Gotham Gazette

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Opinion

A Roadmap to a Carbon-Neutral District, and a Model for the City


lincoln restler garden compost

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.

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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.

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The G&T Test Contract and Why Mayoral Control of Schools Needs to Go


1 gifted talented

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.

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New York's Arts and Cuisine are the Soul of Our City, We Must Do More to Revitalize Them


proclamation cast award

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.

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