s a good thing. But we know that tuition is only one piece of the financial puzzle to get students into and through school, and for those students with fewer means to cover books, housing, food and more, the scholarship falls short.

For those students who already attend SUNY or CUNY tuition-free because of TAP and Pell, this scholarship does nothing to actually increase their financial aid. This is especially concerning considering that more than half of CUNY undergraduate students come from family incomes of less than $30,000, making them qualified for enough TAP and Pell awards to cover tuition and allowing for nearly 80 percent of students to graduate debt free. Further, recent research from Sara Goldrick Rab from The Wisconsin Hope Lab finds that 20 percent of community college students are hungry and 13 percent are homeless, further supporting greater financial aid for the most at-need students beyond only covering the cost of tuition.

One of the most damaging parts of the program passed in this state budget agreement includes a provision that will convert both the Excelsior Scholarship and Enhanced TAP dollars granted to students into loans should they leave the state after graduation.

Graduates are required to work and live in the state for the same amount of time they received these awards. This will negatively impact about 20 percent of SUNY students and does not account for graduates who leave to join the military, do community service, or have other extenuating circumstances. Instead of penalizing young adult middle class New Yorkers who were able to successfully graduate on-time and benefit from these programs, state leaders should focus on building a more inclusive economy and creating incentives that reward, not punish, Millennial New Yorkers who stay and work in the state.

Finally, we agree with Governor Cuomo when he speaks about dismally low graduation rates and we support him when he talks about needing to close the college attainment gaps. With a less than 6 percent two-year graduation rate at CUNY community colleges and a less than 15 percent graduation rate at CUNY four-year colleges, it’s clear there needs to be a change. This shouldn’t be surprising when considering that more than 80 percent of incoming CUNY students require some type of remedial coursework. But, eliminating tuition and reducing cost as a barrier to access is only half of the equation to increasing graduation rates, especially among those who are the most academically and economically disadvantaged.

We need to address the above shortfalls of the newly enacted college affordability reforms and strengthen the quality and capacity of SUNY and CUNY to better graduate students on time. This includes greater investment to hire more full-time faculty, dramatically bring to scale proven opportunity programs and supports, and offer need-based financial aid to cover non-tuition related costs.

***
Kevin Stump is Northeast Director of Young Invincibles. On Twitter @KevinStump & @YoungInvincible.

(Photo by Dineshraj Goomany)

After nearly three years of grappling with contaminated drinking water, the citizens of Flint, Michigan finally obtained some relief as a federal court approved a settlement mandating replacement of lead pipes. 

As we mark Public Health Week in New York, we must confront the sobering need to “get the lead out” here as well.

Lead is a potent neurotoxin. It is particularly damaging to children, who absorb as much as 90 percent more lead into their bodies than adults. Once ingested, lead flows from the blood to the brain, kidneys, and bones. Children’s organs and bones are immature and more vulnerable than adults’; they also have an incomplete blood-brain barrier.

We have known for some time that high levels of lead can cause severe health impacts – including anemia, kidney disease, abnormal brain function and even death. Yet the medical science now confirms that even low levels of lead can cause permanent damage to our children.

Over the past two years, the tragedy of Flint has stunned the nation -- we watched the drinking water of an entire city become contaminated with lead. 

Now we know this toxic threat extends well beyond Flint - to communities right here in New York. In fact, test results show that lead is even contaminating drinking water in schools and pre-schools, flowing from thousands of fountains and faucets where our kids drink water every day. 

As more schools test their water in New York, they are finding lead. In the latest round of testing in New York City, reports show nine times as many water sources tested above the EPA’s “action level” of 15 parts per billion (ppb) compared to tests conducted just a year ago.

Such confirmed cases of lead-laced water are likely just the tip of the iceberg. Often, we only hear about “elevated” results – i.e., those showing more than 15 ppb of lead in the water. However, there is no safe level of lead.

Moreover, even properly done testing often fails to detect lead in water. Mark Edwards, the Virginia Tech expert who helped Flint residents uncover their tragedy, has even compared lead testing to Russian Roulette. 

The reason for this pervasive problem is simple: all too often, the water delivery systems in our homes and schools are lined with lead – from the pipes to the plumbing and fixtures. In some cases, the service line, which brings water from the main pipe in the street into a home or school – is entirely made of lead. 

So instead of waiting for more tests to confirm this toxin at the tap, we should take a more preventative approach, one that truly prioritizes children's health and safety.

The common-sense solution is to remove lead from pipes, plumbing, and fixtures. And until we’re sure that’s 100 percent done, we can protect our children with filters certified to remove lead, at every tap used for drinking or cooking.

To be sure, undoing this toxic legacy throughout all of our communities will take time. But the first place for us to start is with our schools and daycares, and the other places where our children go each day to learn and play.

Fortunately, Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature have finalized a $2.5 billion Clean Water Infrastructure Act as part of the budget for the new fiscal year. This is a huge boost to efforts to protect drinking water at its source.

However, in February, state Comptroller Tom DiNapoli released a report that places the state's drinking water infrastructure needs at $40 billion over the next 20 years. Such high estimates make it clear that steady and consistent future funding will be required as well.

As our nation rushed through more than a century of unprecedented economic growth, we allowed toxic health threats like lead to become embedded into the fabric our lives. We allowed manufacturers to put this potent neurotoxin in our paint, gasoline, and many other products.

For decades, public health officials have been working to undo the damage.  Banning lead in gasoline immediately removed a major source of toxic air pollution. Barring lead in paint stopped a major threat to children’s health from becoming even worse, but we are still cleaning up the damage from millions of homes with lead paint, as well as related lead in dust and soil. 

Yet until Flint, few of us were thinking about lead in the pipes and plumbing that bring drinking water right to our faucets. Now we know, and now we must act.  

For the sake of our children’s health, it’s time to get the lead out here in New York.

***
Heather Leibowitz, Esq. is the Director of Environment New York, a statewide advocacy organization. On Twitter @EnvNY.

David Baiz, right, with students

Eight years ago, I had a front-row seat at the birth of a new small school in East Harlem. Global Technology Preparatory was crafted by its founding teachers over Sunday brunches at the home of Jacqueline Pryce-Harvey, who would go on to become the school’s assistant principal.

Featuring, among other things, a one-to-one laptop program for its poor students and an after-school program—the result of a partnership with Citizens Schools, a Boston-based nonprofit—Global Tech, as it is known, came to be heralded as one of a slew of innovative Bloomberg-era schools.

By most measures, Global Tech is a school that works. During the Bloomberg years, Global Tech got mostly “A’s” on its school report cards. Under the school’s most recent “quality snapshot,” which measures schools on seven characteristics, Global Tech received a “good” on five, and an “excellent” on two—trust and leadership. Parents and teachers rave about the school. And next school year, it was to become a “host school” in schools Chancellor Carmen Farina’s signature Learning Partners Program, which is “designed to promote interschool collaborative learning and leverage the rich reservoir of expertise that already resides within our school communities,” according to the education department website.

I’ve written before about Global Tech, a Title 1 school with a special needs population that, historically, has topped 35 percent of the student body—most recently about its first class of students, many of whom were getting ready to head to college. I’ve also written about David Baiz, the award-winning teacher who was handpicked by Global Tech’s founding principal to become her successor.

Now Alexandra Estrella, the District 4 superintendent, has shown Baiz the door in what is expected, by most educators who know both Global Tech and the district, to mark the beginning of the end for the school. Last week, the staff sat stunned and teary-eyed, when Baiz announced at the weekly staff meeting that he would not be returning after spring break.

“One thing I've been really proud of—I feel like we've created something special in East Harlem,” Baiz told his staff. “Not every school is like this, in New York City, in East Harlem, in tough neighborhoods. You should be very proud.”

But, in interviews with half-a-dozen current and former staff members, several used the word “dead” or “dying” to describe what they see happening to the school.

“There was so much magic here; the way people worked together, how hard they worked,” said one staff member who did not want to be identified and caught herself speaking about the school in the past tense. “There is already tremendous upheaval in the lives of our kids who desperately need stability,” she added, noting that she expects more uncertainty in the coming months.

“The real tragedy of this is that David was the right guy at the right time,” notes Nick Siewert, a senior educational consultant with Teaching Matters who has worked with the school for several years. Baiz was committed to the school's social-justice mission, adds Siewert, but he is also “a systems-and-structures guy” who believes it is important for Global Tech and its students to do well by “measurable results.” Among other things, Baiz introduced a system of interim assessments designed to help teacher teams analyze specific student weaknesses and improve their practice.

One of the first schools in the Bloomberg-era iZone—in fact one of the few to survive the early years of that experiment—Global Tech also traces its lineage to the era of collaboration and teacher-leaders that flourished in District 4 under Tony Alvarado and Debbie Meier, beginning in the 1970s, and was, to a limited degree, revived under Bloomberg.

That legacy of grassroots leadership and collaboration, which was intended to foster creativity and innovation, is now widely seen as endangered—not just at Global Tech, but throughout the city. “This is a successful school; and yet, this is the kind of talent the DOE doesn’t want to retain?” said Chrystina Russell, the former principal referring wryly of Baiz’s ouster. “Is there no cause for pause?”

Indeed, Global Tech may turn out to be among the first Bloomberg-era small schools to be dismantled by the de Blasio-Farina administration. Those close to the school see Global Tech as a victim of an expanding bureaucracy where “who you know matters more than what you know.” Farina, the schools chancellor, has said she plans to merge dozens of small schools, arguing that mergers will create economies of scale and allow schools to offer more programs.

However, Global Tech had already punched above its weight thanks to a slew of partnerships. In addition to Citizen Schools afterschool offerings, under Baiz, the program’s apprentice teachers have offered an extra daily guided-reading program during the school day for every child. Partnerships with Cornell Tech and Google have helped Global Tech develop a course in software coding. For the second year, Global Tech is sending students to Bridge to Enter Advanced Math, a residential college-based summer program for seventh-graders. And following the standardized-testing season each spring, the school’s challenge-based learning modules allow students to work on everything from fashion design to a theatrical production.

Yet, Global Tech has known for nearly two years that its days might be numbered. Soon after Baiz become principal, in 2013, he learned that the superintendent was considering merging Global Tech, which has never had more than about 175 students, with P.S. 7, the K-8 school that shares its building. Russell and other friends of Global Tech within the education department urged Baiz to fight for the school; in what proved a short-lived victory, the principal of P.S. 7 moved to a job at DOE headquarters, and Estrella tapped Pryce-Harvey, Global Tech’s assistant principal and Baiz’s friend, to be the interim-acting principal.

Then, last summer, Baiz learned that Estrella had turned down his tenure application; under education department rules, there was a good chance that he would lose his principalship. A few months later she overruled his tenure recommendation for a respected Global Tech teacher—a Math for America master teacher for science who also holds a special-education certification.

Getting rid of Baiz appears to be a first step in consolidating the two schools in the East 120th Street building they share, under a principal hand-picked by Estrella. Pryce-Harvey will retire from P.S. 7 this year; her successor has already been chosen. While Estrella urged Baiz to leave early, assuring him that she had selected a successor for Global Tech, it turns out that she is moving one of her lieutenants, Ellen Johnson Torres, a teacher evaluation and development coach, into the job temporarily—another sign, education sources say, that the school will be merged with P.S. 7.

Estrella’s office referred interview requests to the education department, which did not respond to a phone message.

Despite the turmoil, several teachers at the school, which is also known for low teacher turnover—not a single teacher left last year—are clearly reluctant to leave. “I love these kids and I love East Harlem,” said Sage Hunter, the science teacher whose tenure application was turned down, adding that she wants to see her seventh grade students through to next year’s graduation. Kayla Hamilton, who started out as a Citizen Schools apprentice teacher seven years ago, said, “I’m going to be open-minded. As long as they keep our kids number one, I’m OK. But if I feel I can’t do what’s best for our students...”

Several other teachers, though, are updating their resumes. Thanks to Estrella’s decision to push Baiz out early, they have the entire upcoming so-called open-market period to look for new jobs within the department.

The one thing no one is worrying about is Baiz’s future. Last month, Baiz was accepted into Harvard University’s Doctor of Education Program, perhaps the most prestigious and selective program for educators in the country.

“He’s good enough for Harvard, but not for East Harlem,” one Global Tech teacher said of Baiz.

***
Andrea Gabor is the Bloomberg Professor of Business Journalism at Baruch College/CUNY and is working on a new book on education reform. On Twitter @aagabor.

Climate change is a serious threat to New York. With so much of the state’s population, infrastructure and economic activity crammed into the coastal communities of the New York metropolitan area, sea level rise and increasingly intense hurricane seasons spell certain disaster in the long term.

In light of this, I’m sure that I share the concerns of many New Yorkers in expressing my disgust with President Trump’s executive action aimed at dismantling Obama-era climate regulations. That’s why it’s more important than ever to take action at the state level to combat this growing threat.

New York has already developed an ambitious Clean Energy Standard with a “50 by 30” goal of generating at least 50% of New York State's electricity from renewable energy sources by 2030, and reducing carbon emissions by 40% by that same year. These are important efforts that should be undertaken transparently and with the full cooperation of both government and the general public.

Sadly, that has not been the case. Last month, the Assembly Committee on Corporations, Authorities and Commissions, which I chair, held a joint hearing with the Committees on Energy, Consumer Affairs and Protection, and Environmental Conservation to examine state plans around nuclear power plants and utility costs for New Yorkers.

Specifically, our hearing was intended to provide New York ratepayers with the opportunity to learn more about the state’s plan to offer Zero-Emissions Credits (ZECs) to upstate nuclear power plants and the program’s potential impact on utility costs. We invited the Public Service Commission (PSC) to testify about its controversial plan to provide ZECs. However, by failing to even appear before the committees, PSC officials continue to keep ratepayers in the dark on some of the program’s most pressing and questionable aspects.

The PSC even added insult to injury by sending a letter to me and my three fellow committee chairs giving conflicting reasons for its absence. In its letter, the PSC accuses us of not giving them sufficient notice for the hearing, while simultaneously blaming pending lawsuits brought by environmental groups against the Clean Energy Standard.

This is exactly the kind of half-baked reasoning we’ve seen recently from our federal government: blame as many groups and individuals as possible and see what sticks. The simple fact is that New Yorkers deserve transparency on such a vital issue, and yet the PSC is offering us just the opposite.

The Trump comparisons don’t end there. The plan would also mandate companies under the PSC’s jurisdiction to purchase these credits to subsidize four unprofitable upstate nuclear plants, all owned by the Exelon Corporation. The cost to ratepayers is estimated to total as much as $7.6 billion over the next 12 years. This is corporate welfare, pure and simple, with downstate ratepayers footing 60% of the bill and getting zero in economic benefit. The President would be proud.

My colleagues and I continue to demand that the PSC testify on these matters, and we’re prepared to fight until we get answers to our questions: How were these plants determined to need the subsidies? What are the potential taxpayer-funded profits for this private corporation? New York ratepayers deserve to know.

It's time we shine a light on our state’s electrical network, and ensure that the term “green energy” applies to the environmental impact for our state, not the economic impact to a company’s bottom line.

***
Assembly Member Jeffrey Dinowitz (D – Bronx) Chairs the Assembly Committee on Corporations, Authorities and Commissions. On Twitter @JeffreyDinowitz.

Mayor de Blasio on Rikers Island (photo: Mayor's Office)

Mayor de Blasio's announcement that the city intends to close Rikers Island jails in 10 years has met a mainly celebratory response, even from seasoned criminal justice reformers. We advise that they, after years of good work in exposing the debilitating and sometimes brutal conditions in the Rikers jails, take a deep breath and apply a critical eye.

The mayor's broad plan seems at least in part based on the recommendations of a blue-ribbon commission chaired by former New York State Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman, and will include replacing the facilities on Rikers with small jails built in different parts of the city. The Lippman Commission pegged the estimated cost at $10.6 billion, with annual cost savings then to follow. De Blasio, who has strayed away from details so far, is simply promising the outcome of closed jail complexes on Rikers and at least a couple of new jails elsewhere.

While de Blasio may see this move as good politics in an election year when he wants to shore up his liberal base, it is bad policy. Here's why:

*The 10-year goal -- far off in any context, but in politics, a lifetime -- is hardly a serious aspirational target, especially when de Blasio, even if he wins re-election, will have been out of office for years by the time Rikers would be slated for closure. The next mayor will face the large bulk of the untoward financial or bureaucratic or political consequences of the proposal.

*Any plan to close Rikers that includes the construction of new jails is a substantive mistake. Based on the recent history of municipal capital projects here in New York, we can expect that it will take longer to construct the new jails than currently thought and that it will cost even more than than the $10.6 billion projected.

*There's no reason even to be certain that conditions of confinement will improve significantly since the new facilities will operate with the same correction officers and jail culture that, in effect, contribute directly to the deplorable environment on Rikers today. Akeem Browder, the brother of Kalief Browder, whose suicide after being locked up on Rikers for three years without a trial helped spur the movement to shutter the the jails there, said: "It wasn't the walls or the conditions at Rikers that killed Kalief. It was the human beings behind the walls that abused and ultimately drove him to commit suicide."

*If city leaders choose to, they could take meaningful steps to reduce our incarcerated population even more significantly than planned, close Rikers without building new jails and house the remaining incarcerated population in the city's other existing jails.

*The most direct way of reducing the incarcerated population is by addressing the front end of the problem, namely by cutting down the number of people the city locks up in the first place for no good public safety or justice purpose. But that would mean directing the NYPD to abandon "broken windows" policing, which is the single most significant public practice factor driving the unnecessary confinement of people on Rikers, people who are not dangerous or predatory or even criminal. We know, however, that the mayor -- and his political allies -- have embraced such tactics, so there's no possibility that he'll take this critical step.

Replacing Rikers with new jails sited in different neighborhoods around the city will do next to nothing to end the abusive and discriminatory practices of our criminal justice system. The NYPD will continue to arrest and district attorneys will continue to prosecute the same people, mainly low-income New Yorkers of color, and, in effect, continue to lock up the most politically vulnerable people in our city even when all they have done is engage in innocuous activities that have been virtually decriminalized in well-off white neighborhoods.

De Blasio pulled off a similar policy flim-flam when he, along with former Police Commissioner Bill Bratton, oversaw a dramatic drop in the NYPD's use of the discredited stop-and-frisk tactic. Problem is that, under the leadership of these two men, the NYPD did not change its fundamental approach to law enforcement, namely abusive and discriminatory "broken windows" policing.

Moreover, the city could make much better use of $10.6 billion than to construct more jails. For example, research, to say nothing of common sense, tells us that small class size improves the academic outcomes for all students across racial and class lines, yet the city has no plans to promote smaller classes in our public schools, probably because of funding and space considerations.

Policymakers could also allocate the funds toward one of the Big Apple's most urgent needs, building and providing new housing that is truly affordable for our city's most low-income households. Unlike new jails, such measures would make significant progress toward improving the lives and well-being of the New Yorkers residing in the communities most often targeted by the city's policing and incarceration policies.

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Robert Gangi is the Director of the Police Reform Organizing Project, or PROP, and a Democratic candidate for Mayor. On Twitter @PROPNYC.

Council Member Dan Garodnick, the author (photo: William Alatriste)

For decades, the New York City Police Department has had an early intervention system to identify officers prone to violence, based on their discipline and complaint history. Yet through leaks last month, we learned that the officers who killed Eric Garner and Ramarley Graham had extensive records of complaints against them. Despite so many documented problems, the officers remained in a position to harm the very people they were sworn to protect. In these cases, the early intervention system did not do its job.

We must do better and hold the NYPD more accountable for ensuring that its officers and the public are receiving all the benefits of a robust early intervention system. Several city agencies, from the Law Department to the Civilian Complaint Review Board (CCRB), oversee the NYPD to some extent. Each of them should have complete access to the information that exists on police misconduct -- but today they do not. Officers with unusually high rates of alleged misconduct should be well known not only to the police department but also to all the entities that do oversight.

To accomplish this, I have written a bill that would require the Police Department, the Law Department, the Comptroller, the CCRB, and the Inspector General for the NYPD to share with each other information regarding civil actions, complaints, and other data points relating to allegations of police misconduct by officers.

Such information-sharing is key. In the absence of reliable and consistent access to this information, these oversight entities cannot properly discharge their responsibilities. Ultimately, an early intervention system that fails to intervene is not much of a system at all.

And we desperately need that system to work. Studies have found that a very small percentage of officers are responsible for the overwhelming majority of problematic interactions with civilians. Identifying those officers, and correcting their behavior or removing them from interaction with the public, would go a long way to rooting out the problem of excessive use of force by the police.

More eyes on police misconduct will mean greater accountability for the NYPD’s early intervention system. With a better system, we could ensure that the NYPD acts faster to address festering issues, and to protect the public. We would also ensure that our many talented and capable police officers do not have to be partnered with people who are going to put anyone’s life in danger.

We could also save the city a lot of money. In Fiscal Year 2016, New York City paid out $228 million in settling and paying out police misconduct judgments. Effective interventions to remove or retrain the few officers who are responsible for the most problems would reduce the city’s exposure to litigation and consequently reduce the costs associated with police misconduct.

Most importantly, this legislation could prevent tragedy. If a better information sharing system is in place, the NYPD will have to be more responsive to addressing misconduct of officers with histories of complaints. In the tragic case of Eric Garner, the NYPD knew Officer Daniel Pantaleo’s history, but did not take sufficient steps to address the underlying issues. In Pantaleo's previous disciplinary proceedings, the NYPD failed to follow the CCRB's recommendations for punishment. Further, they allowed him to continue to work on the street. If other oversight agencies also knew of the complaints and the recommended consequences, there might have been more pressure on the NYPD to heed these warning signs and work to prevent future incidents.

Mayor de Blasio and Commissioner O’Neill have made significant progress in bridging divides between communities and police. They have an opportunity to continue this progress by supporting this bill, which will be the subject of a public hearing in front of the City Council’s Public Safety Committee on Thursday, a hearing chaired by bill co-sponsor Vanessa Gibson. If we want to better protect civil liberties and to better identify officers that have a history of violence, let’s give all the oversight bodies the tools they need to conduct real analysis. It very well may save lives.

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Daniel Garodnick has represented the fourth district in the New York City Council since 2006, and chairs the Economic Development Committee. On Twitter @DanGarodnick.

(photo: The Governor's Office)

To the Editor:

I am the author of one of the books referred to in Robert Cherry’s March 28, 2017 opinion piece, Choosing Post-Prison Reentry Programs That Work. The title of my book, Liberating Minds: The Case for College in Prison (The New Press), was not indicated in the essay and I wonder if Mr. Cherry read the book, even though he wrote an essay criticizing it. All his comments were based on a favorable, but not fully accurate essay that appeared in the New York Review of Books on February 23.

Mr. Cherry claimed Liberating Minds “argued against vocational” programs in prison. While I did laud the Bard Prison Initiative (with which I am affiliated), it is not the case that I “argued against” vocational education. Rather I endorsed programs of many different kinds so long as they are of high quality.

Unfortunately, too many vocational programs teach job-specific skills rather than generic skills of logic and reasoning, which will equip one over a lifetime for a rapidly changing job market. I was, and am, critical of such programs, but not of vocational education generally. Endorsing high quality in all forms of higher education is in no way a condemnation of vocational education, or an endorsement of the liberal arts. It is to call for standards that promote learning to learn and therefore ensure that an education has lasting benefit.

College-in-prison and reentry programs are important topics for discussion, but not when the central issues are clouded by inaccuracies. Your readers need to learn how and why such programs are a cost-effective investment that benefits everyone; they do not need to be distracted by a false debate about liberal versus vocational education.

Sincerely,
Ellen Condliffe Lagemann, Levy Institute Research Professor, Bard College, and Distinguished Fellow, Bard Prison Initiative

And in response to this letter, Professor Cherry writes:

I criticized the reviewer (from the New York Review of Books) for arguing against occupational programs not the books’ authors. The author now reinforces my assertion since she too rejects all certificate programs because they “teach job-specific skills rather than generic skills of logic and reasoning ...” Most importantly, she chastises me for creating “a false debate about liberal versus vocational education.” It is not I who run reentry programs that exclude certificate programs from the options supported for those with a high school equivalence degree. I am simply responding to these actions that adversely affect many of the previously incarcerated.

For the first time in history, there are more Latino voters in New York City than African Americans. In fact, Latinos now account for 23% (977,514) of all registered voters in NYC (4,281,946) and they are a quarter (735,641) of all registered Democrats (2,942,337), according to data from Prime New York’s voter analysis.

As the largest ethnic group in the city – and the entire United States – the Latino presence in New York is palpable: from the store-front taquerias and cuchifritos, to the salsa and merengue beat in the streets, to the baseball and soccer stars that dominate our airwaves.

This presence has also been felt electorally, but, until now, the Latino voting explosion has not increased their political representation. In fact, Latino-majority districts are now under direct threat from the drawing of specific districts, and the gentrification of traditionally Latino neighborhoods such as El Barrio (East Harlem) and Loisaida (the Lower East Side).

In Loisaida, the 2nd Council District has been represented by a Latino/a for almost thirty years. Though currently represented by Rosie Mendez, real estate development and gentrification has created a spike of younger white voters – who now outnumber Latinos by over 12,000 registered voters.

Other city districts do not face this direct threat to Latino political representation, but if the current demographic dynamics continue, it will become a widening reality.

Districts that have experienced a drastic shift include the 38th Council District, currently represented by Carlos Menchaca. On a larger scale the 7th Congressional District, which contains some of the 38th Council District, is showing this same influx of younger white voters, and many of them are not familiar with the incumbent Rep. Nydia Velazquez.

In spite of these electoral changes, the impact of Latinos cannot be ignored by future candidates, incumbents, or anyone. Some recent elections make this point, and very dramatically.

The last time a Latino topped the ticket in a municipal election was in 2005, when Fernando Ferrer won the mayoral Democratic primary. In that election, Latinos already constituted a quarter of the entire Democratic electorate, and over 90,000 Latinos voted in the primary. In 2013, the year in which Mayor de Blasio won his election, we saw a decline in the percentage of Latinos voting, but an actual increase in the actual number of Latinos who turned out. The increase totaled over 20,000 new voters, for a total of over 111,000 Latino votes in 2013. This increase occurred despite the absence of any Latino citywide candidate in that year. (Data based on Prime New York data and my own analysis.)

Current efforts to register more Latinos to vote and the rise of younger and active Latino community leaders will undoubtedly lead to greater Latino voter participation. My own statistical modeling and data analysis shows as many as 40,000 additional Latinos potentially voting in the upcoming 2017 New York City primary. Any candidate who ignores this powerhouse voting bloc – from the mayor on down – will do so at their peril.

In 2017 every candidate must be aware of, and sensitive to, the issues that affect Latinos in New York. Those issues can no longer be taken for granted. As a dominant citywide voting bloc, Latinos must be placed front and center in any policy or electoral agenda.

The recognition of Latino issues is not merely ethical. It is also good politics, because along with their growing electoral power, Latinos are developing a memory. They will remember who has taken them seriously, and who has not. Every elected official in New York, every current and future politician, should remember this fact.

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Eli Valentin is a Democratic consultant and pastor of the Iglesia Evangelica Bautista in New York City. He is a frequent political analyst on Univision and NY1’s Inside City Hall. On Twitter @EliValentinNY.