Mayor de Blasio sits to testify in Albany (photo: Skip Dickstein via Twitter)

At the end of June this year the law that grants New York's mayor control over city schools will expire. The expiration was designed so that all interested parties can take part in a discussion of what works and what doesn't, and adjust the law as needed. Parents, teachers, advocates, and legislators all have ideas about how to make the system better. But this year there is major concern that there might not be room for a nuanced discussion.

Some education advocates have been locked in a battle with Gov. Andrew Cuomo over his education reform plans, especially around teacher evaluations. They say that in a typical year there might be major campaigns on mayoral control but instead the bandwidth on education issues has been largely monopolized. Renewal of mayoral control will likely come at the end of session, which is scheduled for mid-June, as part of a larger deal and it's unclear how much public debate will take place.

On top of that, the Legislature is still reeling from the indictment of former Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and now in limbo given the federal investigation into Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos. Senate Republicans are scrapping to keep control of their slim majority in the face of investigations and illness and they have expressed a great hesitance to renew mayoral control under Bill de Blasio, New York's progressive mayor who worked to push the chamber into Democratic control in the recent election cycle. Republicans are now playing defense to some extent and according to sources may be looking to simply wait out the session. Making de Blasio sweat and wait is an enjoyable byproduct for some.

"Should there be safeguards, should there be caveats on mayoral control, and then how long?" Gov. Andrew Cuomo asked, framing the key questions at hand as he addressed attendees at an Association for a Better New York breakfast last Friday. "The mayor asked for permanent mayoral control," he said of de Blasio, "The Assembly's position is 6 or 7 years, mine is 3 years, the senate is basically zero. This has to be basically rationalized. There is a big gap between zero and permanent."

As much as the renewal of mayoral control looks like a battle between city-based Democrats who back de Blasio and Long Island and rural Republicans who oppose him, it is city legislators whose constituents live within the system and who want to have a nuanced discussion about reforming it. But this year those Democrats have mostly been quiet. "They may not want to say much because they just want to get it done and make the mayor happy," said one advocate who requested anonymity of those city Democrats.

When de Blasio came to Albany in February to testify before the Legislature he sold mayoral control as essential to city schools' chance at success, despite the fact he had once voraciously opposed Mayor Bloomberg's use of the same system. "Before mayoral control, the city's school system was balkanized," de Blasio said. "School boards exerted great authority with little accountability and we saw far too many instances of mismanagement, waste, and corruption."

One Democratic legislator noted that if Bloomberg had been the one delivering that statement he would have been met by derision and vitriol but Democratic legislators bit their tongues. Many, especially in the city's poorest neighborhoods, see the city school system as in need of major improvement. De Blasio says the same, but professes faith in his vision to get there and argues that with mayoral control it's clear that he is accountable for the school system's performance.

A number of Democrats in both houses have three major reforms they'd like to see accompany an extension of mayoral control.

The first is greater accountability in the awarding of contracts by the Department of Education. Sen. Liz Krueger, a Manhattan Democrat, said she believes the city comptroller should be able to review those contracts. Sen. Diane Savino, a member of the Independent Democratic Conference from Staten Island, echoed that concern, saying that under previous mayors there had been wasteful and no-bid contracts. Krueger brought up City Time, the city's 911 revamp, and other projects where contractors botched projects and cost the city millions. "There has to be more accountability," said Krueger.

Concerns were recently raised when the Department of Education wanted to award a contract to expand internet access in city schools to a company that was tied to a kickback scandal.

"I've said repeatedly that mayoral control should be renewed but amended," Savino told Gotham Gazette. Savino said she wants to see changes to the Panel for Educational Policy (PEP) that votes on policy changes. Currently, the mayor appoints 8 of the 13 PEP members. "It is functionally a staff meeting for the mayor with no diversity of opinion," said Savino. "We need to look at adding borough presidents, board members, something. I don't know what the exact answer is, but we need to look at it."

Parental involvement has been a hot topic surrounding mayoral control since it was established in 2002. A number of legislators are concerned that the city's Citywide and Community Education Councils (CECs) do not allow for enough parental participation in policy decisions. "They don't seem to be producing the parental activity they were intended to. I'm not sure why it's not happening, but we need to look into it and see if it is something in the law that needs changing."

Senate Republicans and Gov. Cuomo will likely tie renewal of mayoral control to raising the cap on charter schools. Cuomo has insisted that the charter sector would basically be "out of business" once it hits the cap in the city, which it is nearing. In outlining his 2015 agenda, Cuomo argued for raising the cap by 100 schools and eliminating any location-based ceiling within it, as New York City now has.

Republican's have also indicated they may hold a series of hearings to examine mayoral control but nothing has been formally scheduled.

Democratic Sen. Simcha Felder, who caucuses with Republicans, told the New York Post that the charter cap is directly tied to mayoral control. "Part of the discussion is that there should be no cap on children getting a better education. There should be no cap on children," said Felder. John Flanagan, the Senate's Education Committee chair who earlier this year indicated that mayoral control needs serious reconsideration, did not return calls for comment.

Public Advocate Letitia James held a series of "Our School, Our Voices" public forums on mayoral control across the five boroughs earlier this year. The focus of the events largely became increasing community say in the policy decisions. James' office is expected to release a report with recommendations on mayoral control sometime in May.

"Mayoral control must be amended to expand parental and community involvement," James said in a statement to Gotham Gazette. "Earlier this year, my office held a number of community forums throughout New York City to discuss the future of public schools and it became clear that New Yorkers will no longer allow their voices to be drowned out of our schools system."

Despite the myriad of opinions on control the stakeholders don't appear to be rushing toward a resolution or even a basic discussion.

When asked if serious conversations about renewal had begun yet, Savino replied: "No. There is always plenty of time in Albany."

The Last Time
In 2009 mayoral control expired as Democrats and Republicans battled for control of the state Senate. The policy lapsed from the end of June until August 6. Though Mayor Michael Bloomberg had warned of great chaos if the law was not renewed, his allies on the Board of Education kept his policies in place and the law was eventually renewed, with tweaks like giving the Independent Budget Office more oversight over spending.

This year may not feature the same chaos as around the time of the '09 Senate coup, but with scandal in both houses and the precarious position of the Senate Republicans, things are similar.

Republicans are loathe to move on major issues as they are preoccupied with maintaining their majority. They have little incentive to deliver on mayoral control or renewal of rent regulations as only two of their members hail from the city and they appear to be holding onto a grudge against de Blasio. In 2009 Senate Republicans were the cinch votes for renewal of mayoral control of schools as Bloomberg had pumped millions into their campaign coffers.

When Senate Democrats finally won control of the chamber, then Democratic Leader John Sampson pushed for greater checks and balances on the mayor's power. At the time the Assembly had passed a bill that only slightly changed mayoral control - Sampson wanted to limit the mayor's ability to fire members of the Panel for Educational Policy and increase parental participation. It was the Senate Republicans who supported the Assembly's bill that offered fewer reductions to the mayor's influence.

Another major change from 2009 - at least thus far - is the absence of campaigns and grassroots movements to influence the policy. Parents' groups like Class Size Matters marched and rallied for more involvement; Bloomberg's allies created Mayoral Accountability for School Success and lobbied Albany heavily. This year those groups are missing in action. Union-allied education groups are tied up battling Cuomo, fighting on teacher evaluations, testing, and Common Core. Some advocates say they are considering action to influence the mayoral control conversation, but so far nothing has materialized.

Some legislators say that de Blasio may have learned from Bloomberg's and his own mistakes. Being critical of the Legislature backfired for both of them. In July 2009, frustrated with the impasse in Albany, Bloomberg took to the radio to criticize the legislative process. "If you remember Neville Chamberlain, no matter how many times you said yes, that's the starting point for the next round," Bloomberg said referring to the former British leader's negotiating trivails. "There's always more, more, more. I think that just the time for that is over."

Legislators cried bloody murder and accused Bloomberg of comparing them to Hitler. Negotiations stalled. De Blasio has already felt the sting of insulting opponents in the Legislature. Some legislators assume he is simply waiting quietly hoping not to ruffle any more feathers so that mayoral control is renewed in a simple trade for lifting the charter cap, which appears an inevitability in itself.

With only 22 days left of legislative session, the time for debate appears to be severely limited. In 2009 the New York Times quoted former Republican Senator Frank Padavan giving his assessment of the debate and the future of mayoral control: "There is no doubt in my mind that those of us who are here will be having a similar discussion then," Padavan said looking toward 2015. "We will look at the last six years and ask: Did our changes help?"

***
by David King, Albany editor, Gotham Gazette
@DavidHowardKing

Mayor de Blasio presenting his preliminary budget (photo: @NYCMayorsOffice)

Some of the most prominent city agencies will again spend considerable portions of their budgets on employee overtime in fiscal year 2016, set to begin July 1, 2015. The allocation of $1 billion toward personnel overtime raises questions around optimal staffing levels and balancing cold fiscal calculation with whether understaffing might impact performance and well-being of employees.

City officials argue that staffing levels are mostly appropriate and the overtime expenditures being made is wiser fiscal policy than additional full-time hiring. There is widespread agreement, though, that employing overtime control mechanisms is in the best interest of the city. 

In his preliminary $77 billion budget for fiscal year 2016, Mayor Bill de Blasio has included just over $1 billion for personnel overtime, mostly spread across the city’s vital public safety agencies. Over three-quarters of the sum, about $798 million, is in anticipated overtime work by uniformed employees, such as police and corrections officers, firefighters and sanitation workers.

There are a variety of reasons compelling the city to rely so heavily on overtime, but one in particular stands out: it actually saves the city millions of dollars.

“In many instances overtime is going to be cheaper, up to a certain point, than bringing in new recruits,” said Doug Turetsky, chief of staff and communications director at the Independent Budget Office, a publicly-funded budget watchdog agency.

“Look at the Police Department for example,” Turetsky continued. “Let’s say you hired new officers and you were able to bring some of your overtime cost down, your personnel cost in general may actually be going up because of pensions, health insurance, and other fringe benefits.”

The NYPD remains one of the most overtime-burdened city agencies. For fiscal 2016, the department is allotted more than $423 million in overtime just for its uniformed employees, nearly 16 percent of the agency’s total salary budget, according to the preliminary budget outine. Civilian personnel overtime will cost an additional $248 million, according to a report released by NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton during a March budget hearing at the City Council.

Other New York City agencies are also wrestling with staffing levels and heavy overtime expenditures, which the de Blasio administration have been working to address.

According to the mayor’s preliminary budget, released in February, the FDNY has projected overtime expenses of more than $204 million and will allocate 16 percent of its personnel budget for overtime. The budget also estimates the Department of Correction will spend over $84 million in overtime, 8.3 percent of its total personnel expenditures; and the Sanitation Department over $91 million, 8.7 percent of its uniformed personnel services - according to figures that do not include snow removal, which increases overtime costs every year. But, it is seasonal expenses like snow removal that city officials and others say it makes sense to utilize overtime for rather than upping full-time staff.

The remaining $300 million in overtime is allocated to cover the cost of work in other agencies, including $23 million for the Department of Environmental Protection; $35 million for the Department of Transportation; and $17 million for the Administration for Children’s Services.

NYPD
Both Commissioner Bratton and City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito have argued that the NYPD is understaffed, calling for new hiring. For a second straight year, the Council is calling for the hire of 1,000 new officers and new measures to curb NYPD overtime spending.

“In order for NYPD to continue to keep New Yorkers safe while also implementing new reforms and initiatives we need to increase the overall headcount of the department,” Mark-Viverito said in a statement just before the Council released its preliminary budget response.

Mark-Viverito also pointed out that each police precinct in the city lost an average of 60 to 75 officers since its peak headcount in fiscal 2001, and that NYPD has to systematically demand officers work overtime in order to meet the city’s daily enforcement demands, and sometimes has to rely on non-patrol precinct staff to work parades and sporting events.

Bratton appears to have asked the mayor for the green light in hiring 1,000 new cops. But Turetsky, a budget expert who has studied the city’s expenses for years, said he is skeptical the demand will be entirely met, citing the cost of the operation as the main issue.

“Our estimate is that 1,000 [new] cops will eventually cost about $100 million [per year],” Turetsky said, adding that the Council plan appears to include NYPD hiring 500 new officers, half the number requested, in each of the next two years. Turetsky said that the costs will ramp up over multiple years, in part because city pension contributions do not get made immediately.

Between 2009 and 2014, overtime expenditures for the NYPD averaged $484.6 million, according to a report on the fiscal 2015 Executive Budget issued by the City Council.

Amy Spitalnick, a spokesperson for the City’s Office of Management and Budget, said the NYPD has used overtime mostly to fund public safety programs targeting specific times of the year, citing as an example the anti-violence summer initiative the NYPD rolled out in 2014.

“NYPD overtime is not currently being utilized to cover positions that require an officer year-round,” Spitalick said. “In order to address the crime conditions of a short period, overtime was utilized to increase security for that specific time period in specific locations as needed.” This was also true in December, 2014 as protesters took to the streets on several nights in response to the non-indictment in the Eric Garner grand jury case.

Despite a reduction in overtime expenses since de Blasio took office, New York City is behind other major cities around the country in terms of money allocated to police overtime - thus leading to the call by the Council and other budget watchdogs for the City to implement an overtime-cost savings plan.

The Los Angeles Police Department, for instance, allocated only 2 percent of its personnel costs to overtime for its current fiscal year, a significant drop since 2010, when it hit 10 percent, according to data released by the Office of Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti.

It is similar with the Houston Police Department, which maintains its overtime expenditures under 5 percent of the total personnel cost, according to the Mayor’s Office of the City of Houston. 

Experts say that Los Angeles and Houston police departments may be aided in keeping down their overtime costs because both metro areas are served by both police departments and other law enforcement agencies like the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department and the California Highway Patrol in LA and the Harris County Sheriff's Office in Houston.

The NYPD is the only law enforcement agency on regular patrol duty across the five boroughs. This may contribute to the NYPD, the largest police department in the nation with over 49,000 full-time employees (including about 35,000 uniformed officers), struggle to keep overtime under control.

Looking at the budgets of other cities where street patrol is the jurisdiction of the municipal police department alone, the numbers are closer to those in New York City, though they are still fairly far off.

The Philadelphia Police Department, for instance, is spending over $50 million in overtime salaries this year, more that 11 percent of its total personnel expenditures, and the Chicago Police Department, the second largest municipal law enforcement agency in the nation, allocated $71 million in overtime pay, about 6.7 percent. The NYPD is at about 16 percent.

FDNY
Meanwhile, staffing issues at FDNY have been chronic for several years, beginning during the Bloomberg administration, when the uniformed headcount fell from 11,459 in 2009 to 10,646 in 2011, before reaching a record low of 10,180 in 2013.

FDNY overtime expenses shot up from $152 million in fiscal 2009 to over $292 million in 2014, the fiscal year during which Bill de Blasio took office, and the FDNY spent nearly 29 percent of its salary expenditures in overtime. And these increases in overtime expenditures have not coincided with or been a tool toward a decrease in overall department spending.

Decreased headcount and increased overtime at the Fire Department began with an event that had nothing to do with money-saving strategy. In 2007, the department was sued in a major civil rights lawsuit concerning its hiring process, and since 2009, when Judge Nicholas Garaufis ruled FDNY’s admissions test discriminated against African-American and Latino applicants, a court order practically froze new hiring for several years. 

After a settlement in 2014, the Fire Department has moved to hire new - and diverse - personnel as quickly as its resources permit. “The City was unable to hire any new firefighters for a period of over four years,” Spitalnick said. “Firefighter hiring resumed in January 2013.  The City is actively hiring new firefighters up to budgeted headcount.”

At a late March hearing of the City Council Committee on Fire and Criminal Justice, FDNY Commissioner Daniel Nigro said the agency is in need of 600 additional firefighters to fulfill its duty, and that it takes a period of 18 months to hire and train new cadets, which the city is doing in waves. The FDNY Office of Public Information said in an email that the agency “is not expected to be at full headcount for the next several years.”

Although the Fire Department significantly reduced its use of overtime in the last two years, the projection for fiscal 2016 remains large.

Unforseen Events
Overtime expenditures at FDNY and elsewhere, especially NYPD, are indeed often the result of unforeseen events, rather than being a carefully planned piece of staffing and budgeting calculations.

In the fall of 2011, during Occupy Wall Street protests, the NYPD spent $17 million to keep police officers on the streets overtime, then-Commissioner Ray Kelly said at the time. 

In late 2012, Superstorm Sandy required significant extra work by public safety agencies. In the days of the storm and its aftermath, the city spent over $154 million in overtime from October 29 to December 24, according to a report published by the Independent Budget Office. Of that total, over $70 million was spent in NYPD overtime, nearly $54 million for sanitation overtime, and nearly $9 million went to FDNY overtime.

Events unfolded last winter leading to high overtime bills. The protests over police brutality and the Garner grand jury decision cost the city $22.9 million in NYPD overtime, Commissioner Bratton said during a press conference in December. By early January, the Staten Island Advance reported the OT bill was up to $35 million.

OT Rise
A Gotham Gazette review of the Comprehensive Annual Financial Reports for fiscal years 2004 through 2013 published by the Office of the New York City Comptroller shows that overtime expenditures have been stubbornly on the rise since 2004, around the end of Michael Bloomberg’s first term.

In 2004, the Bloomberg administration and City Council adopted a budget with over $507 million in overtime, but ended up spending more than $777 million. In 2006, the adopted budget projected overtime expenses of nearly $620 million. By 2010, expected overtime costs reached $848 million, before hitting an adopted overtime expenditure of $1.05 billion in 2014.

In December 2013 the Citizens Budget Commission, a nonpartisan watchdog organization, issued a report totaling the final cost of overtime work during fiscal 2013 at more than $1.4 billion.

“That administration didn’t have a strategy to limit overtime,” Maria Doulis, director of city studies at Citizens Budget Commission, told Gotham Gazette about Bloombeg’s, calling it “an open question” as to why the OT costs were allowed to increase so dramatically during his tenure.

At the time the CBC report came out, the organization encouraged the city to limit overtime through a series of reforms. One was cracking down on endemic absenteeism; another was to find more efficient ways to staff predictable events, such as community festivals and parades, without extending employees’ normal shifts. By adopting such measures, the report outlined, the city would have saved about $125 million.

“There is some logic behind relying on overtime,” Doulis said, mentioning savings in pensions and insurance policies that arise with new hiring, “but there is a point where you could save money if you hired more personnel instead.”

More than $
Beside the financial aspect, there is another side of the overtime coin.

While overtime is a budgetary tool that can help agencies save money in training and benefits, long work shifts also affect not only performance, but the safety of the employees and the public as well. 

This is particularly true in the case of the Department of Correction, an agency that spends heavily on overtime, and where, according to a report compiled by the office of U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara, understaffing and psychological stress has played a role in the episodes of violence at Rikers Island jail complex, which have been on the rise. It is something the de Blasio administration has pledged to address with reforms it recently announced.

“The Administration is committed to reducing overtime and shifting the workload from overtime to straight time,” said Spitalnick, the de Blasio spokesperson, said regarding corrections. She added that “given the amount of time it takes to hire and train new Correction Officers, the overtime reduction will take some time to be fully realized.” 

Since he took his post as corrections commissioner, Joseph Ponte has looked for ways to fix the city’s correctional system as part of what the administration unveiled as a 14-point anti-violence agenda, a bundle of reforms that would act to calm a climate of violence and abuse at Rikers.

One of the points in the agenda focuses on reducing overtime. “Recruiting, hiring and training more officers are key planks of Commissioner Ponte’s 14-point anti-violence agenda,” said Eve Kessler, a spokesperson for the Department of Correction. Kessler added that the department is also planning an overhaul of recruiting procedures, with the intention of improving the standards used in the hiring of new officers.

The Correction Department estimates that 8.3 percent of its total salary expenditures, over $84 million, will pay for overtime next fiscal year, which begins July 1. Despite being lower than the current year, when it topped $124 million, overtime is still one of the department’s key issues, especially from the point of view of safety for both officers and inmates.

“Overtime is just one of the problems for my members,” said Norman Seabrook, President of New York City Correction Officer's Benevolent Association. “They are forced to work up to 16 hours a day everyday in some facilities. Something has got to change.”

***
by Marco Poggio, Gotham Gazette
@GothamGazette

Note: this article has been updated with a correction from IBO's Doug Turetsky on IBO's estimates of the costs of 1,000 new officers being added to the NYPD force.

Republican Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos (photo: Governor's Office via flickr)

The State Senate Elections Committee is expected to vote Monday whether to advance a bill that would close a controversial loophole in state election law that allows wealthy donors to pour unlimited cash into campaign coffers through the use of multiple limited liability corporations, or LLCs.

Sen. Daniel Squadron, a New York City Democrat and the bill's sponsor, has maneuvered the bill to a committee vote despite major opposition from the Republican majority conference. Monday's vote will come after reform groups and some legislators failed in an attempt to get the State Board of Elections to reverse its 1996 interpretation of state law that created the loophole. Senate Republicans have bristled at using the term "loophole" to describe the BOE interpretation.

"As the focus continues on this critical ethics reform, it will be disappointing if Monday's Elections Committee vote breaks down along the same partisan lines that the recent budget and Board of Elections votes did," said Squadron. "In light of the BOE's professed arguments, I'm hopeful that the Elections Committee will take a serious look at this issue to prevent unlimited sums of anonymous dollars from perverting our state government and the entire political process."

Assembly Member Brian Kavanagh, also a New York City Democrat, sponsors the same bill in the Assembly. Kavanagh told Gotham Gazette he believes his conference is also ready to move on the bill and that he thinks Senate Republicans should be too. "The Republican BOE chair said that he thought the Legislature was the appropriate place to address this. And I know he isn't the only one who believes that."

The LLC loophole has become a major flashpoint in the battle for campaign finance reform because other efforts at reform failed in this year's budget negotiations and a pilot public financing program for last year's comptroller race never got off the ground.

Advocates acknowledge that while having a committee vote on the issue is a victory in itself it isn't exactly likely that the bill passes the Senate given that Republicans currently enjoy a narrow majority that could fall apart at any time due to indictment, illness, or retirement. Their candidates are often bolstered by large donations from single individuals or industries that use the LLC loophole to their advantage.

Advocates admit that the vote may be the last gasp for campaign finance efforts this year. "I think the real chance for reform this year is on the LLC loophole because there is more clear agreement on that," said Rachael Fauss of good government group Citizens Union. "I think we will have to wait for another major push until the budget next year."

Kavanagh said he expects the LLC loophole to remain a major focus for the rest of the year with perhaps some room between the Senate Republicans and Assembly Democrats to negotiate further contribution disclosure rules, including, perhaps, requiring donors to list their employers. Conversation and movement during this year's budget negotiations mostly revolved around legislators' outside income.

The last two years have been a roller coaster ride for campaign finance reform advocates. Last March advocates were in a place they had never been before: Gov. Andrew Cuomo's budget proposal included a system for publicly funded campaigns and the Moreland Commission on Public Integrity was digging deep into just how weak and ineffective the state's Board of Electionss is at enforcing New York's already lax campaign finance rules. "It felt like we had so much momentum," said Barbara Bartoletti of the League of Women Voters, who also served as an advisor to the Moreland Commission.

Over a year later things have changed drastically: Cuomo abruptly killed Moreland in exchange for some limited campaign finance reforms, and despite massive scandals the Legislature has remained obstinant, refusing to make major reforms. If last March was the high of highs, this April has been the low of lows as campaign finance reform appears all but dead for the foreseeable future.

Reformers' best chance at change - having the BOE reinterpret its opinion regarding LLCs - failed and Senate Republicans stand even more steadfast against reform. It isn't surprising that the Legislature has failed to act on campaign finance reform despite the indictment of former Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and the investigation into Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos because, as Barbara Bartoletti of the League of Women Voters told Gotham Gazette, nothing in Albany is surprising anymore.

"Scandal does not seem to deter the Legislature in its appetite to avoid dealing with the issue," said Bartoletti. In fact, Bartoletti said that scandal appears to have increased the Senate Republicans' affection for the current system. "The Senate Republicans hold such a tenuous grasp on the majority that they are loathe to change the system that gets them elected," said Bartoletti.

Republican Senators do tend to benefit more from the largesse of the real estate industry and corporations that use the LLC loophole to subvert the state's donation limits. Republicans counter that Democrats benefit from massive union donations.

"As soon as the so-called good government groups have anything to say about the unlimited money that unions pump into the coffers of Democrats or the dollars that Mayor de Blasio funnels to Upstate County Democrat Party Committees, we may start taking them seriously," Scott Reif, spokesman for Senate Republicans, said in a statement. "Until then, they should get a life."

Advocates don't put responsibility entirely on Senate Republicans. They look at the governor, saying Cuomo has failed to capitalize on major public outcry over scandal and not used his bully pulpit to push reform. They point to budget negotiations last year when most thought Cuomo was in a position thanks to Moreland and continuing pressure from the US Attorney to truly campaign for public financing of elections.

Instead Cuomo abruptly shuttered Moreland for what advocates call "meager" ethics tweaks and minimal campaign finance measures. The two measures - a pilot program for public financing exclusively in the 2014 comptroller's race and a new enforcement office in the BOE - have not delivered.

Incumbent Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli, an advocate of public financing of campaigns, declined to participate in the system because it was so hastily arranged and his Republican opponent failed to raise enough money to participate. The program, meant to perhaps initiate a much larger system, is now defunct.

Meanwhile, little has been heard from the BOE's enforcement unit headed by Cuomo appointee Risa Sugarman.

Moreland dedicated an entire hearing to attacking the BOE's paltry enforcement mechanisms. As part of the deal to kill the commission Cuomo and the Legislature installed Sugarman as the head of an office charged with finding violations of campaign finance law and bringing cases against violators.

Good government groups and election board members alike say that so far Sugarman's appointment has only caused a regression in the board's enforcement actions.

"The independent enforcement counsell is taking a very different approach to enforcement and has given much less focus to the routine enforcement work that was done before the independent office was created," Democratic Board Chair Douglas Kellerman told Gotham Gazette.

Kellerman says that Sugarman has failed to collect fines from those who were found delinquent before she took office in 2014 and has not issued notices to campaign committees that had not filed since the July filing deadline last year. As of January Sugarman had also not begun assembling a report on the biggest violators of campaign contribution limits the board has traditionally issued.

Sugarman did not respond to a request for an interview but she confirmed publically in board meetings with Kellerman that she had not sent the notices.

At a board meeting in January Sugarman argued she had found a number of bad addresses for previous filings. She also said she was waiting for hearing officers to be hired. Hearing officers were the Legislature's contribution to the enforcement unit and are seen by good government groups as an uncesscary hoop to jump through because cases against violators must also be presented in State Supreme Court. Other commissioners pushed Sugarman to act because such a large backlog had been created.

"I guess my overall concern is that there were certainly lots of problems with the old enforcement unit," Kellerman said to Sugarman at the January meeting, "but there were lots of things that were getting done with the old enforcement unit that I'm concerned have now gone by the wayside with the transition and I hate to see us have a step backwards as opposed to forward on this. The over-contribution report was one of those things."

BOE staffers and chairs have expressed frustration that Sugarman doesn't update them on her activities. She has stressed her independence and ability to work on investigations with complete secrecy but some BOE members think the office is directionless and is looking to land big cases at the cost of basic enforcement.

Advocates share a lot of those concerns. "It seems they are missing basic procedure, missing basic compliance that the board used to do such as filing reports and audits," said Fauss of Citizens Union. "It is unfortunate that the board is not in a better position. It is a shame that we don't even see enforcement of basic compliance."

Assembly Member Kavanagh said that he believes Sugarman's office has already accomplished a great deal: "We never had someone looking at filings beyond whether they were on time or not. Without that it is hard to see how real enforcement happens. Now we actually have someone scrutinizing them and I think that will have a great impact."

Bartoletti said she hopes to see increased action from the enforcement unit over the next few months, but is concerned that precious time has already been lost. "We will be watching closely for the rest of the calendar year. We may will be looking carefully at who they hire and how independent they are. I would hope they will be a fully-staffed, functioning enforcement unit by 2016 because without enforcement nobody cares what the laws are," Bartoletti told Gotham Gazette.

Dani Lever, a spokesperson for Cuomo, told Gotham Gazette: "The administration included additional funds in the budget last year to create and support the BOE enforcement unit. The unit is fully staffed and effectively operating at capacity."

Asked whether Cuomo plans to continue to push for campaign finance reform during the rest of session Lever said: "Yes, the Governor has been and remains committed to campaign finance reform."

Right now Bartoletti said she only has faith in one man to do campaign finance enforcement and it isn't technically his job. "The only one doing campaign finance enforcement at the moment is Preet Bharara," she said.

***
by David King, Albany editor, Gotham Gazette
@DavidHowardKing

Activists in Albany (photo: @NYCVotes)

On a crisp Wednesday morning, two buses pulled up outside the New York State Capitol in Albany. Their cargo: a delegation of about 100 students, volunteers, and good government activists who travelled from New York City to advocate for voting reform.

It was the second annual "Vote Better NY" Advocacy Day for Election Reform organized by NYC Votes, a non-partisan voter engagement initiative run by the New York City Campaign Finance Board (CFB) and its Voter Assistance Advisory Committee.

The delegation left the city at 6 a.m. with the carefully defined objective of pushing state Senators and Assembly members on three voting issues: online voter registration, better ballot design, and early voting.

Splitting into groups of five or six, activists worked the halls of the Capitol and the legislative office building, participating in back-to-back pre-arranged meetings with legislative staff or legislators themselves.

Preparing for its first meeting, one group circled around their leader Onida Coward Mayers, the director of voter assistance at the CFB. "We're not lobbyists," Mayers said in her short pep talk. "You are an individual, a member of the public, and we all want the same thing. We're thanking [our representatives] for their work, but they need to do more. We're holding their feet to the fire."

NYC Votes' advocacy day comes at a time when the Legislature is just getting back to work, filling the vacuum after the budget session. "Everything is budget here till April 1. The budget kinda sucked the oxygen out of the air," said Bryan Clenahan, counsel to Senator Diane Savino, as he addressed the Mayer-led group of activists, which included members of Dominicanos USA, the League of Women Voters, and the NAACP.

The Legislature is in session through mid-June, with lawmakers in Albany a few days most weeks until then. There are many issues on the table that were left out of the budget, including minimum wage, criminal justice reform, and mayoral control of schools, but advocates wanted to make sure that election reform is also part of the discussion.

Advocacy day was an opportunity for many of the advocates to meet their representatives and express their priorities directly. Rob Reynolds, 28, works in tax preparation in Brooklyn. He was one of many independent members of the public, not affiliated with any organization, who joined NYC Votes for Wednesday's trip. "The day was very productive," he said. "We met with a lot of legislators. We shared with them our thoughts and ideas for improving the electoral process in New York. A lot of them seemed very receptive and seemed supportive of our ideas."

Reynolds believes wholeheartedly that New York needs to improve its voter turnout, especially by taking lessons from other states that have a better record. For him, the day was an exciting opportunity to be heard. But it was not without its disappointments, particularly an Assembly member who Reynolds did not want to name publicly, but said was more interested in his own election efforts than expanding the democratic process. "There is an inherent problem when the people who we elect get to choose who elects them and its not right," said Reynolds. "Its not morally fair - in a democracy that's not how it should work."

The numbers in yesterday's delegation are an indicator of an increasing consciousness among New Yorkers that reforming the voting process is necessary, particularly considering that New York hit the historically low point of 28.8 percent voter turnout in the 2014 gubernatorial election.

"Last year we brought 50 people, everyday average New Yorkers to talk about [voting reform]," said Matt Sollars, press secretary at CFB. "This year we brought 100 people and next year we'll bring 200 people, and we're gonna keep bringing more people up here to talk about this until we see real change and we see real modern elections in New York state."

The groups navigated the cavernous halls of the Capitol, even attending meetings with representatives of legislative leaders Democratic Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie, Republican Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos and Independent Democratic Conference Leader Senator Jeff Klein.

Through the day, the activists tried to get legislators on board with specific bills. One bill provides for online voter registration through the Board of Elections. Currently, New Yorkers can only register online through the Department of Motor Vehicles. The advocates also asked legislators to support the Voter Friendly Ballot Act, sponsored by Assembly Member Brian Kavanagh, which improves ballot design.

Although there was no specific bill on the agenda for early voting, some of the activists were surprised to learn in a meeting with Senator Tony Avella that he had introduced a proposal for weekend voting.

"There was almost unanimous agreement among all the legislators that we met that voting was a top priority and that they were in favor of greater transparency and access to the voting process in principle, but they wanted to read the bills that were at issue," said Bridgette Ahn, president-elect of the Korean American Lawyers Association. "I think an important component of this is establishing a relationship, raising awareness, bringing the information to key decision-makers, following up with them, and continuing on the advocacy front."

At the end of the day, NYC Votes had made its mark. The delegation was recognized both in the Assembly and Senate sessions for its work in promoting voting reform. "We do know the politics still plays after we leave their four walls," Onida Coward Mayers said with cautious optimism. "I'm very proud of the message that we sent that we will be heard," she said. "There needs to be election reform, citizens matter and citizens want change. [New Yorkers] want an easier, friendly, 21st century democracy." 

***
by Samar Khurshid, Gotham Gazette
@samarkhurshid

Justice League NYC marchers in Washington DC (photo: @NYjusticeleague)

A 250-mile march started in Staten Island over a week ago culminates today in Washington, DC with a rally to protest police killings of unarmed civilians and push for criminal justice reform. The march, sponsored by Justice League NYC, has garnered national attention as participants have walked across major highways, through rural towns where porches are adorned with confederate flags, and in cities like Baltimore where tensions between police and citizens are high due to the death of Freddie Gray, whose spinal cord was nearly severed while in police custody, as well as other recent losses of life.

Activists and legislators say the momentum from the march will carry over to the legislative session in Albany, where a number of criminal justice reforms await action. Legislators return to Albany today after over two weeks away from the capital; the session is due to run for about two months until mid-June.

"We had to show we aren't a group that will take anything lying down," Linda Sarsour of Justice League told Gotham Gazette as she and her companions marched toward Washington. "We are five miles outside of Washington right now," she said by phone Monday afternoon. "We had to show people we weren't to be taken lightly. We had to show people we are New Yorkers who can do these big things. And now we are going to bring that message to Albany."

Justice League has led protests and actions across the city in the wake of the July death of Staten Island man Eric Garner at the hands of the NYPD. A grand jury failed to seek charges against the policer officer, Daniel Pantaleo, who put Garner in a chokehold, setting off even greater protests. Garner was black; Pantaleo is white.

Legislators will return to Albany with national headlines focusing on the killings of Walter Scott in South Carolina, Eric Harris in Oklahoma, Tamir Rice in Cleveland, and a case even closer to home. Protesters recently took to Albany streets to protest the death of Donald "Dontay" Ivy. A mentally ill man, Ivy died after being tasered by Albany police. Albany District Attorney David Soares is currently investigating the incident.

"The videos we've seen tell you these are not isolated incidents, this is a systemic problem. Many of us are not going to be quiet about this and we have the momentum," said state Senator Gustavo Rivera, a Democrat of the Bronx, who is the current Senate sponsor of a bill that would give the New York Attorney General jurisdiction to investigate and prosecute police misconduct.

Supporters of the bill say it will help prevent district attorneys from basing their decisions on whether to charge officers involved in shootings on their relationships with the local police force and how their actions will be perceived by unions and voters. A number of district attorneys oppose the measure because they say it undermines them and disregards their understanding of the impacted community.

In mid-March, Rivera officially requested the Republican-controlled Investigations and Governmental Operations Committee consider the legislation in a move to bring the bill to the Senate floor.

Rivera's bill isn't a new one. In fact it was carried for years in the Senate by the current Attorney General, Eric Schneiderman. Keith Wright, a Manhattan Democrat, has carried the Assembly version of the bill since 1999. The bill was given a print number on March 27 of this year and could come to a vote shortly.

Both Wright and Rivera support Schneiderman's call for Gov. Andrew Cuomo to issue an executive order giving the attorney general oversight over cases where unarmed civilians are killed by police. "The employ of an unbiased arbiter is desperately needed in this instance. I urge Governor Cuomo to use his executive authority to bring a sense of hope to communities of color in New York State," Wright said in a statement supporting Schneiderman's request.

However, Cuomo and Schneiderman are known to be bitter rivals and it is unlikely Cuomo will grant such a request. Supporters of the bill also acknowledge it is unlikely it will make it through the Legislature without changes.

"The public's confidence in the justice system is lost," said Rivera. Having the AG come in to safeguard the public's confidence is something I believe is necessary, but we may not all agree on the exact parameters."

Democrats are also pushing legislation proposed by Senate Minority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins that would create an "Office of Special Investigation" inside the AG's office to look into police killings of unarmed civilians. Stewart-Cousins asked the Finance Committee to consider the bill on March 10.

"Local district attorneys work with local law enforcement and I think it makes sense, in most cases and certainly these types of cases, that there is concern that there can be a conflict and even a perception of a conflict of interest," said Stewart-Cousins in December of last year while unveiling the bill in Albany.

Cuomo has also proposed a bill that would create a monitor who could recommend the appointment of someone like a retired judge as a special prosecutor in cases where a grand jury isn't called or it fails to convict.

"We want special prosecutor, point blank," said Sarsour, who also heads the Arab American Association of New York and leads the Muslim Democratic Club of New York City. Sarsour said that Justice League has yet to take a position on the special prosecutor bills. She said that Cuomo's proposal includes too many caveats before a special prosecutor can be appointed and that she has concerns that the attorney general is also a "political position."

"We aren't really about any of these special prosecutor bills right now," said Sarsour. She said her group's initial focus will be on "Raise the Age," an initiative that would stop New York from prosecuting 16- and 17-year-olds as adults. New York and North Carolina are currently the only states that do so. Cuomo made Raise the Age a major part of his budget but the policy was tossed out of budget negotiations, though some funding to implement it remained. Even some Democrats objected to the way Cuomo's plan would be implemented - they feared it would actually increase the jail sentences for some teens.

"It always seems that the bills that impact the black and Latino communities are the first to get thrown out," said Sarsour. "We are going to change that."

The special prosecutor bills are far from the only proposed criminal justice reforms. Cuomo has proposed legislation would make the grand jury process in cases involving police killings of unarmed civilians more transparent, create a commission on police-community relations, recruit more people of color into the police force, and allow him to appoint a special prosecutor in the killings of unarmed civilians by police.

While Cuomo has come under fire for not achieving many of his proposed criminal justice reforms in his budget he does appear to have added a sweetener to the budget to entice legislative action. The budget includes a $60 million appropriation for bulletproof vests and glass but it can only be accessed if the Legislature subsequently passes a number of reforms Cuomo has advocated, including his special prosecutor bill.

Cuomo spokseperson Dani Lever told Gotham Gazette, "The governor proposed a balanced reform package to increase transparency, accountability and ensure justice in perception and in reality."

***
by David King, Albany editor, Gotham Gazette
@DavidHowardKing

Rooftop greenery is part of the plan (photo: PlaNYC via flickr)

At one of many such meetings now taking place throughout the city's waterfront, residents of Red Hook, Brooklyn, gathered recently at a local community center to hear about the dramatic expansion of federal flood zones in their area and what the new designation would cost them.

As in other coastal neighborhoods, Red Hook struggles with a variety of flooding-related issues. Area homes, businesses and public housing developments suffered heavy damage from a five-foot storm surge during Superstorm Sandy. Red Hook also has long-term stormwater drainage problems.

So as the March 31 meeting night wore on, and residents sat closely together staring grimly at maps of their neighborhood, their fatigue and frustration was palpable.

One described still not being back in his home more than two years after major damage during Sandy. Another, in exasperation, asked city officials and their Congresswoman Nydia Velazquez, who presided over the meeting, "What are you going to do? We are having meeting after meeting [about recovery and resiliency] and the neighborhood is still flooding."

Red Hook is not alone. Similar issues and worries are being played out in waterfront communities throughout New York, from the Lower East Side to the Rockaways.

Problems like localized flooding will become all the more urgent as climate change progresses. But the threat to each neighborhood is different, depending on where it is located relative to the city's 500-plus miles of coastline, and factors like socio-economic conditions, building stock, and critical infrastructure.

City officials are far from indifferent. Next week on Earth Day, April 22, the city plans to release a major progress report, the first in four years, on its multi-pronged sustainability framework, known as PlaNYC. As in the past, the report is expected to include discussion of climate resiliency, that is, the city's ongoing and developing preparations to manage for the effects of climate change.

The update is the result of "an extensive engagement process," a city spokesperson recently told Capital New York, including meetings in every community board district, a survey available in seven languages, and an "expanded advisory board."

In anticipation of the city's report, news partners Gotham Gazette, AdaptNY, and the NY Environment Report raised a series of key questions about resiliency planning with a group of planners, engineers, architects, elected officials, and other experts:

• What is the pace of preparations? And are there sufficient financial resources? [jump]
• Is the city using the best data possible? [jump]
• What's the impact of expanding flood zones? And is retreat an option? [jump]
• Can we improve the decision-making process? Expand public engagement? [jump]
• What are the institutional obstacles? [jump]
• What are the social implications of resiliency planning? [jump]

The overarching question: can the process of becoming resilient make New York, in the end, a better city - more livable, environmentally sustainable, and socially cohesive?

Among other key takeaways, we found:

• The city's multi-faceted preparations for climate change are viewed as sound, but greater public clarity is needed on fundamental details of project rollout and funding.
• There is fairly widespread frustration with the pace of execution, and ways to speed up the public review process should be examined.
• It's unclear how residents will manage rising insurance costs within expanded flood zones.
• Better data could improve the understanding of the climate risks ahead, and there is an open question about how far to look into the future.
• Residents could be engaged more meaningfully in the planning process, such as through participatory budgeting.
• In a number of ways, civic society is coming forward with proposals for how the city can further improve its resilience plans.

Although creating resiliency is an ongoing process and climate change is long-term, the need to plan is urgent. "We are holding our breath," said Staten Island City Council Member Vincent Ignizio about the approach of this year's hurricane season.

"There will be more sea level rise; there will be more frequent storms; they'll be more intense," said Steven Cohen, who directs the Earth Institute at Columbia University. "If it comes in the next year or two, we're in trouble. If it comes 5 or 10 years from now, we'd be better off."

Added Cohen: "The question is can we build a city that's strong enough to withstand that and then recover quickly. And I believe we can."

WHAT'S THE TIMETABLE?
One outgrowth of PlaNYC targets a ten-year approach to resiliency. The city's Special Initiative for Rebuilding and Resiliency, or SIRR, was first released by the Bloomberg administration post-Sandy, in June 2013, and subsequently endorsed by the de Blasio administration.

The SIRR plan includes 257 separate projects and major coastal flood protection initiatives. It has a particular focus on five vulnerable areas: the Brooklyn-Queens waterfront, the East and South shores of Staten Island, South Queens, South Brooklyn, and lower Manhattan.

As of last fall, at least 200 of the SIRR projects have been started and 29 were complete, said Daniel Zarrilli, director of the Mayor's Office of Recovery and Resilience. For instance, the city, with support from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, has been replenishing beaches in vulnerable areas like Coney Island and the Rockaways, and rebuilding dunes on the Staten Island coast.

Critical infrastructure is being hardened throughout the city, Cohen pointed out. Hospitals are moving generators to higher floors. The Con-Ed power plant on the East River has been made more storm resilient, and the MTA is developing contingency plans to keep water out of subway tunnels, he stated.

But all of the major flood protection projects appear to be in some sort of "study" phase. For instance, an "integrated flood management project" for Red Hook, which could include a natural greenway, deployable flood walls, elevated streets, and drainage pumps, was originally scheduled for completion in 2016. Now, the City is currently issuing "requests for proposals" for the project, and hopes to begin construction in 2017.

A much larger project, the elevation and expansion of riverfront parkland adjacent to Manhattan's Lower East Side meant to protect thousands of local residents, could take seven years to move through the review and permitting stages, and another three years or more for construction, according to a 2014 city feasibility study.

The "multi-purpose levee" is only the first section of Manhattan's "Big U" flood protection project, which is supposed to one day stretch from West 57th street south to the Battery and up to East 42nd.

In the coming weeks, the Army Corps will also be releasing public studies for how best to protect the Rockaway peninsula and the East Shore of Staten Island. And flood protection feasibility studies for Coney Island Creek, the Gowanus Canal, Jamaica Bay, Hunts Point, and Lower Manhattan are also ongoing.

So how fast can the city realistically move?

Making New York truly climate resilient will require years and, in some aspects, decades. The raising of individual homes and their mechanical systems above flood levels alone "will take a generation," observed Cohen.

Flood protection infrastructure in the Netherlands has taken decades to put into place, observed Henk Ovink, a Dutch advisor to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Even SIRR has a caveat - climate change is a long-term problem, it notes, and "many of the strategies and initiatives [in SIRR] will evolve over a similarly long period of time."

But growing anxiety and some frustration with that pace is evident in conversations with local elected officials, such as in Staten Island, which is racing to prepare for another Sandy.

The Rockaways also has worries, in part because of historic stormwater drainage issues like in Red Hook. City Council Member Donovan Richards, who represents roughly half of its almost 120,000 residents and chairs the Council's Committee on Environmental Protection, said he is anxiously awaiting the results of the Army Corps study. Richards expressed concern that it could take as long as a decade to fully execute the Corps' recommendations.

Meanwhile, plans to repair the Rockaway peninsula's protective bulkheads are mired in inter-agency confusion, Richards maintained. Besides beach replenishment and the eventual repair of the bulkheads on the Rockaway coast, asked Richards, "How are we really protecting these people?"

WHERE'S THE MONEY?
With the launch of the SIRR plan in 2013, city officials made clear that about one-half to three-quarters of its estimated $19.5 billion price tag was in hand. The rest would need to be raised from various sources, such as federal or state funds, and the city's utility ratepayers.

Capital projects and studies outlined in SIRR would cost almost $14 billion. Another $5.5 billion is needed for "various other housing, business, and city agency recovery and resiliency needs," said the report.

But, according to SIRR, that $14 billion is associated with only the first phase of its projects and programs. It doesn't include implementation costs for projects, for instance, that are to be completed beyond the 10-year time frame of the plan.

Think of SIRR as laying the groundwork for the city's ongoing resiliency work, and realizing a first round of projects. Phase 1 projects, such as beach nourishment in Coney Island or a storm surge barrier in Newtown Creek, are included in the $14 billion. But "full build" SIRR projects, like an integrated flood protection system for West Midtown, or a storm surge barrier for the Rockaway Inlet, are not.

City Council Member Mark Treyger, who chairs the Council's Committee on Recovery and Resiliency and represents Coney Island, argues that the pricetag for the SIRR plan is steadily rising, and that the flood protection studies happening right now are going to drive the real cost of the projects.

"I am fairly confident when I say we don't have all the money to actualize that vision. I'm not even sure if we're anywhere close to it," said Treyger, referring to what he saw as the mounting complexity of each flood protection project.

According to the city's "Sandy Funding Tracker," which is current through the end of 2014, more than $13 billion in federal recovery funding has been earmarked for projects in the city. This includes $7.3 billion from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, a $4.2 billion Community Development Block Grant from HUD, and $840 million from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

City officials declined to clarify how much of that $13 billion is actually for SIRR. For instance, it appears that at least $1.7 billion of the HUD CDBG funds was allocated to Build It Back, the city's controversial rebuilding program for homes damaged by Sandy.

It's also unclear whether the portion of the $4.2 billion HUD grant covering some of the new flood protection projects is totally secure.

Council Member Ignizio of Staten Island raised the concern that by 2018 the city must have shovel-ready plans – with all the relevant permits and such - or else possibly lose some of the money. "The city is pretty far behind," said Ignizio. "There's a lot of stuff that still hasn't been planned out."

City officials did not respond to questions about the HUD grant either.

Nonetheless, federal funding for Sandy rebuilding is already helping to make New York more resilient.

"The city is now required to come up with certain resiliency measures when they take federal [rebuilding] dollars," said Treyger. An example is the city's Health and Hospitals Corporation, which received a $1.6 billion FEMA grant to both repair and elevate critical infrastructure.

Similarly, the federal government has just allocated $3 billion to repair and make more climate resilient 33 public housing developments that were heavily damaged during Sandy. Included in the grant are all six New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) developments in the Rockaways, along with 14 developments in Manhattan, and 12 in Brooklyn. The grant is the largest in FEMA history, said the city.

HOW GOOD IS THE DATA?
The starting point for the city's resiliency plans is its understanding of flood risk along New York's hundreds of miles of coastline. That, in turn, is largely guided by FEMA's designation throughout the five boroughs of 100-year flood zones, areas that have a one percent chance each year of flooding.

The last time that FEMA's flood maps were completely overhauled was in 1983, over thirty years ago. Updated maps are to be released next year, and the drafts of the new maps indicate that almost 85,000 buildings in New York will soon lie in a flood zone. That's a three-fold increase.

But there is a very practical reason for using FEMA's flood maps as a planning guide: Only projects that address flood risks identified by FEMA are eligible for federal funding.

"By necessity, the SIRR was set up to put New York City in a good position to receive federal money to do these projects," explained Guy Nordenson, a structural engineer and member of the New York City Panel on Climate Change, a body of climate and social scientists and risk management experts which advises the city.

But Nordenson, who worked on the SIRR plan, argues that the city could benefit from a more robust assessment of coastal storm hazards.

In the simplest terms, Nordenson maintains that hazard assessments for New York also need to include projections for 500-year and 2500-year flooding events.

Why? Because these types of events are already happening. "Depending on how you calculate it," said Nordenson, "Sandy was definitely greater than a 500-year" event. "It was closer to what we're looking at as the extreme [2500-year] event."

Another way of understanding this, said Nordenson, is that the FEMA maps used by the city look at flood events with a 40 percent likelihood over a 50-year span. But over the next 50 years, what type of flood has a 10 percent likelihood of occurring? Or a 2 percent likelihood?

The 2 percent standard is what the U.S. uses for earthquake and tsunami protection guidelines, said Nordenson, who served as chair of the National Earthquake Hazards Reduction Program in the 1980's.

Nordenson, who is collaborating with the Army Corps, is also incorporating climate change projections into his flood risk models. Significantly, FEMA is not using climate change data as it updates its flood maps.

While Nordenson believes that "[New York] City is way ahead of the majority of communities up and down the East Coast" in terms of resiliency planning, the ultimate goal, he said, is to "do a better job of encompassing the full range of uncertainty."

He pointed out: "If you consider what happened in Katrina and what's happened in many cases in floods, there's always something that goes wrong. There's always flooding in places that we don't expect. There's always failure of some levee or other form of protection."

[Related: Awaiting the Next Storm: Staten Island Balances Long-Term Planning, Short-Term Needs]

WHAT'S THE IMPACT OF GROWING FLOOD ZONES?
Over 400,000 city residents will soon be living in 100-year flood zones.That's an increase of 84% from the current 218,088. What does adding tens of thousands of residents to the updated FEMA flood zones mean in financial and social terms?

The most pressing issue is the specter of working class, waterfront communities facing steadily rising flood insurance costs on top of other economic challenges. Council Member Treyger calls it an approaching "financial storm."

To control the costs, FEMA currently recognizes elevating one's home as the only mitigation step. But because elevation is untenable in many cases, the city has been pushing FEMA to take New York's existing housing stock into account.

Otherwise, the only viable option for many New York homeowners will be to abandon the first floor of their houses. That's often a critical source of rental income. "Many of us are losing one-third of the value of our houses," said one angry Red Hook resident at the March meeting.

The dilemma was brought home by Alexandros Washburn, an architect and chief urban designer at the Department of City Planning under the Bloomberg administration. He rode out Sandy at his home in Red Hook, which was heavily flooded.

"If I were to follow the regulatory path of least resistance [by using FEMA guidelines]," Washburn explained, "I'm supposed to take out my Victorian storefront, fill my basement, pour a concrete slab and park cars...Then my house is resilient."

But then Red Hook would become a neighborhood of parking garages, he argued. "We would have killed the social heart of our neighborhood."

There are solutions. Neighborhood flood protection projects, in planning now, could eventually provide mitigation credits for homeowners. That, in turn, would lower their flood insurance rates, said Treyger.

And the city's resiliency projects could do more than help lower the cost of flood insurance for residents. They could also help whole neighborhoods get out of the flood zones altogether, said Washburn.

"If we succeed in making a beautiful and effective perimeter protection for Red Hook, we take Red Hook out of the flood zone, out from under the requirement for FEMA [flood] insurance. We remove the problem," he said.

Is that realistic? "Totally doable," Washburn responded. "That would be the [city's] end-goal."

Added Treyger: "My message to the city is that when we're planning resiliency, are we aligned to the FEMA standards? We have to make sure that we have the relevant city agencies on the same page with FEMA, who have to be on the same page with the Army Corps."

IS RETREAT AN OPTION?
Is there a point at which New York residents should simply move away from an increasingly flood-prone coast? That question begins to make sense when you look at the findings of the New York City Panel on Climate Change, or NPCC, whose most recent report was released in February.

The NPCC has found that since 1900, New York has seen sea levels rise around a foot, nearly twice the observed global rate over a similar time period.

This trend is expected to continue, and even accelerate, as the century progresses. According to the panel's most recent report, sea level could rise another 11-21 inches by the 2050s, and 18-39 inches by the 2080s. By 2100, according to the panel's worst-case, though lowest probability scenario, it could increase as much as six feet.

Indeed, after Sandy, some homeowners on Staten Island had already made the decision to give up their homes. They are participating in a joint city and state program under the state's NY Rising community reconstruction initiative. The acquisition program is currently only available in three Staten Island neighborhoods and Suffolk County.

Despite this, the city has maintained a "no retreat" policy thus far. "New York City will not retreat," the SIRR plan declared. "[It will] stand with its waterfront neighborhoods."

But how far into the future should we try to look? "For the foreseeable future, we can manage risk and we can make neighborhoods safer," argued city resiliency official Zarrilli, in an interview last month on WNYC's Brian Lehrer Show.

"And in the future if things are going either faster or slower in the climate than we anticipated, we can continue to react," Zarrilli maintained. "It's not an all-at-once implementation that needs to happen."

A concrete example is the City's approach to inundation. By the 2050's, some neighborhoods are expected to experience weekly or even daily tidal flooding due to sea level rise. The city said it plans to monitor the situation and raise the height of coastal edges, with bulkheads and beach nourishment, as necessary.

But others see it differently. "I think we need a realistic, thoughtful conversation about what a sustainable strategy looks like with our waterfront," said Mary Rowe, vice president of the Municipal Art Society, a century-old organization with a special focus on design, planning, architecture and resilience. "There's a significant question about what does New York look like in 50 years. What are the alternatives?"

And some go even farther. For instance, Klaus Jacob, a geo-physicist affiliated with the Earth Institute, who also sits on the NPCC, has pointedly argued that the city must plan now to move coastal residents to higher ground.

But the Earth Institute's Cohen responded that "abandoning [the coastline] is not practical and not cost-effective." Part of Cohen's concern relates to the working class makeup of many of the city's coastal communities. Given the current housing affordability crisis, asked Cohen, where are the almost 700,000 residents of the city's most vulnerable coastal areas going to move?

Another issue Cohen raised is the massive financial loss that would be incurred by walking away from the critical infrastructure, like powerplants and wastewater treatment facilities, that has been constructed all along the city's coastline.

In any event, Cohen is not convinced that the most dire projections made by the city's climate scientists are inevitable. In 2014, greenhouse gases actually stabilized, he stated.

The global economy is moving away from coal, and will eventually replace all fossil fuels with renewable sources, Cohen said, and that will slow the pace of climate change. Fossil fuels will be driven from the marketplace "long before we're under five feet of water in New York City," he argued.

CAN THE DECISION-MAKING PROCESS BE IMPROVED?
One of the challenges of resiliency planning is that the timetable for infrastructure projects is guided by lengthy public review processes, which were originally established to provide more oversight and opportunities for the public to weigh in.

"The pace of climate change is such that we have to find a way of speeding up the public process," observed Washburn, the city's former chief urban designer. "The ability for top-down and bottom-up to come together and reach a decision is critical. You can't act without deciding first."

He added: "The expeditious part, for me, is not the amount of time it takes to build the thing...It's the time it takes to get to a decision on what you are going to build and how you're going to pay for it."

Washburn believes he may have one piece of the puzzle. He now runs a coastal resilience research lab at the Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, N.J., and said his lab has developed a computer program that will "let us plan coastal protections together with the community in real time."

Local residents can use this so-called parametric analysis tool to gain a much deeper understanding of the physical effectiveness, social impact, and cost of each proposed project, Washburn argued.

"[You] let everybody get into the room, whether it's a virtual or actual room, and play with the parameters," Washburn continued. "If you substitute a concrete wall for a vegetative berm, you can keep track of the costs. You can see what it looks like. You can see what the view from the street is. ... It's tools like that that let you go through the same interactive process that ULURP [the city's Uniform Land Use Review Process] is hoping to establish of community input and top input and modification."

Washburn added: "The tools are now out there for the city to get to success. The city's got a pretty good foundation. The number one smart thing the city is doing is taking a neighborhood approach. The question is can they take it the last step and make a reality that's effective but also improves quality of life."

DO RESIDENTS HAVE ENOUGH SAY?
Another concrete way to engage the public is to give people more direct say over how resiliency dollars are spent, say some policy advocates. This is already a pressing issue in cases where residents have been heavily involved in developing resiliency proposals, but risk being left out of the final decision making process.

A case in point is the Hunts Point community of the South Bronx, which has actively participated in developing one of the winning coastal resiliency projects chosen by HUD's Rebuild by Design program.

The revised price tag for the Hunts Point Lifelines project is now $481 million. So far, HUD has allocated $25 million, and the city is prepared to offer another $20 million.

Some community leaders are asking how what is ultimately built in Hunts Point will be decided upon, and who will participate in that process.

We need "clear points of decision making," said Kelly Terry, executive director of The Point CDC, at a public meeting about the project on April 10. She said the community is looking for clear criteria on who gets to participate in a working group created by the city, along with accountability and open communication.

There are multiple potential ways residents can participate in resiliency budget discussions.

One possible first step could be for the city to provide financial support for some of the "first responder" community groups who were so essential during Sandy. This is a "no-brainer," argued Michael Menser, an assistant professor of Earth and Environmental Science at the CUNY Graduate Center.

"Where is the funding program for [the first responder groups] to build their own capacity, to improve their spaces and community infrastructure, to hire more, to have better relationships with the [city] agencies?" he asked.

A next step, said Menser, chair of the non-profit Participatory Budgeting Project, would be to utilize participatory budgeting for certain types of local resiliency projects. Participatory budgeting is already used in almost half of New York City's council districts, including several Sandy-impacted areas.

"What's been missing is any kind of process that connects neighborhoods to city agencies and city government in a medium-term way," Menser said. "There's been no real defined way that people could participate."

To be clear, Menser is talking about actual decision making, not just offering one's opinion at a community board meeting or in a survey. Community boards can only make non-binding recommendations in the city's land use review process, for example.

Giving residents a pot of funding could "really enliven and strengthen the city's resilience-enhancing goals," said Menser. As part of the participatory budgeting process, communities would work with the relevant city agencies to develop resiliency proposals that are technically and legally appropriate, he said.

Going even further, using participatory budgeting on a citywide level would significantly ramp up the city's resilience process, Menser argued, and be especially useful for overcoming the isolation of Sandy-impacted communities. Referring to the fact that climate change will ultimately affect every New York neighborhood, whether coastal or not, Menser observed that "this is a regional issue."

But the underlying question for Menser is how to maintain substantive public involvement in resiliency planning on an ongoing basis. In the participatory budgeting paradigm, "expertise plays a critical role, but it's driven by community need," he said. "And in the process, you create more trust among the government and the community, but also within the community, and also you help to promote interagency coordination."

HOW ARE RESIDENTS BEING ENGAGED?
Our previous reporting found striking disconnects in communication between the Bloomberg administration and some of its community boards regarding resiliency planning.

Additional interviews last fall with several dozen residents in two of the city's most vulnerable areas found that a significant number were simply unsure what measures, if any, were being taken to protect their communities. The overwhelming majority thought they were no safer, two years after Sandy, from the risks posed by climate change.

As noted earlier, the de Blasio administration has pledged to increase community engagement as it updates PlaNYC, and, so far, has done so by meeting with all 59 of the city's community boards, and disseminating a survey about a variety of sustainability and resiliency topics.

The administration has decided not to re-activate two task forces that were convened after Sandy to enable communities in vulnerable areas to weigh in on resiliency planning.

But resiliency planning bodies and advocacy groups are springing up throughout the five boroughs. Resiliency and rebuilding task forces have been established by the borough presidents of Staten Island, Brooklyn, and Queens, Council Member Treyger noted.

Treyger said that he has jump-started a resiliency task force in his community, Coney Island.
"I would encourage all of the communities [with] these studies underway [to organize]," said Treyger. "Let's not wait for them," he said of the city. "We can do it ourselves."

Resiliency task forces are even being formed at the hyper-local level. For instance, residents in some of the public housing developments in the Rockaways have set up planning groups, said Council Member Richards.

Richards observed that a major challenge for the city was figuring out how best to "intertwine environmental justice communities with PlaNYC planning. They have been left out of the conversation."

The Alliance for a Just Rebuilding, a citywide coalition of labor unions and community, faith-based, environmental, and policy organizations formed after Sandy, shares Richards' concern.

The city's rebuilding process must include a commitment to "the elimination of environmental disparities across communities," the alliance says on its website. The goal is a process that "prioritizes transparency and community inclusion, [and] creates new economic opportunity for all New Yorkers –particularly low-income communities and communities of color."

Richards stressed that he believes community involvement in resiliency planning is a "personal issue for the mayor." He said that the de Blasio administration was making an "honest effort" to engage the public and to "really listen" to feedback.

[Related: Awaiting the Next Storm: Staten Island Balances Long-Term Planning, Short-Term Needs]

WHAT ARE THE INSTITUTIONAL OBSTACLES?
All levels of government, including Congress, will have to collaborate closely to protect the eight million-plus residents of New York City from the impacts of climate change. At last month's meeting in Red Hook, Rep. Velazquez ruefully observed how hard the New York delegation has had to fight for funding in the Republican-led Congress.

One issue that is often overlooked in resiliency discussions is the impact - positive and negative - of state funding decisions on the city. Insufficient funding for basic water infrastructure projects, like upgrades to wastewater treatment plants and water mains, has reached a crisis level across the state, say Democratic and Republican legislators in Albany.

This relates directly to climate change because New York is projected to see increases in the frequency, intensity, and duration of extreme precipitation events. Yet some coastal neighborhoods in Queens, Staten Island, and Brooklyn still lack the proper infrastructure to handle run-of-the-mill rainstorms.

The city is struggling to play catch-up and is engaged in stormwater infrastructure projects in several communities. This includes building grey infrastructure, like sewer mains, as well as green infrastructure, like blue belts (natural drainage corridors) and bioswales.

The good news, according to those interviewed for this report, is that individual city agencies are increasingly working together on resiliency planning.

Challenges remain. For instance, despite ongoing pleas from residents and elected officials, the city cannot seem to determine which agency has ultimate responsibility for repairing some of the bulkheads that will protect the Rockaway coastline until larger coastal flood protection projects are in place. Council Member Richards described the situation as "convoluted."

But there are concrete measures that could enable city agencies to work more effectively together, says CUNY's Menser.

"It would be a really good time to have a [city] charter review in a year or two," argued Menser, referring to the fact that city agencies now function in the complex and shifting world of climate change. The issue affects their responsibilities, and may alter how power needs to be distributed, especially vis-a-vis the public, he said.

A charter review could also address jurisdictional issues relevant to resiliency planning, or even increase the power held by community boards. The last full review was in 1989. An examination of how government is structured is merited, Menser said. "We're due."

And the underlying point, said Menser, is that climate resiliency is going to require more than technical solutions. It will also require "social support" and "bureaucratic changes" - a point echoed by others. More specifically, true resilience "requires a remaking of bureaucratic institutions, and the relationship between the public and those institutions," Menser continued.

As an example, Menser cited the city's housing authority, NYCHA, which has been plagued by reports of internal dysfunction. Many public housing developments were badly damaged during Sandy, taking an enormous toll on residents.

"Remaking the buildings isn't going to be enough," he said. For NYCHA residents to be able to control resiliency spending in their developments, set their own priorities, and get their needs met, said Menser, "requires a reforming of the Housing Authority."

WHAT ARE THE SOCIAL IMPLICATIONS?
It's likely that the city's resiliency plans will ultimately be judged by how well the most vulnerable in society - the disabled, the poor, the elderly, non-English speakers, and others - survive the next crisis.

After Sandy, for instance, some of the most harrowing stories to emerge came from disabled residents who were trapped in group homes and other living facilities in the devastated areas. In testimony to the City Council after the storm, some described losing power, water, and, eventually, access to food and medication.

As MAS' Rowe observed, the communities that fared the best during Sandy were the ones with the most social cohesion. It's a lesson born out time and again.

Case in point: NYU Professor Eric Klinenberg's research on the 700-plus deaths that took place during a 1995 heat wave in Chicago. The tragic death toll, he concluded, was the "result of distinct dangers in Chicago's social environment" - not primarily the forces of nature. Death rates were far lower in Chicago neighborhoods where social ties were stronger.

Building social cohesion and social capital - strengthening the foundation which underlies communities - can come in many forms. The de Blasio administration's "One City" plan seeks to make all publicly-owned buildings more climate resilient and less polluting, creating scores of local jobs in the process, and potentially a whole new sector of the economy.

Menser described the plan as empowering for city residents and an "incredibly ingenious extension of the SIRR plan."

The more the city can empower residents in its resiliency process, the more its resiliency plans will truly respond to the conditions of each community, and the more residents will be able to help protect each other from what is to come, whether it is a devastating storm or a heat wave.

"You tend to tilt yourself to focus specifically on the disaster that most recently occurred to you," observed Rowe. "Whereas what you really want is to build the capacity of those neighborhoods to anticipate any number of kinds of challenges that may come...It may be something quite different."

The city has a tremendous base of social capital on which to build- think of the bands of neighborhood volunteers who canvassed public housing developments across the city after Sandy, providing food and medical assistance to homebound residents; or the volunteers that cleared debris from ruined homes and businesses; or those who set up kitchens in storm-battered neighborhoods.

And as much as there are tremendous risks posed to New Yorkers by climate change, there are also opportunities to build a stronger city, both physically and socially. The two are completely linked with, and reinforce each other, Rowe argued.

She also pushed back against referring to city government as one monolithic entity, which will "solve" the climate change "problem."

"Resiliency is too important an urban challenge to just be left to government," she said. "Resilience is really a movement. One of the important principles of resilience is there are many, many, many parts - no one solution, no one answer. That's the challenge - how do you mobilize and then connect those many parts."

But it is equally important to point out that government is the only entity in society whose core responsibility is to maintain public safety and well being. This point was raised more than once during our interviews.

And only government has the resources and legal status to carry out the large-scale resiliency projects that are needed.

"Climate change is the issue of our time," agreed Council Member Mark Treyger. "It's already happening...Now we have to ask ourselves, 'what are we doing? Are we doing enough?'"

[Related: Awaiting the Next Storm: Staten Island Balances Long-Term Planning, Short-Term Needs]

***
by Sarah Crean for Gotham Gazette
in partnership with AdaptNY and NY Environment Report
@GothamGazette
@AdaptNY
@NYEnvironment

(photo: Steve Poses)

A group of New York City Council members sent an open letter to Mayor Bill de Blasio on Monday, asking him to invest funds to conserve regional agricultural land in the Hudson Valley and around the city.

The letter, signed by 14 council members in an effort led by Dan Garodnick, requests the mayor dedicate at least $5 million each year for the next ten years to protect farmland from real estate interests, and cites an annual $1 billion unmet city demand for fresh, local food. "We need to make sure that New York has a sustainable regional food system," Garodnick told Gotham Gazette. "Too much of the Hudson Valley farmland is at risk."

Council Member Garodnick, speaking for the coalition, hopes the funds will be included in this year's executive budget, due out early next month. "We're interested in seeing a commitment to long-term sustainability," he said.

The letter, a copy of which was read by Gotham Gazette, urges de Blasio to implement the recommendations of a Foodshed Conservation Plan created by non-profit conservation group Scenic Hudson. The plan lays out a strategy for protecting farmland through public-private partnerships to provide local farmers with incentives and investment to increase productivity.

Non-profit groups in New York have worked to conserve farmland through the purchase of development rights or conservation easements that permanently restrict land to agricultural use. These allow farmers to sell equity in their farms and use the money to invest in equipment and infrastructure. They also reduce the price of the land for future generations of farmers. In its report, Scenic Hudson says it has delivered more than $30 million to local farmers. The plan proposed in the council members' letter calls for realigning resources toward a broad coordinated strategy of conservation rather than focusing on individual farms.

"The plan is really a first-of-its-kind in the country and it offers the mayor and City Council the opportunity to be progressive food policy and resiliency leaders," Steve Rosenberg, senior vice president at Scenic Hudson, told Gotham Gazette.

"One cannot take for granted that farms in the nearby region will continue to be there," Rosenberg said, stressing the importance of locally sourced food for New York City's restaurant economy and public health.

The letter to de Blasio is signed by Council Members Garodnick, Donovan Richards, Fernando Cabrera, Rafael Espinal, Corey Johnson, Ben Kallos, Andy King, Stephen Levin, Mark Levine, Carlos Menchaca, Rosie Mendez, I. Daneek Miller, Antonio Reynoso, and James Vacca. It states, in part, "Creating a sustainable regional food system that meets [the $1 billion] demand and offers equal access to nutritious food will improve public health, bolster the city's "good food" economy, build resilience in the wake of extreme weather events and reduce the city's "foodprint" as a way to mitigate the impacts of climate change."

The Scenic Hudson plan favored by the council members draws a parallel with the City's investment in the land around upstate reservoirs for clean drinking water supply, argung that federal officials, state agencies, counties, philanthropic private organizations, and the city administration must collaborate to implement a similar plan for securing the regional agricultural economy and land base. "No one of them alone can do it," Rosenberg said.

The city investing in the conservation of farmland relates to concerns around resiliency and diversification, said Rosenberg, citing shortages in the immediate aftermath of Sandy. It is also important in the context of investment in the city's regional food distribution infrastructure and procurement policies that favor securing local food. "If the city's going to invest millions on procurement, this is a modestly-priced insurance policy to ensure that the supply continues," he said.

City laws 50 and 52 encourage local procurement of fresh food grown in New York State and this initiative would support that, Garodnick said.

The Foodshed Conservation Plan estimates that through a collaborative investment of $240 million, one-third of the highest priority farms could be conserved. That would mean less than $25 million annually over the next decade, with $5 million from the City, which is "arguably the single largest stakeholder," Rosenberg said.

Collaboration is key to this funding, Garodnick said. He added, "The city's investment here sends a strong message about our commitment and where we're headed, and it could leverage other sources."

***
by Samar Khurshid, Gotham Gazette
@samarkhurshid

Staten Island after Sandy; Nov. 9, 2012 (photo: Walter Jennings via FEMA)

Just over half of the deaths caused by Superstorm Sandy, 22 to be exact, occurred on Staten Island's East and South shores, as the storm's waves battered homes and swept some off their foundations.

Now the island is in a race against time to prepare for the next major coastal storm. Multi-million dollar resiliency projects are coming to Staten Island, from a sea wall on its East Shore to the expansion of innovative "natural drainage corridors."

The projects are on target, say local officials, but the pace needs to be faster.

The island's East Shore is directly exposed to the New York Bight, a coastline formation that can channel powerful storm waves and surges into areas within New York Harbor.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is planning to construct a "mega" sea wall that will protect over half of the East Shore, from the Verrazano Bridge to Oakwood, said Staten Island Borough President James Oddo in a phone interview.

The Army Corps will be releasing a draft feasibility study on the proposed wall to the public next month.

Oddo estimated that the wall would be completed by 2020 or 2021. The city and state are also assisting with its construction, he said.

"This is a different timetable than [the initial plans] we talked about," added the borough president. "Help has been all too slow in coming...There will be several hurricane seasons."

What happens between now and 2020 or 2021?

Oddo said that smaller-scale protective measures were underway, such as the elevation of several hundred homes using new FEMA flood maps as a guide.

The city has also rebuilt 26,000 linear feet of dunes between South Beach and Conference House Park. But "[the dunes] were not designed to handle an historic storm," said Oddo. "They were designed to handle beach erosion."

What happens if you're not behind the mega wall?
One area on the eastern shore that won't benefit from the Army Corps mega-wall plan is the district of New York City Council Member Vincent Ignizio.

There, a package of other solutions has been developed in conjunction with the city, the state's New York Rising program, and the federal government. They include construction of a series of "living breakwaters" and protective berms, home elevations, and, in some cases, strategic retreat.

Ignizio expects these initiatives to be effective, and the lack of a wall not necessarily a problem. "People want to be protected but not walled off," he explained.

But what is missing, Ignizio added, is a more robust home elevation program. The city's Sandy rebuilding program, Build It Back, will only pay for an elevation if half or more of the home was damaged, he said.

Since the goal is to elevate, the city and homeowners could share the cost in cases where less than half of the home was damaged, Ignizio argued. The city is reviewing his proposal, the council member said. The Mayor's Office did not respond to questions about the idea.

Ignizio said that the de Blasio administration is moving at a faster pace than that of its predecessor, but he added that no matter what, "The sad reality is that these projects will be extremely helpful but will take a long time."

Concluded Ignizio: "I'm getting tired of the studies and the reviews. ...I want to see shovels in the ground and hammers in the streets."

It's more than coastal flooding
Staten Island's vulnerability to flooding is tied to both a changing environment and lack of planning by the city over several decades.

Oddo said some neighborhoods along the East Shore still have no storm drains because of their haphazard conversion from summer bungalow to year-round communities.

"This community still remains vulnerable to moderate rain," he said. "We are paying the price in 2013, 2015 for what we did in the 1950s and 1960s."

The city has started to construct storm sewers and drains where possible. Some areas – like Midland Beach - are below sea level, a further complication.

The city has also been acquiring land for a "comprehensive Mid-Island Bluebelt," which would drain a 5,000-acre area, encompassing the South Beach, New Creek (Midland Beach), and Oakwood Beach watersheds.

"It's a decades-long, 30-year plan," said Oddo. "We're still a ways away."

The hope is that the Mid-Island Bluebelt will mirror the success of the Staten Island Bluebelt, which makes use of natural drainage corridors — such as streams, ponds, and other wetland areas — to convey, store, and filter stormwater. Concrete pipes along the corridors move stormwater from conventional storm sewers into the Raritan Bay or the Arthur Kill.

The city describes the Staten Island Bluebelt as "one of the most ambitious stormwater management efforts in the northeastern United States."

Ready to move inland
The ultimate objective, said Oddo, is to "help people re-start their lives." And for many Staten Islanders on the East and South shores, this means moving back from the sea.

Oddo said that he and Council Member Ignizio brought the concept of acquisition for re-development to the Bloomberg administration in March, 2013 - about five months after Sandy. The idea was to allow residents to sell their homes to the government in order to be able to rebuild more safely somewhere else within the area.

The state and city have launched an acquisition program in three neighborhoods: Ocean Breeze, Oakwood Beach and Graham Beach. Representatives from neither the city nor the state responded to questions about the status of the program.

"Bloomberg should have embraced acquisition for redevelopment," argued Oddo. "If you can acquire a block, then you can raze structures, and raise property — that never happened. Two years, four months later — what are the holdups?"

Failure to embrace the concept of acquisition for redevelopment is self-defeating, maintained Ignizio, since using the approach would limit exposure of homes to storm surge and lessen the need for resiliency projects.

"It's hard not to be frustrated and angry," said Oddo. "No mayor of New York City has stood up and told the people of Staten Island, 'We fully believe in acquisition for redevelopment and are committed to it.'"

The city could show the type of truly resilient housing that may be constructed, said Oddo. And concerns about government [effectiveness] could be overcome. "People can buy into their neighborhood again."

Added Oddo: "I believe in this program. It truly would have worked on a wide scale if we had gotten support from the Bloomberg administration. [It would be] a really powerful message if Bill de Blasio stands up [and] says 'we're ready to go.' You'll see lots of Staten Islanders come forward."

[Related: Assessing Resilience Planning: Is the City Preparing Smartly for the Rising Risks of Climate Change?]

***
by Sarah Crean for Gotham Gazette
in partnership with AdaptNY and NY Environment Report
@GothamGazette
@AdaptNY
@NYEnvironment

Hillary Clinton during a recent appearance in NYC (photo: NYC Mayor's Office)

Mayor Bill de Blasio may not have endorsed Hillary Clinton's presidential bid yet, but her candidacy could be instrumental in accomplishing something he and Governor Andrew Cuomo failed at last year: putting the State Senate in the hands of Democrats.

"I think she will have longer coattails next year than Cuomo did last year," said Kenneth Sherrill, who taught political science at Hunter College for decades. "Turnout will be higher and more partisan. There won't be any winks and nods toward Republican incumbents."

If the Democrats can wrest control of the Senate in 2016 they would control both houses of the Legislature come 2017 (they already hold a significant majority in the Assembly), and, at least in theory, be able to force the governor to the left.

"A presidential year with a rock star from New York running for president will immensely help voter turn out," State Senator Liz Krueger, a Manhattan Democrat, predicted enthusiastically.

Democrats have been creeping toward the majority in the Senate after holding it briefly from 2009 to 2010. In 2012 the breakaway Independent Democratic Conference, a splinter cell of dissatisfied Democrats, gave Republicans the majority - with Cuomo's blessing.

In 2014 de Blasio launched a campaign to win outright control for Democrats and pressured the IDC to return to the fold - its members promised to conference with Democrats, but that seemed to hinge on the Democrats winning enough seats to have a majority. Cuomo, who faced a tepid response from his liberal base, barely campaigned for himself let alone Democratic candidates and flirted with backing Republican legislators who had supported his major policies in the past.

Republicans won outright control, in part thanks to Brooklyn Sen. Simcha Felder, an elected Democrat who conferences with Republicans. Now de Blasio and like-minded Democrats face a Senate Majority that holds a grudge and the fate of rent laws, mayoral control of schools, and other key elements of de Blasio's progressive agenda in its hands. Cuomo holds a bag of progressive 2014 campaign promises that Senate Republicans seem dead set on preventing him from delivering, while they do enable him to deliver on the more conservative or centrist pieces of his economic and education agendas.

However, a massive advantage in voter registration and a younger base appear to make a Democratic takeover an eventuality. Hillary Clinton's candidacy could be the shove Democrats need to get them over the threshold and to never look back. Compared to Republicans, Democrats see larger turnout fluctuations in presidential and non-presidential years, with Clinton expected to provide a significant (if not Obama-esque) boost.

Cuomo would be faced with a liberal tidal wave in the Legislature and he might not be able to find a strong middle ground, though underestimating his ability to do so might be dangerous. Democrats further to the left, including de Blasio, would have two houses of the Legislature looking to deliver on progressive issues.

For some Democrats 2016 is D-Day. They expect Democratic turnout will spike and Clinton coattails - Hillary is technically a New York resident who represented the state in the US Senate and whose campaign office is in Brooklyn - will drag Democrats into perhaps permanent control of the chamber.

"I really think this is it," said New York State Senator Neil Breslin, a Democrat from Albany. "Her candidacy will be a strong attractor for new candidates, for veteran legislators to increase their involvement, and it will boost Democratic turnout."

Krueger said that with Clinton's candidacy, the push by US Senator Kirsten Gillibrand to recruit more women candidates, and efforts from advocacy groups and PACs, "I do think we will see more interest in people who are willing to run for state government. The trouble is that a lot of people say: 'Albany, really? Yuck!' We need to get people...past that cynicism. When women see other women in leadership it makes [them] think, 'I can do this,'" she added.

Breslin believes Clinton's candidacy will also give some Republicans pause, and perhaps lead to the retirement of some more senior members.

Senate Republicans have been playing defense for years, fighting off changes to election law, redistricting, and campaign financing. They've also had to convince older members to stay in their seats for fear that their name recognition, not their party affiliation, is what has kept their seats in Republican hands.

"I get a 25,000 boost in votes in a regular presidential year," said Breslin. "That is the margin of victory for most candidates. Now translate that to Hillary."

Senate Democrats have worked diligently on presenting a unified front during their time in the minority, rallied around leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins, and even begun to openly challenge the policy decisions of Gov. Cuomo, who has done little to help them electorally and undermined and overlooked them legislatively.

In a sense Democrats have been liberated and become less fractious because they have lost some of their more rural and conservative districts to Republicans; meanwhile, districts that used to be fairly conservative are trending more liberal.

"We are in an extremely strong place regardless of whether 2016 is a presidential year," said Sen. Michael Gianaris, a Democrat of Queens, who noted the Senate Democratic Campaign Committee is out of debt for the first time in years. "We have 31 elected Democrats [in a 63-seat chamber] and there could be special elections before then for any number of reasons. Now add a Clinton candidacy to that - [she] is a daughter of New York - and we are in an amazing position."

Gianaris incudes members of the IDC in his count - they may quickly attempt to reconcile with mainline Democrats if the party is able to take a majority.

Republicans have laboriously tried to maintain some level of bipartisanship, fostering their alliance with the IDC and allowing them to bring some more Democratic issues to the floor including the DREAM Act and parts of Cuomo's Womens Equality Agenda. And they partnered with Cuomo to pass marriage equality and the SAFE Act - but they also saw incumbent legislators defeated after facing backlash on their votes on those two issues. And in the past two years Majority Leader Dean Skelos has pushed back hard against the progressive agenda.

Even some Senate Republicans say privately that passing the DREAM Act could be beneficial to the conference in certain districts with growing Latino populations, but Skelos has been adamant that the conference remain united in its public opposition to the measure. It's a certainty that Clinton and other presidential candidates will be heavily courting Latino voters.

Skelos has also refused to budge on a new round of minimum wage increases, and appears to have opposed a number of criminal justice reforms put forward after the July death of Eric Garner in New York City.

"We want to see these policies enacted for the good of the people of New York," said Gianaris of a progressive agenda. "The more these guys reject these common sense issues like a minimum wage increase and paid family leave for things like tax breaks for yachts and private jets the more it becomes obvious to voters how out of touch they are."

As bright as the state Senate future may seem for Democrats and as inevitable a 2016 Democratic ticket headed by Clinton may seem at the moment, some in the party acknowledge that without Hilary they could be in serious trouble. "Forget it," said one Democrat who asked to remain anonymous."If Hillary loses the primary we are in major trouble. All bets are off."

***
by David King, Albany editor, Gotham Gazette
@DavidHowardKing

Gov. Cuomo & Speaker Heastie shake on an ethics deal (photo: Governor's Office via flickr)

The New York State Board of Elections opened up a floodgate in 1996, allowing cash to flow virtually unabated to political candidates. The BOE issued a ruling that allowed limited liability corporations, or LLCs, to be treated as individual donors and individuals to donate unlimited funds to candidates for state-level offices by creating multiple LLCs. Efforts to change the law in the Legislature have failed miserably and now a coalition of progressive and good government groups are asking the BOE to correct what they say is a major mistake that has damaged New York democracy. On Thursday, the BOE will take up what has come to be known as the "LLC Loophole," and interested parties on both sides of the debate will be watching.

Meanwhile, State Senator Daniel Squadron, a Democrat from New York City, is expected to use a parliamentary measure to force the Republican-controlled Senate to consider a bill to fix the loophole when the Legislature returns to session next week. Coming out of a budget season where ethics reforms were passed, but the LLC loophole was largely ignored, there appears to be spring life to the issue.

"The loophole is based on a ruling that hasn't been relevant since the last century," Squadron told Gotham Gazette. "I would hope the board would act to remedy that." He said he will push for a vote on his bill, but added, "I hope that won't be necessary."

The BOE is a political entity made up of Republican and Democratic appointees. Its members have tight connections to their party bosses and the BOE has shown a major reluctance to pursue and punish officials who violate election laws and campaign finance limits. But advocates remain hopeful that some in power might want to see things change. "We've seen this continual finger pointing between the Board of Elections and the Legislature, [each] saying 'they could do it if they wanted to,'" said Rachael Fauss, director of public policy for good government group Citizens Union. "The Legislature failed to act, now we are saying to the Board 'it is your turn.' We are going to actually put people on the record."

The BOE added discussion of the LLC loophole to its agenda for Thursday, as Capital New York reported, but no formal action on its status is expected. Fauss and her good government colleagues plan to be there, though.

A coalition of reform groups including the Brennan Center, the League of Women Voters, Reinvent Albany, Common Cause, the New York Public Interest Research Group, and Citizens Union wrote Governor Andrew Cuomo this week urging him to ask the BOE to close the loophole. The letter to Cuomo follows one from the Brennan Center and Emery Celli Brinkerhoff & Abady LLP to the BOE last week asking its members to do three things: rescind the 1996 opinion; treat LLCs as corporations or partnerships depending on the tax status they select (just as the Federal Elections Commission does); and clarify BOE rules to make it clear that no individual can upend donation limits by using LLCs.

In New York, corporations are limited to giving $5,000 to a political candidate, while LLCs fall under limits of individuals and can therefore give $150,000.

Governor Cuomo has a complicated relationship with the LLC loophole. He has taken in millions of dollars from single donors who use multiple LLCs to maximize their giving. According to NYPIRG, 20 percent of Cuomo's $35 million campaign chest he utilized last election cycle came through the LLC loophole.

The most striking example of this loophole largesse is via Leonard Litwin. Using LLCs and corporations, Litwin, a real estate mogul, gave Cuomo over $1 million during the last election cycle. And Litwin is the largest single donor statewide - he blankets state elections in cash - giving to candidates and committees regardless of party.

Cuomo has spoken out against the loophole and his budget included a proposal that would ensure LLCs were restricted to the $5,000 corporate donation limit, which he also proposed reducing to $1,000. But advocates note the proposal did not call for stopping individuals from donating through multiple LLCs. Even Cuomo's "half loaf" proposal was rejected by the Legislature during budget negotiations. It is unclear how hard the governor fought for LLC reform.

Dani Lever, a spokesperson for Cuomo, told Gotham Gazette, "Whether by legislation or action taken by the Board of Elections, the Governor believes the LLC loophole should be closed."

Advocates note that the BOE's 1996 decision was based on a federal ruling that has long since been changed. "In 1996, the Board of Elections decided to treat LLCs as human beings, rather than as corporations or partnerships, despite the fact that there was no indication the Legislature ever intended such treatment," the good government groups wrote to Cuomo. "The Board justified its decision by citing a single phrase in state law and stating that it sought to follow federal practice. But the short-lived federal rule it emulated was quickly changed, and the relevant state law in fact provides the Board with leeway to make a more common-sense decision. Federal rules now treat LLCs as corporations or partnerships, and in most contexts New York state law treats LLCs like other business entities, rather than as humans. There is no legal reason the Board should refuse to correct its error."

State Senator Michael Gianaris, a Queens Democrat whose conference has been stymied in its attempts to fix the issue legislatively, said he hopes the BOE acts. "We want to see it closed anyway possible," he said of the LLC loophole. "I believe it was created under a misguided ruling based on a federal rule that was quickly changed. They created it, so it would make sense for them to fix it."

Assembly Member Brian Kavanagh, who has two bills pending in the Legislature to address the loophole, said he favors BOE action on the matter. "I am confident I will be able to move something in the Assembly this year, but the cleanest way to do it would be for the Board of Elections to correct their misguided ruling."

Fauss said that it may take more public scrutiny of the loophole to finally force action and some groups have begun to try to engage their members and the public in what may seem like an obtuse and wonky issue.

Activist groups like Common Cause, Every Voice, and the Working Families Party have asked their members to contact the BOE to pressure them to rethink the loophole. "If we're ever going to end Albany's culture of corruption, we need to stop letting billionaires secretly dump millions into campaigns," said Karen Scharff, executive director of Citizen Action of New York. "The Board of Elections must rein in this flood of cash now as a first step toward returning New York state government to voters."

Jess Wisneski of Citizen Action said that the time is right because voters have become more keyed in to the influence of money in Albany. "They see the guys with the most money are just pouring an enormous amount of cash into the system and people are more aware of it than ever," said Wisneski. "Governor Cuomo says every year that he has reformed the system and it is functioning, but people can see that just isn't the case and this might be the single biggest way to change that."

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by David King, Albany editor, Gotham Gazette
@DavidHowardKing

Note: Gotham Gazette is an independent publication of Citizens Union Foundation, sister organization of Citizens Union