A NYCHA building entrance (photo via NYCHA on flickr)

Protests recently broke out in response to the sentencing of former police officer Peter Liang to five years of community service for the killing of Akai Gurley. Officer Liang’s criminal behavior in a stairwell in Brooklyn’s Pink Houses might have been less professional than some of his more experienced peers, but he was hardly an extreme outlier. He wasn’t even the first officer to shoot a totally innocent person by mistake during a vertical patrol. In 1994, thirteen-year-old Nicholas Heyward Jr. was killed by police on the roof of his building in Brooklyn’s Gowanus Houses while playing with friends on the roof. The officer claimed he was startled by Hayward when he opened the door to the roof.

In order to really reduce the chances of these kinds of violent encounters we are going to have to make changes that go far beyond incarcerating one or two officers or changing the way training is conducted. One way to start would be for the City to take broad responsibility for the social and physical conditions that led to this tragic encounter.

The problems in Pink Houses and many other public housing complexes run much deeper than one poorly trained rookie police officer. There has been widespread acknowledgement that the physical upkeep of the building played a role in Gurley’s death. The only reason Gurley was using the stairs was because the elevators weren’t working properly. There was also a lack of decent lighting that at the very least played an indirect role in this tragedy because it produced a climate of fear that contributed to Liang’s decision to patrol with his finger on the trigger.

As I pointed out recently in the New York Times, the City needs to stop using the Broken Windows theory to justify aggressive and invasive over-policing of communities of color and instead fix some actual broken windows. For too long when communities complain about not feeling safe, the City’s only response is to send in more armed police. These communities don’t need more criminalization, they need real services to improve the quality of their lives.

In July of 2014, Mayor de Blasio announced the creation of the Mayor’s Action Plan for Neighborhood Safety, in response to an uptick in crime in public housing. The plan called for providing much needed maintenance funds to NYCHA as well as some improvements in security technology such as better locks, security cameras, and exterior lighting. There was also a small amount of money for some short term funding for summer youth programs. But, the centerpiece of the program was assigning 700 more police to public housing.

Why hasn’t the City instead used some of the millions of dollars it has spent on increasing the number of police and enhancing security technology to hire doormen for these buildings? Yes, doormen.

One of the major factors contributing to insecurity in public housing is lack of adequate control over building entry. People routinely hold the doors open for others or buzz in people they don’t know. Even more shocking is the routine way in which the locking mechanisms and intercom systems simply aren’t working. A doorman working on the building would be able to control entry and monitor conditions in a building’s lobby and other public spaces.

With doormen, there would be a major reduction of exactly the kinds of low-level quality-of-life concerns that motivate the vast majority of resident complaints such as trash, noise, broken lights, people hanging out in the lobby, and non-working elevators. Right away there would be a huge drop in the number of arrests for trespassing, something the NYPD has been heavily criticized for in the past. Over and over again people tell stories of being erroneously arrested or ticketed for trespassing while legitimately visiting a friend or relative. In a number of cases people who actually live in the building have been subjected to this treatment.  

If these buildings had doormen, there wouldn’t be a need for vertical patrols by the police and the dangerous encounters that go along with these patrols.

A doorman policy would also dramatically reduce the numerous arrests and summonses police give out in public housing buildings for a host of minor violations that could be avoided by having someone in charge of “keeping the peace.” In cases where the police are called, the doorman would be able to assist them by pointing out those that belong in the building and those that don’t. A doorman would also quickly learn about suspicious activity such as constant late-night visitors to a particular apartment that might indicate drug dealing or other problematic activities.

Putting in professional doormen would cost the Housing Authority money. But it might also save the city a significant amount of money. Right now the city spends hundreds of millions of dollar on armed Housing Bureau police. A system could be put in place where we incrementally shift resources from policing to civilian doormen in an effort to find a better balance between providing aggressive policing and much needed civilian services.

Some may say that government shouldn’t be providing amenities to poor people that many middle and working class families can’t afford. This is an understandable argument given the exploding cost of living for many. But the reality is that when crime and disorder go unchecked in public housing we all end up paying the price in the form increased expenditures for police, jails, and emergency rooms. Public Housing should be a model of housing for poor and working class New Yorkers, not another burden for those already struggling.

***
Alex S. Vitale is associate professor of sociology at Brooklyn College and author of City of Disorder: How the Quality of Life Campaign Transformed New York Politics. He is on Twitter @avitale.

Back in the early 1990s, there was a bar association forum devoted to the nascent and growing problem-solving court movement. After I raised some questions about the “we’re all in this together” premise of the courts, one of the advocates pointedly asked me, “Do you really believe that the adversarial Criminal Court is working?” “I couldn’t say,” I replied. “I’ve yet to see an adversarial court.” That remains the case today.

Even though the nation’s Criminal Courts since their inception have been described as assembly lines processing defendants through quick and dirty guilty pleas, there were few efforts at meaningful reform until the 1990s and the problem-solving court movement. What started with the development of a few local community courts soon expanded to a dizzying array of specialty courts and the problem-solving court industrial complex. Presently, across the country there are more than 4,000 community courts, domestic violence courts, fathering courts, youth courts, drug courts, mental health courts, sex offense courts, driving while intoxicated courts, human trafficking courts, and more.

New York State has long been at the problem-solving court vanguard and is home to an unprecedented 141 drug courts and just the other day unveiled a new Veterans’ Court. And yet, as each new boutique court sprouts up, one court remains noticeably absent – an adversarial justice court where police behavior is scrutinized and the prosecution is mandated to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.

Supporters of problem-solving courts maintain that the courts grew out of the futility and revolving door nature of the Criminal Court and a desire to deal with the causes that brought the accused to the courthouse. The idea is to use the occasion of arrest as a way into addressing, if not solving, defendants’ problems. Owing to the scant historical attention paid to poverty, substandard housing, unemployment, and the cumulative impact of institutional racism, many defendants do have a host of problems. Yet rather than try and confront decades of neglect and devise a meaningful social safety net, those in control began to see the Criminal Court as the repository for all these problems. Ironically, the present reality of scarce resources for serious problems may well have created a place for problem-solving courts.

Although the Criminal Court often does cycle the same people in and out of its doors, that is hardly its only, or most serious, deficiency. Over 30 years ago, a scathing report from the New York City Bar Association pointed to the lack of hearings and trials and questioned whether the Criminal Court was even appropriately called a “court.”

As problem-solving courts now dot the judicial landscape the number of hearings and trials has actually decreased. As one commentator put it, by focusing on early intervention and treatment, problem-solving courts fast forward to sentence, jumping over, if not ignoring, the constitutionality of the arrest or questions of guilt or innocence. As even the Supreme Court acknowledged recently, American criminal justice is a system of guilty pleas.

The lack of adversarial testing of the charges is not just an academic concern. Every study of the consumer perspective – the accused’s point of view – has found that the defendants’ greatest objection to the process is the lack of their day in court; that they had no opportunity to be heard or to question their accusers. This is for many defendants the very problem they would like the court to solve. In fact, scholars argue that defendants afforded their full measure of due process are less likely to recidivate, even if ultimately convicted, because they believe they were treated seriously rather than just rushed through a guilty plea.

Almost fifty years ago the Supreme Court in Terry v. Ohio recognized the importance of judicial oversight and emphasized the need for trial courts to “retain their traditional responsibility to guard against police conduct which is overbearing or harassing, or which trenches upon personal security without the objective evidentiary justification which the Constitution requires.”

Much-admired federal Judge Jack Weinstein of the Eastern District of New York has written about the “vital function” trial courts must play to police the police. Indeed, it was the Criminal Courts’ abdication of its critical oversight role that led to the Floyd v. New York stop-and-frisk lawsuit in federal court.

An Adversarial Justice Court could hear every case charging a possessory offense that is based solely on police observations and testimony and hold mandatory pretrial suppression hearings to determine the legality of the arrest. Given the ongoing controversy surrounding marijuana arrests, and the recent questions raised about the burgeoning number of “gravity knife” charges, these types of possessory offenses demand public hearings.

Similarly, while the Mayor’s Office and the NYPD are championing a new “gun court” aimed at doling out appropriate punishment, those charges inevitably raise constitutional search and seizure issues that merit adversarial litigation with the police officer testifying under oath and subject to cross-examination about what he did and why he did it.

An Adversarial Justice Court would benefit police officers as well as the accused.

At present, you could be a police officer for years and never once be called to testify. The court-appointed monitor in the Floyd case wrote in his report to the judge earlier this year that police officers were still struggling to understand the sum total of factors that provided reasonable suspicion to stop and frisk. Testifying in court and thereafter having a judge rule on the legality of their actions would better enable police officers to learn what amalgam of facts allows them to stop, question, frisk.

In addition to ordering reform of policies, training, and supervision, the judge in Floyd also recognized the need for ongoing monitoring of police stop-and-frisk behavior. She emphasized that those people and communities most affected by stop-and-frisk should play a central role in the remedial process. What better way to involve the public, and to thereby make the police accountable, than by holding public hearings with officers testifying about their search and seizure activity? The resulting transparency could go a long way in efforts to instill public confidence in the police in the post-stop-and-frisk era.

And if the sky didn’t fall and litigated hearings proved successful, the Adversarial Justice Court might one day even resurrect jury trials, and our case-processing machinery could be fully transformed into a court. Now that would solve a lot of criminal justice problems.

***
Steven Zeidman is a professor of law at CUNY School of Law. He is on Twitter @SteveZeidman.

Minnewaska State Park (photo via @nystateparks)

Most New Yorkers take their drinking water for granted. We think of contaminated drinking water as a problem that happens to other people in other parts of the world. However, the recent crises in Flint, Michigan and Hoosick Falls, New York forced us to realize that these problems can also crop up close to home. As we continue to celebrate Earth Day, let us take a few minutes to reflect on the current situation and consider some of the threats to our drinking water right here at home, as well as what we can do about them.

Flint has become the poster child for the kind of devastation drinking water contamination can wreak on a community. Thousands of children in Flint have been exposed to dangerous levels of lead, and their water is still not safe to drink. This problem is not just happening in Flint, but also Binghamton, New York and likely many more communities across the country that still have lead pipes in place.

Since the time of Roman aqueducts, water infrastructure has been a hallmark of advanced civilization. Yet we have let our public drinking water systems crumble in neglect. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) now estimates that communities face a $384 billion backlog to repair drinking water infrastructure across the country.

Unfortunately, there are also many other threats to consider. While our aging infrastructure has been getting the most attention recently, there are many other dangers to our drinking water, which range from toxic chemicals to Superfund sites to factory farms.

While Flint may well be the worst example, it is not the only time reckless disregard for our drinking water has had lasting impacts on public health. In late 2015, the EPA urged residents of Hoosick Falls, a village of 3,500 people about 30 miles northeast of the State Capitol in Albany, not to drink or cook with the tap water. This is because testing of the village's water detected levels of the chemical PFOA that made the water unfit for human consumption. This toxic chemical has been linked to an increased risk for cancer, thyroid disease, and serious complications during pregnancy.

A federal class-action lawsuit has been filed against Saint-Goblin Performance Plastics and Honeywell International, which both operated manufacturing plants that are a focus of the contamination. The toxic chemical is associated with the making of Teflon, which was used in products manufactured at the plants.

Across the nation, concern over various types of water contamination has risen. In recent years, officials have documented more than 1,000 cases of oil and gas drilling operations contaminating local water. Agricultural pollution is threatening drinking water in places like Ohio, where runoff from agribusiness operations contributed to a toxic algae bloom in Lake Erie, which contaminated the drinking water for 500,000 people around Toledo with cyanotoxins in 2014.

We believe all New Yorkers deserve safe drinking water. We know what it will take to achieve this vision.

First, we need to restore the public infrastructure that brings water to our taps. Second, as the incident in Hoosick Falls shows, we also must protect the rivers, streams, and aquifers from which we draw our water. And finally, the public must have the right to know about water pollution – with robust monitoring of our waterways, regular testing from our taps, and standards that truly protect public health.

On each of these fronts, we are making progress, but much more work lies ahead. The crisis unfolding in Flint has finally put water infrastructure on Congress’ radar. In addition to ongoing negotiations to immediately aid Flint itself, New York Rep. Paul Tonko has now introduced bills to triple funding of the safe drinking water state revolving fund. In the past, the program has enjoyed broad bipartisan support. Congress must overcome the current mood of partisan rancor and give communities the resources they need to get the lead out.

For protecting our sources of drinking water, EPA took a landmark step last year in restoring protections of the Clean Water Act to streams, which help provide drinking water to 117 million Americans, including 11 million in New York. But these protections are currently tied up in the courts, while also facing another round of attacks from polluters and their allies in Congress this spring, so we’ll need our representatives to stand up and continue to fight for clean water protections.

We are also seeing small steps to enhance our right to know when our water is at risk. Just two months ago, the House overwhelmingly passed a bipartisan bill to strengthen EPA’s duty to notify the public when lead is putting drinking water at risk. Other proposals are being considered to require testing for lead in both drinking water and in children’s blood levels.

To build on this progress it will take political will. So on this Earth Day, let us vow to keep drinking water on the forefront of our minds even long after stories of Flint have left the front pages of our papers.

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

photo: Ed Reed/Mayor's Office

The foundation of our city is strong neighborhoods. We’re unified by common values and impacted by similar trends, from the affordability crisis to a changing climate. But each part of the city is its own living, breathing organism with a unique history, and its own set of needs.

Mayor de Blasio has visionary goals to create a stronger, more just city neighborhood by neighborhood, but he also knows these goals won’t come easy or cheap. As the mayor gears up to release his first progress report on his ambitious blueprint to reduce our city’s carbon emissions, here are five things he can do right now that will go a long way toward sustainability and livability:

Cut commute times for New Yorkers with the longest journeys to work. As a candidate, Mayor de Blasio promised 20 new select bus service routes by 2017. So far we have achieved nine, and of those six were operational by the time he took office. In parts of the outer boroughs, transit deserts make commuting via public transportation a huge challenge. A robust SBS network will take cars off the road and improve quality of life for transit-starved New Yorkers.

Ensure that every New Yorker can walk to a well-maintained neighborhood park. Local parks are an essential part of the fabric of our community. Not only do they boost resiliency, but they improve public health by encouraging people to get outside for recreation. Increasing the parks budget from 0.5 percent of city’s overall budget to its historic funding level of 1 percent would mean capital projects get done sooner, and that we have the necessary workers to maintain these spaces.

Expand access to healthy produce in low-income neighborhoods. New York creates a bounty of fresh produce from apples to potatoes to yogurt. The problem is, many of these fresh, local foods do not make it to low-income neighborhoods. An expansion of the NYC Green Carts initiative would help small farmers stay in business, reduce emissions from transporting food, and create healthier communities.

Make green installation easier for homeowners. Permits and regulations for green technologies can be complex and overwhelming. A one-stop-shop permitting process within the Department of Buildings should handle all alternative energy applications: solar thermal, solar photovoltaic, or geothermal and green infrastructure such as green roofs or other water retention design.

Reduce single-use throw-away litter. The carry-out bag legislation being considered by the City Council can make a significant difference in reducing consumption and consequently litter from single-use bags. Getting them out of the environment means fewer clogged storm drains and polluted waterways, and cleaner streets and parks.

Goalposts such as reducing emissions 80 percent by 2050 or getting to zero waste to landfills by 2030 can seem daunting because they’re so big and so far away. The only way to reach these goals is to break them down into incremental milestones. These are five things the city can do right now. They don’t need to be studied and they’re not reliant on technologies that haven’t reached scalability.

New York City is the place of the possible. If we engage and empower New Yorkers to pitch in and work together toward our common goals, we know we can stay on the right track to take them from vision to reality.

***
Marcia Bystryn is president of The New York League of Conservation Voters. On Twitter: @nylcv.

(photo: Demetrius Freeman/Mayor's Office)

The New York City Housing Authority is the nation’s largest residential landlord, providing permanently affordable housing to more than 400,000 low-income New Yorkers, many of whom would be homeless without public housing.

Like many public housing authorities around the country, NYCHA has its critics. Stories of poor living conditions, safety concerns, and health hazards often grab headlines, and rightly so. That’s why housing authority leaders must respond with real, innovative solutions to maintain a decent standard of living.

That’s exactly what the housing authority is doing on Earth Day with the release of the NextGeneration NYCHA Sustainability Agenda. It’s high time that NYCHA take full advantage of—and residents benefit from—the cost savings, health improvements and climate change protections associated with sustainable buildings. This is a bold plan to make that happen.

It comes at a pivotal time for New Yorkers who live in public housing. Years of federal and state funding cuts have left the housing authority with a backlog of needed repairs totaling more than $17 billion. NYCHA is continually forced to stretch its limited resources across a vast and aging portfolio, struggling to make even the most essential repairs in 2,550 buildings throughout the five boroughs. The threat of losing apartments and whole developments to decay is real.

Making sure public housing in New York doesn’t shrink or disappear as it has in other cities will require that NYCHA take advantage of every tool at its disposal. The Sustainability Agenda represents big-picture thinking on a range of new programs, from deep energy retrofits and distributed energy systems to improved staff training and resident-owned business opportunities.

We have evidence that it is possible to bring the health, environmental, and economic benefits of environmentally sustainable building to low-income communities through affordable housing.

Since 2004, Enterprise Community Partners, a national affordable housing nonprofit with a longstanding presence in New York City, has led the charge in making affordable housing environmentally sustainable, healthy, and resilient through its Enterprise Green Communities Criteria, the first national framework for creating and preserving green affordable housing.

The New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) requires all city-subsidized affordable housing that is either newly built or undergoing substantial rehabilitation to meet these criteria. Importantly, NYCHA’s Sustainability Agenda will bring this same standard to public housing developments in New York.

As part of the Sustainability Agenda, NYCHA has taken a targeted approach to identify and incorporate the most effective strategies for creating healthy environments for its residents. For example, investments in roof repairs and modernizing ventilation will eliminate a substantial cause of mold, greatly improving resident health. Children with asthma will experience fewer attacks and missed school days, improving education outcomes and helping them graduate on time. According to new research from Enterprise and the Center for Outcomes Research and Education (CORE), healthy affordable housing also improves health care access and quality while reducing costs.

Through investments in environmentally sustainable infrastructure, NYCHA will also help protect residents from the impacts of climate change. By 2025, it anticipates a 27 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from its buildings. And all of this will come with an eye toward creating quality green jobs for residents, while helping the city achieve its overall climate goals at the same time.

To be sure, achieving these goals will require additional funding upfront, though analysis of the Enterprise Green Communities Criteria has shown that sustainable buildings save money in the long run, both in building operating costs and in health improvements for residents.

The Sustainability Agenda will bring an entirely new set of private resources and community-based partnerships to the Housing Authority, but will also require support from all levels of government. Repairing the well-known decay in our public housing properties could be financed with help from New York State. That’s why a group of affordable housing and tenant advocates have called on Albany lawmakers to step up to the plate. Public housing should also be a major topic in the presidential election.

The benefits of the Sustainability Agenda—to the housing authority, its residents and the city as a whole—far outweigh the costs. As a part of the larger NextGeneration NYCHA plan, it will help preserve public housing, set the authority on the path to financial solvency and improve NYCHA’s ability to be an effective landlord.

Public housing in New York must be preserved. Although positive change in public housing doesn’t get as much attention as its struggles, NYCHA is making great strides to ensure that children who live in public housing have a safe, healthy place to grow up and the opportunity to thrive.

***
Judi Kende is vice president and New York market leader at Enterprise Community Partners, Inc., a national organization that creates, preserves and advocates for affordable housing linked to good schools, jobs, transit and health care. On Twitter @JudiKende and @Enterprise_NYC.

photo via @CitiBikeNYC

Spring is upon us, and with the warmer weather come more bike commuters. Luckily, Citi Bike completed Phase I of its expansion plan this winter, meaning residents of Williamsburg, Greenpoint, Bedford-Stuyvesant, and Long Island City will be able to zip around town on two wheels. By 2017, Phase II of the expansion will be complete, and residents of Astoria, Harlem, and the neighborhoods around Prospect Park in Brooklyn will be able to join the cycling revolution.

With this expansion, Citi Bike claims to diversify its user base. However, in looking at Citi Bike’s expansion plan, a clear pattern emerges – Citi Bike’s growth follows the migration trends of the young, affluent, and (mostly) white in the city.

Take Bed-Stuy, for example, where Citi Bike added 26 new docking stations in September 2015. In 2000, Bed-Stuy was only 1.4% white, but by 2010 the population was 10.9% white.As of 2014, the neighborhood jumped to 18.7% white. On the other hand, in the South Bronx, where Citi Bike has no current plans to expand, the population is only 1.6% white.

Rather than expanding to underserved neighborhoods throughout the city, Citi Bike is following the population flow of the upwardly mobile. Its expansion plan excludes huge swaths of the city, especially people of color living in the outer boroughs, people who would arguably benefit most from more transportation alternatives.

Mayor de Blasio has heralded Citi Bike as an extension of the city’s public transportation system, ostensibly providing New Yorkers with more options to meet their daily transit needs. But, if the city were truly to incorporate Citi Bike as part of a broader, more equitable transportation system, docking stations would be placed strategically throughout the city to better connect all residents - of all income levels and racial and ethnic demographics. For example, the expansion plan would include efforts to spread Citi Bike to Flushing, a neighborhood of mainly low-income Asian immigrants, served by a single subway stop. Instead, the bikes are concentrated in wealthier areas already with great public transportation coverage.

Bike sharing has many benefits. It is a convenient alternative when subways are running late or there are construction closings of lines or stations. It can serve as “last mile” transportation for people who live beyond the reach of subway or bus service. Carbon-free and heart-healthy, it is good for both people and the environment. It can introduce the otherwise-sedentary to a physically active lifestyle.

For all these reasons, bike sharing could be a huge boon to people in low-income neighborhoods with few public transportation options. However, Citi Bike has chosen not to put docking stations in these areas, and residents do not reap the benefits. Citi Bike cannot be used as a “last mile” alternative because there are no docking stations located at or beyond the end of any subway lines in the outer boroughs, where transit options are scarce.

Low-income residents cannot ride home when their trains are not running because there are no docking stations in their neighborhoods. When the L-train inevitably closes for repairs, people in Williamsburg will be able to hop on a Citi Bike, but residents of neighborhoods at the far Brooklyn end of the subway line, in East New York and Brownsville, will have no such option to make up for this transit shortfall.

Citi Bike’s pricing and marketing also send signals that it is only meant for certain groups of people (read: white, affluent). Citi Bike – owned and operated by Motivate, a private, for-profit company, and sponsored by Citi Bank, MasterCard, and Goldman Sachs – implicitly excludes low-income residents and people of color.

In order to buy a Citi Bike membership, users must have access to a credit card, which many low-income residents do not. Even if users do have access to credit, an annual membership costs $155, making it prohibitively expensive for many New Yorkers. There are reduced annual memberships at $60 for NYCHA residents and members of select Community Development Credit Unions, but this is still a difficult fee for people struggling to pay their rent and other bills. Citi Bikes are plastered with ads for Citi Bank and MasterCard, which screams, “These bikes are only for people who can afford these brands!”

Despite what Mayor de Blasio and Citi Bike’s owners say, neither Motivate nor the city government are trying very hard to provide Citi Bike access to all New Yorkers.

If Mayor de Blasio is going to use Citi Bike as a tool to achieve his vision of one New York City for all, the government must invest public funds in Citi Bike equity. Investing in Citi Bike will give the city more control over the system’s expansion, ensuring that all five boroughs are included. The government must sway the marketing strategy and pricing structure, making Citi Bike more inviting to people of color and the city’s low-income residents. Only when the city exercises more control over where and how Citi Bike grows can we celebrate it as an extension of our public transportation system.

If the city does not make a financial investment in Citi Bike and exert more decision-making power over the system’s expansion, it will continue to only follow the money. Instead of seeing a line cook cycling home from the end of the A-train in a couple of years, we’ll see another twenty-something riding to a new bar in “up-and-coming” Crown Heights.

***
Elizabeth Johnson is a Master of Public Administration candidate, studying Urban and Social Policy at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs.

Letitia James, the author, at a rally

Across the country, retail businesses are taking their cues from Walmart, in a race to the bottom that New Yorkers must reject. Even though Walmart’s efforts to open stores in New York City have been consistently thwarted by intense worker opposition and community organizing, the worst effects of the company’s decisions are still felt.

Here’s why: Walmart is the largest private employer in the United States, and the largest retailer in the world. The company sets the standards for the entire retail industry. Retail is a massive, growing sector of our economy where many women, people of color, and immigrants are struggling to make ends meet.

Given its unparalleled size and influence, Walmart has a unique obligation to create higher standards for jobs. Instead, Walmart continues to set a terrible precedent for retail employers in our city and nationally, driving down wages and increasing economic insecurity for countless working people.

Earlier this year, with no advance warning, Walmart announced that it was closing more than 150 stores across the country, and putting an estimated 10,000 people out of work. This announcement came after Walmart had made promises of creating permanent jobs and helping to strengthen neighborhoods.

Communities always lose more than they gain from Walmart. Every time Walmart closes stores, cuts jobs, slashes hours, or mistreats employees, it has a huge ripple effect in communities and markets across the country. Retail workers are often left more vulnerable and worse off as a result.

Keeping a physical presence of Walmart out of the five boroughs has been a major victory for our city, but the unfortunate reality is that retailers here often emulate Walmart’s harmful practices. And Walmart will continue to look for ways to enter the New York City market and reach customers here, including luring City taxpayers to neighboring stores in Valley Stream and Westchester with appealing low prices.

It’s time to insist that Walmart’s low-road business model is just as unwelcome here as its stores.

Low wages, part-time hours, and erratic schedules are increasingly common across the five boroughs. Walmart workers this year will earn an average starting wage of $10 per hour – and too many retailers here are following Walmart’s lead and paying workers the same poverty wage or even less.

Ten years ago, Walmart was an early pioneer of so-called “flexible scheduling” – a now pervasive employment practice in retail that subjects workers to constant changes in their hours and near total company control over employees’ lives and time. This is why so many retail workers are always on-call, expected to come to work at a moment’s notice, yet do not have the security of a steady full-time job.

Consider Melody, a mother living in Brooklyn with a five-year-old son. Melody works in retail and is also taking part-time classes to become a midwife. Because of her unreliable work schedule, and recent cuts to her hours, she is unable to afford childcare.

Melody is just one of the many New Yorkers in our city trying to improve their lives and get ahead, but facing major barriers.

Every day, I hear from these men and women: from the single mom in Queens working forty hours a week at a retailer who regularly skips dinner so her growing children can eat; from the young man in the Bronx who walks to his supermarket job because he can’t afford a metrocard; and from the senior in Brooklyn who is unable to retire from her minimum wage job because she has no savings.

Living wages, reliable hours, and basic respect and dignity on the job are noticeably absent in the Walmart economy – an economy that doesn’t want workers, especially moms like Melody, to win.

In the months and years ahead, New York City will have to choose between a high-road retail economy that lifts up workers and the Walmart economy that drags workers down. This crucial choice will need to be made as more retail jobs are created in neighborhoods throughout the five boroughs. Indeed, many new residential developments will include large retail stores as anchor tenants on their ground floors.

A starting wage of $15 per hour, stable full-time schedules, real respect on the job, and full acknowledgement of the right to organize are the bare minimum that Walmart must offer.

That’s why I am proud to join retail workers, the Fight for 15, and many other voices of justice in demanding an end to the current Walmart economy - an economy that leaves workers and communities behind.

This growing movement just scored a major victory in New York, with Governor Cuomo and the state Legislature agreeing to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour. As part of this movement, we must and will continue to insist that Walmart, and all the retailers that follow its low-road example, remain unwelcome here. Our communities deserve better.

***
Letitia James is New York City Public Advocate. On Twitter @TishJames.

Students rally at City Hall (photo via @CMMathieuEugene)

In a short time, it will be summer, but it's not the impending warm weather that's causing parents to feel the heat.

Parents are scrambling to make plans for their children because Mayor Bill de Blasio’s administration has not included funding for summer programs in the city budget, and this severe cut will impact more than 34,000 students across New York City.

Our children deserve to have the educational and recreational opportunities they need to succeed. School’s Out New York, or SONYC, is a vital citywide initiative that engages youth in the arts, sports, and community service. This program helps youth from all neighborhoods foster their creativity, while encouraging sportsmanship and leadership.

Summer programs are not only an expansion of classroom learning, these crucial programs also offer children creative outlets in a supervised space. Childcare is expensive and many parents can't afford pricey camps - our city's summer programs offer youth a much-needed safe space to spend the summer.

We know our children are bombarded with negativity on a daily basis—but these summer programs offer them respite. The elimination of $20.4 million in funding for middle school students—which equates to at least 34,000 summer program slots—should not be perceived as a cost-saving measure, but rather a divestment from our most vulnerable population. Cutting costs shouldn’t be at the expense of our youth.

Our city has implemented a number of truly progressive policies to improve quality of life for residents, but the decision to eliminate summer programs for middle school children will drastically hurt the tremendous progress we have been making.

Since these important summer programs impact the constituents of virtually all of our City Council colleagues, we have already received tremendous support from Council members who have signed on to a letter asking Mayor de Blasio to restore this funding immediately—and to make this funding for youth a priority in future budgets. When the mayor releases his Executive Budget in the coming weeks, many working families would be relieved to see the funding included.

Last year, summer programs were included in the preliminary budget but the funding was inexplicably removed in May. By working together with our colleagues and dozens of youth advocates, we were able to make sure that it was restored. But, less than a year later, our children—and parents—are in the same uncertain situation since funding for these programs was not included in the budget for Fiscal Year 2017. So, once again, we must join together to fight for the restoration of these crucial programs that must be baselined in the budget.

It is our moral obligation to do everything possible for our youth. Ultimately, an investment in our youth is a great investment in our city.

***
By City Council Members Mathieu Eugene and Laurie A. Cumbo. Eugene is chair of the Youth Services Committee; Cumbo is chair of the Women’s Issues Committee.

A Bernie Sanders rally

For the first time in generations, both the Republican and Democratic parties are still engaged in extremely competitive presidential primary races as New Yorkers go to the polls. While everyone is eager to see which candidate on each side of the aisle earns the most votes on Tuesday, the statewide popular vote is not the only factor, or even necessarily the most important factor, in amassing the key prize: loyal delegates.

Each party uses its own arcane system to apportion and select its bound delegates for the coming national nominating conventions. This process is now of interest to a much wider group than in the past, and will significantly influence the path ahead for all five candidates, their supporters, and millions of other Americans.

The Basics
New York holds closed primaries with strict registration rules. As Douglas Kellner, co-chair of the New York State Board of Elections, said, “Only enrolled party members have the right to vote." Kellner added that "The deadline for changing enrollment was last October,” with new voters allowed more leeway.

Most New York Republicans will be voting for one of the three remaining GOP presidential candidates, although a fourth, Ben Carson, will still be on the ballot. They will send 95 delegates to their national convention in Cleveland. All will be bound by Tuesday’s vote, at least through the first convention ballot.

Democrats will not only vote for a presidential candidate, but also for up to seven individual delegates, whose names will be organized into Clinton and Sanders slates by congressional district. They will send 247 pledged delegates to their national convention in Philadelphia alongside New York’s 44 unpledged “super” delegates.

Both parties use a combination of at-large delegates, who will be pledged to presidential candidates based on the statewide vote, and district-level delegates, who will be pledged based on the vote in each of New York’s 27 congressional districts. The Republicans have 14 at-large and 81 district delegates, while the Democrats have 84 at-large and 163 district delegates.

Democratic delegates will be pledged proportionally, while Republicans give a far greater share to the winner, both statewide and by district. According to the latest Quinnipiac poll, Donald Trump continues to lead with 55% statewide and “in every region of the state.” If Trump holds that broad lead, he could walk away with almost all of New York’s delegates.

New York Republicans have a two-step process to their national convention. On Tuesday, they choose how all 95 delegates will be pledged. But if there are multiple ballots in Cleveland, who the actual delegates are will matter. That is where the second step comes in: the New York Republican State Committee will choose its delegates at its own convention, likely in May.

In contrast, the Democrats will elect most of their specific delegates on Tuesday, although their at-large delegates will also be chosen at a later state convention.

The Republicans
New York Republican rules are considered “proportional” by the Republican National Committee (RNC), but in reality are “winner take most” due to their majority triggers for winner-take-all at both the statewide and congressional district levels. If any candidate wins over 50% statewide, he would collect all 14 at-large delegates. Otherwise, they split proportionately among all candidates who cross a 20% minimum threshold.

Each of New York’s 27 congressional districts gets three Republican delegates. At that level, the GOP awards all three delegates to a majority winner. If no one breaks 50% in a given district, then two delegates would go to the plurality winner and one to the runner-up.

As Adele Malpass, chair of the Manhattan Republican Party, puts it: "The thing to watch for on Tuesday night is whether Trump breaks 50%."

With three Republican delegates per congressional district whether an area is deeply red, deeply blue, or pretty purple, things can get interesting. The system means a few hundred Republican voters in a (heavily Democratic) New York City district could be enough to swing its GOP delegates, while it might take tens of thousands upstate.

One GOP strategist told me, "Ted Cruz is smart to focus on the Orthodox Jewish vote. About 40% of the registered Republicans in the 10th [Congressional District], which includes really liberal areas like the Upper West Side, actually live in Borough Park. That's the kind of district where Cruz might be able to beat Trump."

But Malpass, who is one of the few large county party leaders to remain neutral in the primary, said, “Cruz hasn't been able to overcome his ‘New York values’ comment.” She added “Manhattan could be Kasich country.”

With Trump polling around 55% statewide, and Cruz and Kasich both hovering around 20%, it can help to look at three possible scenarios:

1. If Trump wins a majority both statewide and in every district, he wins all 95 delegates.
2. If Trump breaks 50% statewide and in half of the districts but lands just below 50% in the other half, he wins 81 or 82 delegates. Kasich and Cruz would split the remainder based on who finished second in each of the districts where Trump failed to break 50%.
3. If Trump only scores a plurality statewide and in all 27 districts, he would still win 61 delegates. Cruz and Kasich would then have 34 to split, 7 proportionately statewide and 27 to whomever came in second by district. And for each district Trump actually loses to Kasich or Cruz, another one or two delegates would swing away from him.

Regardless of which scenario occurs, Trump is almost certain to win a clear majority of New York’s delegates unless polling proves to be very wrong.

The real drama on the GOP side might well occur weeks after the primary, when the Republican State Committee meets to select the actual delegates.

Through 2012, the New York GOP selected its delegates much the same way that the Democrats do: each presidential candidate would submit a slate of delegates in each congressional district. But after some tension between the state party and the Romney campaign, the state party changed its rules.

Under the new rules, the full Republican State Committee will later name the 11 at-large delegates (the other three of the 14 are ex officio, but still pledged), while the State Committee members within each of the 27 districts will decide their three delegates.

Trump has recently taken to accusing the GOP of running a “rigged” system for selecting delegates, including in states with similar procedures. However, Malpass says "I don't think the system is ‘rigged,’ but it is complex and different in each state."

And if County Party Chairs exercise as much influence over State Committee members as is generally assumed, Trump’s recent announcement that he has been endorsed by the Republican Party Chair in 32 of New York’s 62 counties, including 16 of the 20 largest, bodes well for his chances of having at least some delegates remain loyal to him if there are multiple ballots in Cleveland.

The Democrats
New York Democrats have a total of 291 delegates: 247 pledged (84 at-large and 163 district-level) plus 44 unpledged “super” delegates. Each of New York’s 27 congressional districts elects either five, six or seven, depending on the district’s proportion of Democratic votes in recent presidential elections.

Trudy L. Mason, a vice-chair of the New York State Democratic Committee, described Tuesday’s process: “First, you vote for Clinton or Sanders, then you vote for individual delegates. Within each district, the pledged delegates are apportioned based on the presidential preference vote. The delegates are then chosen in descending order of votes received on each slate, alternating by gender to ensure equal balance.”

Mason added, “[Another] 84 at-large, pledged delegates will be chosen at the New York State Democratic Convention in May, also proportionate to the statewide presidential primary vote. This may sound like a Byzantine system, but it works.”

The Democratic Party system is designed to achieve two things. The first is proportional representation at the national convention for each candidate. The second is selection of a gender-balanced group of pledged delegates who will be loyal to their candidates, or at least nominated by their campaigns. And while the “Byzantine system” should work as planned, what it will not do is give Sanders much of a chance to catch up to Clinton in pledged delegates should he win New York. Nor will it give Clinton the kind of opportunity to deliver a knock-out blow that a winner-take-all victory could.

Get Ready for Tuesday
So what can New Yorkers expect to see after the polls close on Tuesday?

In all likelihood, Clinton and Sanders will run close enough together that the proportionate split keeps Clinton’s lead in pledged delegates intact. She is polling around 10 points ahead of Sanders across the state and has a sizeable delegate lead coming into New York, though Sanders has been shrinking her margin with a steady stream of recent wins.

On the Republican side, Trump is likely to win the lion’s share of delegates, at least through the first ballot in Cleveland. And, given the breadth of Trump’s support throughout the state party, many of the individual delegates chosen to go to Cleveland may stick with him.

Cruz has the opportunity to beat expectations by picking up some delegates on what is considered unfriendly turf for him.

And all John Kasich has to do to win his first delegate in over a month is come in second to Trump in at least one district, keeping Trump below 50% there in the process. Kasich has an even bigger opportunity to collect some at-large delegates and a lot of press attention if a late surge in his support holds Trump below 50% statewide. To paraphrase Fred Ebb's famed lyric, if Kasich can't make it here, he probably can't make it anywhere.

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Gus Christensen is a financial consultant to non-profits and start-ups, as well as a former investment banker and political candidate.

The City Council Women's Caucus, including two authors (photo: William Alatriste)

Today - Tuesday, April 12 - New York City recognizes Equal Pay Day – a day to confront the challenges our mothers, daughters, and sisters still face in achieving workplace equality.

Significant progress has been made, but substantial discrepancies exist between women and men – most notably, a sizable wage gap. As of 2013, women still earned only 78 cents for every dollar earned by men, with a median income over 27 percent lower than that of men. For women of color, the pay gap widens: black and Hispanic women earn 64 and 56 cents on the dollar, respectively. Stretched over a lifetime of work, this leaves women with much less money than the average man.

At S&P Fortune 500 companies, women hold less than 5 percent of CEO positions and only 16 percent of board seats. When women are top earners, the pay gap tends to close at a faster pace. But disappointingly, the numbers show that women are vastly underrepresented in these higher-level positions, resulting in a persistent pay gap and lack of diversity in board rooms big and small.

Yet, women are more educated and prepared for the workforce than ever before. Women now account for nearly 60 percent of annual four-year university graduates, 60 percent of master’s degrees, and 52 percent of doctorates being awarded in the United States.

Though the longstanding pay gap is an undeniable social injustice; it amounts to much more, and is actually hurting corporate bottom lines.

Study after study, particularly those from Catalyst, the global expert on accelerating progress for women through workplace inclusion, has stated that when women hold leadership or board positions, it improves company financial performance, economic growth, productivity, and profitability. This makes it crystal clear that business is better and companies perform most effectively when they bring equal opportunity, allowing everyone a seat at the table.

The City of New York, as the global center of business and commerce, and proprietor of billions in private contracts, can play an important role in promoting the levels of diversity we need in the 21st century. Let’s make sure we get the best value for our own tax dollars, and promote businesses that promote equal opportunity.

Last week, the City Council voted and passed Introduction 704-A, a bill we sponsored to gather more information on the gender and racial makeup of the individuals who make up executive-level staff and boards of companies that do business with the City. Once signed into law, it will require the Department of Small Business Services to survey companies that do business with the City and obtain the demographics of companies’ executive-level staff and board members.

In 2015, the City procured $13.8 billion worth of goods and services through more than 60,000 transactions, yet we do not know who is running the companies that are conducting this business. Our new law will provide the City with the data it needs to ensure that city-contracted companies are promoting the diversity that makes this City so great, and could ultimately boost the economy.

It’s a small step that we believe will go a long way to help our City recognize inequities in our own front yard and create incentives for businesses throughout New York to promote diversity in their top ranks.

We hope you will all join us today in the fight for equal opportunity, equal pay, and a New York City where everyone can succeed.

***
Elizabeth Crowley and Darlene Mealy are New York City Council Members; Deborah Gillis is President & CEO of Catalyst.