The Mayor and PC Shea (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayor's Office)

Last month, New York Attorney General Letitia James filed a groundbreaking lawsuit against the City and the NYPD “to end the pervasive use of excessive force and false arrests by the NYPD against New Yorkers in suppressing overwhelmingly peaceful protests.” The suit was in response to the NYPD’s use of force at last summer’s racial justice protests. The complaint alleges multiple examples of excessive force, and presents a detailed critique of the NYPD’s handling of both the summer protests and many other peaceful protests that came before.

Litigation seeking systemic reform is a long and messy process and should never be a first resort. But because Mayor de Blasio has consistently refused to make necessary reforms to the NYPD even when given specific roadmaps about how to do so, litigation is now the most promising option on the table. Indeed, as the Attorney General’s complaint points out, nothing short of a federal monitor has yet to change the Department’s behavior in this area. To that end, the complaint alleges that the NYPD has engaged in unlawful practices against peaceful protests for years and failed to voluntarily take corrective action despite multiple warnings in the form of reports and lawsuits. A failure the Mayor and Police Commissioner now concede.

We have seen this process play out in similar circumstances ourselves. For five years we ran the City’s Department of Investigation, which oversees the NYPD’s Inspector General. During that time, we issued several reports on systemic failures that were largely brushed aside by the NYPD’s top leadership and the Mayor. Most importantly, in 2018 we issued a Report that demonstrated that the NYPD repeatedly failed to properly investigate sexual assault and continuously failed to properly staff and train the officers responsible for these investigations. Despite the Report, and despite the protests and City Council hearings it fostered, the NYPD failed to take action on its most central recommendations.  

Moreover, these were not new problems. During our investigation into the Special Victims Division, we discovered that an internal 2010 report had come to the same training and staffing conclusions and thereafter there had been repeated complaints from the head of the unit about these problems. So, the NYPD had been ignoring these issues for at least eight years. The Mayor and Police Commissioner were unwilling to insist on key police reforms, even where rape cases were often poorly investigated or at times not investigated at all. According to the NYPD IG’s most recent Annual Report issued last year, over half of DOI’s recommendations regarding investigation of sexual assault remain unimplemented.

Another example – which has disturbing echoes of the problems identified by the Attorney General in her lawsuit – involves the NYPD’s reporting on use of force. In a lengthy Report in 2018, DOI found that the NYPD, despite promises to the contrary, was failing to properly monitor, track, and report on the use of force by its officers. Specifically, although the NYPD had created a Threat, Resistance or Injury (TRI) form to track use of force, too often officers either failed to fill out the form or did so improperly. Again, the Police Commissioner and the Mayor refused to make significant changes – as of the most recent reporting by the NYPD IG, over half of the recommendations have still not been fully implemented.

Indeed, according to the most recent Annual Report from the NYPD IG, just slightly over half of all recommendations made since 2014 by DOI to the NYPD have been fully implemented. And these recommendations themselves were the subject of extensive discussions between the IG and the Police Department before they were ever published. They are not recommendations issued in a vacuum without consideration of the realities of modern policing.

None of this is intended as an overall indictment of the 36,000 officers in the NYPD – the vast majority of whom do a difficult job exceedingly well. Indeed, calls to defund the police miss the mark and will not result in necessary reforms. We do not need a vastly smaller police force; we need a police force that reforms certain specific dangerous and unconstitutional practices. A federal monitor of, rather than defunding, the police is the best way to get there.

Two arguments have been raised in opposition to the Attorney General’s lawsuit: First, that the NYPD already has multiple monitors and second, that last summer’s protests presented a volatile situation that was difficult to police. While both statements are true, neither, as an argument, should prevail. As to the first, while there are multiple NYPD monitors, none, in this area, have the backing of a federal court and thus the NYPD has felt free to disregard the monitors’ recommendations. As to the second, policing protests is certainly difficult; however, that is exactly why it requires proper training and must be done correctly.

It is important to acknowledge that the monitor sought here would only deal with the one issue raised in the Attorney General’s lawsuit. Nevertheless, monitorships have been powerfully effective in the past, most recently in reducing the use of stop-and-frisk. A monitorship here could give the hardworking officers in the NYPD the tools they need and the training they deserve to be better partners with the community.

This Mayor and his police commissioners have repeatedly shown an unwillingness to make needed changes even when confronted with evidence of problems. If they haven’t taken steps they’ve known were needed for the last seven years, it’s hard to imagine they will do so now.  For this reason, we’ve reached the point where a federal monitor to force change on the NYPD is the best option for this Department.

***
Mark Peters and Lesley Brovner are the founding partners of Peters Brovner, LLP and from 2014 to 2018 served as Commissioner and First Deputy Commissioner of the Department of Investigation, the City’s Inspector General.

New York City (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office)

Well before the beginning of the pandemic that has turned life upside down, New Yorkers already faced a devastating affordable housing and homelessness crisis. Even without the dramatic wave of unemployment brought about by a global pandemic, low-income tenants and homeless people across the city faced a grave lack of truly affordable housing and the absence of an effective citywide plan to fix it. Now, of course, the crisis has deepened, with tenants who have long lived paycheck to paycheck unable to scrape together even a modest living to pay their rent, and the danger of living on the street or in a congregate shelter multiplied by a deadly virus.

As we look for new leadership for New York City through this year’s elections, we must learn the lessons of why the city has fallen so short, and look forward with clarity and boldness to a new vision for meeting all New Yorkers’ housing needs and ending homelessness. That vision must begin with an Integrated Housing Plan to end homelessness and promote racial equity -- one that brings together all the agencies involved in housing, building, and planning to work in sync to meet ambitious goals based on our communities’ true needs. Such a plan can work if it addresses the shortcomings of the dominant approach from the past seven years.

Since taking the reins in 2014, the de Blasio administration has focused attention on what became the ambitious goal of creating and preserving 300,000 units of affordable housing over 12 years. And while the administration has created and preserved a substantial number of units (166,000) according to its definition of affordability, the reality is that most of that has not focused on the New Yorkers suffering the greatest housing hardship: very low-income and homeless New Yorkers. 

As a recent report by the Community Service Society lays out, the administration failed to focus on the populations with the greatest housing need, paying the most attention to meeting ambitious goals for number of units instead of grappling with the true needs of communities. Moreover, the administration’s siloed approach to affordable housing -- which it largely separated from discussions and decisions about NYCHA and homelessness -- led to a failure to grapple with the full picture that breeds housing insecurity and homelessness across the city.

As we lay out in a joint report with our allies, the next Mayor must learn from these mistakes. The report, “Right to a Roof: Demands for an Integrated Housing Plan to End Homelessness and Promote Racial Equity,” offers critical recommendations for how to right the ship. First, the next administration must create the Integrated Housing Plan (IHP) to break through the siloes, and ensure that there is a Deputy Mayor of Homelessness, Housing, and Planning paying attention not just to one part of the housing context, but examining housing, building, and planning matters together. 

The IHP can succeed if it prioritizes need over numbers -- in particular, by focusing on providing permanent, deeply affordable housing for those who need it most, and by preserving public housing without relinquishing public control. The plan must also improve access to affordable and supportive housing by bringing agencies together to streamline the process for finding and securing affordable and supportive housing options, as well as promoting fair housing.

Meanwhile, we cannot continue to let the real estate sector destabilize the market through speculation. The next mayor must seek to end such speculation by creating and preserving 100% permanent, affordable housing that is community built and community owned, and working to keep existing residents in their homes.

And it must preserve people’s existing housing. To ensure all New Yorkers have safe and healthy housing, the IHP must focus on stopping displacement due to poor housing conditions or harassment, secure our communities by ensuring the long-term viability of the city’s affordable housing stock, and guarantee that every New Yorker has a safe, healthy, and stable home.

Finally, planning that truly listens to community input will be crucial. The IHP must support planning that centers local knowledge within a true citywide framework. Unlike recent rezonings in communities like Bushwick, where the city has ignored community members’ deep concerns and residents’ community-based planning process, planning must meaningfully incorporate residents’ voices and create an equitable approach that centers fair housing and neighborhood priorities. It must also ensure that wealthier communities do their part to address citywide priorities, including creating housing for very low-income and homeless people. 

Confronting the enormous scale of the interlocking affordable housing and homelessness crises in New York City will not be easy. But unless we set bold goals that address the full scope of the need, we won’t stand a chance.

***
Jose Lopez is the Deputy Director and incoming Co-Executive Director of Make the Road New York. Barika X. Williams is the Executive Director of the Association for Neighborhood and Housing Development (ANDH). On Twitter @JLopez_MRNY & @barikaXw

New Yorkers at work (photo: Ed Reed/Mayoral Photography Office)

A major new federal infrastructure investment seems increasingly likely this year. During the campaign, then-candidate Joe Biden proposed a $2 trillion infrastructure plan to boost the economy and tackle climate change. President Biden now has signaled that he intends to move his Build Back Better plan forward later this month, and it could have bipartisan support.

New York City should start preparing to seize this opportunity. 

Few other cities would benefit more from a public works-style program to get the economy going and confront the climate crisis. By the end of December, New York City still had 568,000 fewer jobs than in February. The city's unemployment rate (11%) is far higher than even the worst-off state. A federal infrastructure program would help, creating loads of jobs that would be accessible to many of the New Yorkers who have lost work during the pandemic. 

At the same time, the city faces an urgent need to protect coastal communities from storms and sea level rise, modernize vulnerable infrastructure, and transition away from fossil fuels. 

But to take advantage, city policymakers will need to start identifying—and planning for—sustainability and resiliency projects that can be ready to go this year. 

There's no shortage of infrastructure projects that would add jobs and help the city become more resilient to climate change. For example, the infusion of federal dollars could jumpstart city initiatives to protect Lower Manhattan, the Rockaways, Soundview, the South Shore of Staten Island, and other low-lying neighborhoods that are threatened by rising sea levels and increasingly powerful storms.

As one example, the markets at Hunts Point feed millions of people across the tri-state area, yet the low-lying peninsula is in great danger of flooding. A public works project to bolster flood protections around the food distribution hub would not only protect the region's food supply, but also create thousands of good-paying jobs in the Bronx, which has the highest unemployment of any county in the state at 15%.

Across the five boroughs there is also pressing need to build out green infrastructure to capture and divert sewage and stormwater that currently flows into the city's waterways nearly every time it rains. And constructing thousands of curbside rain gardens, upgrading wastewater treatment facilities, and building new sewage capture tunnels to do so has the potential to employ thousands of out-of-work New Yorkers.

Alongside resilience measures, New York City can use federal public works investment to meet its ambitious greenhouse gas emissions targets and accelerate the transition to renewable energy. Support from Washington could help the city deploy solar panels across thousands of city-owned buildings and upgrade energy transmission lines to give the city access to wind, solar, and hydropower upstate.

It could also help ramp up much-needed energy retrofits, especially replacing thousands of aging gas boilers and moving to electrified heating systems. And all these public projects can enlist and train New Yorkers in new, sustainable careers they can take to the private sector as the economy recovers and transitions to a carbon-free future.

But these flood protection, solar panel deployment, energy retrofit, and stormwater diversion plans cannot be mere sketches. For the city to make the most of Biden's "Build Back Better" infrastructure agenda, policymakers must act now to lay out federal funding plans for projects that can break ground this year and get New Yorkers working again. With citywide unemployment still lingering above 10%, and sea levels and temperatures continuing to rise, we cannot afford to wait.

***
Jonathan Bowles is executive director and Laird Gallagher is associate editor of the Center for an Urban Future, an independent think tank focused on expanding economic opportunity in New York. On Twitter @NYCFuture.

Construction workers at work (photo: Emil Cohen/City Council)

As our city stays focused on managing what we hope to be the final chapter of the COVID-19 pandemic, we also need to keep thinking proactively about driving a strong and just economic recovery.

It’s no secret that in my Brooklyn district and across the five boroughs, there’s a long road ahead. Our official citywide unemployment rate is now hovering around 12%, with the highest jobless rates still in Brooklyn, Queens, and the Bronx.

A recent report showed that year-to-date filings for new construction – one of our city’s most vital industries – are currently at their lowest point since the Great Recession a decade ago. Kick-starting our construction pipeline will play an important role in creating more good-paying jobs to help drive the city’s recovery. One way to start is by looking seriously at opportunities to develop on city-owned land in ways that serve long-standing neighborhood needs – particularly the increasingly urgent need for more truly affordable housing.

There are a host of ideas out there about how best to deal with our affordable housing crisis, from community land trusts and comprehensive planning to reforming the land use approval process (ULURP) and rejuvenating our public housing. All of those ideas and more should be on the table but all will take lots of time and money to get right and get going, two things that our city doesn’t have enough of right now.

So how can we get started on driving our recovery and dealing with our affordable housing crisis sooner, without waiting for Albany or Washington or revising the city charter? Part of the answer is all around us in the form of city-owned land.

I am certainly not the first politician to propose building affordable housing on city-owned land. Like many of my colleagues, I’ve had conversations with myriad stakeholders about how to activate city-owned sites. Proposals to build on city-owned land seem like a silver bullet – the land is ours, we should be able to do what we want with it! – but they haven’t been scaled up for the reason they’re appealing: public ownership raises the stakes and makes the dynamics that come with any development much more acute: “Who is this for?” “How tall will it be?” “Where will people park?” “Who is making money off this and how much?”

When it comes to developing city-owned land, we have a trust deficit as big as our budget deficit and if we don’t implement a framework based on trust and respect with impacted communities from the start, we’re doomed to repeat the development stumbles of the past.

In order to deal with that trust deficit, I suggest we create and convene, in collaboration with local community boards, Constituent Assemblies to review all the city-owned sites in each district to come up with a vision for how to best use them to jumpstart our recovery and put a dent in our housing affordability crisis. Each Constituent Assembly would be made up of stakeholders representing everyone with a stake in the area – from renters, homeowners, and business owners to immigrants, seniors, and organized labor – and will receive pro-bono technical support from affordable housing experts to make sure the Constituent Assembly’s vision is grounded in reality. Local elected officials could then work with city government entities - the housing department, Economic Development Corporation, and more - to issue requests for proposals that conform to the Community Assembly’s vision. As proposals come in, the Assembly for the area of each proposal will serve as another guiding light along with the relevant community board in helping the City Council member determine whether to lend his or her support to the proposal in the land use review process (ULURP).

You may be saying, “Justin, we already have community boards to issue advisory opinions on ULURPs, why do we need Constituent Assemblies?” And I’m glad you asked! While doing this in collaboration with community boards is crucial, community boards have a lot to do and cover a lot of ground, whereas Constituent Assemblies would be laser-focused on this one issue of what to do with city-owned sites in their assigned area in order to balance neighborhood concerns with city-wide priorities. I believe that focus is key to accomplishing anything and by focusing their time, Constituent Assembly-like bodies in Europe have tackled far thornier issues than building affordable housing.

There’s no getting around having debates about development in this city – they’re as old as the city itself. But I firmly believe that by starting these debates sooner and outside the twin pressure cookers of ULURP and social media, representative groups of constituents can grapple with the trade-offs inherent in any development in a much more just and productive manner that would ultimately lead to better results.

We should get started now by identifying sites that make the most immediate sense. There's no time to waste.

***
Justin Brannan is a member of the City Council representing parts of Brooklyn. On Twitter @JustinBrannan.

Gov. Cuomo visits a school (photo: governor's office)

Thanks to the election of the Biden-Harris ticket and a newly Democratic U.S. Congress, New York can expect much more favorable treatment in any new federal pandemic relief program than it would have received from the Trump administration or Republican Congress.

But however much New York gets from the federal government in the coming months, it won’t be enough for our public school children if the state uses that federal aid to replace rather than add to the state’s own funding of our public schools.

The $1.1 billion in federal stimulus money already received went to local school districts. But at the same time New York state officials used the new money as an opportunity to lower the state’s own school funding.  

In general, federal funds are supposed to be used to supplement rather than to supplant or replace local contributions, but unfortunately, the current pandemic relief plan leaves the states some flexibility to reduce their own investments in education.  

New York’s budget problems are real, with tax revenues declining in many areas because of the damage the coronavirus epidemic has done to our economy.  The state’s most recent estimates predict a total deficit of more than $60 billion for the next four years.

The good news — at least for the moment — is that according to both the state and city fiscal officials, tax revenues have come in somewhat above the most pessimistic projections, and new federal funds can certainly help close remaining budget gaps.

But when our schools fully re-open, we won’t be getting back to the pre-covid world.

The “new normal” will include hundreds of thousands of students who have lost weeks of valuable learning time, despite the heroic efforts by teachers, both in classrooms and online.  That deficit must be made up.

Most importantly, our schools will also need significant new investments in mental health services to help children manage the emotional damage caused by the sickness and deaths of loved ones, along with the prolonged isolation that affected so many families.

Schools are far from the only areas that will need new funding to deal with the long-term effects of the pandemic. Too many New Yorkers will continue to struggle with unemployment, homelessness, and food scarcity.

The state’s budget process will have to balance these needs with available federal help and the strength of the New York economic recovery, which could take years. Additional revenue ideas now on the table range from levies on the legalized sale of marijuana and on-line gambling to increased taxes on the wealthy.

There will also be other possibilities, which the Legislature can weigh.

But whatever strategies the state develops to deal with the budget challenges posed by the pandemic, our children will have to meet the challenges of a post-covid society. They won’t be able to do so if the schools never see their fair share of new funds.

 ***
Michael Mulgrew is the president of the United Federation of Teachers. On Twitter @UFT.

Governor Cuomo at a state prison (photo: governor's office)

For nearly a year, we’ve borne witness to the devastating effects of COVID-19. We wept at the sight of fellow New Yorkers entering hospitals, and at the images of trucks storing our deceased neighbors. But there are tens of thousands of New Yorkers whose pandemic traumas have, by design, been kept out of our sight. They are the hardest hit and the least protected. These are the New Yorkers incarcerated in jail and prison cages across the state, and our state leaders are failing them when they need help the most. 

New York’s incarceration problem isn’t new or unique, but the failure of state leaders to respond to COVID-19 behind bars has spiraled an already horrifying crisis to new lows. With no option for social distancing, poor access to hygiene, and inadequate medical care, jails and prisons are coronavirus hot spots. Thousands upon thousands of people across New York’s jails and prisons have contracted the virus, and dozens have died. Inexcusable delays in testing made tracking the virus’ spread incredibly difficult. And a recent plan to vaccinate incarcerated people, which was only prompted by litigation, will only apply to people aged 65 and over and people the prison system deems as “medically frail.” It’s unconscionable that all people in jails and prisons aren’t being offered the vaccination like other people in congregate settings across the state. 

This intensifying crisis didn’t prompt the immediate action we needed or that public health experts urged — to curb admissions and to release as many vulnerable people as possible. Instead, state leaders did the opposite. The historic bail reform laws passed in 2019 were working to bring the state’s pretrial population to historic lows at the beginning of the pandemic. However, months into the worsening outbreak, state leaders gutted key provisions, bringing the jail population up nearly 30% higher than before these rollbacks went into effect. 

Just as troubling is the failure to release those inside state prisons. Over the past year, a shrinking number of people have been granted parole and New York’s strict parole laws mean that far too few can access this opportunity for release. This is unfortunately nothing new. 

Before the pandemic, our elected leaders fell victim to the fear-mongering tactics that some backwards-facing members of law enforcement and media have recycled for decades. When bail reform passed in 2019, law enforcement flooded the media with inaccurate stories that were filled with lies and anti-Black rhetoric. The evidence has long made clear that reducing incarceration does not lead to increases in crime and, in the case of New York, bail reforms did not impact crime rates, according to the NYPD’s own data. What these reforms did was dramatically decrease unnecessary pretrial jailing at a time when jail made people four times as likely to contract COVID-19. 

We cannot afford another legislative session of pandering to these dangerous fictions. 

In November, voters gave New York elected leaders a mandate: pass bold criminal justice reforms that bring our families and neighbors home and make our communities safe.  

Our state leaders must take action to protect the more than 30,000 people in New York prisons. Even as some vaccinations roll out, Governor Cuomo must use his clemency power to immediately release people who are older, immunocompromised, and nearing release. The Legislature must work to reform a parole system that has resulted in far too few releases. Passage of both the Fair & Timely Parole Act and the Elder Parole bill will begin to offer the release opportunities people in prisons deserve. 

Elected leaders must also revisit bail reform, be honest about why they rolled so much of it back, and actively work to address the rapidly increasing jail populations driven by their misguided rollbacks. The same leaders who invoked the names of Kalief Browder and Layleen Polanco to demonstrate the injustice of pretrial incarceration must recommit to bail reform so that too many other New Yorkers don’t come to the same tragic fate. 

New York leaders failed to meet the moment to address COVID-19 behind bars, and they must act now before more lives are lost. It’s our moral obligation and it is in the interest of both our collective public health and safety. 

***
Rodney Holcombe is FWD.us’ New York Criminal Justice Director. On Twitter @rodnationn & @FWDus.

Green investments are the future (photo: MTA/Patrick Cashin)

2021 has the potential to be a pivotal year for New Yorkers. Vaccine distribution is underway, and plans are being drafted to rebuild New York’s economy. As state leaders consider how to address the state’s deficit and create a sustainable future, investing in environmental programs is the answer. 

Environmental programs, such as the Environmental Protection Fund, are proven to aid in state economic recovery, create good-paying jobs, and strengthen local economies while protecting our environment and mitigating the effects of climate change. This is what New Yorkers need and Governor Cuomo is already leading the charge.

In his 2021 executive budget proposal, the governor continued his commitment to conservation by including funding for critical environmental programs, despite the deficit caused by the pandemic. The Nature Conservancy of New York, along with over 175 organizations in the New Yorkers for Clean Water & Jobs Coalition, were thrilled that Governor Cuomo is maintaining record funding levels for environmental programs. 

The governor announced a continued commitment of $300 million for the Environmental Protection Fund (EPF), which supports 350,000 jobs across several industries, including construction, agriculture, recreation, tourism, forestry, recycling, and recreational fishing. EPF-supported industries add $40 billion to the state’s economy every year. By making this continued investment, we’re protecting local jobs, while also preventing pollution, improving public health, and ensuring clean air and water. 

The governor’s budget also devotes $440 million for State Parks capital projects over the next four years. Every dollar invested in state parks generates $5 of economic activity. Aside from the economic lifeline this funding brings to local communities, we have seen the importance of parks and outdoor spaces in the past year. Public parks experienced the highest ever visitation in 2020, with a record 78 million visitors. This comes as the state continues to open new parks and trails, like the Empire State Trail, that keep us connected to nature when we need it most. 

We’re also excited to see a $550 million commitment for water infrastructure projects. We need to update our water and wastewater systems now to provide clean, safe water for communities across the state and protect our beloved lakes, rivers, bays, and harbors. For every $1 million in state investment, we’re able to create 17 local jobs. 

As we continue to navigate our way out of this budget crisis and face down the threats of climate change, we look forward to working with the State Legislature to reinstate the $3 billion Environmental Bond Act to build a more sustainable future for New York. A recent report showed that the Bond Act has the potential to support 65,000 jobs in the state, resulting in an estimated $6.7 billion in project spending. We cannot pass on this opportunity to put people back to work. 

Labor, business, and environmental leaders all agree that the Environmental Bond Act will help build a sustainable future for New Yorkers. It will modernize the state’s water infrastructure, improve public health, reduce flood risks, and enhance the quality of life for millions of people.

It’s clear that we need these critical environmental programs not just to protect and preserve our beautiful state, but also to kickstart our economy and rebuild New York. These investments will lead to a sustainable and prosperous future for all New Yorkers.

***
Jessica Ottney Mahar is New York Policy and Strategy Director at The Nature Conservancy. On Twitter @jessicaottney & @nature_ny.

Lincoln Restler, the author

With unprecedented environmental catastrophes and more hundred-year storms each passing year, the climate crisis is fully upon us. Our leaders of government and industry have failed to rise to the greatest challenge facing our planet. That abdication of responsibility is inexcusable, but we don’t have time to wait for them to get it together. We need to lead the way. As a City Council candidate, I have a plan to make my district - Brooklyn’s own 33rd - the first carbon neutral district in New York and the United States.

Part of what feels insurmountable about the climate crisis is its magnitude. That’s why I want to start small -- at the neighborhood level. Transformative change starts on the ground, and across this district, neighborhood associations, community organizations, and advocacy groups are already mobilizing to make our communities greener.

In Brooklyn Heights, neighbors have come together to demand a green reimagining of the BQE highway. Local advocates have organized brilliantly in opposition to the new fracked gas North Brooklyn Pipeline. And it was the tireless fight of local environmental advocates that secured Superfund designations to clean up the two horribly polluted waterways at the north and south ends of our district - Newtown Creek and the Gowanus Canal. It is clear: if you give the people of these neighborhoods a concrete plan to turn their district green, they will make it a reality.

Our 10-point plan for the district offers a roadmap to carbon neutrality and an end to dependence on fossil fuels. It’s a localized approach that targets the largest sources of greenhouse gases: buildings, transportation, and waste. With 53 concrete policy solutions and a community-centered organizing model, we hope it will provide an actionable template for other neighborhoods and cities to build on. 

Make no mistake, we need Green New Deal legislation at every level of government and a comprehensive New York City waterfront resiliency plan. But there are ample resources that can be tapped now to enact the policy solutions outlined — we just need to make it easier for New Yorkers to access them in order to change their neighborhoods, their homes, and their lives to meet this moment. 

Since buildings represent 70% of our city’s emissions, the core of this plan is reducing that footprint. We can do this by changing how we power and heat our homes and offices. This means retrofitting our buildings, including replacing fossil-fuel-burning boilers and stoves with efficient electric systems. The City has the means to do this by legalizing energy storage systems to capture solar power by providing low-cost financing to encourage mass utilization of electric heat pumps; and by expanding tax incentives and easing regulatory approvals to install solar on every viable roof from Boerum Hill to Greenpoint. These approaches aren't only critical for the fight against the climate crisis — they’re also vital to improving residents’ health and lowering electricity costs.

At every turn, we have to create solutions that center those who are most impacted -- Black and brown low-income New Yorkers. NYCHA tenants should be the first to benefit from updated, safer, and healthier energy systems and appliances. The 33rd City Council District includes 12,000 individuals living in unacceptable conditions in seven NYCHA developments. We need to secure the funding from every level of government to comprehensively renovate these developments. With the Biden administration, a U.S. Senate Majority Leader from Park Slope, Chuck Schumer, and the leading champion for NYCHA in Congress, Representative Nydia Velazquez, representing our neighborhoods, we finally have partners in Washington to help transform our NYCHA developments into environmentally-efficient, healthy, and safe homes, while ensuring that renovations don’t lead to massive interruptions in the day-to-day lives of residents. 

Transportation represents 30% of our city’s emissions - the largest source after buildings. To reduce dependence on gas-guzzling cars and discourage personal car ownership, we need to make it easier and safer for pedestrians, bikers, and subway and bus riders. We need to create safer cycling routes and push the MTA to improve bus and subway service, while improving accessibility and affordability for low-income New Yorkers. And because cars won’t magically disappear, we need to increase the availability of electric vehicle charging stations. 

And as with our district's housing stock, we need to utilize our district’s assets in the fight for carbon neutrality. That means the City mandating curbside composting pick-up and converting an empty Department of Sanitation site on Newtown Creek into a community composting facility. And we should transform the Brooklyn Navy Yard, a model industrial park, into a hub for the clean-energy industry and green jobs.

The lack of urgency from our elected leaders got us here, but new energy from those entering into office can help get us out. If I’m lucky enough to be elected, our district office will serve as a green organizing and education hub, bringing the community together and launching outreach efforts in collaboration with the impressive climate activists who have laid the groundwork to tackle these issues. As an almost entirely waterfront district, we will have a staff member dedicated to climate justice and a team of climate fellows to help spread the word and reach residents across every corner of the district. Through dynamic outreach and organizing, every resident of the district will have access to clear and compelling information that will enable them to reduce their carbon footprint. 

This plan needs to be community led, so we will be out listening at every community event from the McCarren Park Greenmarket to NYCHA Wyckoff Gardens Resident Association meetings. We will encourage neighbors with more resources to invest more and work together to ensure low-income residents and residents of color — who are disproportionately impacted by the climate crisis — experience the positive impacts of these policies. We want to help tenants organize their buildings to demand retrofits, support neighbors in launching community solar campaigns, and connect NYCHA residents to green jobs.

The climate crisis is the existential crisis of our time. There is no greater or more urgent issue facing us and future generations, but big changes are often born of small beginnings. Turning one City Council district carbon neutral in the biggest city in America is a humble first step, but it is a first step that we can achieve together. Seeing the results of change, even on a small scale, inspires progress. There’s no reason to wait for someone else — we as neighbors can start together.

***
Lincoln Restler is running for City Council in Brooklyn’s District 33rd district. His full policy proposal for a carbon-neutral district is available here. On Twitter @LincolnRestler.

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

The politics of New York City public schools reached a fever pitch last week, when the Panel for Education Policy (PEP) voted down a vendor contract to give the Gifted and Talented (G&T) test this Spring. Along with 22 other Community Education Council members from throughout the city and one state senator, I testified in opposition to the contract for several reasons.

First, the mayor recently announced that starting in 2022, the test would no longer be administered for admissions. More on that in a bit. Second, we are in a pandemic. Sending four-year-olds to test in person, with someone they don’t know, who is wearing a mask, in elementary schools, many of which are opening and closing with COVID-19 cases, is not a responsible government action. Lastly, the city’s standalone G&T programs are widely known to exacerbate racial segregation. With so much of the pandemic’s impact disproportionately affecting communities of color, the next cohort would needlessly magnify this long-time structural injustice.

I’m a public school parent and mother to a daughter who attended a G&T elementary school but whose middle school class is balanced with students from all District 3 elementary programs. I’m also the President of Community Education Council 3, and led the city’s first districtwide middle school diversity initiative so that this could be possible. I support accelerated learning. I also support integrated classrooms, schools, and the system, as part of a long-term strategy to prepare children for a thriving future.

The PEP’s vote, the only time it has voted down a contract in opposition to the mayor, was both a victory for progressive policy-making, and solid evidence of the need for major structural changes in the way that public schools are governed.

Progressive education policy centers the core belief that education is a human right. Thus, government institutions have a responsibility to offer every child an equitable, high-quality education from kindergarten through twelfth grade. For decades, ‘reformers’ have lobbied for school choice, testing, and more prep for testing. In the process, they have commodified learning and turned public education into a competitive ecosystem that tracks winners and losers -- and the losers, more often than not, are Black and Latino students.

Mayor de Blasio’s unilateral announcement that the G&T test would be phased out as part of a new direction in accelerated learning, but without further detail on what this new direction would look like, is not surprising. Stakeholders have become all too familiar with the poor planning, overtly political, and terrible communication operations under mayoral control of city schools. Which is exactly why the governing structure must be changed.

The PEP’s unprecedented vote made headlines, in part because a majority of the PEP is appointed by the Mayor, and it is generally a rubber stamp for his agenda. It’s essentially authoritarian rule, and it does not work. We need common sense checks and balances, stakeholder input, and accountability. What we need now is public school democracy. 

The pandemic exacerbated myriad problems that have been simmering under mayoral control for years. Who makes decisions on pedagogy, budgeting, school staffing, teacher training, student supports, enrollment, and building issues? This is the underlying question that gets to the heart of the politics - it’s why our kids get used as pawns in a game of political chess. Deeper than those decision-making pressure points are the system’s central leaders: the executive and the governing body. Under mayoral control we have no true governing body. The PEP flexed a governing muscle last week, but the political theatre that led up to the meeting and its fallout - one PEP member was dismissed - are emblematic of centralized control problems. 

Nearly 20 years ago, Mayor Bloomberg worked with New York state leaders to abolish School Boards, to decrease local graft and consolidate operations. However, only 32 years had passed since Mayor Lindsay ceded control in 1969 to local governance. The Mayor having sole control wasn’t working then either. 

No one wants to return to the old School Boards. What we need is the best of both structures.

Education advocates, teachers, and parents know that now is the time to create a hybrid governance structure that maintains central strength but fosters peripheral authority where it’s needed. A true governing body would be responsible for holding the executive and the Chancellor (who works for the Mayor), in check. The State Legislature and Governor Cuomo are required to make a decision on this issue in 2022, so we have time to collaborate on specific elements of this new structure, but the work ahead demands clarity now, as shown so clearly of late and for years, that mayoral control doesn’t work for our students. 

Finally, what was striking about the testimony at the PEP, both in opposition and in favor of the G&T test, is that parents and teachers want high-quality public schools. We want opportunities for learning expansion, for enrichment, for language and culture, with plenty of room for rigor. The division we experience, the battles for admissions, testing, and choice, are a reflection of government neglect and political malfeasance. No one wins when children don’t learn.

We must center equity and democracy, as we continue such a dangerous phase of our existence as a city. The pandemic, the Trump administration, and extreme economic hardships have brought New York City to the brink of disaster. We owe it to the next generation of New Yorkers to get it right and give public schools back to the public.

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Kim Watkins is a public school parent, president of Community Education Council, District 3, and a candidate for Manhattan Borough President in this year’s election. On Twitter @kimwatkinsnyc.

A darkened theatre (photo: Benjamin Kanter/Mayoral Photo Office)

The COVID-19 pandemic has been detrimental to New York’s economy, with people losing jobs, businesses shuttering, and our city government accumulating astronomical deficits.

While city and state governments continue to roll out recovery plans, industries that keep getting overlooked, like the arts and dining, have been the backbone of neighborhoods on the West Side of Manhattan.

Since the start of the pandemic, more than 1,000 New York City restaurants have been forced to shut their doors—and that number is climbing. The theater industry has experienced similar woes, with over 40 theaters closing and over 51,000 employees losing their jobs. 

Restaurants and the arts aren’t just staples of our neighborhoods, including the communities encompassed in the 3rd City Council District; they’re the cultural and economic lifeblood of our city. We need a comprehensive plan to revitalize these industries—one that allows them to thrive despite our current reality. Because let’s face it: these industries go hand-in-hand in our West Side neighborhoods, as people usually go out to eat and drink before or after seeing a show. If either one of them fails, they both fail.

Growing up in Hell’s Kitchen, I witnessed firsthand a cultural shift from a time when the streets were lined with pimps, peep shows, and drug dealers. An evolution began when artists came together and helped create a renaissance and true rebirth of the former red-light district, creating a place where people of all walks of life would be welcome and could come to raise families, create businesses and fulfill their dreams. Their careers in the arts embody the heart and soul of our city. 

Anyone who has lived here for more than 30 years has seen the landscape change, but if we don’t act quickly and effectively enough these industries could become perpetually debilitated. 

This is why we must denounce any notion of the arts as a luxury. The full diversity of the arts are a major tourist attraction and fundamental to our economic, psychological, and spiritual health. The essential revenue they accrue from both visitors and New Yorkers serve to replenish our city’s coffers over and over, helping the city to provide essential services.  

This is why in a time when our budget deficits run deep we need this crucial economic driver to rise from the ashes with fervor.  

We must swiftly organize a series of forums where constituents, independent theater groups, and local leaders in the restaurant and bar industry work to identify district priorities related to the arts. When I take office as the local City Council representative at the start of next year, I will organize such discussions and we will then formulate and execute a plan in conjunction with our mayor, borough president, and state representatives. By spring 2022, a pilot program will be implemented. 

We will work in conjunction with restaurants, bars, and other local businesses, utilizing every opportunity and resource available to revitalize our theater industry. This initiative will include regularly holding socially distanced and outdoor performances, as well as fundraisers in parks and open spaces. 

Once we are able to safely congregate again, we will bring this effort indoors and witness our theaters, cafes, restaurants, and bars resurrect themselves from the wreckage of the pandemic. We must give life back to these industries and preserve the vibrancy of our community—one that artists don’t just work in, but live in as well. 

While in the midst of a second wave of the pandemic, we can no longer rely on tourist dollars to fuel these industries. In 2019, New York City tourism reached a record high—66.6 million individual trips with about $47.4 billion generated in direct spending for the city, according to a 2019 NYC & Company report. However, tourism dropped more than 60% in 2020.

That is why we need a proactive approach.

Governor Cuomo recently announced a plan that would provide performance venues, as well as restaurants and other indoor spaces, a clear path to reopen. It will utilize mass-scale rapid testing, social distancing, and mask-wearing. It also includes 150 pop-up concerts and performances throughout the state, featuring stars like Chris Rock and Renée Fleming. In addition, the state has partnered with the Mellon Foundation to put 1,000 artists back to work through grants.

However, these efforts cannot stop there. Our city cannot shy away from forging public-private partnerships. A significant list of large companies and corporations within New York City will be more than willing to help if only asked, knowing the positive publicity and advertising their efforts will generate. According to Forbes, 73 Fortune 500 companies are located here, and we must take full advantage of their resources.

When people come to the West Side we want them immersed in talent, art, culture, and cuisine. That’s why my plan includes creating affordable art spaces in empty storefronts through a program that establishes a “Mom and Pop Way,” because we must never forget our small businesses. 

We will also implement a temporary Universal Basic Income (UBI) for small businesses and independent contractors, with the ultimate goal of instituting a permanent, universal UBI for city residents in the future. Federal PPP loans may cover payrolls for many business enterprises, but in a modern economy where so many of our artists and restaurant and bar workers are independents, it falls far too short of our workers’ economic needs. 

We will additionally push to implement rent stabilization for mom and pop commercial spaces and small businesses, and to establish a moratorium on big box stores so they cannot take advantage of the pandemic’s impact and snatch up these locations. Strictly enforcing the law written by Manhattan Borough President Brewer limiting storefront square footage must be a top priority now, and I will focus on its enforcement as a Council member.

While I don’t take the seriousness of coronavirus lightly, it is still imperative that we allow our restaurants to remain open using strict social distancing guidelines and other safety precautions to protect our health. The data clearly shows that an extremely small number of COVID-19 contractions occur in restaurants, a testament to the responsible behavior of these small business owners, most of whom have complied with regulations despite enduring such trying social and economic times, and the many thousands of New Yorkers who work in these establishments, as well as patrons.

Since theaters first opened in New York the arts and culture have been a driving force of our economy and the soul of our way of life, surviving even the darkest of times. This cannot stop now.

As they say, the show must go on.

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Aleta LaFargue is a candidate for New York City Council in the 3rd District, which includes parts of Manhattan’s West Side. On Twitter @Aletafor3.