Gotham Gazette

The Place for New York Policy and politics

Opinion

Opinion

The Next Mayor Must Stick with the Plan to Close The Boat, and Rikers


rikers will surv

A rally for closing Rikers (photo: @CLOSErikers)


The Vernon C Bain Correctional Facility, known as The Barge, or The Boat, has been getting some attention recently. Ava Duvernay and Laura Poitras recently discovered it, and mayoral candidate Eric Adams said he wants to sink it. But Bronx residents have been calling for the closure of this modern day slave ship for years. We do so because it is an affront to human rights, and our values. While we welcome the support, this recent attention is concerning. 

The closure of The Boat requires more than tweets and talk. It requires a plan and thankfully, we have one that was hard-won by impacted Bronx residents and their allies. We need to move forward with that plan - the Close Rikers plan - including the replacement jail in the Bronx.

Consider this - if The Boat closed today, the people there would be moved to the notorious Rikers Island jail complex. Moving them right now would be especially cruel as we head into the summer, since The Boat has air conditioning (that works at least occasionally), and the available units on Rikers have none. 

What many New Yorkers don’t know, or have chosen to ignore, is that all of the Department of Correction facilities in New YorK City are unfit for humans. Let’s review the options. There is a penal colony on toxic land (Rikers); a prison ship (The Boat); closed jails in Queens and Brooklyn that each have insufficient square feet per incarcerated person to meet state standards (and also, lack air conditioning); or the cramped and decrepit “Tombs” in lower Manhattan. 

Throughout this campaign season, nearly every mayoral candidate has said Rikers should close, but detailed plans to do it have been much more scarce even as they question the current plan. What candidates aren’t promising is an end to all policing, prosecution, and incarceration in the Bronx, or New York City. This is why every Bronx voter should know that when we oppose the replacement jail in the Bronx, we are approving the human rights violations on Rikers and The Boat.

So while incarceration continues in some form in our city, the question is where, and under what conditions?

We know that we can continue to reduce incarceration, but we must do so while addressing dangerous and dehumanizing conditions for people who are detained. That’s why we support the Close Rikers plan. This plan replaces 17,500 jail beds in 14 inhumane facilities, with 3,300 beds in four facilities in the boroughs. This plan closes all the jails on Rikers and The Boat by 2027.

Reducing New York City’s jail population to less than 3,300 people, the lowest it's been in 100 years, will require that we make investments to strengthen the Bronx, and other communities unfairly burdened by criminalization. We have both spent most of our lives fighting for those investments, including NYCHA repairs, violence-prevention programs, career-track job training, community counseling and mentorship, transit improvements, environmental remediation, and more. 

As members of the Bronx Neighborhood Advisory Committee, we worked with the City Council to secure commitments to specific investments in connection with the Close Rikers plan. Those investments are a necessary starting point to help us catch up to the rest of the city. These investments focus on community development, providing care and the prevention of crime, instead of policing and punishment. We understand that this plan doesn’t end incarceration completely. But when we take a community first approach we can incarcerate fewer people, in conditions that recognize their humanity is not terminated when they are sent to jail.

The Bronx can do just that, by securing the investments we deserve and moving forward with the replacement jail. Every day that our family and neighbors spend on Rikers or The Boat compounds their trauma, and we cannot leave them there until we restructure our entire society. 

That’s why we’ll be fighting to make sure the next Mayor moves forward with the plan to close Rikers and The Boat on the fastest possible timeline. We invite everyone who is serious about human rights to join us.

***
Ramona Ferreyra is a Bronx community leader and owner of Ojala Threads. Reverend Wendy Calderón-Payne is the Executive Director of BronxConnect. On Twitter @ramonathemona & @BronxConnect.

***
Have an op-ed idea or submission for Gotham Gazette? Email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

For Our Next Bronx Borough President, Leadership for the Entire Borough


estamos unidos bp

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


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

As Puerto Ricans and Dominicans of The Bronx, from the community and government perspective, respectively, we are proud to support Vanessa Gibson for Bronx Borough President. She is a proven and passionate leader with a record of accomplishment and accountability – who if elected, would become the first woman and first African-American Bronx Borough President.

Over previous decades The Bronx produced Jewish, Italian, Irish, and, more recently, Latino Borough Presidents. The impact and history of Latino leadership in The Bronx will continue to expand and inform the next generation of Latino elected office-holders. We are proud to continue the Bronx legacy of Black and Latino unity as we come together for the good of the entire borough.

Vanessa Gibson has an impressive list of Latino support across the Bronx and the city, including Rep. Ritchie Torres, former Rep. Jose E. Serrano, State Senator Jose M. Serrano, Assemblymember Karines Reyes, and City Council Members Oswald Feliz, Diana Ayala, and Carlina Rivera.

Vanessa has over a decade of experience delivering for all the people of The Bronx; she’s a proven leader on education, affordable housing, public safety, and quality of life. We have worked with Vanessa, across government and community organizing efforts, and have seen first-hand her ability to deliver results, leaving no one behind. Most notably, Vanessa has worked to provide historic protections for tenants facing eviction by co-sponsoring the first-in-the-nation Right to Counsel law, which provides free legal representation for low-income tenants facing eviction in Housing Court.

We support Vanessa because her commitment to community investment at the grassroots level is unmatched. Vanessa allocated over $60 million in new parks and additional park renovations, meeting the needs of unserved communities in the borough. She is also the co-chair of the Women’s Caucus of the City Council, where she has fought for women’s rights and the expansion of opportunities for women-run businesses. At the grassroots, Vanessa has been instrumental in providing funding and resources to Bronx residents who steward and program local parks for the benefit of the entire borough. And during the height of the pandemic, we saw first-hand Vanessa Gibson step up and partner with us during our borough’s greatest need to address food assistance.

In this consequential election year for our borough, with multiple candidates to choose from with a new ranked-choice voting system, we encourage our neighbors to rank Vanessa Gibson as your first choice for Bronx Borough President. And if you have already made up your mind otherwise, we strongly urge you to consider Vanessa as your second choice. Time and again, Vanessa has put the people of The Bronx first, so let’s return the favor and make sure she can keep delivering for all of us.

***
Nilka Martell is a lifelong Bronx resident, non-profit executive, and an environmental advocate for over 10 years. Elvin García is a lifelong Bronx resident, was a 2017 Democratic candidate for City Council in District 18, and was Bronx Borough Director at the Mayor’s Community Affairs Unit. On Twitter @nilkamartell & @ElvinGarciaNYC.

***
Have an op-ed idea or submission for Gotham Gazette? Email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

They Provide Essential City Services. They Deserve More


a ribbon cutting

Providing city services (photo: Ed Reed/Mayoral Photography Office)


As COVID-19 swept across our city, nonprofit human services workers were a beacon of hope, providing a safe haven for New Yorkers from all walks of life. While others were told to stay home, these workers--who are predominantly women and people of color--were deemed essential and showed up in public-facing roles to help carry New Yorkers through an unprecedented crisis. They provided assistance to those who found themselves newly in need of access to food, shelter, and other supportive services. They put their health and that of their families at risk by prioritizing the wellbeing of our communities.

Their reward for these selfless personal sacrifices? The city froze their wages in the middle of the pandemic.

The human services workforce has been toiling under city-contracted poverty wages since long before the devastating effects of COVID-19. These organizations deliver services through government contracts that are drastically underfunded, which results in alarmingly low wages. The average annual income for human services workers in New York City is only $32,700. This makes the human services sector the second-lowest paid sector of all industries in the city, only after the restaurant industry. Despite being highly educated, over 60% of human services workers in our city qualify for public assistance. That means they’re often forced to rely on the same services they provide to others.

It’s not just an issue of decency for the workers themselves. Low pay makes it difficult for nonprofits to attract talented workers and results in frequent turnover, which ultimately hurts the quality of services available to those in need. Given the makeup of the workforce and the communities they serve, this is a key issue of racial equity.

In acknowledgement of these issues, the city provided these workers with a three-year cost of living adjustment in the 2018 budget. But when that expired last summer, the COLA was not renewed—leaving wages for essential workers on the frontlines of COVID-19 stagnant. We recognize that last year’s budget was strained and forced tough decisions related to many sectors, but budgets are a statement of our city’s values. What does it say to our constituents when jobs that police and incarcerate our communities’ residents make over twice as much as those that support our constituents with social services?  

The federal stimulus money available this year is an opportunity to transform this system and ensure we are fully valuing the labor of women and people of color who support our communities. It is long past time for New York City to appropriately invest in essential human service workers, whom we all rely so heavily on by finally paying them fair wages under city contracts.

We are calling for the city to restore this sector’s COLA in the fiscal year 2022 budget, due by July 1 of this year, at a rate of at least 3%—an investment of $48 million. That is the bare minimum that we can provide for the chronically overworked and underpaid human services workforce. If we trust nonprofit workers to deliver vital services on the government’s behalf then we must respect them enough to pay them a living wage.

Nonprofit human services organizations will continue to be essential for New York’s  post-pandemic recovery. City Hall talks about an equitable path forward. That will require the support of nonprofit workers providing job training, tutoring for kids left behind by remote schooling, sheltering those who will be at risk of homelessness during the looming eviction crisis and more. These workers continued to serve our city through the darkest days of the pandemic; now it’s our turn to show up for them. We let them down last year, but this is our chance to reset.

***
by the members of the New York City Council's Progressive Caucus and Women's Caucus. On Twitter @NYCProgressives & @WomensCaucusNYC.

Progressive Caucus
Ben Kallos (Co-Chair), Diana Ayala (Co-Chair), Keith Powers (Vice Co-Chair), Carlos Menchaca (Vice Co-Chair), Margaret S. Chin, Carlina Rivera, Corey Johnson, Helen Rosenthal, Mark Levine, Bill Perkins, Ydanis Rodriguez, Jimmy Van Bramer, I. Daneek Miller, Adrienne E. Adams, Stephen T. Levin, Antonio Reynoso, Brad Lander, Alicka Ampry-Samuel, Justin Brannan, Deborah Rose.

Women’s Caucus
Vanessa L. Gibson (Co-Chair), Farah N. Louis (Co-Chair), Margaret S. Chin, Carlina Rivera, Helen Rosenthal, Diana Ayala, Adrienne E. Adams, Karen Koslowitz, Laurie A. Cumbo, Darma V. Diaz, Alicka Ampry-Samuel, Inez Barron, Deborah Rose.

***
Have an op-ed idea or submission for Gotham Gazette? Email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Increasing Women’s Civic Engagement in New York City


ad23pimg

Elected officials and advocates (photo: Alycia Kravitz)


Even before the pandemic, we knew that women—especially women of color, immigrant, transgender, and incarcerated women, as well as gender non-conforming and non-binary individuals—experienced high levels of political exclusion alongside poverty, discrimination, and violence. 

Now, we are at a pivotal moment in our country’s history, as we emerge from a devastating pandemic and still bear witness to the consequences of systemic racism and social injustice. 

Across the country, more women may be running for office than ever before—but more women are not getting elected. In New York City, women hold only 14 of the 51 seats in the New York City Council, and 12 are women of color. Due to term limits for 31 seats, that already low level of representation could be reduced even further once the ballots are counted from this month’s primary elections.

While voting is not the only form of civic engagement, it is an important way for women to participate and advocate for themselves and their communities. In New York City, where we have three women candidates in the top tier of the mayoral primary and hundreds of women running for City Council and other elected offices, we are either on the cusp of significant change or about to repeat a pattern of unequal representation. 

And while our organization, Women Creating Change, as a nonprofit, is not advocating for any specific candidates, we are encouraging women to flex their civic engagement muscles and show up at the polls and have their voices heard.

Our new report—A Blueprint for Women’s Civic Engagement in New York City —illustrates that even with a record number of women seeking elected office, women are underrepresented at every level of government and confront harmful gender stereotypes and other barriers to participation on a daily basis.

Nearly all organizations we surveyed for the report (92%) believe that more significant investment in women’s civic engagement in New York City is needed, particularly for women of color, immigrant women, and working-class women. We learned that women continue to encounter barriers to full participation, such as the burden of work and care, gendered and cultural stereotypes surrounding civic engagement, political exclusion, and voter suppression. These barriers persist in a context shaped by systemic racism, sexism, and classism.

There is a path forward, where all sectors can collaborate to dismantle those barriers and improve the ability of women to engage more actively, not only in voting but in all areas of civic life.  Nonprofits and community-based organizations should continue to expand civic education and engagement programs. Government should expand voting access and rights; improve the city’s election infrastructure and voter data analysis; ensure a fair and accurate U.S. Census and redistricting process; increase funding for, and coordination of, civic learning opportunities for families and adults; and give community boards a greater voice in our city’s future.

Foundations and the private sector also should direct more resources to organizations implementing inclusive civic engagement programming, those that conduct work through an intersectional lens, organizations of color, multi-year initiatives, and community-based organizations focused on movement-building.

The recommendations are only a starting point to improve civic processes and begin remedying systemic injustices. Everyone should have the knowledge, resources, and connections to advocate for themselves, their families, and their community—and do so by community organizing, volunteering, serving on boards, demonstrating, and participating in community meetings, among other ways to engage. This will lead to stronger communities, an improved quality of life, and a better democracy where every voice is heard—especially those who have been historically excluded from civic life.

Civic engagement is fundamental to the underpinnings of our democracy, and supports jobs, community health, and equity. With the citywide municipal elections, it is more important than ever for all New Yorkers to have the opportunity to shape the future of our city so that we can serve as a national model for inclusive civic education and engagement.

Possibilities for women in this country abound. Yet the promise of the possible requires all of us to invest in the futures of women who seek to run for office, become civically engaged, or to yield changes in their communities and in society at large.

*** 
Carole J. Wacey is the President and CEO of Women Creating Change. On Twitter @WCChange.

***
Have an op-ed idea or submission for Gotham Gazette? Email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Composting the Patriarchy: A Feminist Green New Deal for Sanitation


climate sha bike

Shahana Hanif (photo: @ShahanaFromBK)


Trash is too often an afterthought. Voters and friends pause when I share my love for recycling, composting, and colorful trash cans. But, as a climate champion endorsed by Sunrise NYC, Resilience PAC, TREEage NYC, and NYC’s chapter of Sierra Club, I know that waste equity is critical to achieving New York City’s climate resiliency goals.

We need to stop thinking of waste as ‘trash.’ Waste is valuable material; compost is nutritious food for our community gardens’ soil. Over one third of New York City’s waste is made up of food and organics that should be composted. Instead, this resource is thrown away and transported to decompose in landfills, which contributed to 3.5% of New York City’s carbon emissions in 2019. These landfills pollute Black and brown neighborhoods as far away as Virginia, furthering the disproportionate burden of waste inequity, pollution, and the immediate impacts of climate change on communities of color.

Environmental racism is local to Brooklyn too. It should be no surprise that predominantly Black and brown, working class, and immigrant neighborhoods, like my home neighborhood Kensington, are not prioritized in waste collection and other sanitation services. 

I am calling for a Feminist Green New Deal for Brooklyn.

To me, feminism means collective action to address harm. Through the City Council District 39 Participatory Budgeting process, our community created the largest community-based compost facility in Brooklyn at the DEP/DSNY Salt Lot in Gowanus. Repairing the harm of waste inequity across the city and District 39 means investing in more sanitation services and creating good composting and recycling green jobs.

During the pandemic, the city’s residential composting program and environmental education programs were also completely cut and the Department of Sanitation had its budget slashed by $106 million, despite operating the city’s emergency feeding programs. Even though $2.9 million was restored in July 2020 for community composting, it was only for a few drop-off sites across the city, mostly in Manhattan. This lack of service has led to trash buildup.

To clean up our neighborhood, my neighbors and I have had to call in programs like ACE New York to pick up waste and rely on neighborhood trash cleanups organized by community members, like the Kensington Stewards and Ocean Parkway Cleanup. A Feminist Green New Deal calls for us to compensate those caring for our communities, instead of relying on nonprofits, private organizations, or volunteers to keep our neighborhoods clean.

As a lifelong resident of Kensington, I know the pandemic budget cuts did not cause this waste crisis. In our district, neighbors in Park Slope have long had curbside compost pick-up, while residents in Kensington and Borough Park do not. We must fully fund the Department of Sanitation to equitably handle waste and prioritize waste-overburdened neighborhoods. We need a comprehensive citywide composting program that will produce local green jobs, lower the carbon footprints of New Yorkers, and enhance our green spaces.

Composting is one local component to addressing climate change. We must dedicate resources to protect our existing compost sites, and expand funding for programs, like the NYC Compost Project, which provides training for community members to build and maintain more composting sites. We should also push for increased flexibility of park space for gardening and composting to encourage community engagement, environmental education, and ecological stewardship.

The climate crisis is at the crossroads of racial justice, migrant justice, economic justice, labor justice, and gender justice. We cannot waste another minute. We must secure a climate resilient future by building dynamic local solutions to our waste problem.

***
Shahana Hanif is a Democratic candidate for City Council in District 39 in Brooklyn. On Twitter @ShahanaFromBK.

***
Have an op-ed idea or submission for Gotham Gazette? Email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

One Crime Question Mayoral Candidates Still Need to Answer


end violence women

Ending violence against women (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayor's Office)


In poll after poll in the lead-up to the mayoral primary election, New Yorkers are citing crime and public safety as a top issue of concern. Yet debate after debate, the question never gets asked, “what will you do to root out sexual assault and street harassment as part of rebuilding New York and creating a world class city?”

Women want to know: when will leaders realize that running on a platform to transform how we treat women is a winning one.

It’s an area of crime that no candidate for mayor has seized fully. It won’t come as a surprise that the two leading women in the race, Maya Wiley and Kathryn Garcia (both of whom NOW-NYC has endorsed), have raised the issue in debates and on the campaign trail. Other candidates, Andrew Yang and Dianne Morales, have said they are in support of decrimihalizing the sex trade -- which sexually exploits the most vulnerable among us and goes hand-in-hand with other criminal activity. Morales has a vision for it, with red light districts around the city. Ms. Morales, how will you decide which lucky neighborhoods become magnets for sex buyers and violence?

We already know that the NYPD has to spend resources and time tracking and investigating human traffickers who import immigrant women and recruit local women and girls from our poorest neighborhoods to meet existing demand from wealthier New Yorkers looking to buy a sex act.

Red light districts would certainly exacerbate the problem of rape and sexual assault. As it stands, the NYPD hasn’t been able to adequately respond to the current levels of assault. Year-to-date, there have been nearly 1,500 rapes reported; and as we know, what’s reported is a fraction of the real picture.

This past year, Women's Justice NOW, in partnership with NOW-NYC, conducted a survey to evaluate the NYPD’s response to survivors of sexual assault and rape. All 20 rape crisis programs and first responder organizations, working with an estimated 5,000 sex crimes victims, said the same thing: the quality of Special Victims Division (SVD) investigations varies widely (19) or that SVD handles these cases poorly most of the time (1). Not one organization said that SVD handles sex crimes well most of the time.

When asked how providers would rate the job SVD is doing, 13 out of 20 organizations (65%) said “not so good” or “poor.” Not one organization believed that the NYPD’s SVD was doing an “excellent” job. Only 3 out of 20 organizations (15%) said “good.”

These results go hand-in-hand with the findings of a 2018 New York City Department of Investigation report, which found a persistent lack of investment in SVD and in the training and experience levels of its investigators.

How is it that in 2021 -- four years after MeToo had its breakout moment and three years after the devastating DOI report led to rallies and protests pressuring Mayor de Blasio -- reforming the NYPD’s Special Victims Division is not a major theme candidates for mayor are running on this cycle?

It’s a question worth asking at the final debate and when you get in the voting booth.

***
Sonia Ossorio is President of National Organization for Women NY. On Twitter @soniaossorio & @NOW_NYC.

***
Have an op-ed idea or submission for Gotham Gazette? Email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Primary Voters Must Consider Public Health in the Voting Booth


1 primary voters public

Vaccination (photo: Ed Reed/Mayoral Photography Office)


For the first time in more than a year, New Yorkers are starting to see a light at the end of the COVID-19 tunnel. The city is finally leaping toward the promised “new normal” as basketball fans flood arenas and restaurant patrons spill into the streets with fewer worries about masking up and keeping distance. When our next mayor and City Council take office in January, we’re optimistic that the covid pandemic will be truly behind us.

But for many New Yorkers, the health disparities that COVID-19 created and exacerbated will be here to stay. The pandemic laid bare the brutal reality that results from an under-resourced and insufficient public health infrastructure.

It is in this environment that New Yorkers are now tasked with making critical decisions about who should lead our city. This is an enormous responsibility and an incredible opportunity to chart a more equitable course. More than ever, voters and candidates alike must consider health equity as the top issue in the upcoming New York City elections. 

For the past 14 months, COVID-19 has justifiably dominated the public health conversation. Everyone has struggled, but for many, the pandemic has only magnified the health disparities that have existed for decades. Before COVID-19, nearly 13% of New Yorkers – a whopping 1.2 million people – experienced food insecurity. Now that number is more than 1.5 million, a 38% increase over just the past year. One in three children in New York don’t have access to enough food. A recent Public Health Solutions survey of New York City residents revealed that 42% of respondents with a COVID-19 diagnosis in their household said they or someone in their household had been laid off in the last year, compared to 24% of those without a COVID-19 case.

Other major public health crises have been ravaging the city since long before anyone had heard of COVID-19. In New York, Black mothers are 12 times more likely to die of pregnancy-related complications than their white neighbors. Despite the Affordable Care Act, 12% of New Yorkers continue to lack any sort of health insurance, a number that has likely increased due to covid-related job loss. Moreover, Black and Latino New Yorkers are far more likely to suffer from asthma as a result of long-standing environmental racism, a likely contributor to higher covid-related death rates among those groups

These issues have long lurked under the surface and at the margins of society, affecting our most vulnerable friends and neighbors. Though many of us eagerly anticipate a return to some semblance of normalcy, we must recognize that for millions of New Yorkers, that “normal” was not nearly enough to begin with. That “normal” is the reason New York’s most marginalized communities suffered the most from COVID-19. As a city, we must do better when it comes to combating these long-neglected public health emergencies, and we should choose our leaders with this mission in mind.

As we emerge post-pandemic, New Yorkers have the opportunity to make our voices heard and to elect leaders that are committed to eradicating every health disparity that our city faces. From the mayor to comptroller to borough presidents to members of the City Council, we have the chance to vote for politicians that are committed to making health equity a key part of the plan to keep New York moving forward.  

The ability to live a long and healthy life depends on whether a person lives in a safe neighborhood; experiences racism or discrimination; enjoys access to medical care, food, and stable housing; or has adequate income, knowledge, and opportunities to make healthy choices. Without systemic changes to our approach to health, and without new infrastructure that addresses the root causes of poor health and puts New Yorkers at the center of the health delivery system, we will be in the same situation and experience the same results again and again.

The major Democratic mayoral candidates have all espoused policies that focus on the need for a healthy city, with plans that range from supporting health clinics in underserved communities to dealing with the maternal health crisis. This is a good start, and it shows that the candidates realize addressing community health must be at the forefront of helping alter the path for millions of New Yorkers. I encourage you to read about their plans.

When you step into the voting booth and consider your options, think about what issues matter most to you. Is it racial justice? Educational reform? A fairer economy? Whatever it may be, it will be unachievable without first addressing the glaring health inequities of our city. Racial justice is impossible when Black and brown New Yorkers are dying from preventable causes at rates far exceeding their white neighbors. Education reform is out of reach so long as one-third of New York’s kids don’t have enough to eat. How can we have an economy that works for everyone when a single medical bill can ruin families? 

When we cast our votes this week and next, it isn’t just a policy decision. It’s a moral one. We have the choice to radically redefine what a healthy city looks like, or the choice to condemn millions of our friends and neighbors to poor health just because of the circumstances of their birth and environment. For decades, health has been an afterthought at the ballot box, but COVID-19 has proven that the status quo simply won’t work any longer. On June 22, let’s finally get this right.  

*** 
Lisa David is the President and CEO of Public Health Solutions.

***
Have an op-ed idea or submission for Gotham Gazette? Email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

To Save Democracy and the Planet, Chuck Schumer Must End the Filibuster


senate demo leader

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (photo: Senate Democrats)


It’s 2024. Democrats have lost the House and Senate thanks to gerrymandering and voter suppression. Although Joe Biden won reelection, Republican Secretaries of State are throwing out millions of ballots in order to change the results. White nationalists storm the capital, and Republican House and Senate leadership welcome them in with open arms. The far right Supreme Court upholds their actions. A Q-Anon believing, white nationalist, climate denier is installed as president. Once again, blue states like New York are denied essential funding from the federal government as vengeance for their voting preferences. City and state level laws that protect immigrants, uphold abortion rights, tackle gun violence, and protect the environment face renewed attacks from an extreme right wing government in D.C. And meanwhile, global carbon emissions continue to rise, locking in an uninhabitable future. 

This is the future we face if Majority Leader Chuck Schumer doesn’t end the Senate filibuster to pass S1, the For the People Act, within the next few months. 

Donald Trump’s presidency and attempts to steal the 2020 election made clear that our democracy is weak. That’s why Senate Democrats’ very first bill, S1, is a comprehensive democracy reform bill to protect voters, end gerrymandering, and secure democracy. 

Meanwhile, state Republicans in swing states of Florida, Georgia, Arizona, Texas, Pennsylvania, and more have passed laws designed to disenfranchise Black, youth, immigrant, and poor voters while making it easier for Republican elected officials to throw out votes after they are cast. 

But Schumer is nowhere to be found. With Republicans successfully filibustering legislation to investigate an armed attack on the capitol, you’d be forgiven if you assumed Mitch McConnell was still majority leader. And the clock is ticking on S1: if Democrats don’t pass this crucial democracy reform by the end of the summer, it will be too late to protect voters’ freedom to cast their ballots in 2022. Then, Democrats will likely lose the House and Senate in the midterms, and with that, they will lose their last chance to protect our democracy from the authoritarianism of Trump Republicans. 

And the midterm election isn’t our only deadline. According to scientists we have less than nine years left to cut global greenhouse gas emissions and keep global warming to 1.5 degrees. If we continue our current course we will see 3 or even 4 degrees celsius of warming in our lifetimes, enough to displace hundreds of millions if not billions of people, to turn rainforests into deserts, to cause famines, floods and fires leading to horrific mass death on a scale we can’t even imagine. If Democrats don’t act now to protect and secure democracy while also passing aggressive climate legislation, America will miss a precious opportunity to prevent disasters with unimaginable human cost. 

Here in New York, millions of people - millions of Senator Schumer’s constituents - could soon see food and water shortages as well as increasingly frequent superstorms and floods. Already, extreme heat kills hundreds of New Yorkers each year, and hits the elderly, the disabled, and Black New Yorkers first and worst. 

Senator Schumer has said many times that tackling climate change is a top priority (along with protecting democracy). He has even introduced legislation to electrify transportation and is supporting the THRIVE Agenda, a Green New Deal-inspired legislative package. 

But the thing is, none of it matters if he doesn’t end the filibuster. And none of it will matter if Democrats lose the Senate and House in 2022 and the presidency in 2024 to climate denying, white supremacists who are content to let the world burn as long as their oil industry donors make a profit. 

Senate Democrats have a brief window to meaningfully protect the American people from an untenable, terrifying future. They must seize it. Senator Schumer is the majority leader. He needs to act like it.

End the filibuster now. Before it’s too late.  

***
Liat Olenick is an activist and teacher. On Twitter @LiatRO.

***
Have an op-ed idea or submission for Gotham Gazette? Email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Racist Rezonings Made Housing the #1 Issue in Central Brooklyn


rezonging made housing

Michael Hollingsworth, the author (photo: Hollingsworth campaign)


I live in Crown Heights, and to be specific, on Crown Street. For over 60 years, my building has been home to generations of working-class Black folks just like me. It used to be a rent-stabilized building, but in 2016 my landlord started converting vacant apartments into luxury condos. Some of them sold for over $1 million. Today, he continues to gut renovate empty units while refusing to make repairs to the apartments of existing tenants. 

All throughout my neighborhood, I see traces of the Black and brown people who used to call this area home and the businesses that once employed them. On my block alone, what used to be Sea Crest Linen laundromat is now an empty lot targeted for luxury development, and where there was once a warehouse that employed locals, there is now a 12-story condo. 

So why has Crown Heights changed so much over the last decade? Some of our elected officials like to cast all of the blame on young white transplants moving into our neighborhood, but gentrification doesn’t happen in a vacuum. It’s the result of decisions made by politicians who put their donors’ interests ahead of our community’s needs and sell us out to private developers. Many of our local elected representatives have spent years passing anti-Black, anti-brown, anti-poor, and anti-working-class housing policy. They’ve gutted tenant protections and neglected the agencies meant to protect us from rising rents and displacement in favor of campaign donations from real estate interests. 

That’s not to say we haven’t fought back. My neighbors and I were there in 2017 when District 35’s current City Council member, Laurie Cumbo, approved the sale of our public land, the Bedford Union Armory, for redevelopment. We demanded, alongside Laborers Local 79—a union of construction and general building workers—that the Armory become a community land trust under a new public housing model built with union labor. And we were told that the project would transform the historic site into a recreation center.

But instead, Cumbo and former State Assembly Member Walter Mosley saw it as a money-making opportunity. They created the luxury rental market in Southern Crown Heights where one didn’t exist, and offered so-called affordable units, which were never meant to be accessible to tenants in the area. We were lied to, told that the market-rate units would “subsidize” the recreation center, but in reality, it didn’t need to be subsidized—Cumbo’s developer donors just wanted to make a profit. Compounding past and future harm to the community, construction today at the Bedford Union Armory site is unsafe, underpaid, and non-union.

My neighbors and I were there again in 2018 when Cumbo and her senior staff set their sights on the Franklin Avenue Corridor south of Eastern Parkway, from President to Montgomery Street. Cumbo had plans to rezone the area, bringing in luxury development that would further the cycle of displacement. Opposition from the community was clear, as was the unanimous “no” vote from the community board. But Cumbo and her deep-pocketed real estate allies didn't want to hear what her constituents actually wanted. So this time, we fought back even harder. 

Alongside two of my neighbors, I filed a lawsuit against Cumbo, various city agencies, and the developers Cornell Realty Management and Carmel Partners. We represented ourselves in court, while the opposition hired more than 20 attorneys to try and stop the will of the people. In the end, the New York State Supreme Court annulled the 2018 Franklin Avenue rezoning. It was a crucial victory for the long-term Black residents who this development would have displaced. 

And where are we now? We’re at a crossroads. So much is at stake in the City Council election happening this month -- with early and absentee voting and primary day, June 22 -- and that’s part of why I decided to run to represent District 35, so my neighbors have the choice to vote for someone who has always stood on the side of our community.

One block away from me, the proposed development at 960 Franklin Avenue is the latest threat to our neighborhood. I remember when it was the Spice Factory, which employed lots of Black and brown folks. Now developers want to rezone to build the largest residential development in Crown Heights history: two massive luxury towers that would loom over the Brooklyn Botanic Garden and the Jackie Robinson Playground—casting shadows that would harm our treasured green spaces and transform our neighborhood into a playground for the real estate industry that’s wholly unaffordable to long-term residents. 

Once again, we’re suing the city and the luxury developers whose interests are prioritized over ours. We’ve secured a temporary restraining order to halt construction for now, but the fight isn’t over. It’s a signal of just how broken the system is when we have to sue our own elected local representatives in court to have our voices heard.

Housing injustice is the most important issue facing Central Brooklyn. We need and deserve safe, resilient, deeply and permanently affordable housing for all. To get us out of this crisis, we have to keep fighting alongside our neighbors, building tenant power, and strengthening protections for tenants and homeowners—which I’ve done both locally and statewide as an organizer with the Crown Heights Tenant Union. We also need allies in the City Council who will use their power to strengthen and expand social housing, and have a proven history of standing up to the real estate industry and predatory landlords. Together we can ensure a just future for our city dictated by tenants, working-class homeowners, and workers, not luxury developers.

***
Michael Hollingsworth is tenant organizer, lifelong Brooklynite, and Democratic candidate for City Council in District 35. On Twitter @mike4brooklyn.

***
Have an op-ed idea or submission for Gotham Gazette? Email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Why I Chose Kindness as a Candidate — And How Ranked-Choice Voting Made It Possible


courage change sosa1

Chris Sosa, right, is the author (photo: @ChrisSosa)


The 2021 citywide primary is the first test of ranked-choice voting (RCV), a system I’ve long supported. I fought to ensure RCV wasn’t delayed for this year’s election. Under RCV, negative campaigning has been de-emphasized as candidates compete to become the second or third choice of their opponents’ voters. RCV increases the amount of democracy in our elections and prevents extreme or widely-disliked candidates from being elected with a small plurality in a crowded primary. It encourages candidates to talk to every voter.

Early on in this race, I decided that as a candidate my approach would be different from the style in which I was trained to speak as a long-time political commentator. I had the space to make this change under the RCV system without compromising my competitiveness. The Trump era made our national discourse markedly crueler and angrier, the inevitable end of a social media dystopia. I don’t want to be a force for tearing my community apart further. I decided I’d consciously adjust my conduct to help promote healing of our divisions. I speak from experience as a staffer in the New York State Legislature when I say diplomacy and trust are essential to passing legislation. 

I was humbled when my opponents recently singled out my campaign for its kindness when a PoliticsNY debate moderator asked us if we could say something positive about our opponents. It was easy to offer positive words about every person on my screen, because I’ve had the honor of learning more about each of them away from the cameras.

I knew when I entered the race that I was up against a series of machines. This is not an insult to the candidates who benefit, just a fact of New York politics. To put it bluntly, my campaign was a total longshot. From the earliest days, I was up against some well-liked, hardworking candidates who were going to have club and local elected support locked down. But I genuinely believe there’s room for an outsider voice like mine with policy solutions that aren’t always synonymous with the views of the Democratic Party at-large.

I have the right experience as a New York State Senate aide in the Democratic caucus who helped get legislation like the New York State DREAM Act across the finish line. I’m a professional speechwriter who knows the importance of strong messaging. I’m a longtime journalist who not only understands policy but political realities. Most importantly, I’m authentic. I garnered a reputation in the Senate halls for being an unusually transparent aide who could be trusted, because I always spoke my mind. I didn’t only treat my friends with honesty, but also my opponents.

So I decided to do something unusual, perhaps unprecedented, as a Council candidate. I actively befriended every opponent willing to engage with me in good faith. We’ve built genuine relationships over the course of this campaign. Coffees, phone calls, and fostering camaraderie between our teams. I see no value in villainizing people whose work I respect or creating tension between teams largely staffed by hard-working young people trying to do some good in the world. I’ve learned from my opponents. I hope they’ve learned from me. And I expect us to continue working together long after this race concludes. 

I reject my opponent and former de Blasio-appointed Census Director Julie Menin’s campaign claim that no one else is experienced enough to bring us back from the pandemic crisis. I respect Julie’s hard work and have enjoyed my own conversations with her to a degree that would probably surprise both of our supporters. But I hope ranked-choice voting will make zero-sum arguments like these less prevalent in future elections. Voters deserve to know that each of us brings a style, vision, and proven skill-set worthy of consideration by our voters. 

None of us will win on the first ballot round. This is just the truth of electoral math. Voters have too many qualified choices for any of us to pass 50% outright. In a new dynamic for New York politics, we need each other to win. This is a microcosm of the actual coalition building skills required to be a successful legislator.

The District 5 City Council race is setting a positive example to the entire city of how ranked-choice voting can change and heal our politics. No matter the outcome, New York wins.

***
Chris Sosa is a Democratic candidate for City Council in Manhattan’s 5th District. On Twitter @ChrisSosa.

***
Have an op-ed idea or submission for Gotham Gazette? Email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Why We Want Lucy Lang as Our Colleague as Manhattan DA


lucy lang photocropped

Lucy Lang, right (photo: Lucy Lang campaign)


Leading a district attorney’s office is a unique privilege. Each day, we are called on to be ministers of justice, keep our communities safe, and ensure that a system, warped over time by decades of tough-on-crime policy, is reformed to serve the people it purports to protect. However, these challenges can be hard to tackle, and often require solutions that are collaborative within the office, span multiple agencies, and require support from the community.

We are district attorneys from around the country. We have worked with Lucy Lang. We understand her experience and record. And we know she is the right person for the job of Manhattan District Attorney.

As prosecutors who have served our communities and transformed offices stuck in the past, we know what it takes to fulfill the role of district attorney. Our offices are part of a deeply entrenched criminal justice system that, day in and day out, works with other communities, agencies, bureaucracies, and career public servants who view the DA as a tourist in the offices. Moreover, each jurisdiction is hyperlocal, with idiosyncrasies and different court procedures. Serving as an elected prosecutor requires much more than generic management experience and familiarity with the legal system; it requires a transformative vision, deep experience in a particular jurisdiction, and a knack for leading others while building strong coalitions.

Lucy has done all this and more. She has spent over a decade in Manhattan’s courts handling the most complex and violent cases, and she was one of the few prosecutors promoted to the on-call system for responding to homicide scenes. She understands the ins and outs of the local legal system, and she has used this knowledge to accomplish meaningful reforms -- long before the progressive prosecutor movement was popular.

As a former assistant district attorney, Lucy helped build the first Alternatives to Incarceration Unit in Manhattan at a time when few precedents existed and pushed to ensure the office treated kids like kids. She also pioneered a first-of-its-kind college-in-prison course that brought prosecutors into New York state prisons to study criminal justice reform alongside incarcerated students. These are only a few examples of the numerous reforms Lucy has directly implemented that demonstrate her strength in building coalitions and cultivating wide buy-in for her vision. Indeed, at a time when many district attorneys were still taking baby steps toward reform, Lucy was able to successfully launch these initiatives in one of the largest offices in the nation. Without leadership and experience, vision and expertise do not have much value. Fortunately, Lucy has all of the above.

After leaving the Manhattan District Attorney’s office, Lucy took these skills to the Institute for Innovation in Prosecution (IIP), where we had the opportunity to work with her. While at the IIP, Lucy was a source of leadership and policy expertise for the entire field. For example, following the murder of George Floyd, prosecutors throughout the country called on the IIP for guidance on how to lead their offices at a time when many of their staff members were struggling with their complicity in an often brutal legal system. Lucy counseled these district attorneys on how to effectively address their teams, facilitate restorative circles, respond to the needs of their communities, and ultimately use this painful moment in history as an opportunity for reform. Lucy also trained offices on racial justice-centered procedural justice, pioneered a first-of-its-kind trauma-informed prosecution training, led the foremost initiative on racial justice in prosecution, currently in use in offices around the country, and shepherded a collective effort to articulate a cogent and powerful vision for what prosecution centered around community can be.

Lucy has been a leader in this field. She has worked with elected district attorneys to understand how they run their offices, and has received the most comprehensive training any candidate could ask for. But what truly sets Lucy apart is her compassion, and her deep understanding that prosecutors are elected to help people who touch the system, not punish them. The role of Manhattan District Attorney is too important to elect someone without the vision or capacity to effectuate the change the system needs. Manhattan needs Lucy Lang.

***
Sherry Boston is District Attorney of Dekalb County, Georgia. Kim Gardner is Circuit Attorney of St. Louis, Missouri. Scott Colom is District Attorney for the 16th Circuit Court District, Mississippi.

***
Have an op-ed idea or submission for Gotham Gazette? Email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.



Print Friendly and PDF

Editor's Choice


Gotham Gazette: New York Voters Approve $4.2 Billion Environmental Bond Act
New York Voters Approve $4.2 Billion Environmental Bond Act
Gotham Gazette: 
New York City Voters Approve Racial Justice Ballot Measures
New York City Voters Approve Racial Justice Ballot Measures
Gotham Gazette: 
Housing Development in New York City Slows to a Crawl as Officials Debate Tax Incentives
Housing Development in New York City Slows to a Crawl as Officials Debate Tax Incentives
Gotham Gazette: 
City Council Examines Low Voter Turnout, Moving Local Elections to Even Years City Council Examines Low Voter Turnout, Moving Local Elections to Even Years