On November 17, 2005, seven New York City Council members, hoping to be selected as the next speaker, addressed a public forum, sponsored by Citizens Union Foundation (publisher of Gotham Gazette), the League of Conservation Voters, and Baruch College.
The speaker candidates included Leroy Comrie, Bill deBlasio, Lewis Fidler, Melinda Katz, Christine Quinn, Joel Rivera, and David Weprin. Doug Muzzio, professor of public affairs at Baruch College, moderated the panel.
The following is a transcript of the event.
- WHY SHOULD YOU BE SPEAKER?
- TERM LIMITS
- GARBAGE
- BUDGET DEFICIT
- COMMUTER TAX
- PROPERTY TAXES
- CAMPAIGN FINANCE
- HEALTH CARE
- DEVELOPMENT
- SCHOOL FINANCING
- NON-CITIZEN VOTING
- WAL-MART
- WHAT LEGACY WILL YOU LEAVE?
Doug Muzzio:First question, why you as the speaker of the City Council and not one of these other folks?
Lew Fidler:Other than “boxers or briefs,” this is the only question we should have been prepared for tonight. Let me tell everyone a little about Lew Fidler. I’ve been involved in civic affairs for my entire life. I grew up in a house where my mom was the president of the PTA in every school I went to. My father was the founder of the local civic association. I went to New York City public schools, graduated from SUNY Albany, NYU law school, and I was admitted to practice law at the age of 22. I returned to the neighborhood that I grew up in. I’ve been a community board chairman; the vice president of a local community development corporation; the founding director of a neighborhood housing program; counsel to a police precinct council; counsel to a public housing tenants association.
Public service has been my life. I returned to East Flatbush and married my lovely wife Robin who is here with my son Harry, who is also a public school student. My other son, Max, graduated from New York City public schools. I am invested in the city of New York. I am invested in its future.
I am not running for speaker of the council because I want to be something else someday. I think that that is important that my colleagues on the council understand. That will truly allow me to empower them. The ideas of 51 members; not the ideas of one. That can be cultivated, grown, and brought together so that we can act effectively to be a counterbalance to an administration that the charter already puts most of the power in. This administration came in with the arrogance of a billionaire. And will precede the next four years with the overconfidence of what I think was a tissue thin 20-point win.
Doug Muzzio:Joel?
Joel Rivera:First I want to thank everyone for coming this evening. We are discussing something that is extremely important to the city of New York. I want to thank the parties that organized this event because they do have the foresight and they do understand that this process is very important. The speaker is very important for the city because it is the second most influential position next only to the mayor. Like my colleague just stated, we have a mayor-strong city. We have a legislative body that is extremely important in terms of the budget process and the land use process and how we deal with priorities facing our residents, our 8.1 million residents.
The reason I believe I would be a great speaker for the 51-member body is because I understand the need for access. I know that when Councilmember Robert Jackson, or Simcha Felder, or the council members who are here tonight come to the speaker’s office and say we need to talk about policy, we need to talk about budget priorities when it comes to housing, healthcare, education or economic development, my door is going to be open.
I would make sure that access is something they are going to have every single day of the week. I am not running for the mayor of the City of New York, so this will not be my platform. I believe the central staff is there to work on behalf of the members. Not only are they there to be part of my staff, but they are an extension of the members’ staff in City Hall. They will work with them on important issues in their districts and in City Hall.
We need to make sure that the discussion and the debate is something that takes place every day. I think we can all agree that New York City is a great city and has a bunch of tough complex issues. I know the members of the City Council will join us in our crusade.
Doug Muzzio:Melinda?
Melinda Katz:I want to thank the organizations that pulled this together. And I especially want to thank my colleagues for coming out. In the end, they are the ones who will vote for speaker and vote for the leader of this body. I also want to thank them for giving me the best four years in my entire career, or my entire life. The last four years have been unbelievable on a personal level and for the City of New York.
We came in when there were 38 new members of this body. Everyone thought the world was going to be destroyed. Everyone thought, “Oh my God, 38 new members are not going to know what to do.” As we go forward tonight, looking for change and what we want to keep in the council as rules, we all owe a great debt of gratitude to Gifford Miller, who truly pulled this body together when it was brand new - 38 new members was not easy and he had an enormous task.
We can talk tonight about our experience. I was in the New York State Assembly. I had the privilege of serving under two speakers in my career, not only in public service, but in private practice as a mergers and acquisitions attorney. I see this city as the great city that it is. I want to make sure that the city gives credibility and confidence to the businesses all over the entire United States, so that they come here, so they want to build here, so they want to bring their employees here, and invest in our future. Our future is what needs to be protected to make sure people want to stay here and keep this city the great city of New York that it is.
Doug Muzzio:Leroy, see what you can do.
Leroy Comrie:I want to thank all of the people who put this event on this evening. I want to thank the audience. Your representation here shows that New Yorkers are truly interested in the public process and making sure that the council, which is the legislative body of government, is deliberative, open, and able to work with the entire culture of New York. This is a beautiful city that we are in. This is a city that I have invested my life in. My two children are here, eight and 11 years old, who go to public school. My wife, and my mother, who is 80 plus is here visiting from Florida. I can tell you that after four years as speaker of the City Council I want to make sure that I leave a legacy that my children can be proud of. That my mother, God willing, will still be here and be proud of. That everyone who comes to this city can be proud of.
We are in a critical time in this city. We are facing financial crisis that we have to face. We have to stop working with one-shots and really help stimulate small business. We have to encourage creative development. We have to be a proper and active advocate for every person in this city that wants to come to the council. The council has to be a welcoming place. The council has to be the city’s advocate. I am proud to work with everyone in this room over the past four years. It’s been the greatest experience of my life and I want to continue to do so.
Doug Muzzio:Chris?
Christine Quinn:I also want to thank the groups and Baruch for pulling this together tonight. For the past seven years, I have had the honor of serving on the City Council. For the past four years, the great honor of chairing the health committee. In that time I have developed a level of experience and I think, demonstrated an inclusive leadership style. The type of leadership style, which attempts to bring all the stakeholders to the table so that we can develop common sense, implementable solutions to the problems which face this city. And we have been able to do that.
Working together, we passed the citywide smoking ban. Working with Councilmember McMahon and others, we were able to pass legislation that protects our children’s health by putting a nurse in every elementary school. And working with Councilmember Robert Jackson to pass landmark equal benefits bill.
I am running for speaker to take that experience and inclusive leadership style forward to help work with my colleagues to solve more of the problems that loom in this city. For example, the budget deficit. We need to take the very effective work the council has done on the budget, and expand that. We need to begin to truly address the capital budget and become less responsive and defensive in our budget work, and be more offensive, putting our own plans out there. In addition, as speaker, I would hope to expand the amount of strategic planning that we do in this city. For example, we should have a five-year plan for pediatric preventative health care.
So I hope as speaker to work on those and many other issues with my colleagues and with the many advocacy groups in this city.
Doug Muzzio:David?
David Weprin:I too, want to thank the sponsors tonight, Baruch College, Citizens Union, and the League of Conservation Voters for hosting this very unique forum tonight. Christine referred to the budget deficit: maybe if we would have charged admission tonight, we might have had a head start. I too want to recognize my wife, Ronnie and my daughter, Lori.
Over the past four years, I have had the honor of representing my district and the City Council as the chair of the council’s finance committee. During that time, I have helped lead the City Council through extremely challenging times and have gained extensive experience that will be invaluable as the council faces future budget deficits. Working with Speaker Miller and a spectrum of my council colleagues, I have successfully navigated the council through four, on-time, balanced budgets in the post-9/11 era when the city faced multi-billion deficits.
I have helped pass important fiscal initiatives, like the city’s Earned Income Tax Credit, which has helped hundreds of thousands of low-income New Yorkers. I have advocated for increased funding for every council members’ district. We have stood up to the mayor when he tried to cut funding to the education capital budget.
In addition to my City Council experience, I will use my background as an attorney, my 15 plus years as a investment banker in municipal finance, and my previous banking department experience as a deputy in the department to effectively work with Wall Street and the investment community and fighting for increased federal and state aid that we are entitled to.
As speaker, I will always be accessible, fair, and honest.
Doug Muzzio:Bill?
Bill deBlasio:Thank you to the organizers and my colleagues. I have been honored to spend the last 20 years in a wide range of public service roles in this city. It has been an extraordinary experience. And I believe I do have the experience and the ability to lead this council and help it to continue a process of evolution that was begun almost 20 years ago under the leadership of Peter Vallone, Sr.
I have three particular things that I think we have to focus on in this next term of the council.
I think we have to build more of a sense of unity and common purpose among all of the council members.
I think I have to work, if I were to become speaker, to help each other succeed in the work we do in our neighborhoods.
And I think that in everything that we do, we have to be clear that we have to balance the power of the council more strongly with the power of the mayor. And that is why I think next year, after extensive public debate, we should move forward to add an additional four year term to our current term limits as council members.
If we do that, and we continue the process of strengthening the City Council, we can be a good partner to the mayor when he is right and be a stronger check and balance when he is wrong. This council succeeds when each individual council member succeeds in the work in our neighborhood. And each individual member succeeds when the council as a whole improves its public reputation and its ability to get things done for the people of all of New York City.
I hope to lead the council and bring my experience to bear on that.
Doug Muzzio:Since Bill began answering the second question on term limits, we'll work back this way. The question to all of you is: As speaker, would you support or advance changes in the current term limits law will allow longer service for council members? Second part, if so, how much longer? And finally, how much should these changes be accomplished, by council or by voter referendum?
Bill deBlasio:I think next year after extensive public discussion, after extensive hearings, I think we should move forward with an additional four-year term through the legislative process. I think that's so important because council members must work across mayoral terms. The charter, I think, has not provided the proper balance between the mayor and the council. I think that something we also have to work on, but certainly as we've experienced term limits we've learned that in practice it further saps some of the councils ability to play the role of a strong legislature and a strong check and balance, and that's why I think adding an additional four year term would really create greater balance and allow members to gain additional expertise and strengthen their role.
Doug Muzzio:How should it be accomplished?
Bill deBlasio:Through legislation, after a full, public debate.
David Weprin:Well, I'm philosophically opposed to term limits. Having said that, the voters did vote twice and we should be careful before we deliberate and make any definitive decision. Certainly, I'm very open-minded on the subject. The term limits originally passed in 1993, it's already 12 years. There're a lot of pro's and con's to term limits. One of the pros, of course, was fresh faces. People, as Melinda pointed out, predicted chaos. It didn't happen. I think it worked relatively well. At the same time, by having term limits, you empower the mayor to a greater extent than is probably necessary in the governmental process. So there are a lot of pro's and con's. I think it is something that should be discussed by all our members. I think it's something the new council should discuss at length. Members should contact their constituents, discuss it with their constituents. We should hear from the public. We should have extensive public debate and be open to suggestions on change.
Doug Muzzio:Do you support or oppose extending term limits?
David Weprin:At this point I'm open minded to both.
Doug Muzzio:On the third question, if this happened should it be by voter referendum or council legislation?
David Weprin:Yes. [Laughter from audience]
Doug Muzzio:Which one, councilmember?
David Weprin:Again, I think it is something to be discussed. If there is legislation proposed, I think the legislation should be taken on the merits when it's introduced.
Doug Muzzio:Christine?
Christine Quinn:I also oppose term limits for some of the reasons David mentioned and others. I think it doesn’t allow elected officials enough time to become experts on the issues we need to be experts on in the legislature. And also, it does overly empower the staff...at city hall. I think we should make changes to term limitations legislatively. It is an issue I would want to discuss immediately with my colleagues if I were elected speaker. I'm inclined to think 12 years is the right timeframe, but I'm not committed to that because I think it really is a decision we all have to come to collectively in the new city council.
Doug Muzzio:Thank you.
Leroy Comrie:I opposed term limits from its inception. I think it hurts emerging and minority communities. It creates a bureaucratic super class of people that New Yorkers can't touch. People that New Yorkers can't reach out to and people that start to control their information flow. I think term limits have hurt the city; it hurt new members coming in. I can tell you as majority whip with 26 years of council experience I was able to help a lot of the new members because they did not understand that there were major projects in theur district that they would have lost because the information flow went from staff down or lobbyist down to new members. Term limits hurt communities because you don’t have a chance as an individual unless you're an insider to touch a bureaucrat. Such an agency ought to have real discourse. You need a councilmember that is engaged in the legislative process that can survive the term of a mayor. In order for real engagement and real public process, we need to have an open public debate on it because everyone you talk to privately does not like the idea.
Doug Muzzio:How much longer and how do you do it?
Leroy Comrie:I think we need to have open public discussions, larger than tonight, throughout every neighborhood. I'm not committed to a time frame. I think we have to have major public discussions.
Doug Muzzio:What about the method of adoption?
Leroy Comrie:I think the method of adoption, after public discussion, most people would allow a legislative solution if we have real public discourse.
Doug Muzzio:Thank you. Melinda?
Melinda Katz:When I was a New York State Assembly member, I think it was 12 years ago, or 10 years ago, and it was on the ballot, I wrote letters in opposition of term limits. I never cared for them. I thought we had term limits. Those are called elections, which the U.S. House certainly proved a few years ago. I believe the term limits hinder the ability of the council to negotiate with the mayor. There is no co-equal power with the mayor of the City of New York as long as every eight years this body will be changed. In 2001, 38 new members came in. This year eight new members came in. In the year 2009, 38 new members will come in again, according to my calculations. Unless we make this term at least one more term than the mayor of the City of New York, I believe it is nearly impossible to be equal with the mayor. The staff has the history, it has the experience. It knows the legislation that was passed a few years ago. We cannot get our capital projects through because by the time we are in our fourth year we are looking toward our next career. So, I would use legislation to make sure our term was at least one more term more than the mayor of the City of New York.
Doug Muzzio:Joel?
Joel Rivera:Thank you very much. I think with the discussion here tonight something is going to get done with term limits. But the fact of the matter is, me personally, I'm opposed to term limits as well because I understand the fact and the need for experience in City Hall. The fact of the matter is we don’t have the advantages that a mayor does have coming into… because we don’t have an effective transition team working with us to get us on track and how to deal with the intricacies of government, like budgetary issues. We have a $50 billion budget that we have to really work with every single day in the City of New York and it was experience.
The question has to be when you go to a dentist do you want somebody straight out of dental school, that maybe has to figure out "what does this instrument do?" or do you want someone who has experience, has been around for a very long time, who understands the intricacies of it? I think we would want the experienced dentist, and I think the same thing would go for elective government. We want someone that understands the intricacies that understands how to handle the agencies that understands how to navigate the bureaucracies because we are lobbyists on the panel we represent 165,000 people in our districts and they deserve the best possible representation.
Doug Muzzio:How much longer and how do you do it?
Joel Rivera:I would say we do it through legislation
Doug Muzzio:How much longer?
Joel Rivera:That's up for debate. We could either do it for one more term or let the natural democratic process take place and repeal it.
Lew Fidler:I have always voted against term limits for many of the reasons my colleagues have said. I will start backwards and tell you the one thing I would not do, is repeal them in their entirety without a referendum by the people, because although I respectfully disagree with the vote of the people, I think it deserves some consideration. I didn’t think the problem with term limits was all the fresh faces coming in, it was the problem at the end with us all going out. And does everyone in this room realize that the speaker that we elected if we don't extend term limits, and will be electing forever, will be a lame duck speaker who has to go into an executive with extra power. So I am inclined to four more years. I am inclined to do it legislatively, and I think that answers the question.
Doug Muzzio:The next question is a question of substance and policy, and we will begin with Joel. It deals with solid waste. Do you support the current solid waste management plan, and in particular its proposal of exporting garbage from the city? Second part: are there significant elements of the plan you would like to see moved, modified or added?
Joel Rivera:Thank you. I think that garbage is very expensive in the city and we’ve got to figure out a way to deal with it in a very cost effective manner. It’s a very dirty issue, obviously. We’ve heard about it over the past couple of months at City Hall; there’s been a lot of debate over it. But the fact of the matter is we have to do something. We don’t have enough land in the city of New York to dispose of our garbage. We need to find a way to cart it out. The fact of the matter is we have to find a way to 1) retrofit our marine transfer stations and make sure they containerize; 2) we have to make sure that we find a way to have a stronger recycling program so we can minimize the amount of waste that goes into our landfills. If you look at the amount of plastic, metal, and glass going into our landfills it’s unbelievable.
Third, I actually have a bill called the grinders bill, which would in effect take away 40 percent of the organic waste going into our landfills. It’s in effect in other major municipalities, it would be a tremendous plus for our city, and I think we should implement it as soon as possible. I would urge the other members of the city council to join me and to pass this very important bill.
Doug Muzzio:Thank you. Melinda?
Melinda Katz:For those of you who are heavily involved in the council you will know that this is an issue we have been dealing with quite a bit. I clearly don’t have all the answers on the issue. I do believe, as I think do most of my colleagues, that we need to figure out how to export the garbage from the City of New York.
As Councilmember Rivera said, it’s an expensive process. But there’s so much more we can do. We need to figure out how to continue the infrastructure, and expand the infrastructure for reuse, for waste disposal, for recycling. We should be able to at least double the recycling that we do in the City of New York, and it’s a shame we don’t do that on a regular basis. We need to have zero waste goals, and we need to make sure that we are out there actually doing the press on it, making sure people understand it. We’ve had fights on it in conference, where we were discussing whether or not we need to give up recycling or whether we need to give up some of the pickups for garbage. To give up recycling pickups is just an amazing consequence to me. You’re going to give up so much money, not to mention the environmental consequences.
Clearly we’re going to have to deal with the Solid Waste Management Plan again, coming up in the next year. I hope that the administration this time does not put us on a time frame with the ULURP [Uniform Land Use Review Process] process, which I believe was the big issue the last time around. I look forward to having a discussion when we don’t have a gun to our head to make sure that the ULURP process goes forward. You do the Solid Waste Management Plan first, which is how it should have been in the first place.
Doug Muzzio:Thank you. Leroy?
Leroy Comrie:The Solid Waste Management Plan and the solid waste issue in the city is a critical issue in terms of our economic development. As you know, right now most of the solid waste is concentrating in minority communities, with over 65 waste transfer stations primarily in minority communities. It’s one of the singular issues that I’ve been involved with since I’ve been in the city council, because one of my biggest parks is located right across the street from eight 24-hour waste stations. So my community insisted that I get active in this, and I have been active in this program.
So while I support the mayor’s solid waste program, there are some things that need to be adopted. We need to make sure that there is real public/private partnership in this issue. One of the problems with the marine transfer stations is that the tipping fees are going to be too expensive for most people to participate in. We need to get closer to borough self-sufficiency; we need to make sure there’s more recycling, at least double the recycling efforts we’re going now; we need to incorporate new technologies that have been proven to work. We need to have a real discussion with the council raising the bar on awareness so that we can deal with waste management in the city. I’m trying not to go over time, but there’s a lot to be said on this issue.
Doug Muzzio:Thank you, I know. Chris?
Chris Quinn: Thank you. This is one of the biggest issues that’s going to face us in the next few years, and it’s important that we actually have a truly developed, multifaceted plan to address the city’s solid waste problem, a plan that, as Melinda referenced, goes beyond ULURP sitings. That plan needs to first and foremost recognize that for decades solid waste and other facilities have been placed in low-income neighborhoods of color. We need to address that history of environmental racism as it relates to siting of facilities.
We also need to make sure that the plan demonstrates a real commitment to reduction of waste, reuse of materials, and expansion of recycling. The plan also needs as it looks at siting look cumulatively at the impact, not just limited on the impact of one facility. For example on the west side of Manhattan there have been as many as three sites proposed. Some of those may be exactly the right sites, but if you’re going to have more than one, you need to look at the totality of their effect, and also their effect on adjoining facilities like parks. I have a similar situation to the one that Leroy referenced.
So I hope that we see a true plan that we can all work on to improve and expand upon in the next city council.
Doug Muzzio:Thank you. David?
David Weprin:Thank you. Clearly this is a major issue that we are going to be confronting in the next city council, and we need to have a balance between cost and environmental issues, and of course we need to have more recycling in the city.
The mayor made a major mistake in his first year in office, during our first budget crisis. The mayor suspended recycling. That was a big mistake, and he did it on the basis of economics. Sure enough, though, our fiscal analysis has shown that he actually cost the city more money by cutting recycling. Because of the overtime in the sanitation department, it was actually a huge failure, and it took awhile for people to get back into the habit of recycling again. There’s still a huge confusion factor. I’ll never forget that senior citizen who told me that he heard we were going to suspend recycling glass for a year, and he said he didn’t know what to do because he doesn’t have enough room in his garage to store all the bottles for a whole year. We clearly have to do something.
Doug Muzzio:Thank you, David. Bill?
Bill deBlasio:Well, Doug, I do support the solid waste plan, and it’s not an abstraction for me, in fact the Hamilton Avenue marine transfer station is walking distance from my house. I do think that we have do improve certain elements of the plan. I certainly think we have to make sure that each site as currently planned will be workable. I think there are still outstanding issues in terms of traffic and in terms of impact on surrounding neighborhoods. We have more work to do to make those sties are workable as possible. I think we need to make sure that overburdened neighborhoods have very clear guarantees that things are about to change. I think the way we do that is through legislation. I think we have to set numerical goals and timelines for ensuring that we actually achieve this transition away from neighborhoods that have carried this burden – overwhelmingly neighborhoods of color – and ensure that we do move this plan along and move the waste in a more equitable fashion.
I absolutely believe that we have to put more focus on recycling, and that means more public education and more of a real enforcement effort, and finally a true citywide effort to reduce consumption.
Doug Muzzio:Thank you. Lew?
Lewis Fidler:Thanks. I voted no on the city council, but that was because I supported the solid waste management plan. I found the idea that they brought us half a plan, and then said â€trust us, we’re going to do the rest’ to be somewhat offensive. I do believe, for the reasons that our colleagues have stated, that we have to move our garbage out of the city of New York more efficiently and more fairly. I don’t think that garbage is endemic to only low-income neighborhoods. I think we need to find a way to share that burden in every borough fairly. So yes, I’ll support the whole plan.
As long as my colleagues have brought up the issue of recycling I also found the suspension of recycling in this city to be offensive. As a civic leader, I fought to bring weekly recycling back to Brooklyn. And by the way if the mayor again suggests cutting sanitation pickups in the outer boroughs to one day a week he’ll have a fight on his hands with Lew Fidler again.
Doug Muzzio: The Budget. The city faces a $4 billion dollar budget deficit in the next fiscal year. It's going to require either raising taxes or fees or service cuts, likely both. Will you cut or will you raise taxes?
Melinda Katz: I think one of the problems we have, is that every time we have a budget deficit we go to taxes. We don't go to Albany where we should be going and get commuter tax. The mayor of the City of New York says he goes to Albany, he asks for the commuter tax, and time and time again he gets turned down. I served in the Albany Legislature. I know exactly. They need stuff from us, we need stuff from them. If we want the commuter tax put back on, we are going to have to negotiate it, and negotiate it right. Number one. Number two: higher taxes don’t normally generate more income for the City of New York. We are now giving back $400 tax rebates a year to the people of this city. We are spending a lot of money doing that. We haven't lowered real property tax, which is something I would certainly like to do. I think that would generate more people to stay in the City of New York and actually spend money in the City of New York. I think one of the problems we also have is that there's institutions like the Campaign Finance Board, where the City Council has absolutely no authority to lower the funding they get every single year. According to the City Charter the Campaign Finance Board can set their own budget. And unless we change the Charter, it can't be lowered. We can lower the Fire Department, we can lower the Police Department, we can lower Health Care, but we have no authority over that. And I think that's one of the issues as well that we might want to discuss. Later right?
Doug Muzzio: Yeah.
Melinda Katz: I'm telepathic that way.
Doug Muzzio: My question to all of you is: Does it add up to $4 billion? Leroy?
Leroy Comrie: What we have to work on in the next year is, as Melinda said, is the fight to make sure that we negotiate to have a commuter tax from Albany. We also have to look at the various city agencies. I have to say that our council finance staff has been excellent at preparing secondary budgetary response to the budget. We also have to work with other good government groups who have come up with various ways to ensure that there are opportunities for people to pay taxes that would not hurt the middle class or working class of this city. That would not fundamentally take away from people who want to do business in this city. That would not fundamentally hurt people that are looking to make sure that New York is a place where we have a high quality of life. Who do we get up to $4 billion? We need to encourage business stimulation. We need to help Wall St, because we're ultimately dependent on it, but we can't let it get weaker. Of course we need to encourage affordable housing and new housing development. We need to make sure that what we do in the city council is raise the bar and have market discussions to make sure that what we come out with - the Council Alternate Finance Budget - which has been actually very responsive, and we have a great finance team. And we make sure that that budget is the budget that is adopted.
Doug Muzzio: The $4 billion?
Leroy Comrie: We'll get the $4 billion. We did it after 9/11.
Christine Quinn: For the past four years and at different points, we have also faced huge deficits. And the Council has made some very clear statements about our values. About the fact that we won't let the budget end up being balanced on the back of the neediest New Yorkers. As we move forward with this deficit, we need to make true to that. That we cannot cut away the most needed services. But, we also need to recognize that we have a great deal of property tax payers after 9/11, and we cannot go back and again raise property taxes as a way to get out of this budget deficit. In addition to going into agencies and really routing out that there might be waste or duplication of services. We also need to look at how we can increase revenue in this city. For example, as it relates to the Health and Hospital Corporation; the vast majority - all except for one - of the insurance companies that get the great contract of covering New York employees. They won't except HHC patients. If I wanted to go to Bellevue and City Hospital, I couldn't get my insurance to cover it. That's a significant amount of money that's being held out of city coffers. We need to look at ideas like that as well to bring in the $4 billion dollars.
Doug Muzzio: Thank you Christine. Dave.
David Weprin: We have to bring back the commuter tax. I'm glad the Mayor finally came out on the commuter tax - I think it's a little late, not to late - but we had an opportunity after September 11th to lobby effectively for the commuter tax, for a similar commuter tax to what we had. It would have resulted in $500 million a year. By now it might have been up to as much as $800 million a year. Clearly we have to get together and work hard. We have to get more aid from Albany and Washington. We contribute $18 billion dollars more to Albany and Washington in taxes than we get back in services. We have to work together with our Congressional delegation, our Legislative delegation, with the Mayor, hand in hand, and fight for the money we are entitled to. We also have to bring in the private sector, and labor and we have to all work together as a team and effectively fight for the money we're entitled to. We also have to encourage new industries, such as the film industry. I'm very proud to cosponsor the film tax credit that we did for 12 and a half million dollars for companies that film 75% in New York City. We have to encourage new industries.
Doug Muzzio: Thank you. Bill.
Bill deBlasio: Doug, first and foremost we have to be responsible. We have to preserve the revenue we have if we can't get ourselves out of this. We have to keep the property tax rate where it is. It's not going to be lower, I don't think it should be higher either. We have to continue the PIT surcharge on the highest income New Yorkers. We also have to play some of the roles I wish the mayor would play more often. We have to foster real public debate on Medicaid reform, one of the biggest challenges facing the City's budget. And we have to organize a real movement to ensure we get the security aid we deserve from Washington. Those are the types of fundamental changes that might give us additional hope of fiscal stability. To the extent that we ever have to confront cuts again, I hope we don't get to that point, but one thing we can all realize, is no cuts whatsoever to our public schools or to our public safety.
Doug Muzzio: Lew?
Lew Fidler: $4 billion in 60 seconds responsibly is not possible. I agree with a great deal of what my colleagues have said, but lets be honest: as long as George Bush and George Pataki are the people we're going to, the George Washingtons that we are entitled to are not coming here. So I will say this, we must absolutely preserve public safety, we must absolutely preserve education, we must absolutely preserve health care, and our safety net for our poorest New Yorkers. But we also have to be mindful that we have been taxed, fined, and feed into oblivion in this city, and we cannot drive people out by raising those things further. There is one tax that I think we should have imposed, that we didn’t and that would be the absentee landlord surcharge on Class 1 and 2 property owners. People are using their private homes as an investment property not residing there, not having they're family live there, could raise $70 million in the City of New York. And that could lead to a piece of that $4 billion.
Doug Muzzio: This is an unscheduled..
Joel Rivera: I never get to go.
Doug Muzzio: Oh! Joel! I'm sorry.
Joel Rivera: Thank you, Doug. First. I want to say that as the chair of the State and Federal Legislation Committee in the first year, one of our key priorities is go down to Washington because as you know we send to Washington about $18 billion dollars a year that we do not see back in service or programs. Now that's a large number, if we talk about dollar for dollar, we send to much money over to Washington. Then, on the state side, you know we have Elliot Spitzer coming around the corner, you've got to think we've got a better chance for our city to get more state funding. But we do have to make sure we do reinstate the commuter tax. That is a small investment for people who are making a substantial amount of money here in the city of New York to contribute to the services and the programs we have in our city to make it a greater place. We also have to create a city tax commission, I believe. Because with that, we'll be able to look at the disparities that exist in terms of the property taxes, in term of the personal income tax and the sales tax. New York City is becoming unaffordable, and we can \not tax our people any more, because like Council member Fidler said and Council member Melinda Katz said, we are going to drive people away. So my belief is, we cannot raise taxes. We have to find priorities within the $50 billion budget, and get more money from the Federal and State side, to make sure that we balance our budget. We are responsible, we've done it over the past four years under Speaker Gifford Miller, and we'll do it again.
Doug Muzzio:Thank you. As I was saying, I'm going to violate one of my own rules. An obvious Lightning Round question: and that is, commuter tax. Did you inhale? Lew, did you inhale? Is this realistic?
Lew Fidler: Are you asking about the commuter tax, or something else? No, I don't think it's realistic. It should be.
Doug Muzzio: Joel?
Joel Rivera: I believe it is.
Doug Muzzio: It's realistic?
Joel Rivera: It's realistic.
Doug Muzzio: OK. But wait a minute...
Melinda Katz: I'll remind you that we've already gotten several things that we weren't supposed to get. Yes, it's negotiable, it's realistic, you can fight for it. And if the State of New York needs anything from the City of New York, they had better do that for us.
Doug Muzzio: OK, Leroy?
Leroy Comrie: I agree with Melinda, we need to have the city council and the city force the state's hand to give us the commuter tax. We've got to do it.
Doug Muzzio: Chris?
Christine Quinn: We need to have a bipartisan united mayor and city council. Yes, it's something I think we could achieve.
Doug Muzzio: Dave?
David Weprin: Yes we can achieve it. We have to work together with the business community, with the labor community, with all parties, with the mayor hand in hand, and I think we can do it.
Doug Muzzio: Bill, can we handle it?
Bill deBlasio: If we organize a campaign so that the public of this city ensures that every candidate for Governor, for Assembly, for State Senate, this is a litmus test in their races, then we can get a commuter tax.
Doug Muzzio: Thank you. Leroy - subject of question: property tax. Should the city mitigate the difference in property tax rate between Class 1 (that is one, two, and three unit residences) and Class 2 (all other residential units including rental, coop, and condo). Should there be equalization, or something approaching it?
Leroy Comrie: We at the City Council have been working with how we can come up with mitigation, but we have to realize that the class one owners have been the people that are taking the largest hit in the property tax rate over the past four years. And when we had the increase it hurt those people the most. The Mayor did come up with the $400 rebate to try and get some relief. We do need to realize though, that the second tier of property owners, Class 2, are becoming a larger group in the city also, because we're converting a lot of warehouses and commercial space. We have to find a way to mitigate it, and look at spot mitigation when necessary for those areas that have been converted from commercial areas to residential areas. There is a way to do it. We've been working in the City Council, we've actually just passed a tax relief opportunity for both Class 1 and Class 2 homeowners, just today, or just yesterday. It would give them $140 million in relief. So there are ways to do it. We need to make sure that whatever we do, we do it in a judicious manner.
Christine Quinn: Carolyn Maloney used to say "A home is a home is a home, and that we should treat them all the same." I think that it's very important that we figure out a way to address the inequity that has existed for Class 2 owners, and also for renters. Who end up getting passed along through the Rent Guidelines Board process. I think it was the last year of the Dinkins Administration there was a commission set up by Mayor Dinkins with the Council and the Department of Finance which began - in tremendous detail - exploring how that equalization could happen, in a manner that didn't put all of the burden on Class 1, because that isn't fair either. I think we need to go back to that work - so we don't recreate the wheel - and figure out how we can move forward on those recommendations, and others, in a way that brings fairness, but not putting it all on Class 1. But, the discrepancies between the two Classes for owners and renters verses condos and coops, is very significant, and something we need to address, and recognize the significance of condo and coop owners in this city.
Doug Muzzio: Thanks. Dave.
David Weprin: We actually had a two hour forum, right here at Baruch college, on this very issue. So it's kinda hard to do it in sixty seconds, but I was very happy to sponsor legislation yesterday. We actually save Class 1 and 2 homeowners and coop owners $203 million dollars collectively. Clearly there are problems with the way that properties are taxed and the equalization issue. But let me say this: I just told by tax assessors- off the record- that since single family homes are only assessed at 6% of market value, while coops and condos are assessed at 40% of market value. That is strictly done by computers now, as far as one and two family homes. Tax assessors are spending all their time on commercial properties. The computers are told to take into consideration that it's only 6%, and as a result, the market values have been going up and up and up. There are homeowners in Queens that are at the poverty level of senior citizens living in million dollar homes. And that's a problem to.
Doug Muzzio: Thank you. And Bill.
Bill deBlasio: Doug, in the last four years representing my community in Brooklyn, I have learned so much about what home owners face every day in New York City to make ends meat. I fundamentally believe that homeowners bore the burden and saw us through the fiscal crisis that we went through a few years ago and we simply can't push them more, can't ask them for more. I think our recent action, on Class 1 and Class 2, was right and appropriate. We talk about some things that can bring better fiscal stability to this city and I think a lot of solutions are doable if we have the will. And if we can create a time of greater fiscal stability, I think we can really then focus on greater relief for renters, and for businesses in particular. But until we get to that point, we've got to honor the folks who got us through the tough time, and are really the backbone of our tax system.
Doug Muzzio: Thank you. Lew.
Lew Fidler: If mitigating the discrepancy between Class 1 and Class 2 property owners means reducing taxes on Class 2 property owners, I'm Okay with that. If it means shifting the burden to homeowners in the city, then I think that's a mistake, because as Bill said we've already shifted as much to them as we possibly can. We did pass property tax relief yesterday, and I voted for it, I think I actually added my name as a cosponsor to Dave's resolution. But the fact of the matter is, we pass that resolution, and the next tax bill that I get in the mail - my taxes are going to go up. And I called the system Byzantine, it's a State formula that is - if you want to talk about being the exact opposite, the antithesis of transparent. This is Byzantine. I do believe that there needs to be some general reform of this process that we can assess taxes clearly, and in the amounts and percentages and formulas that we intend to.
Doug Muzzio: Thank you. Council member Rivera.
Joel Rivera: Thank you very much. I think that when you're talking about taxes, you're talking about something that not many people enjoy talking about, so I'll try and make it as painless as possible. I think that, now, I agree with my colleagues, when you're talking about mitigating the tax burden you want to make sure that you don't mitigate it by increasing the burden for those who have lain the foundation for us, and have made our city as great as it is today. What we have to do is have a city Tax Commission established, that can actually look at the disparities that exist between one, two, three family homes and coops and condos and commercial properties and manufacturing properties, because that's how you're gonna be able to get a real clear determination on what needs to be done. There's gonna need to be public input in that process. And that's why one of my goals will be to advocate the establishment of a City Tax Commission.
Doug Muzzio: Melinda Katz.
Melinda Katz: You know, I think this is probably one of the most difficult questions to answer today. Yeah, we just yesterday revamped Class 1 and 2 and put the burden onto Class 3 properties. Because the increase in value of properties in Class 1 and 2 went up so enormously compared to the other properties - and I think that that's something that we should be proud of in the City of New York. So, the values of our homes are going up, our constituents are getting taxed higher and higher, but they're still only getting taxed the assessed value, but quite honestly, when I open up my tax bill, like a lot of single family homes, the only thing I notice is it's going up. Again. And Council keeps telling me they're not raising taxes. And there's something wrong with a system like that. I do agree that we need to revamp this entire system. We came into this body, and we had to learn about capping, and changing the burden from Class 1, 2, 3, and 4, and it really has to equal one number, and you have to start with that number and you have to work backwards. This would be a perfect reason why we have to extend term limits.
Doug Muzzio: And the next series of questions are really process questions in council operations. I begin with you Chris. What changes if any would you support or advance in the structure or the operation of the council.
Christine Quinn:Well, there are a couple of different things that I would advance. But First, I think all of us in the Council owe a debt of gratitude to the Fresh Democracy Caucus, which came in four years ago and ushered in important rules, reforms that really democratized the City Council. And it's appropriate now, at the end - another term - to sit down and review those rules to see how we can make the Council even more efficient and even more open. Three things that I think would be good for us to do. One, if I were elected speaker, I would immediately stop the practice of Speaker-mail. I would only mail to my district. Everyone should be able to communicate, and has to communicate with their constituents, but there's no need for me to communicate as Speaker to people in other districts. Also, we need to set up a system so when members request legislation, there are timeframes and milestones by which they which they get drafts back. If you submit a legislative request, you know you will be getting a bill. Also, we need to open up the process by which bills evolve from introduced versions to A versions, and as those versions change, give written notification to members, and also post those changes on the Council Internet so the public and advocacy groups can monitor their evolution.
Doug Muzzio: Dave.
David Weprin: We've actually under Speaker Miller, opened up the rules quite a bit. The problem is not so much the actual rules, but the culture at the City Council, which is obviously very speaker oriented, very central staff-oriented around the speaker. I think it a matter of changing that culture and I, as speaker, would be willing to do that. I think we should have weekly conferences. Right now we have Steering Committee members. I think we should continue to have a steering group, but at the same time have weekly conferences of all the members to get their feelings on the agenda and get a consensus before we actually take a position. A major complaint of members is that they often won't know what's happening at a council meeting until the day of the council or certainly the day of the committee meeting. That should never happen. No member should ever have to learn about an item from the press. They should know about it before hand.
Bill de Blasio: I agree with David on weekly meetings. I think that would be a great step forward. It would improve communication. It would improve members’ ability to really buy into legislation, really critique legislation and make a better consensus, a better product. I agree with Chris on ending Speaker Mail. I believe those resources should go to council members so they can better communicate with their communities. I think we need to have a strong committee system. I think we need to further strengthen committees by allowing committee chairs to hire their own counsel whenever possible. I think we should see committee chairs as cabinet secretaries who each have an area of interest and expertise, who help build a positive agenda for the council, a proactive agenda for what the council should do each year, and present it to their fellow members. We do need to have a strong speaker. We do need to keep very high standards for the work we do in our body. We do need to ensure our legislation is responsible and has been vetted at the highest levels legally so that it can withstand court challenge and that is a role for a strong speaker and is also clearly a role for a more open process.
Lew Fidler: I'm a big believer in de facto over de jure, and when we sit down and discuss rule changes, sometimes someone proposes a rule change and we say, "but that is the rule." The fact of the matter is there are a number of things that we can do better, and I believe that we should have a strong speaker, and the way that speaker is strong is by making sure that every member feels that they are being worked with, not on. That means a speaker meets with members every week or two individually. What's your project? What's your idea? How do I assign staff to you to make your idea a reality? Because we have 51 ideas and they need to come up to the top. That’s what would make a strong speaker in this council. That’s the change that we really need to see. We need to get all 51 members in the game.
Joel Rivera: I think that what we have to realize is that the city charter grants the mayor a tremendous amount of power in the city of New York, and we have to be very mindful that when we're talking about the rules of the City Council. We don't want to tie our hands, as a legislative body, behind our back while we're dealing with a $50 billion budget process and what I think it has to be is access. We have to make sure that every single City Council member understands that the speaker's office is there to work on their behalf. The central staff is there to work on their behalf. Often we will do that on a day-to-day basis. We need to make sure that we listen to the ideas that each and every councilmember brings forth to the City Council. And when it comes time for the budget, what I would do if I was speaker is to sit down with each and every single one of the committee chairs and discuss the budget items that reflect the concerns of the committee to get a better understanding of what they feel, since they are the committee chairs, on what our budget should look like for their committee and for their environment of expertise. That’s what I feel it is about. A speaker is about leadership, it's also about being a uniter and we have to unite the entire body to make it a good check and balance against the mayor of the city of New York and the only way to do that is to empower through access.
My vision of the City Council is to be a co-equal entity to the mayor of the city of New York. If we are not co-equal we will get absolutely nothing in the next four years when this mayor does not have to run for re-election. Already in the rules right now is that a chair can pick their senior staff member. Already in the rules right now is that the staff serves at the request of the chair. Already in the rules is that you can get a hearing within 60 days. I agree with Councilman Weprin, it is the culture of the institution that doesn't allow these rules to be used properly. It is just like creating stricter laws that are already unenforceable. We need to empower our committee chairs, our colleagues in the New York City council, because they bring with them a host of expertise that can be used in negotiations. We need to empower them, not only with negotiations with the speaker, but to be able to negotiate with the mayor of the city of New York because their expertise should match the expertise of the mayor's side. We need to allow councilmembers to serve the government more than eight years so their expertise is not lost after eight years and we also need to strengthen our legal team in the New York City Council. I believe that the council's probably one of the best councils that there is out there. The mayor has used an abundant amount of money to make sure he has the expertise on his legal counsel. Our council also needs this assistance, and councilmembers need to know that they can rely on it. The speaker needs to be strong because the body's strong. If we don’t hang together, we will certainly hang alone.
Leroy Comrie: We need to make sure all 51 members are empowered and engaged in the legislative process. As the other members have said, clearly, we have to be the proper advocate to a mayor that is term limited and in order to do that, we have to have a transparent process. There are actually all of the rules that are needed for open discussion are available right now to councilmembers but a lot of people don’t realize it. First, the Democracy Council, which I was part of at its inception, along with many members that are here at the table and other members in the council, actually opened up the rules. In the course of doing things, a lot of members didn’t look at the rules, or still haven’t looked at the rules. You can actually amend bills from the floor now. You can make substantive changes before the bill has gone to the amendment stage, but members didn’t look at it and members didn’t realize it. Members didn’t want to engage in that process. We have to eliminate that. I'll make sure that what we do in the council engages the public. We can no longer have a bill that passes in 12 hours. We can no longer have major legislation that passes without public comment. We have to have transparency because the council has to be unified. Every member has to be engaged. We have to ensure that the entire city is engaged in our process so that we can be the advocates for the people.
Doug Muzzio: Given the importance of process and operation - and you've heard a large number of suggestions here - I'd like to move into a quick answer round, so that on at least some of these we have one set of coherent statements. Do you favor changing the council's current practice or culture of not allowing amendments from the floor as part of the debate on a proposed bill?
Lewis Fidler: Well, it's a matter of culture, and yes.
Joel Rivera: I think that what we need to do is enhance the debate on the committee floor, and make sure that we get people involved…
Doug Muzzio: Yes or No?
Joel Rivera: Yes.
Doug Muzzio: Apparently there is a current practice - it's part of the culture - where amendments are not allowed. How would you deal with the culture?
Melinda Katz: I would not let amendments from the floor. I would strengthen the committee process, and I think that if it's from the floor, the committee process is flawed. You would have no negotiations on a bill, no research would be done, and I believe it might be a very dangerous process for the institution.
Doug Muzzio: That was good in ten seconds. Leroy?
Leroy Comrie: I would also strengthen the committee process, but we actually can do amendments from the floor now.
Doug Muzzio: It's a matter of the culture.
Leroy Comrie: I would definitely change the culture, because there should be no member who feels disempowered to get to the council and not be able to impact a bill. That's a horrible way to do it.
Christine Quinn The best place to amend a bill is certainly in committee. That's where you have more substantive discussion, and I hope that making the evolution of bill versions open to the public and clearer to members will help make changes in committee. But certainly we have the right rule, which says that any bill can be amended on the floor, and members, if a bill gets to the floor and they're dissatisfied with it, need to amend a bill if they believe the bill isn't what it needs to be to serve the city.
Doug Muzzio: So the answer is yes?
Christine Quinn: Yes.
David Weprin: I would favor amendments on the floor as a current rule. The problem is that you don't want to have people not as knowledgeable as they should be make a decision on the spot, which might not be the decision they would make if they had all the information and discussion on both sides. So I would work through committees as much as possible but in certain cases I would allow amendments on the floor.
Doug Muzzio: So you would move the culture in that direction?
David Weprin: I would move the culture in that direction, but also encourage more amendments in committee.
Doug Muzzio: Bill?
Bill de Blasio: Yes, as would any legislator in a democracy. What we also have to do is weekly conferences so we're debating these issues in advance and ensuring that we understand what members' concerns are and hopefully shaping legislation in a better fashion.
Doug Muzzio: I'm going to start with you, Bill. How many days before a stated council meeting should a meeting agenda be posted on the Web? How much lead time?
Bill de Blasio: I'd like to see it be the week before.
David Weprin: More than we have now. At least a week.
Christine Quinn I agree, I think at least a week. I think a week is the right time.
Leroy Comrie: One week, and I would just like to say that I think we should never allow any member to feel disempowered.
Melinda Katz: I'd like to talk to my members and get their opinion on that topic.
Joel Rivera: I would say five business days.
Lewis Fidler: Six days, 23 hours and 43 minutes.
Doug Muzzio: A wise guy!
Lewis Fidler: There has to be adequate notice, not just to the members but to the public. I honestly can't tell you that I have thought about this for one second before I heard that question.
Doug Muzzio: We'll start with you again; we'll pick on you. Do you favor a public accounting at the start of each fiscal year - early July - on all member appropriations by district? In other words, a public accounting immediately after the budget goes into effect talking to the member item appropriations?
Lewis Fidler: I get that first? The problem is that I don't think you can actually do that because there are member items that span council district lines, there are member items that are shared by council members. What you're looking for is a report card of who got what, and I just don't know that that's possible.
Joel Rivera: First and foremost I want to hire you to the New York City Council if I become speaker because you ask good questions. Back to the question at hand: What we need to do is show an open and transparent process. We have a good committee structure where public debate can be made, but I don't think you can start it off in July.
Melinda Katz: I would agree with Councilmember Fidler. We all get our books of expense budgets and capital budgets, and we all look through it before the budget is actually passed. It would be impossible to look through it district by district, and anybody who wants to bother to look it up can actually find it pursuant to where the money was spent. I would agree with Councilman Rivera that we have one of the most open processes with hearing and the budget - I'm stopping, I'm stopping.
Leroy Comrie: I think your question really goes deeper than that. No member under my administration would not have the major projects they needed in their district; no member under my administration would feel disempowered by not getting the capital that they needed, by not getting the non-profits that they needed. That's really what your question is, that every member was taken care of and if their district's priorities were taken care of. It would happen in my administration.
Doug Muzzio: Yes or no?
Leroy Comrie: Yes.
Christine Quinn I think Councilmember Fidler is right. The way you proposed to have reporting in that time frame district by district is not tenable and would not get the information that the question is heading for. It is important, as Councilmember Katz said, to note that the budget does list each group that gets money and how much they get. So that information is out there for the public.
David Weprin: We actually have reporting now, and I was instrumental in budget negotiations to actually get more money for individual council districts for both senior and youth money. I argued for that extensively because I know what the members wanted to distribute throughout their district. It's a pretty open process now, and it's pretty hard to differentiate between major projects that overlap a lot of districts or Queens or Brooklyn-wide districts. So it isn't that easy.
Doug Muzzio: Yes or no? You guys are taking liberty.
David Weprin: Yes, with an explanation point.
Bill de Blasio: Lew Fidler gave the appropriate and honest answer. Our current process is perfectly transparent.
Doug Muzzio: That was good Bill.
Lewis Fidler: I thought it was great.
Doug Muzzio: The next question deals with campaign finance. David, you'll begin. The recent municipal elections raise concerns about the current campaign finance laws. What changes, if any, would you make? I'd accept the discussion of single or sole source since you guys went through this ad nauseam yesterday.
David Weprin: Well, clearly when you're dealing with an opponent that is not part of the system, who has unlimited funds, as the recent election we just went through with the mayor of the city of New York, I would remove the individual cap on contributions for donors and go to a much higher cap similar to the one that's at the state level for the governor of the state of New York.
Bill de Blasio: Our responsibility is to preserve and protect the campaign finance system. The city council created the system, the council has funded the system, the City Council has additionally found ways over the years to add strength to the system. It is a national model; we must stand up for it.
Now, we have real challenges. A self-funded candidate is a huge challenge; we have to look honestly at the possibility of additional, greater matches of candidates facing self-funding candidates. We have to look at the question of bundling from all sectors - I think that an issue that has gone unaddressed. We have to look at the question of non-competitive races. We have to have clear numerical standards for determining whether matching funds are necessary or not. We certainly have to look at greater efficiency in terms of matching funds and on audits, and what we really need is a public process, a public commission of all the stakeholders - including the good government groups, the council members, the labor community, the business community, and of course the Campaign Finance Board - to determine the long-term direction for strengthening this program.
Lewis Fidler: The big loser last Tuesday was not Fernando Ferrer, it was Campaign Finance. And until the Supreme Court revisits the issue of personally funded candidates, politics like polo is going to be a sport played only by billionaires. I'll probably end up with an audit now. The Campaign Finance Board in this city, both in how they treat incumbents and people who want to challenge incumbents, does not have a clue. They do not understand how campaigns are run, and therefore impose restrictions and raise questions that are not fair, not fair to challengers and not fair to incumbents.
The first change I would make is that I would pass a law, and I would need state legislation to do this, that would allow a person to get immediate redress in Supreme Court when the campaign finance board threatens that they're going to make a ruling, like we do with petitions and petition challenges.
Joel Rivera: I think that public finance, and the concept of it, is a great idea to level the playing field and to make sure that there's not a big distortion on debate. What we would normally hear about is the power of incumbency and the fact that insurgents or opponents cannot get their level of attention. So the idea is great.
What we saw last Tuesday was the great failure of a great idea. And what we need to figure out is how do we address that issue. And it may be that if we have a self-funded candidate spending such an obscene amount of money that maybe we have to throw away the rulebook. Maybe we have to allow it to go to the state cap where we will follow the Board of Elections criteria of what can be raised within the campaign. That should be one of the options and avenues we take.
We also have to make sure there's an appeals process, because I know a bunch of members and people who are not members have had disagreements with the campaign finance system because of the decision making process and how delayed it may be. We have to make sure that we have a comprehensive system that's not going to distort debate in New York and that's going to give the little guy a chance. And this time the little guy was the people in the city of New York.
Melinda Katz: I think that the Campaign Finance Board is an organization whse mission is clearly flawed. It is meant to level the playing field. Yet we just had an election where a self-funded candidate spent, I believe, it was $70 million against the $8 million that the Campaign Finance Board gave to the candidate. That is not leveling the playing field, and that was their mission.
Melinda Katz: I think that the Campaign Finance Board is an organization whose mission is clearly flawed. It is meant to level the playing field. Yet we just had an election where a self-funded candidate spent, I believe it was $70 million, against the $8 million that the Campaign Finance Board gave to the candidate. That is not leveling the playing field, and that was their mission.
There is no oversight to this body. We don't call them in front of committees like we do the fire department, the police department or the department of health. I looked up on the computer just happenstance four months of Campaign Finance Board violations. Fifteen council members were fined out of 51. In four months. That can't be what the mission of the Campaign Finance Board was supposed to be. In times of record deficits, we cannot lower [their] budget without a Charter Revision Commission, which I think is outrageous. The mayor has to adopt what the Campaign Finance Board gives them as the budget.
Not only that, six years ago, the council passed terms and conditions where the Campaign Finance Board was supposed to give us quarterly reports. It hasn't been done. We don't have it. It's not part of our budget anymore. And with all due respect to the legislation we passed the other day about unions - I think it was very good legislation - but I think we have to take an overall view of the Campaign Finance Board, study it, and make sure it's a fairer process to everyone.
Leroy Comrie: I agree with everything that my colleagues have said so far. You know Campaign Finance was originally put together to enhance the opportunity for the public to participate in the political process. I agree that Tuesday's election only shows that Campaign Finance is fundamentally flawed. They've become rule makers, judge, jury, prosecutor, all under one shop. And because of that they have gotten away from their original mission. They've gotten away from making campaigns accessible to the public, they've gotten away from making campaigns a real opportunity to have public discourse.
All of the major candidates that ran this year had last minute problems with Campaign Finance that were going to hold up their public monies unless they capitulated. That's a problem. All the council members that ran this year - and I know I'm getting an audit; my audit from '01 is still being held up.
And that's the other problem with Campaign Finance: They are never wrong. Even when you go to them and you have a hearing with them and you win with the board, they reargue it and twist it. That's a problem. That takes away from a democratic process. I believe in the public process. I believe in Campaign Finance. I think that it's a wonderful program but they've gotten too far away from their original mission. We need to pull them back. We need to have open discussions to make sure that Campaign Finance is open and transparent. They've gotten away from their transparency. They've gotten insular, and they've started to hurt all of us.
Christine Quinn The goal of the Campaign Finance program was to make sure, among other things, that average New Yorkers could have access to elected office, which is a very, very important goal to making government as responsive and representative as it can possibly be. And along the way, the Campaign Finance Board has gotten incredibly complicated, and presently for somebody to comply with all of the rules and regulations and paperwork you practically need to have a CPA as your treasurer. And I don't think the Campaign Finance Board completely accepts how much people want to comply but how difficult it is to comply. So we immediately need to, as Councilmember de Blasio said, convene all of the stakeholders to figure out how to streamline the system, not limit the amount of disclosure but make it easier so people can comply. Because I think what we risk with the level of complication that has now been built into the system and the degree to which there isn't timely response when candidates add questions, that creates the threat of New Yorkers who maybe aren't billionaires but who could raise the $200,000 on their own of opting out of the system. And when we see that trend, that is really when we'll see campaign finance begin to deteriorate and unravel in our city.
Doug Muzzio: Wow. Big fans of Campaign Finance here. Bill, health care: As speaker, what specific steps would you support or advance to improve access to the health care New Yorkers need, particularly the underserved.
Bill de Blasio: Well this is an example where our role as a check and balance on the mayor is going to be so crucial, and we have to be very strong about it. The mayor made an important campaign pledge to help enroll 200,000 children in New York City who don't currently have health insurance. I think the means are there. The eligibility is there. We actually have to do it now. That's going to be a huge undertaking. We have to hold the mayor's feet to the fire to ensure that that happens. I think throughout the work I've done on the General Welfare committee I've found one of our hardest challenges is linking up people to the actual benefits they qualify for and deserve, That involves a lot of public outreach and that involves a commitment across all agencies of government.
I think again we also have to work on the Medicaid reform question. We have to be in the forefront of this national debate on getting localities their fair share and addressing what has now become a rampant fraud problem. We see it before our very eyes in our communities. If we don't fix that problem, we will not have the resources available to serve those in need.
Lastly, language access. A problem in many, many areas, especially in health care. Insuring that no one is denied health care because of language barriers.
Lew Fidler: Truthfully, the first thing I'd probably do is ask Christine Quinn. She is my health care guru.
Seriously, I agree with what Bill said about Medicaid reform. This is not a problem that's just endemic to New York City. This is something we're facing across the country and the spiraling cost of health care is a huge problem. And access to it, not just for poor people but for middle-income New Yorkers is a real issue. I think the mayor said that poor New Yorkers get better health care than rich New Yorkers, and I think that's nuts.
I think what we have to do as a council is make sure that our public hospital systems are maintained and kept open and that we're not closing even the small hospitals because certainly having the hospitals in our communities is absolutely necessary.
And the second thing I would do is I'd pump as much money as I could into preventive services, particularly for children in all schools, not just public schools, because prevention here is probably the best way to save money in the long run.
Joel Rivera: First and foremost I want to say that preventive medicine is far cheaper than reactive medicine. And that's why is important that what we do is that we make sure that the 200,000 children that need access to health care get that access to health care. What we need to do is at the same time make sure that we revamp our whole entire Health and Hospitals Corporation and do a study on how many medical centers do we have in every single borough in terms of per capita, per person, because there's a huge disparity. In some neighborhoods in the Bronx and Brooklyn and Queens you will see that the location of medical centers is very, very far away and inaccessible to public transportation. And that's key when you're talking about the health of our citizenship and our residents in the city of New York.
We also need to make sure that we open the doors and make sure that there's a great education campaign to make sure people know about the ailments that can arise. Christine Quinn and I worked on infant mortality within the Bronx and the city of New York, which unfortunately is higher in New York City than it is in Cuba, and that's something that we really should be ashamed of. We had to look at the fact that when you're talking about cancer and diabetes and HIV and AIDS, you know the numbers are just staggering. A lot of it has to do with education and I think that's why we have to get out there on the streets.
Melinda Katz: When I was in Albany, I had the privilege of being the chair of the subcommittee on urban health and there we did many hearings against the privatization of the HHC hospitals, the city hospitals all around the city of New York. We still don't have a contract now with the nurses at the HHC hospitals. They haven't had a contract in two years, and the last offer they got is an offer, which I think is outrageous.
We need … nurses in every school in the city of New York. We had trouble getting a nurse in one of the public schools in my district this year. We had to call time and time again and have the parents do a write-in campaign in order to get the nurse that we had passed this legislation and yet they were allocated by the city of New York and by the New York City Department of Education. I think that's extremely important.
I agree we need to do Medicaid cost containment. When we were in Albany, it was also a huge issue. It still is an issue. And to be honest about it, years later it shouldn't still be the issue that it is.
Leroy Comrie: Access to health care as you know has been a major problem in this city. The information flow on access to health care has also been something that this council under Christine Quinn has been trying to improve. And I have to agree that she is the guru. She is the person that has helped me also with the infant mortality rates that have gone up and the asthma rates. She's been a tiger with this issue and we have to keep our feet to the fire by passing legislation and helping HHC improve but also trying to save the many private hospitals that have threatened to close. We have to work on Medicaid reimbursements. But we have to work on having a wider public discourse so that people that are taking their children to school can get access to health care information, that we can work on translation services, so that new immigrants can get access to health care information, that we really blend all of our public and private services together so that people can get access to information because we need to preventative medicine through communication.
We need to get knowledge through sharing our resources. It's frustrating for me when I go to the communities and as many things as I try to do - I get a colonoscopy to show the people that it could be done. A laryngectomy, I'm sorry. It's difficult, even in this information society, to understand that people do not access that information.
Christine Quinn With all those kind words, thank you, it's a lot of pressure. I better have a really good answer. Bar none, the most important thing you can do is to get more New Yorkers health insurance. You go - the council - hand in hand with the mayor to Albany and demand that the State Department of Health change the enrollment and recertification regulations for Family Health Plus and Child Heath Plus. In the city and state of New York, it's tougher than 37 states or the federal government. I don't know about anybody else, I don't think we need tougher registration guidelines than George Bush thinks we need. And these are all designed because there's this idea that people are trying to steal public health care, although when audits have been done on recertification, the percentage of New Yorkers who are in the program who actually don't qualify are very low, less than five percent.
We need to make it easier for the uninsured to get on to Family Health Plus. It will keep them well, but it will also bring money into our Health and Hospitals Corporation. When those folks are on Family Health Plus, yes, we pay 25 percent of that. But if they go in and they're uninsured, our HHC has to pay 100 percent of their care, and it really is disgraceful that Governor Pataki has made it hard for families in need to get this life saving coverage.
Dave Weprin: 1.8 million New York City residents are uninsured. That is totally unacceptable. We also must do something, as my colleagues pointed out, to change the Medicaid formulas. Ten percent of our budget -- $5 billion every year -- goes to Medicaid. New York City is the only municipality in the country to pay 25 percent to Medicaid. It's just totally unacceptable, we have to do something about it. I'm very proud of what we've done with health care under the leadership of guru Quinn and Speaker Miller. $3.4 million for AIDS and HIV prevention. $1.7 million for Asian-American Hepatitis-B. $4.8 million for infant mortality. It's not enough. We have to do more. We'll continue to do more.
Doug Muzzio: Lew, development. As speaker, how would you, and the council balance the need to accommodate growth citywide and pressure from neighborhoods for downzoning. What are the acceptable tradeoffs?
Lew Fidler: I'm living proof that one size does not fit all. There are neighborhoods in this city that are being developed to the point where you cannot recognize them anymore. That's beyond pale. I bought a house in a community, and I hate when someone raises the boogeyman of affordable housing to justify ripping down a one-family home and putting up a three-story $800,000 per unit condominium. That's not affordable housing.
There is open space in this city. There are communities where building is appropriate, and I think that that is pretty obvious to those of us that represent neighborhoods, neighborhood by neighborhood. And I'll tell you one thing that I would not do -- and I voted no on before the council -- I would not subsidize the development of communities that would develop themselves. By that I mean the Hudson Yards in Manhattan. The West Side in Manhattan is the most developable land in the free world, and I don't think tax money should have to go pay for it.
Joel Rivera: Land use is one of the greatest powers that we in the City Council have, and it's one of the greatest responsibilities we have. We have to take a holistic approach and look at how we develop the land in the City of New York. Some areas of our city need and deserve to create affordable housing, and we have to make sure that the people who help build and maintain our city can actually afford to live in our city.
But the fact of matter is there are also neighborhoods - like my colleague Lew Fidler stated, that are full of one-family homes where you want to make sure the character of the neighborhood is something that does not get drastically changed. That's why as the speaker, what I would do is meet with each and every single one of my colleagues and have a comprehensive approach of how we deal with land within their respective communities. And we have to open up the process to make sure that we have these discussions with the developers and with the community organizations, and with the not-for-profits. In the City of New York, one size does not fit all, and we have to take it as a step-by-step approach.
Melinda Katz: As chair of the Land Use Committee, this is basically what we've been doing for four years. I actually believe we've been accomplishing quite a bit. In Williamsburg-Greenpoint we've created thousands and thousands of houses, and 33 percent of it is affordable housing. For those of you in the business, you understand truly how relevant that is. We did the rezoning of Hudson Yards, we did West Chelsea, but on the other side, we also downzoned quite a bit of communities. We downzoned Bellerose, we downzoned Forest Hills, we downzoned Bay Ridge. We downzoned communities to ensure that the quality of life remains for the folks who live there in the City of New York.
I would say that as chair of the Land Use Committee, there's no one zoning that comes in front of us when affordable housing doesn't come up. Council members inevitably want to have lower heights in their districts, but they want a lot of affordable housing units. So, 20 percent of 1,000 is very different from 20 percent of 2,000. So there are choices that each council member needs to make in their own districts. As chair of the committee, we have made sure that they approve of the project - usually. There are times when there are city-wide perspectives, and it's not always possible, but in general, they have been involved in every negotiation we have had to make sure that we reach a balance in every community, because as Lew said, "One size doesn't fit all."
Leroy Comrie: Trying to deal with affordable housing and the issues of development in the city are varied and vast. That said, we have to work with each council member because each district is different. Forest Hills is not southeast Queens, Baychester is not Glen Oaks. We have such a diverse city, but people want to protect the integrity of neighborhoods, people also want to understand, what is affordable housing in this market nowadays. And how can we get to an opportunity for everyone who wants to own property. To do that, we have to work collectively as a council, working with each member, working with our Land Use guru - I'll give her that title also. We've increased the opportunities for affordable housing. We've lowered density where necessary. In Staten Island, we've started an entire task force to deal with downzoning. In my community, St. Albans, Hollis, Jamaica, we're in the process of downzoning to protect the integrity, because no one wants to wake up tomorrow and have a six-story building next to what was once an entire block of one-story homes. So it's a real problem, it's a real crisis. But we have the collective wisdom, and the proven strategies to ensure that all neighborhoods' integrity is protected.
Christine Quinn First, I want to clearly applaud Councilmember Katz as chair of the Land Use Committee, because she has done a great job of making sure that when any member had an upzoning or downzoning in their district, that that member and that community's voice is heard. And that's critical to my vision of land use -- that the neighborhoods get to have a voice. That neighborhoods get to have input in the future of their areas. Towards that end, I'd like to make it easier for 197-A (community-based) plans to go through. But when we look at zoning beyond those generated by the community, we need to make sure that neighborhoods have a voice. For example, in West Chelsea, there was an interest in preserving the High Line at the public cost. We wanted that. There were other trade offs as it related to density, but we needed to come to agreement on a matter about to happen.
If I was speaker, I would continue the type of land use work I did in West Chelsea and also in the Hudson Yards proposal. We made sure, with the help of the council, that the neighborhood had a strong voice in that. They had input on expanding the number of affordable housing units -- and in particular, the number of permanently affordable housing units, because we need to move away from the trend in this city of creating units that are only affordable for 20 or 30 years. We need to move toward using zoning to create permanently affordable housing, where the income -- low, moderate, middle -- is defined by the neighborhood and the residents of that neighborhood.
Dave Weprin: 76.7 percent of households in the city of New York live in housing that is unaffordable. That is really not acceptable. We clearly need more inclusionary zoning. There's certainly ways to work with developers -- with incentives to provide inclusionary zoning -- and call for more affordable housing in the city of New York.
We have a lot of residential neighborhoods that need to protected. We've done that with many of our rezonings, we have more to do. We also have to maximize the use of the available land left for development. And my view is we have to allow maximum density whenever possible for developers in exchange for maximizing affordability. The people in this city need affordable housing. The costs in this city are getting higher, the rental levels and sales levels are at an all time high, the city's population level is at an all time high. We have a crisis of affordability such as we've never seen before. The answer in my view - in addition to these rezonings - is a citywide inclusionary zoning program that clearly defines that affordability will be exchanged for density. I think we have to have aggressive Community Benefit Agreements as a part of these rezoning efforts. I think the city provides great value to developers in these rezonings and in the use of public land. We have every right to drive a hard bargain and make sure we maximize for each community.
Doug Muzzio: What I'd like to do now is a couple of these quick questions related to development, and I'll start with you Bill. Do you support the city's use of eminent domain to assemble property for private development?
Bill de Blasio: I support that right, but I think it should be used rarely and carefully. And I think one of the cases is the Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn. I think there should be absolutely minimal use, but I think that project offers one of our best chances of providing a significant number of new affordable units - well over 2,000. Creating a model 50 percent affordability in all construction. And of course ensuring local hiring and labor union jobs in the development of that project.
David Weprin: I was very concerned with the recent United States Supreme Court decision that basically expanded the right of eminent domain for private development purposes. I honestly believe eminent domain should be major public purposes. There are places where economic development and public purposes can go hand and hand. I would be very cautious about the use of eminent domain if there is not a huge public benefit.
Christine Quinn I do support the use of eminent domain for private developers, but as the other two council members said, it needs to be used carefully and infrequently in those circumstances. And we can look and see times when eminent domain has actually been quite helpful in the revitalizing of neighborhoods in New York City. But when it's used for private developers, you need to think about it carefully, have a full and open public discourse and dialogue about that potential, and use it under these circumstances infrequently. But I would oppose limiting that option, that use, of eminent domain
Leroy Comrie: I would also support eminent domain, only if we have a full public discourse. Eminent domain that is being used for private enhancement has to have full public discourse. The problem with the Atlantic Yards project is that there is not a full public discourse. There is not community board involvement they're entitled to. If you want to use eminent domain, the entire affected body that would be impacted by it has to be involved, engaged, and has to have an opportunity to have real vote on it. The City Council has to be able to stop it.
Melina Katz: Well, as a sponsor of Letitia James' bill, which limits the use of eminent domain for private business interests, it's a dangerous precedent to set in general.
Joel Rivera: We need to make sure that we limit the use of eminent domain as much as possible, so that we can preserve the city of New York. In very rare instances, yes, but in most cases - 99 percent of the time - no.
Lew Fidler: Yes, but minimally, and only when there's a clear public purpose.
Doug Muzzio: Under what conditions? That was part of the original question.
Lew Fidler: Only when there is a clear public purpose and a clear public benefit. You know, all of these decisions are cost and benefit. I also support the Atlantic Yards projects. I think that the minimal use of eminent domain there -- while not pleasant, and it would be better if we could avoid it -- does serve a public purpose.
Doug Muzzio: Moving to a quick answer round very quickly, then we'll move to closing questions. I guess I'll start with you, Lew. Should the city pay any portion of the Campaign For Fiscal Equity settlement, if so, how much.
Lew Fidler: Yes. I would say as little as we possibly can, because the point of the CFE decision was we were being shortchanged to begin with.
Joel Rivera: I want to say yes as well, but the fact of the matter is that the court decision states the fact that the state government underfunded our children.
Doug Muzzio: How much though? What are we talking about?
Joel Rivera: I would say that the state government should pay at least 90 to 95 percent of it.
Melinda Katz: I just think it's ridiculous that we're still having this argument. I was a legislator in Albany, when we were getting shortchanged, we're still getting shortchanged. Nothing has changed, excuse the use of the word again. And we should be able to find a way that the state actually pays us the money that we're owed.
Doug Muzzio: How much?
Melinda Katz: I don't know the answer. I would like to not pick up a thing. I think we should get the money we're owed. Judge Leland DeGrasse ruled that we were shortchanged year after year. Oliver Koppell, myself, Al Vann, Larry Seabrook, that are now in the council, stood up there and fought for years for what we should get in New York City. And I think it's just a shame that we're still having this argument year after year. The council should be angry, every one in this audience should be angry that that argument is still going on.
Leroy Comrie: I don't think that the city should pay any money. It's clear that the state has failed in its responsibilities. The governor's going to be gone -- I hope he'll be gone -- in less than a year. Hopefully the culture that he started will be gone also, so that the state can make some real decisions on the CFE. I don't think that we should capitulate one dime. The state has underfunded us for years. They've started this ridiculous lawsuit to get away from they're responsibilities. They need to take us there.
Christine Quinn Robert Jackson didn't walk to Albany to get nothing. We need to make sure that, as Melinda said, the state follows through with Judge DeGrasse's orders. I would only want the city to put in money if we absolutely had to. We can't at the end of the day allow them to continue to shorthand the city, but we can't put up so much money that we effectively take them off the hook and make them feel like they never had to give us the money. The courts have now repeatedly said: They owe our kids.
David Weprin: Well we've actually already advanced the money. When the mayor proposed cutting $1.3 billion out of the capital budget for education because we didn't have the CFE money, we all stepped up to the plate and said, "Our children can't wait." We have to advance the money, we have to provide for our children. As Christine said, Robert Jackson didn't march up to Albany for nothing. And we all didn't fight so hard. We already advanced the money. Having said that, we have to get it all back from Albany, and we should fight together in Albany and join the mayor in that fight.
Bill de Blasio: Yes, in reality we do have to invest more in this. There's a logjam for every state that's gone down this road. We have to break the logjam and ask Albany, including the legislators who are no big fans of New York City, and if that's what it's going to take, we need to do it. We all have to understand that it is all of our responsibility to find a new way, a new solution to this problem.
Doug Muzzio: The next two questions are yes or no with no ifs ands or buts, if we can do it. Do you support non-citizen voting in municipal elections?
Bill de Blasio: No.
David Weprin: No.
Christine Quinn No.
Leroy Comrie: No.
Melinda Katz: No.
Joel Rivera: No.
Lew Fidler: No.
Doug Muzzio: Are business practices for a company like Wal-Mart relevant in land use decisions?
Bill de Blasio: Yes.
Dave Weprin: Yes.
Christine Quinn Yes.
Leroy Comrie: Yes.
Melinda Katz: Won't get the votes otherwise.
Joel Rivera: Absolutely, Yes.
Lew Fidler: Yes.
Doug Muzzio: After your four-year stint as speaker for what do you want most to be remembered?
Melinda Katz: My father used to say to me if you ever want to get ahead in life you better do the best job where you are and not worry about the future, the future will take care of itself. As the chair of the land use committee I have tried to do that. Land use has a lot of opportunities to be out there and to do your thing. My thing has always been to work with each council member, come in, and make sure they feel, make sure that their community understands that they are the ones fighting for them. And I am a vehicle to get what they need in their communities. I think that's important.
I would like to be remembered as someone who brought this body together, someone who made it a co-equal body with the mayor of the city of New York. When the mayor only has four years without a reelection, we stood up to him to make sure we get our money, our budget, and our land use items that we need for our constituents.
Leroy Comrie: I would like to be remembered for being the most engaging council member with the entire city. I'm a New Yorker, I like to debate. I like to argue. I like to engage and find out information. I like to pick people's brains. But the key people's brains that I want to pick are my fellow members because none of my members should be disengaged from the political process that they fought so hard to get there for. I want to make sure in the next four years that this entire city is part of the political process because we do have an incumbent mayor that believes he has a mandate. We have to rise up when ever he is wrong, and he can be wrong at times, to make sure that council is the proper legislative advocate to make sure that the right thing is done.
Christine Quinn I'd like to be remembered as somebody who helped further unite the council and make the council even more effective, someone who empowered council members so that each member could accomplish more, not only for their district, but also on citywide issues. I'd also like to be remembered as the speaker who helped bring the council together to achieve even more forward motion on education and for our kids in this city.
David Weprin: My father always told me, "Study hard, do the right thing, and someday, you may be speaker too." All kidding aside, I want to remembered as open-minded, honest, and fair.
Bill deBlasio: I'd like to be remembered as a leader who helped strengthen the City Council, who helped it in that path of evolution that was begun 20 years ago by Peter Vallone, Sr. to make it the strong check and balance and partner in government to the mayor. I think what we are seeing this evening, if all OF New York City could see the commitment levels of everyone up here, their knowledge of the issues, their concern for their communities, I think there would be an even greater faith in the council as that check and balance. I think we can do that together. I think we use it as a bully pulpit to ensure that the issues like the Campaign for Fiscal Equity case in Albany do not go unanswered and get resolved.
Lewis Fidler: Well I'd really like to be remembered as the best dresser, but I know that ain't happening. Truthfully, I would like to be thought of as someone who brought out the best in my colleagues. I guess if there is a substantive area to leave a legacy in, it would be on behalf of the children of this city to make sure that they are not forgotten, even though they don't vote.
Joel Rivera: There is a big misconception about the City Council when people talk about the council as a rubber stamp. We have substantial power in terms of land use and budgetary issues. What I want to be remembered as and what I want the body to be remembered as is a council that is engaged with the public, and engaged in ensuring that the public have a voice that can be heard. I think that Gale Brewer in her efforts to make sure that technology is an pivotal part of our council is extremely important. We need to make sure that we bring the council into the 21st century and beyond to make sure that people can be engaged. I want to make sure that each member understands that we need a united body. At the end of the year, after 365 days of long hard work, I want to make sure that every member feels comfortable with our administration.
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Every two weeks the New York City Council meets for its Stated Meeting to introduce and pass legislation. Gotham Gazette covers these meetings and posts a summary of the bills passed.
QUOTE OF THE DAY:
"The unions saved this city in the 1970s, they were part of the inception of campaign finance in the 1980s, and they should be given a fair and equal opportunity to have full participation [in the political process.]" - Councilmember Leroy Comrie on easing campaign finance restrictions for union donations.
MEETING SUMMARY:
CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTIONS FROM UNIONS
New York City's Campaign Finance system, which offers candidates matching funds in return for agreeing to spending limits, has been hailed as a model for the rest of the nation. It is also a system that has benefited all 51 City Council members, who receive $4 for every $1 they raise in small donations.
On November 16, the City Council voted to amend the Campaign Finance law as it relates to donations from labor unions. The council says it is protecting city workers' interests; critics say it is giving too much power to organized labor.
Earlier this year, the Campaign Finance Board voted to prevent unions, who can give up to $2,750, from using their local affiliates to funnel additional money to candidates. Under the decision, a union like the Service Employees International Union could only give one donation to a candidate even though it is comprised of local groups like Local 32B and 32J, which represents maintenance workers, and 1199, which represents health care workers.
The council argues that the Campaign Finance Board went too far and is being unfair to workers, who have distinct needs and may want to support different candidates. For example, in the recent election, Local 32B-32J supported Mayor Michael Bloomberg, while 1199 supported Fernando Ferrer.
Under the council's bill (Intro 564-A), a candidate can accept multiple donations from a union and its affiliates as long as:
- the donations come from different bank accounts
- the unions maintain different signatories
- they have distinct governing boards
- and they do not share a majority of officers.
"This is an important effort to protect the rights of free speech of working men and women and protecting their ability to participate in the political process," said Councilmember Bill deBlasio, who authored the bill.
"The unions saved this city in the 1970s, they were part of the inception of campaign finance in the 1980s," said Councilmember Leroy Comrie, "and they should be given a fair and equal opportunity to have full participation."
But critics say that the council has created a loophole that gives labor unions too much influence. Newspaper editorials have called the legislation a "City Council Money Grab" and "a suck up to [labor] bosses."
The measure passed easily by a vote of 43 to 3; only Madeline Provenzano, Eva Moskowitz, and Andrew Lanza voted against it.
Councilmember Peter Vallone, Jr. abstained, calling it a "flawed bill."
Mayor Michael Bloomberg said he will veto the measure; the council has more than the 34 votes needed to override the veto.
PROPERTY TAX RATE
In an effort to shift the city's property tax burden from homeowners to commercial property owners, the council approved a change in the tax rates.
Although the citywide property tax has remained the same since Mayor Michael Bloomberg and the City Council increased it by 18.5 percent in 2002, the state adjusts rates annually to keep pace with the real estate market.
The council's action lowers the state's proposed 7 percent tax increase for single family homes to 4.3 percent , which will save the average homeowner $80. It also increases taxes for Class A office buildings; the average building in Manhattan will see a $168,000 hike.
While most council members applauded the move, others complained that homeowners will still see an increase when their next bill arrives.
"While we can all be pleased that we are doing the right thing... the next tax bill they get will be more than the last," said Councilmember Lew Fidler. "I guarantee you at the end of December, my office and all of yours will be besieged with phone calls saying, 'How come you raised our property tax bill again.'"
The three Republican members - James Oddo, Andrew Lanza, and Dennis Gallagher - voted against the adjustment, arguing that property taxes should be reduced.
The council's action does not affect the $400 property tax rebate for homeowners, which the mayor has promised to continue next year.
PROTECTING RELIGIOUS PROPERTIES
In 2004, there were 350 documented Anti-Semitic incidents in New York City, according to the Anti-Defamation League. In response, the council passed a bill (Intro 703-A) increasing fines from $10,000 to $25,000 for vandalizing religious properties.
"I am not sure it will be a deterrent for a knucklehead who is so full of hate and stupidity that he desecrates a house of worship," said James Oddo. "It is intended to be a 'financial life sentence' of sorts."
SPORTS STADIUM CONDUCT
In 2003, the City Council passed a law making trespassing on professional sports playing areas a misdemeanor and increasing fines and penalties for those who violate the law.
The council strengthened its "sports stadium security policy" with a bill (Intro 528-A) that adds spitting, throwing objects, or physically hitting someone on the field to the regulations.
"Our families should not be intimidated by drunken idiots in any stadium," said Councilmember Peter Vallone, Jr.
RECYCLING BATTERIES
The council also approved new recycling programs (Intro 70-A) for rechargeable batteries.
"Rechargeable batteries have many toxic substances and people throw them away by the millions," said Councilmember Oliver Koppell. "They get into the waste stream, and they poison our land and our water."
Manufacturers and marketers of products that use rechargeable batteries will fund the project. Approximately 37,000 retail stores throughout the city and on the Internet, such as Radio Shack, Home Depot and Verizon Wireless will collect the batteries and send them to manufacturers. There is no cost to the city.
Only one member, Simcha Felder, voted against the measure.
PLUMBING CODE
The council approved a new 400-page plumbing code (Intro 478-A). It is the first part of an entire overhaul of the city's building code that the council's housing and building committee has been working on for much of the last four years.
DUMBO BUSINESS IMPROVEMENT DISTRICT
The council also voted to create a business improvement district (Intro 691) in the Brooklyn neighborhood DUMBO. Business improvement districts provide activities or amenities that promote business in a specific area, including maintenance and sanitation, holiday decorations and other efforts. They are funded by assessments on property owners within the area and overseen by the city's Department of Small Business Services.
All bills (except for the campaign finance, property tax adjustment, and the battery recycling program) passed unanimously by a vote of 48 to 0. Maria Baez, Phil Reed, and Larry Seabrook were absent.
The next Stated Meeting is scheduled for November 30, 2005.
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Michael Bloomberg has demonstrated that a mayor can “competently manage the city without building a personality cult at City Hall,” a commentator wrote recently. No one would say that about Ed Koch. “Mayor Koch was so in your face for so long that a whole generation of children grew up thinking â€Mayor’ was his first name,” said former Daily News editor Michael Goodwin.
Recently – 28 years after Koch won the mayoralty – a panel revisited the Koch years. They recalled a mayoralty that revived a city scarred by fiscal crisis, crime and decay. They paid less attention to Koch’s defeat in 1989, when voters, tired of the “shtick” and disgusted by corruption and racial tensions, ended Koch’s time in office.
The following discussion, moderated by Goodwin, featured journalist and novelist Pete Hamill; Stephen Berger, former director of the Emergency Financial Control Board; New York Times columnist Joyce Purnick; the Reverend Al Sharpton; and Victor Gotbaum, former executive director of the municipal workers union, District Council 37. The forum launched “New York City Comes Back: Ed Koch and the City,” an exhibition currently on display at the Museum of the City of New York.
This is an edited transcript of the discussion.
Intro - "The Good Fight and the Good Quip"
Pete Hamill - "Our Pain in the Ass"
Stephen Berger - "He Would Balance the Books"
Al Sharpton - "He Launched My Career"
Ken Auletta - "Entertaining Conflict"
Joyce Purnick - "The Unstoppable Ego"
Victor Gotbaum - "His Enemies Created Him"
Ranking Koch Among Mayors
Corruption and Scandal
What Koch Did Not Do
Michael Goodwin: In January it will be 28 years since Edward I. Koch first took the oath as the 105th mayor of the city of New York and 16 years since voters made him a private citizen. The 12 years in between were like no other in the recent history of the city. The Koch years were unique -- all the energy and change and drama. The fate of the city was at stake. It wasn’t just the finances sinking. It was the civic spirit that was sagging too. Once a great metropolis, New York had fallen and it couldn’t get up.
But it did get up -- because Ed Koch pulled it up. In a 1984 interview, the late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan said, “Ed Koch has given New York City back its morale…And that is a massive achievement.”
Indeed it was. The ride was not always smooth. How could it be with Ed Koch at the helm?
One thing was always certain. We knew who was boss. Mayor Koch was so in your face for so long that a whole generation of children grew up thinking “Mayor” was his first name. He relished the good fight and the good quip. Here are a few of his favorites:
“The UN is a monument to hypocrisy.”
“I don’t get ulcers; I give them.”
When he refused to pet a tiger at Madison Square Garden, a bystander yelled, ”Mr. Mayor, a coward?” To which the mayor responded, “No, the mayor is not a coward. And the mayor is not a schmuck.”
Then there are those comments he made to Playboy magazine just as he was starting the 1982 campaign for governor. Koch called them “the dumbest he ever made.” There’s no argument here, considering some of what he said: “Living in rural areas is a joke.” “Have you ever lived in the suburbs? It’s sterile. It’s numb. It’s wasting your life” And he talked about wasting time in a pickup truck when you have to drive 20 miles to buy a gingham dress or a Sears Roebuck suit. To top it off, he said, “Living in Albany would be a fate worse than death.”
On Election Day, he was spared that fate.
The time is right for a second look at those years.
Pete Hamill: When Ed Koch took office on the first of January 1978 there were neither parades, rallies, preparations for bonfires nor any sense of celebration. The fact was that we had gone through such a terrible time there was no reason to celebrate.
It’s hard to imagine now what faced Ed Koch when he walked into City Hall. In the fall of ’75, the fiscal crisis erupted. There were layoffs: cops, firemen, sanitationmen, teachers, librarians. At the same time, there was a kind of nexus – a gathering together – of three factors: youth, drugs and guns bringing a sense of menace to our city that simply wasn’t there before.
Crime was growing. But the dailiness of our lives was even worse. Bags of garbage opening in the streets. The South Bronx and Brownsville were burning. The homeless suddenly appeared among us. They were not black or white or Latino. They were everyone. Some of them had been displaced by the burning of the South Bronx and had lost their places to live. Some of them were drug addicts, some of them were alcoholics, some of them were lost souls who have been in this city since the time of the Dutch. The shopping bag lady became a symbol of New York. Not a criminal, but just another lost soul wandering around with all her possessions.
At the same time, a guy named David Berkowitz, better known as the Son of Sam, was roaming the streets. His miniature psychopathic crime wave started in July of ’76 and didn’t end until August of ’77.
And along came Koch. At the beginning, no one gave him a chance. He was the classic Greenwich Village liberal. He had gone to the South to march for civil rights. He opposed the war in Vietnam. He was the object of all the stereotyping that goes along with a place like the Village. And he started running. Nobody paid much attention. Later, a new player in town named Rupert Murdoch decided that Ed Koch was his man and gave him a little more ink than he was getting anywhere else.
Then on July 13, we had a power failure. Twenty-five hours. Fires broke out, there was looting of some of the worst junk in the Western hemisphere. Paintings on velvet. The worst looking television sets available anywhere in the United States. Crappy little toys. The police, undermanned as they were, made 3,776 arrests.
The sense of despair among many New Yorkers was genuine. A lot of my friends said, “I’m leaving." Some of them committed a form of suicide and moved to New Jersey. Others went to Florida and, God help us all, California. It wasn’t simply a matter of us losing their tax money. We lost the thing that they were – New Yorkers.
Along came Koch. And in the first month, we suddenly started paying attention in a way we had not during the election. Here was a mayor who was a combination of a Lindy’s waiter, a Coney Island barker, a Catskill comedian, an irritated school principal and an eccentric uncle.
He talked tough and the reason was, he was tough. He was in combat during World War II as an infantryman. He was awarded two battle stars and came home a sergeant in 1946. He didn’t profit from the war like so many. He fought it.
That toughness was key to what I began to think of -- and I’m sure everyone else did -- as “the act.” He also was very wise and intelligent about the way he approached his job. He knew he couldn’t govern in the traditional sense because of the fiscal crisis. The power had fallen to Hugh Carey, Felix Rohatyn, the Municipal Assistance Corporation board, faceless bankers. But while Koch couldn’t govern traditionally, he could entertain us. In a way, that was better.
He came at us with a sort of scorn for weakness and self-pity. All sins were permissible in New York except self-pity. Admittedly, he could be ugly in conversations. But most of the time he made you laugh out loud. And it worked. It worked because he knew the problem in New York was not crime. It was morale.
And he went at it with a sense of joy, a sense of combat, a sense that made us all know “that’s the voice of New York, that’s what we are.”
There was something touching about him too. When the lights went out and the rallies were over, there was a sense of loneliness in Koch -– something that made him more human. Then you think about what happened in the third term when so many people he trusted betrayed him, and his sense of isolation grew. He should not have had to go through that.
The press failed him too. We were covering candidates and not paying attention to all those little offices where Bartleby the Scrivener sat in the corner.
I always think of him now with an enormous affection. He was a huge pain in the ass, but he was our pain in the ass, and we’re lucky to have had him.
Stephen Berger: Once upon a time, the state legislature was controlled by upstaters and the city had wealth. We were actually exporting revenue into the state.
We also had continuing waves of immigration. So we had very strong social programs in the state. If you look back, you see that a historic deal was openly cut. We live with it today. You see it with Medicaid and welfare programs. It’s basically a deal that said, that unlike any other state in the United States, in New York the local government –- in this case New York City -– would pay half of the state’s cost of many of these social programs.
The second piece is that Albany was not just 150 miles away from New York City. What we learned during the fiscal crisis was that neither the city nor the state really understood that they were two black boxes held together with a piece of string. They didn’t understand how we worked, we didn’t understand how the state government worked and there was a total breakdown in communication between the state and the city.
Third, New York City’s commitment to social programs came with an arrogance and a self-righteousness, which overlooked the range and scope of programs, that a state with full taxing power would have had trouble maintaining.
There were many warnings of the fiscal crisis. New York City raised taxes 15 times [during the 1960s and 1970s]. We were constantly outspending our budget. The city spent all its reserves. The city raided its capital budget, robbing its future to pay for its present
From the mid 1960s to the early 1970s, there were public commissions, city commissions warning of the coming crisis. It would take every dollar of personal income inside New York City to find that money. By 1975 –- this was how broke the city was in 1975 -- it had effectively borrowed every dollar it was going to raise in local revenue for the next year. You start January 1, and you’ve already spent more than you’re going to take in the next year. Now that’s exactly where we were. It was $7 billion. Even in today’s terms, $7 billion is a fair amount of money.
Finally, the lenders said, “we’ve had enough.”
From 1976 to 1977, the [financial] control process was put in place. It stabilized the situation and created a new financing structure.
But for the city to restore itself and return to self-government, it had to show it could run itself efficiently and effectively, balance its budget, year in and year out. The revenues had to match the expenditures. The city had to keep it balanced and then persuade the lenders.
No one was better prepared to take over than Ed Koch. In part that was because he was an observer at the Financial Control Board. He was not an outsider. He had an understanding of the problems. So, he knew why he had to balance the budget. He had to manage the city. He had to persuade the workforce to do more with less. He had to rein in spending for the poor. He had to persuade the lenders to believe in us again.
He brought the energy and the discipline that remain today and are the basis of the confidence that people have in the city. Unlike his predecessors, he would balance the books.
Al Sharpton: Part of the thing that was most refreshing and most appalling about Koch is that he will stand for what he believes in. He will not say what you want him to. And he will not be intimidated either way.
He always was a bit of a showman and was a good politician in terms of being able to convince people. He has my daughter convinced that the only reason he was the first to arrest me was to launch my career.
It was on April 4, 1978, which was the anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King... We arranged a meeting with the mayor. The fact that he would even see four unknown ministers showed that he was more open than we gave him credit for.
We wanted to demand that the federal government replace the cuts in summer jobs for youth that summer. And Ed Koch, unlike many liberals at the time, looked at me and said, “No, and I’ll tell you why.” And I said, “What do you mean no?” He says, “No. I’m not going to do that.” And I said, “Well if you don’t, we’re not going to leave your office.” And he said, “Let me explain to you why your approach is wrong.”
He had a job to manage the city and I think that, even if he felt our core reason was right, he felt he had to have an administration that would appear to not deal with [those who did not] stay within certain boundaries of the law. So, after he lectured us for an hour that the federal government had fiscal problems, the city had fiscal problems, that of course he wanted young people to be working and our approach was not the best approach to get him to do it, he asked the police to come in and remove us. I remember the young man who was standing in uniform with handcuffs. And he said, “Well, we need a complainant.” Koch says, “I am. Arrest them. I’ll sign the complaint.” And we were carted out on the stairs of City Hall. It was the first time I was arrested, and some 20 some years later at my birthday, he reminded me that no one had heard of Al Sharpton until then.
I invited him to my birthday. About 2,000 people were there -- mostly African Americans. He and I had been working together on the Second Chance program. I didn’t know how these Harlem people were going to respond. And he came on stage and everybody stood and started clapping. He walked to the microphone, and he looked at the crowd and said, “Do you miss me?” Well, after Giuliani we really did miss you.
At the end of the day, he had respect for African Americans and Latinos. He respects us enough not to placate us. We probably would have liked it better if he told us what we wanted to hear. But he respected us enough to talk to us like adults and tell us what he was and wasn’t going to do. And as I got older I learned to respect people more that didn’t give me empty promises just to get me out of their office. When he said yes, I could go and say he would keep that yes and when he said no he meant no. Even when I thought he was wrong, I never felt he was disingenuous.
Michael Goodwin: Could you elaborate more on racial tensions and his effect on race relations.
Al Sharpton: Well I think the tensions were national and that the mayor inherited a lot of things in the African-American and Latino community that were happening then.
His personality became an easy target because he was so in your face. I think it was not so much his stand on the issues as his style that caused confrontation at the time.
Race relations because of Howard Beach and Bensonhurst and other incidents became very, very bad. The legacy of those years was that we did get through. What no one talks about is that New York had no riots like South Central or Watts. One of the reasons I think is because we dealt with it openly, and we dealt with it squarely. The lasting situation in the city is that we talk about the issues. I don’t think we’re anywhere near racial harmony, but there is more racial sensitivity than there was.
Koch steered the ship through some very turbulent waters...
Ken Auletta: When Koch ran for mayor in 1977, he believed that the city government and the city administration were much too compromised. He believed that special interests ran the city. And he spoke words sharply, and the press loved hearing that.
And he had this way, as Reverend Sharpton said, of standing up to people and not trying to placate them. That married very well with the press’ interest in conflict. And it also married very well with the mood in the city at that time.
Then what happened –- the secondary thing –- is that Rupert Murdoch stepped in and not only endorsed Ed Koch -– the New York Daily News endorsed Ed Koch, the Times endorsed Mario Cuomo -– but Murdoch not only turned his editorial pages over to Ed Koch, he turned his front page over to Ed Koch.
As a congressman, Koch did not fill a room. We knew he was smart. We knew he was outspoken. But when he ran for mayor, Ed Koch was transformed. He became what we call a personality. And I think he filled that room.
In 1978, he starts giving press conferences and so he met the second bias of the press: to be entertaining. He gave great sound bites. And the TV press played that up. He was very charming for a long period of time, just asking that question, “How am I doing?” But after a while, particularly with the media, it begins to wear thin.
And, as Pete said, it may have caused problems because we tended to focus on the personality of the mayor and to ignore the government. And in truth, there a second question he should have been asking which was, “Hi, how’s my government doing?”
By his third term, that second question became predominant. If you look back on his three terms, you see he performed in a way that no mayor had since La Guardia. As Pete eloquently said, he gave us back our morale, but he gave us back our self-government too.
Joyce Purnick: I know I’m getting old when I hear Reverend Al Sharpton speak in laudatory terms of Ed Koch.
I will try to summarize a half-century of Ed Koch’s political evolution in five minutes. He was a Greenwich Village liberal who moved to the center -– some say to the right –- as he saw more and experienced more of government. There is no doubt that Koch’s evolution was a reflection of what was going on in our society, particularly among many Jews. There was a souring of the traditional alliance between Jews and blacks partly because of the changes in the city during John Lindsay’s years, with middle class anger over Forest Hills and Ocean Hill-Brownsville (in PDF format).
I’m not convinced Koch was ever quite the classic Village/West Side liberal that some people thought he was. I don’t think his focus in his liberal youth was as much ideological as it was tactical.
In any event, by the time he ran for mayor he was taking on the teachers union. He won the primary in large part because he ran in the center -– to the right -- and in large part because of his temperament, his candor -- not his sense of humor because Ed Garth kept that under wraps in 1977.
I think that it’s fair to say that Ed Koch wasn’t as revolutionarily a centrist as he might have wanted to be. But there were the unions. There was the Board of Estimate to deal with, the state legislature to get legislation through. You can’t be fighting with everyone all the time.
The inclination was to govern more as Rudy Giuliani did eventually. Even Giuliani didn’t stray as far from the traditional as he would like us and the rest of the country to believe. If Koch wanted to govern that way, I don’t think he really could have. There were realities to deal with. And, as we all know, he couldn’t keep fighting the party leaders. Instead Koch made alliances with those leaders.
He said he did so to govern, to get legislation through Albany. And I’m sure that is part of it. But I think in part it was also his ego. By making those relationships, Koch signaled his acceptance of those leaders and the way they functioned. Inadvertently that led to corruption scandals of his third term.
Now not even Koch’s harshest critics have ever accused him of personal corruption. The problem was two-fold. The bad guys thought they could get away with it. The other problem was Koch’s naivetĂ©. What else could explain his kissing Donald Manes on the forehead after Manes' attempted suicide?
I remember when Koch turned against Manes and called him a crook. At the time, Ed Koch seemed shocked. I don’t think the pattern of corruption seemed possible to him. I don’t think he understood that doling out low-level patronage in City Hall’s basement could have led to corruption. I don’t think he realized it sent out a message to those intent on abusing the system.
I do not think that the corruption scandal will be anywhere near the center of Koch’s place in history. I think it will be overshadowed by two pieces of his legacy. One, as we have discussed, getting the city back on track after the fiscal crisis with the kind of spirit and energy that the city needed and which the entire world would know. The transit strike. The “how am I doing?” stuff. The unstoppable ego. He loved to talk to us about the city and we loved to listen.
Secondly, I think that Koch was a harbinger of a major change in the way we govern large cities. He began the change from the old coalition of labor, liberals, minorities and the clubhouse that has since taken us through Giuliani and to Bloomberg. It’s popular today to credit Giuliani with changing of the city’s politics as usual, but I think that began with Koch. He took it as far as he and his roots would let him. Giuliani broke the rules, Bloomberg ignores them, and Koch wrote his own rules with his personality and his spirit and with his love of politics.
Victor Gotbaum: It’s really an oxymoron for me to be up here praising Ed Koch. He was tough. He didn’t discriminate when he took office –- he zinged everybody he thought didn’t fully do the job of helping New York City.
And I must say that, at the beginning, I didn’t dislike Ed Koch. I despised him.
A woman I know [Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum] – I happen to be married to her – said, “The reason you don’t like him is because you and he are so alike.” I didn’t talk to her for at least six minutes.
An interesting aspect of Koch is that his enemies made him. The 1980 transit strike. Any labor leader knows that you can’t win the hearts of the public if you go on strike. You may have to do it if workers are really repressed, but in the mainstream you take a terrible, terrible beating. It was the ’80 strike that really made Ed Koch. He took a strong stand. He walked across the bridge as you all recall. Labor might have hated him for it, but he knew exactly what he was doing.
[In another case,] he wanted 35 layoffs, and I opposed him. I knew that if I took him head on, it would be a bad mistake. So I negotiated with him on changing the titles where they would do work and get federal money. He listened and then I discovered something about him: He could negotiate and he would negotiate.
The only reason Koch and I get along at all is that Betsy liked him. She mentioned two things: that Ed Koch didn’t represent the city, he was a piece of the city. He was a part of the city. You couldn’t divorce Ed Koch from the city.
Another aspect of him – and I was trying to think of another word – but he was pure schmaltz. I mean that in a positive sense. He was so much a part of the city that he could get away with it. He would do things that other mayors couldn’t do.
It was his brashness, his moving forward, and his feeling, his strength that he was doing the right thing for this city. So you could negotiate with him, be angry at him, but he would never, never hurt the city that he loved so much.
Michael Goodwin: Of all the New York City mayors of the 20th and 21st centuries, where would you rank Ed Koch?
Pete Hamill: Second or third after La Guardia. If you had to write a novel about a New York City mayor, you’d rather write about Koch than Robert Wagner, and Abe Beame would be like writing about a turnip or something. But I think the three would be La Guardia, Koch and Giuliani – the first term. Not the second term.
Stephen Berger: I would focus more on the first two terms where Ed was an architect and an engineer. He was a cheerleader. And he not only put stuff together but put them together in a way that it’s held up by and large now for 35 years. That’s got to put him right up there.
Joyce Purnick: That sounds right to me. Everyone puts La Guardia at the top. Bloomberg has accomplished a lot of what Giuliani claimed to have accomplished.
Ken Auletta: It depends upon whether you count Bob Moses as a mayor – then you have to assess whether his influence was good or bad. But I think Ed Koch is up there with La Guardia.
It reminds when I said to Hugh Carey, “You know you’re probably going to go down as probably the third best governor in this century.” And he said, “Really? Who are the other two?”
Michael Goodwin: How would you describe Ed Koch’s greatest failures?
Pete Hamill: He didn’t pay enough attention to Bob Dylan in "Subterranean Homesick Blues," particularly the line, “Don’t follow leaders, watch the parking meters.” In many ways it’s admirable that he did not see people as potential felons. But he trusted some people who betrayed his faith. That’s nothing to be ashamed of.
Stephen Berger: We never had a mayor who had more potential to do what should be done in the state. This is to take all the cities and all the counties –- all the local governments –- and lead them against a state bureaucracy, a state government, which is clueless about local government. He had the political skills and the political instinct to put that kind of coalition together. The problem is you have to go north of the city to do that. I think if Ed had done that he could have made a difference.
Every one of those guys throughout the state, whether you’re in Erie County or the mayor of Syracuse, has some of the same problems that the City of New York has. I think being in a real coalition with those guys could have made a real improvement.
Joyce Purnick: Hubris. If you take it down a few pegs you don’t have Ed Koch, so it’s double edged, but maybe half a peg.
Ken Auletta: If you go back to Greek mythology that virtue is also a vice, then if you review Ed Koch’s vices, narcissism, his preoccupation with himself and being on stage, you also remove some of his virtues. I think the good comes with the bad and the bad with the good.
Michael Goodwin: Victor, if you could change one thing, what would you change about Koch?
Victor Gotbaum: I wouldn’t let him get elected.
Audience member: There were failures in his administration in my opinion. He let the public schools deteriorate, Westway was never built, race relations did not improve, and for the buildings along the Cross Bronx Expressway that had been decimated, [his] solution was to put up decals.
Michael Goodwin: There were many problems that did not get solved. He tried to focus on some of them. Education obviously was a big one. Interestingly, I think we’re now looking at education as a key issue just as crime was a key issue in the previous eight years.
So you have a kind of changing of the guard of ideas that are considered prime topics. With Mayor Koch, obviously finances were the first problem. You have a limit to what you can achieve.
Stephen Berger: You have to be able to focus on a few things if you want to be successful. You cannot do 20 things and do them well. What works is what the mayor or chief executive decides is going to work.
“New York Comes Back: Ed Koch and the City” is on display at the Museum of the City of New York through March 26, 2006.
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This year New Yorkers will face sharp rises in home heating costs, and while there is some government assistance available to individuals of low income, it is likely that the great majority of those eligible will never receive it.
Hurricanes Katrina and Rita significantly damaged oil-refining capacity in the Gulf Coast, and oil prices climbed to more than $70 a barrel in late August. What this means for the average New Yorker who uses home heating oil, according to Senator Charles Schumer, is an increase of some $450 in heating costs over last year.
Many New Yorkers use natural gas to heat their homes, and the major hub for transporting natural gas to the Northeast is also located in the Gulf Coast region -- which is why the average New Yorker using natural gas will see a price rise that is even higher, at some $473.
Northeastern senators of both parties have called upon the Department of Energy to release heating oil from the Northeast Heating Oil Reserve . President Bill Clinton established the reserve in 2000 in order “to reduce the risks presented by home heating oil shortages”. As of early November the department has refused this request, arguing that the situation is not serious enough to justify tapping into the reserve.
Another idea that has gained the support of Democrats as well as typically tax-averse Republicans, is to impose a "windfall tax" on oil companies . All of the major companies posted record profits in the third quarter of 2005, at the same time that many consumers faced record-high gasoline prices. Some proceeds from this tax would help poor and elderly Americans pay their heating bills.
The oil companies argue that their profits are not disproportionate, and that a windfall tax would reduce their incentive to locate new sources of energy. They have a powerful ally in President George W. Bush, who is opposed to the idea.
Regardless of how the political skirmishes are resolved, the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) will help individuals pay their heating bills. This is the primary federal program for this purpose, and it took effect in New York State on November 1, 2005, though it is not yet clear how much money will be available. (For fiscal year 2005, New York State received $235.6 million in such funds.)
In New York City, these funds are administered by the city's Human Resources Administration. Individuals can receive assistance whether they pay their heating costs directly or if these costs are included in their rent. Eligibility is based on an individual or family’s monthly income, and the program provides both regular and emergency benefits of up to $400 a year. The city estimates that it provides almost 440,000 grants each year, for a total of about $31 million.
The National Fuel Funds Network, an umbrella group for 250 organizations nationwide (including in New York City, the HeartShare Neighborhood Heating Fund) that raise donations to help people with their heating costs, estimate that only 15 percent of individuals eligible for the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program actually receive assistance. Marcus Banks is a librarian at the New York University School of Medicine.Â
"All I wanted -- and you gave it to me -- was four more years," Mayor Michael Bloomberg said on election night.
But in his reelection campaign, Bloomberg focused on the past, not the future, boasting of his record during his first term, but avoiding until the last few weeks his agenda for his second term.
Mayor Bloomberg's plans for the next four years -- which are outlined in a document on his Web site entitled, "Moving Forward: The Bloomberg Vision for New York City" -- are notable, not only for what they promise, but for what it will take to accomplish them. They depend largely on the mayor's ability -- not much tested in his first term -- to win battles outside of the city.
On education, the mayor wants to double the number of pre-kindergarten and day care slots to serve more than 300,000 children. Key to the plan, however, is funding from the Campaign for Fiscal Equity lawsuit and the $23 billion the court has ruled the city schools are owed in education funding. The mayor has said that the governor and State Legislature in Albany must contribute the full amount and that the city should not pay a cent. Governor George Pataki is appealing the court ruling.
On housing, the mayor recently expanded his previous housing plan and promises to build or preserve 165,000 affordable homes by 2013. His plan, however, depends on the continued strength of the real estate market, developers willing to work with the city, and hundreds of millions of dollars in financing from philanthropic and financial partners. And for every new affordable apartment built, the city loses others as rent-stabilized apartments drop out of the state-controlled system. One of the reasons the city has such a housing crisis, some experts say, is that lawmakers in Washington have slashed federal housing subsidies.
On crime, Bloomberg focuses on strengthening state gun laws and securing more homeland security funds from the federal government. He is also calling for the governors of New York and New Jersey to create new seats on the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and Port Authority for the city police commissioner to help the city plan for future terrorist attacks.
On economic development, the mayor is banking on the rebuilding of Ground Zero, a site still mired in controversy, owned by the Port Authority, and leased by private developer Larry Silverstein. When Bloomberg recently called for more housing to be built in lower Manhattan, he was roundly criticized by nearly everyone involved including Governor Pataki, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, who represents the area, and the two U.S. Senators from New York, whose job it is to lobby for federal rebuilding money.
And the mayor's second term agenda is also notable for what it does not say: how he plans to address the looming $4.6 billion budget deficit. The only tax the mayor and the City Council can raise without permission from the governor and State Legislature is the property tax, which was already hiked by 18.5 percent in 2002. And Bloomberg has declared budget items like debt payments, labor pensions, and funding for Medicaid as "uncontrollable," meaning he can do little to change a third of the city budget.
The mayor proved he was capable of big victories in Albany when he convinced the State Legislature to give him control of the schools. Beyond that, many of the mayor's most significant accomplishments happened "in house." He used his knowledge of technology to create the 311-call system. He lobbied the City Council to pass his smoking ban in bars and restaurants. He successfully negotiated contracts with city workers. But he avoided battles - like taking a more active role in Ground Zero or pushing for a commuter tax - knowing that the power of City Hall only extends so far.
The mayor, who has touted himself as a non-partisan, apolitical manager of the city in his first term, may ultimately be measured by how successful a politician he can be in convincing people in Albany, Washington, and elsewhere to help him achieve his vision for New York City.
Mark Berkey-Gerard, city government editor of Gotham Gazette, was in charge of campaign coverageÂ
For more details on these ballot questions -- essays arguing pro and con, transcripts of debates -- click on The Fine Print on the Ballot. |
When New Yorkers go to the polls on November 8th, many will be surprised to find that — in addition to being able to choosing the city’s mayor --- they can vote on four ballot questions – two statewide and two for New York City alone. Here is a quick rundown of the measures:
Question 1: Amending the State Budget Process
This measure would amend the state constitution and would enact several pieces of legislation, already approved by the legislature, concerning the way the statewide budget is formed. It calls for the creation of a contingency budget, which would automatically go into effect if the governor and the legislature do not agree on a budget by the beginning of the fiscal year. That contingency budget – based on the previous year’s budget – would provide the basis of the new budget. Under this scenario, legislatures would have greater power to shape the budget than they do now and than they would if they agreed to a budget earlier in the year -- without the contingency budget. Other provisions of the ballot measure would establish an Independent Budget Office whose members are appointed by the legislature, and move certain items onto the general budget that are currently funded independently. (Read an overview by the Rockefeller Institute in .PDF format)
Proponents (in .PDF format) say the amendment will bring accountability and transparency to the state's budget process. The specter of a contingency budget, they say, will encourage on-time budgets, while shifting some power from the governor to the legislature would bring New York into line with most other states.
Opponents argue that, because lawmakers will have more power over the budget once the contingency budget is in effect, there is an incentive for them to stall. After the beginning of the fiscal year, critics say, the governor would have practically no power over the legislature, which they think will lead to irresponsible spending.
Question 2: Transportation Bond Act
This state measure establishes a $2.9 billion transportation bond issue – in other words, it calls for New York State to borrow $2.9 billion for various transportation projects. Voter rejected a similar measure in 2000. Half would go to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority to help fund the construction of such mammoth projects as the Second Avenue subway, extension of the Long Island Rail Road to Grand Central Station and new buses and cars for subway and commuter rail lines. The rest would go toward road and bridge projects around the state including some in the city.
Governor George Pataki and Mayor Michael Bloomberg back the measure, as do a range of organizations including the Straphangers Campaign, which argues the MTA needs money, and the New York Building Congress, which sees such borrowing as a necessary investment in the future. Opponents, such as the Citizens Budget Commission (in .PDF format), argue that the state is already burdened with too much debt, while E.J. McMahon, director of the Empire Center for New York State Policy within the Manhattan Institute, has argued the measure includes too many ”amenities” along with essential projects.
Question 3: Establishing an Ethics Code for Hearing Officers (in .PDF format)
This measure would amend the City Charter by having the mayor establish a code of ethics for administrative hearing officers, who resolve citizen complaints and adjudicate a range of non-criminal matters, such as parking tickets, noise complaints and building code violations.
The lack of a code of conduct governing hearings is “a matter of special concern” because many people who appear before them do not have lawyers and are not familiar with city rules, Ettina Plevan, president of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York, 2005 told (in .PDF format) the charter revision commission in March.
The measure has attracted little attention. Assemblymember Richard Gottfried has said he opposes it because it would shift power from the City Council to the mayor. Others question why such an arcane matter should go before voters. ''Charter revision commissions should be used to meet serious challenges to the city's constitution, not to advance the mayor's politics,'' said Council Speaker Gifford Miller, who backed a measure on class size that was kept off the ballot because of Questions 3 and 4.
But Ester Fuchs, the Bloomberg adviser who heads the charter panel, said in July that an ethics code for administrative judges and hearing officers merits a referendum because of the gravity of the issue.
Question 4: Adding Financial Management Requirements (in .PDF format) to the City Charter
Under this measure, the city would be required to balance its budget by generally accepted accounting principles and ensure that the annual audit of the city's accounts also follows such principles. The city would have to create a four-year financial plan, as well as keep a minimum general reserve of $100 million. It would also be restricted in its use of short-term debt.
The city is already compelled to do these things by the Financial Control Board, which is set to lose much of its power in 2008.
Proponents of the measure say that the charter revisions would guarantee that the city would continue to act responsibly after the board's expiration.
Those arguing against the revisions say that they do not adequately replace the board's requirements. Without a specific, independent entity to assess whether the city is fulfilling its responsibilities, they argue, there is no way to keep city officials honest. Â
An Overview of the Four Ballot Questions
A guide to all four questions on the November ballot.
More...
Question 1: Amending the State Budget Process
Should the state budget process be amended to give more power to the State Legislature?
-Overview of Question 1
-Transcript of a forum on Question 1
-Vote Yes by Megan Quattlebaum and Blair Horner
-Vote No by Gerald Benjamin and Charles Brecher
Question 2: The Transportation Bond Act
Should the state borrow $2.9 billion to fund mass transit and road improvements?
- Overview by Bruce Schaller
- Vote Yes by Jeremy Soffin
- Vote No by Nicole Gelinas
Question 3: Ethics Code for Hearing Officers
Should the mayor create an ethics code for administrative judges?
-Overview by Joshua Brustein
-Vote Yes by Peter J. Kiernan
-Vote No by Richard N. Gottfried
Question 4: Adding financial management requirements to the City Charter.
Should the city add fiscal controls to the City Charter to ensure a balanced budget?
-Overview of Question 4
-The Fiscal Crisis After 30 Years by Joshua Brustein
Â
Transcript of Final 2005 General Election Mayoral Debate
On November 1, 2005, the New York City Campaign Finance Board and WNBC played host to a final debate with mayoral candidates Michael Bloomberg and Fernando Ferrer. It was moderated by Gabe Pressman. Questions were asked by reporters Melissa Russo, Jay DeDapper, David Ushery, and Jorge Ramos. The following is a transcript of the debate.
CAMPAIGN ADS
Melissa Russo: Mr. Mayor, as a Republican in a city of Democrats you like to say that you are a non-partisan kind of guy, that there is no Republican or Democratic way to pick up the garbage. But you have also contributed millions of dollars to Republicans even though you admit that some of their policies are out of step with, and even harmful in some cases, to New York City - most recently the sweeping protection for the gun industry. This political tightrope subjects you to criticism like the following cartoon released yesterday by your opponent. [A clip of the Ferrer campaign ad depicting Michael Bloomberg riding a horse with George W. Bush plays].
Mr. Mayor, is this ad really unfair and disgusting as your campaign called it or are you trying to have it both ways at a time when this country is bitterly divided along partisan lines?
Michael Bloomberg: Melissa, I don't know that comic books are very important in this election. We should be talking about real issues. Most of the money that I have given was to the same organization that the New York Times did, a non-profit organization that was set up to finance the convention that came to this town. We would have done the same thing for the Democrats. What I've tried to do with my own money is try to give money to people who I think can help New York, whether it is Washington, Albany or in New York City. But this is really about getting the schools better, this is really about improving social services, this is really about making this city safer. As you said yourself, there is no partisan ways to do that. We have to deal with everybody and we are going to try to get help from everybody.
Melissa Russo: Do you believe that ad is disgusting as your campaign is quoted as saying in today's paper?
Bloomberg: That is the first time I've seen the ad. I saw about two seconds earlier today. I didn't see the whole thing.
Melissa Russo: Why not just admit that you a Republican by label only if that is what you want New Yorkers to believe?
Bloomberg: I don't know that I want them to believe that. I believe in some things in the Republican Party. I believe in some things in the Democratic Party. The Republican Party gave me an opportunity that the Democratic Party would not give me. It was a chance to change this city. It is a chance to leave a better world for my kids. And I took advantage of it.
Melissa Russo Mr. Ferrer, do you really expect New Yorkers to believe that Mayor Bloomberg is a right-wing Republican after four years in office serving New York City? And isn't it a good thing to maintain close ties with both parties if you are a mayor trying to get things done?
Fernando Ferrer:Ah, come on. I don't think there is anybody in America who honest to God believes that a $7.5 million contribution to the Republican National Convention is non-partisan. Or being one of the largest donors to George Bush and his party. It is a party that has promoted policies that have hurt this city. It is anti-choice, anti-gun control, and pro privatizing social security.
Melissa Russo:But has Mayor Bloomberg really governed as a conservative Republican in your opinion?
Ferrer:Look, you can't disclaim for the policies while you are opening your checkbook wide. My grandmother had a saying about all this. In English, it is "tell me who you walk with and I will tell you who you are." Mike in two languages you are a Republican.
Melissa Russo: Is that true? Are you a Republican?
Bloomberg:Well I did give $2,000 to George Bush. I gave more than that to Bill Clinton when he was running. I try to do what is right. And I am going to continue to do that. If someone can help us, I am going to continue giving them the money.
Melissa Russo: Mr. Ferrer, we would like you to respond to a new ad from the Bloomberg campaign. [A clip of an ad calling Ferrer a "flip-flopper" plays.] Is that true, Mr. Ferrer? Do you flip-flop?
Ferrer: Sounds to me like an ad that George Bush ran against John Kerry. Look, people who know who I am after 20 years of elected public office. They know this about me. There is only one principle that has ever guided any decision I have ever made. That is this - that every New Yorker who works hard and does right should get the tools they need to build a better life here in this city.
Melissa Russo: Mayor, do agree?
Bloomberg: I think everybody knows what my opponent stands for. He stands for complaining. He stands for identifying problems and never coming up with solutions. And that is different than governing. It is easy to be a critic. It is very hard to lead. The city is going in the right direction. And I think the policies that we have had for the last four years are the policies we should continue.
WAR IN IRAQ
Gabe Pressman: We should move on to another subject. As I have visited neighborhoods across the city I have found that Iraq is uppermost in the minds of many voters. My question to both of you is: Do you think the next mayor should use his office as a bully pulpit to try to influence the federal government's policies on Iraq?
Ferrer: You bet I do. Mike Bloomberg has said previously he didn't think the war in Iraq was a local issue. Explain that to 37 families who lost soliders fighting in Iraq. Explain that to people who watch us build firehouses in Iraq while we are shutting them down in New York. Or spending billions of dollars to promote that war instead of doing the things we need to do to promote decent and affordable housing, good schools, or health care.
Gabe Pressman: What would you advocate for the president?
Ferrer: I would advocate for the president to get our troops out of there as promptly as possible. Look, they are still looking for weapons of mass destruction. And tell you the truth, it's a war that has cost too much in terms of human life and in terms of our national wealth, and the distortion of our national priorities.
Gabe Pressman: Mr. Mayor, do you agree with him that the war should be brought to an end as soon as possible?
Bloomberg: Let's see why we are here, Gabe. There was a point where intelligence reported that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq that could have threatened our country and destabilized the world. The Senate, our two senators, Senators Schumer and Clinton, the President, most of Congress thought that we should go in and get rid of those weapons of mass destruction. It turned out that there was a massive intelligence failure. But you are there. And now we have lost over 2,000 of our men and women, 37 from New York City. Walking away that this point would make all of them to die in vain. It would be an outrage. What we have to do is stay there until the generals say that Iraq's government can maintain peace and maintain a democracy. And in the meantime, we should continue to support our troops so that can continue to protect themselves and continue to carry out the mission that we have asked them to do. Nobody is happy to be there.
Gabe Pressman: Do you think we were mislead into that war?
Bloomberg: I think there is no question that there was a catastrophic failure of the intelligence community.
Gabe Pressman: Mr. Ferrer, don't the men and women from New York serving there deserve to have their commander-and-chief respected while they are there?
Ferrer: Of course they have every right and expectation to have the full support of the American people - for themselves, for their bravery, for their sacrifices. For those 2,000 who made that supreme sacrifice. But that doesn't make that war correct. It doesn't make the predicate for that war true.
SECURITY IN NEW YORK CITY
Jay DeDapper: I want to direct us back to New York City for a minute to security and terrorism. You two have complained along with every other New York politician that the amount of money that we get from Washington in homeland security funding. Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said a few weeks ago, "This city isn't getting its fair share of homeland security money and I think we have to continue to push the effort." So Mr. Bloomberg, what would you do differently if get the money? What aren't we doing now that we could do if we got this money?
Bloomberg: Ray Kelly is talking about security money. This city does not get its fair share from Washington, the state doesn't. If we had more money, it would, number one, allow us to do other things. But what I have said is that we are going to provide the security we need regardless of the cost. And then I am going to go and find a ways to pay for it.
Jay DeDapper: What are the other things we could do if we got the extra money?
Bloomberg: We would use it to solve our other budgetary problems. But we have bought every piece of equipment I think is necessary to protect this city. We have a police force of the size I think is necessary to protect this city. We give them the training that is necessary so they can come home safe at night to their families and protect this city. And we are going to continue to do that. And I have never looked at the cost of it when I have made a security decision. But we'd love to get more help from Washington.
Jay DeDapper: Mr. Ferrer, you've said the same thing. You don't think the mayor has done enough getting that money?
Ferrer: It is plain as day that we are not getting homeland security funds based on risk, based on the fact that New York City took it on the chin for the rest of American in the attack on 9/11. But let me give you a specific example of that. Some months ago, at a subway station in Brooklyn, Borough Hall, I put forward a mass transit security plan. The simple fact is that I have criticized this mayor and his four appointees to the MTA board. Not any four appointees, the four high ranking appointees of Mike Bloomberg. And they sat there like potted plants. When they failed to spend $390 million that was allocated to upgrade security in our mass transit system. Recently, they put out a few contracts and they managed to bungle that. Look, those $390 million were absolutely necessary, and not to install, as the mayor put it, "a bunch of cameras," but to train the MTA personnel in anti-terrorism and surveillance techniques, to install surveillance cameras, explosive detection technology, and to improve communication below ground and above ground.
AVIAN FLU
David Ushery:Earlier today, President Bush unveiled a $7.1 billion preparedness plan to confront an outbreak of the bird flu, the avian flu. But given the governments much criticized response to hurricane Katrina, do you have confidence in the federal government's ability to confront this outbreak? Mr. Ferrer, we will start with you. What would you do as mayor to protect the city?
Ferrer: There is no question that we have to lobby them strenuously and vigorously to get the help we need. But in the end, this is a city that must do for itself and leave no one behind. And that is why in every one of our disaster preparedness plans, we have to prepare to such an extent that in a hurricane, we leave no one behind in low-lying areas. In the case of avian flu, to have enough vaccine stockpiled so that we can take care of New Yorkers so that we can preserve life and safety.
David Ushery: The president mentioned earlier the guaranteeing parts of the country, perhaps a city or beyond. Do you think the city should be prepared to do that?
Ferrer: I think the city has to be prepared to fight avian flu, but I'm not ready to go as far as the president has. Of course, I don't think the president has any plans about this. And that is really the tragedy here.
David Ushery: Mr. Bloomberg, do you have confidence in the federal governments ability to protect the city?
Bloomberg: At the moment we don’t know what the risk is. What I am first concerned about is to make sure that this year, for the kinds of flu that around that we get everybody their flu shot. 35,000 Americans will die from flu this year. I am trying to make sure that particularly vulnerable parts of our city, our seniors and our young children, get flu vaccine. In terms of down the road, we have plans. Everybody's got plans. But we don't know if there will be a vaccine available to prevent or to deal with an avian flu that has yet to mutate into something that we've got to worry about. The federal government has shown again and again that they can help, they can give you money, but we have to be prepared locally. That was the lesson of 9/11, that was the lesson of Katrina, you have to be able to handle, at a local level, the problems. Whether it is quarantine, or getting people vaccines, which we are incidentally practicing right now. Using the incentive to get the current flu protection, we are planning we are practicing for the avian flu.
CAMPAIGN FOR FISCAL EQUITY
Jorge Ramos: One of the most pressing issues facing the city is how to improve education and how get the money to do it. The city has been awarded billions in a lawsuit filed by the Campaign for Fiscal Equity. But the state has appealed that decision. A teacher in the Bronx has this question for both candidates.
Teacher in the Bronx: I am a teacher at PS 62 and I would like to know with all of the money that the state of New York owes the city of New York, when are we going to get this money to help our children succeed? When is he going to fight for that?
George Ramos: So Mr. Bloomberg you have had exactly a year to get that money out of Albany. Some say you haven't fought hard enough. So if you are elected, what would you do to get the billions the court say are owed to the city of New York.
Bloomberg: Keep in mind I went and testified before the arbitrator's panel. I went and had our corporation counsel argue in court to get this money. It is now tied up in the courts and when we get the money, I have already put out a plan of how we would spend the $5.5 billion a year that we hope to get. But I haven't waited for that. What I have done is increase city spending on the schools by $2.5 billion. I have raised our school construction budget to $13.5 billion over five years, the biggest in history, splitting it with the state. And when the state didn't come through with the money, the city came up with the money. I am not waiting for CFE money. We have given our teachers a 33 percent raise over the last four years. We've got to educate the kids of today. And when the money comes, we have laid out a plan, first priority will be universal pre-k. But we are not sitting around waiting for it. In the meantime, let's hope the courts continue to rule our way as they have in the past.
George Ramos:Mr. Ferrer, you have said the city must ante up to "prime the pump." If we are entitled to that money, why should we offer to pay?
Ferrer: First of all, I congratulate the mayor on increasing the school budget. But if we still have a 50 percent drop out rate - and I hope we talk about that at some point in this debate - than I would argue that Mike Bloomberg instead of doing more with less, is doing less with more. But let's talk about CFE. I was proud to be an early participant in that action. I was prouder still in the last four years to be a member of its board. They owe us money. They have been cheating the kids of this city - all 1.1 million of them - for years now. I don't think you can approach this as a CEO in a negotiation by putting zero on the table and waiting for them to come up. In fact, the corporation counsel of this city, an appointee of my opponent, who said this city will not spend a nickel. If we have to put up a nickel, no thanks. Well, quite frankly if you listen to the governor, the plaintiffs in this case, and the legislative leaders, they have all said that the city will have to come up with something. I am proud to have come up with a school investment plan that asks a global investment community to invest pennies our children's future.
DROP-OUT RATE
Jay DeDapper: We are going to talk about the drop-out rate. There is a lot of confusion about this: drop-out rate vs. graduation rate. I want to show you want Schools Chancellor said on September 10, 2004. Gabe Pressman asked, "What is the drop-out rate now?" Joel Klein very simply, "In practical terms or in statistics, I mean in real terms, one out of two kids doesn't get a diploma, 50 percent - that's the real world." Mr. Bloomberg, let's settle this once and for all between the two of you. Is the drop-out rate 50 percent as your chancellor said?
Bloomberg: Joel was wrong. He meant to talk about the graduation rate. The graduation rate was 50 percent; it has gone up to 54 percent. In the Bronx, it was 40 percent; it has gone up to 52 percent. But you know, Jay, what has happened here for 20 years is that the elected officials did absolutely nothing for our children. They just said we want to have better schools, but they never came up with any money and they never tried to improve standards. I came into office and said, give me control of the school and I'll make it better, hold me accountable. And when my opponent had the opportunity to do that for 19 years in office, he did nothing. He didn't even talk about graduation rates until all of a sudden he is running for mayor. You can't have it both ways. Everybody knows one child not getting through is one child too many. But we have to do something about it. And that is why we ended social promotion in the third grade, and the fifth grade, and the seventh grade.
Jay DeDapper:Fifty-four percent is something you are not proud of, I assume?
Bloomberg:Fifty-four percent is the number that graduate in four years. A lot more graduate after five, six, and seven years. A lot go on to other schools and are not counted in that number. In four years, 16 percent drop out, 54 percent graduate, and the other 30 percent go on.
Jay DeDapper: Mr. Ferrer, 50 percent? What is it?
Ferrer: Joel Klein is right. Even more than that, Mike, for you to pass the buck for a guy who was out of office for four years, but in office as a councilman and a borough president for nearly 20. I allocated millions to improve technology and school libraries and school construction and security. It’s beneath you. Look, it’s a 50 percent drop out rate. One out of two kids without a diploma, without a future, and without a job. We’ve got to do something about that. And the only way we do something about that is improving teaching and learning in all the grades. Not teaching to a standardized test. But teaching to the highest standards, improving pre-k and after-school programs, music, art, athletic programs, family literacy centers, building new classrooms and new school buildings to relieve the vicious overcrowding that we see in high schools. Schools built for 3,000 students that have 5,000 students.
YEAR AROUND SCHOOL
Gabe Pressman: I’ve got a couple of questions on education requiring short answers. Do you favor, Mr. Ferrer, year around school as a way of developing students who can compete with students from other countries, who have much more intensive educational programs?
Ferrer: Yea, I think the kids who are struggling and need more time on task, extending the school year makes an enormous amount of sense, as does extending the school day and week.
Gabe Pressman: Do you agree with that?
Bloomberg: We are doing it. We have summer school for kids who need more help. And the new teachers’ contract has an extra period, four days a week for the kids who are struggling, every class, every school.
Gabe Pressman: Year around means virtually 12 months with a few vacations in between.
Bloomberg: School with summer-school goes almost year around.
MILITARY RECRUITING IN SCHOOLS
Gabe Pressman: Do you favor, Mr. Mayor, having military recruiters in our schools?
Bloomberg: If we allow businesses to recruit, we should allow the military to recruit. There is nothing wrong with presenting to our high school kids the option of going in the military in the same way that they should have the opportunity to know what jobs they can have.
Gabe Pressman: Short answer, Mr. Ferrer.
Ferrer: No. I want our kids to get jobs. I want them to have the tools they need to be economically self-sufficient. They can make that decision on almost any street corner in this city.
COST OF LIVING
Melissa Russo: Rent, subway fares, taxi cabs, food, the cost of everything in New York City always seems to go up, never down. We are going to hear now from a single mother in lower Manhattan who has a question about affordability.
Woman from Manhattan: How are you going to help the working class in New York City? This is supposed to be a city for everyone, but it is really now just for the rich. And I want to know what are you going to do that I, who live in the city and work in the city, and am a parent in the city, and pay my city taxes, that I can afford to live here? What are you going to do about that?
Melissa Russo: Mr. Ferrer, this woman has a job. She has an apartment. What would you do to make her cost of living go down?
Ferrer: She should be able to live in this city, but increasingly this city is becoming unaffordable to working- and middle-class people. Let’s review some of the facts. The working- and middle-class are being priced out of their own homes. Moderate-income people can’t find a decent place to live that they can afford. That is why I put forth a plan to cut their taxes; not a $400 rebate check on a discretionary basis every year, but a full tax cut, a permanent tax cut. And to give renters tax assistance as well. And to build and maintain the affordability of 167,000 New Yorkers, homes that they can afford.
Melissa Russo: Mr. Bloomberg, is that a good plan? Is that a better plan than you have put forward?
Bloomberg: Mr. Ferrer wants to cut taxes, but he also wants to build affordable housing with tax revenue. So you can’t have it both ways. You have to understand, this is an expensive city. It always has been. And probably always will be. But we have to do is find ways for people to afford to stay here. That is why I fought against the increases in the fares in the MTA. That is why I fought in favor of getting the minimum wage raised. That is why I fought to make sure we are building affordable housing. We have an 86,000 unit program being built with capital dollars and private dollars and we are better than half way there. That is why I want to bring jobs here, because in the end the best answer is a job for everyone.
Melissa Russo: Well, this woman has a job already, she has an apartment. What do you think you will be doing in the next four years if you are elected that will help here?
Bloomberg: We’ve got to keep making this government as efficient as possibly can. We want the services that government provides. We want to keep the cost of those services as low as we possibly can. That is why we have managed to cut $4 billion annually out of the city’s budget and we can do more.
FIGHTING POVERTY
David Ushery: While Melissa’s question focused on the working and middle class, I would like to get some specifics from you gentlemen about New York City’s poorest of the poor. The Bronx is one of the poorest counties in the country, and that didn’t happen overnight. Mr. Ferrer, we’ll start with you because you mentioned your 20 years in elected office as a councilman, as borough president. Did you do enough to combat poverty then? What will you do as mayor?
Ferrer: You mean working with two mayors and scores of community organizations to build 66,000 units of affordable housing? To turn a borough that most people left for dead into a place that President Bill Clinton called a national example for urban renewal? Or you mean working with President Bill Clinton in getting small business programs in the borough to help build 34,000 good jobs for people? No, I’m very proud of that record.
David Ushery: Mr. Bloomberg, let me ask you, a number of experts say that a number of people have slipped into poverty over the last couple of years. You’ve talked a lot about those who have prospered under your reign. Do you have to take some responsibility for those who are not faring as well?
Bloomberg: The numbers show that we are getting 100,000 immigrants from overseas every year. They typically come without formal education, and in many cases with not great command of the English language. And their earnings prospects at the beginning are problematic. That’s why I’ve tried to focus on the kinds of jobs they can get at the beginning -- travel, tourism, restaurants, hotels. Those are the kinds of jobs that we have to bring to this city.
We’ve got to bring construction jobs and open the construction unions up to everybody. And that’s why I’ve negotiated a deal with the construction unions for the first time - a historic deal - where they will open up a big percentage of their apprentice programs to immigrants and to people who have just started to work their ways up the economic ladder. That’s why we have this new women- and minority-owned business program where the city’s business is now being given out to businesses started by people in every community. They’ll get city business and they employ people from their community. That’s why we have to go and build things like the Atlantic Yards, why we have to build the Bronx Terminal Market and why we have to develop Willets Point. Those are the jobs for the future.
NEWSPAPER ENDORSEMENTS
Jorge Ramos: At this time, each of you is invited to ask the other a question. Mr. Bloomberg, you may ask the first question to Mr. Ferrer.
Bloomberg: I guess I’d ask my opponent, the New York Times and Newsday, the Post and the Sun, the Daily News and the Advance, Hoy all endorsed me. Do you think they’re wrong?
Ferrer: Well, Mike, we’ve learned the hard way in the last couple of years that the New York Times doesn’t always get it right. And don’t even get me started on the New York Post. Look, I’m proud of the support I’ve gotten from the neighborhoods and streets of this city. So, if I’m not the candidate of the people in the boardrooms, I’m proud to be the candidate of the kids in the classrooms of this city.
PUBLIC HOSPITALS
Jorge Ramos: Mr. Ferrer, you may ask a question to Mayor Bloomberg.
Ferrer: Sure. Mike, you’ve said in the past that the poor get better health care in this city than the wealthy. Do you honestly believe those words?
Bloomberg: What I was saying is I cannot tell you how proud I am of the progress that our public hospitals - our 11 public hospitals - have made. It is true if you go into those hospitals without any insurance, without any money, you will get the same care as if you can come in and pay for your services. And that care is the best medicine available anyplace in the world today. Thirty thousand people work in those hospitals and they have transformed hospitals that people were willing to walk away from, wanted to sell, wanted to close, into 11 of the best hospitals any single place in this world. You betcha I’m proud of them.
ATLANTIC YARDS
Jorge Ramos: Let’s go on to another important subject. Mr. Ferrer, you’re against a major economic development project in Brooklyn, the Atlantic Yards. We went to Brooklyn and found this man with concerns about this project. Let’s listen.
Man on tape: We’re talking about Brooklyn, downtown Brooklyn, the Atlantic terminal area that comprises Prospect Heights and the Clinton Hill area. I believe that that area is an area that needs to be revitalized. I believe that the arena, if built, would be an economic boost for the neighborhood, but I’m concerned about whether or not affordable housing will be a key concern if it is in fact developed. That is my major concern. Is it going to be an area that’s going to have affordable housing for residents of the Brooklyn community?
Jorge Ramos: Mr. Ferrer?
Ferrer: You see I don’t confuse economic development projects with billion dollar boondoggles. In fact, this is looking more and more to me like the twin brother of the West Side stadium boondoggle.
Let me tell you some of the things that I have been impressed with in this project. Fifty percent housing affordability. I thought that was powerful. A community benefits agreement that would include people from the community and small businesses in the full economic life of the project.
But I have not supported the lack of transparency and the fact that there’s been no planning for the kind of mass of this project and the kind of infrastructure it would take to support it. But even more important, secret Mets begin to emerge like the one that says, “we’re going to give you Site 5 and we’re going to use the city’s condemnation power to take out existing businesses so you can create 2,600 units of luxury housing. Well that breaks the 50-50 percent.
Jorge Ramos: One of your allies, Al Sharpton, supports this project because it’s going to create jobs. Forty-five percent of those jobs are set aside for minorities, which is what is needed in the area.
Ferrer: It is amazing, Jorge, that we need boondoggle projects to try to do the right thing for communities and for people all across this city. Let’s put them â€em to work. Let’s ramp up small business. Let’s provide real job opportunities for them ongoing.
Jorge Ramos: Mr. Bloomberg?
Bloomberg: You know you can complain about everything, but the real world is you have to go and do something. And the Atlantic Yards is a project that should go ahead. It will create affordable housing. It will create housing for middle-class people. It will create a great spirit in Brooklyn. It will give us commercial space. It will fill a void that’s been empty since they wanted to build a new Ebbets Field there. It will create jobs for this community. And if there’s any project in this city that has been well studied, and studied out in the open, and that has worked with the community; one developer, if you have to pick one in this city, this developer is the one you want to pick to make the neighborhoods blend in with the project and to really make sure that everybody benefits.
Gabe Pressman: You look skeptical Mr. Ferrer.
Ferrer: Yeah, I am skeptical. I mean, if everyone’s reviewed this project, why are there secret memos emerging about the city guaranteeing to condemn a property called Site 5 that will give this developer 2,600 units of luxury housing. By the way with tax breaks from the city. That’s nuts.
Gabe Pressman: Your response, Mr. Mayor.
Bloomberg: Well if the memo’s out, it’s certainly not a secret so I don’t think we have to worry about that. Look, the city’s investment in this is only $150 million. We’ll get our money back reasonably quickly. The only thing we’re doing here is the same thing we do for other projects. I have yet to hear one major development project in this city that my opponent is in favor of.
Ferrer: I’ll tell you one. I’m happy to tell you.
Gabe Pressman: You'll have to save it. Melissa Russo has a question.
Melissa Russo: I’m curious now.
Ferrer: Why don’t you ask?
OVER DEVELOPMENT
Melissa Russo: We’ll see if it’s on Staten Island because we’re going to talk about economic development on Staten Island, maybe you’ll be able to work it in. But economic development can obviously be a good thing, and when it’s uncontrolled it can also have a serious impact on quality of life. We’re going to hear from a mom on Staten Island right now.
Woman on tape: Just what do you intend to do about the traffic on the secondary roads on Staten Island? The Staten Island Expressway is backed up at all hours of the day. The overflow is coming into the secondary roads and they just can’t handle it.
Melissa Russo: Mayor Bloomberg, do you have a plan?
Bloomberg: We are downzoning an awful lot of Staten Island for exactly this reason. The truth of the matter is the roads are too small for the amount of traffic today. And if you allow building in many of the neighborhoods of Staten Island to continue at the pace it’s been doing, you will not be able to get a police car or a fire truck or an ambulance to your home. You won’t be able to find a school that has classroom space. You won’t have a sewer system or a water system that can handle it. It’s controlling development.
Staten Island, however, is only one borough. In all five boroughs, overdevelopment has become a very serious issue because we’re building so much housing in this city. We’ve built 100,000 housing units in this city, and overdevelopment is becoming a very serious problem. This year, we’re on track to have a record number - 30,000 housing units - built.
Melissa Russo: Mr. Ferrer?
Ferrer: OK. Let’s get this straight. What this woman is talking about is the lack of infrastructure planning on Staten Island. New houses built, but not enough schools, not enough roads, not enough space for people to get emergency vehicles down a road. By the way, that’s going to be the same complaint around the Atlantic Yards because we’re not doing adequate infrastructure planning there.
Melissa Russo: On one hand though you criticize the mayor for not building enough housing. On the other hand, you are criticizing him for the consequences of the development that has happened.
Ferrer: No. What I’m talking about is building affordable housing. Look, I don’t confuse this with multimillion dollar condos. Again, building affordable housing on sites that we already know, on sites in this city and on sites that can be upzoned in this city with a special investment from the city itself. To induce 50 percent housing affordability. That’s my plan.
MAYORS AND SUBWAYS
Jay DeDapper: You both said that you ride the subways a lot. The Number 7 train is the favorite of a lot of people because it goes through so many great neighborhoods with so much good food to eat at every stop. We went out to Sunnyside to talk to a gentleman who rides the No. 7 line and doesn’t have quite as fond a perspective perhaps as those of us who go to Shea do.
Man on tape: How will you improve on the service that we’re getting? I’m catching the 7 train and it seems like the trains are delayed all the time and when they do come they bypass the station to make up time. I don’t think that’s right when people have to go to work. And you raise the fare. I think the fare should be maintained.
Jay DeDapper: I hate it when they bypass your stop at rush hour. I know the mayor - and I think this gentleman has a misconception that a lot of people have at times that the mayor runs the subway and, in fact, the MTA runs the subways, But Mr. Ferrer, you ave called the four representatives on the MTA board “potted plants” a couple of times recently that the mayor has put on that board. But let’s do some simple math here. There’s 14 votes. You get four of them. Why would you be able to do anything differently than any other mayor? And, probably a more important question, do you think the subways should be taken over by the city again and taken away from the MTA?
Ferrer: Well first of all, Mike Bloomberg's predecessor Rudy Giuliani, used his four appointees to great advantage-- and I disagreed with him an awful lot -- for the straphangers of this city. Now I know I’m going to be criticized again for not being a cheerleader of George Pataki. But, excuse me, because I am not. The simple fact is we’ve had two fare increases in the last four years and service has not gotten any better. At the same time, the MTA reports a nearly billion dollar surplus, and they want to get into the real estate business by building a platform over the Hudson Yards instead of making those investments back into the subway system to make it safe, reliable and affordable.
Jay DeDapper: What does the mayor have to do with any of that. He’s only got four of the 14 votes. And do you think the subway system should be taken over by the city?
Ferrer: Four of the 14 votes and leadership and a bully pulpit second in size and mass only to the president of the United States. That’s leadership.
Jay DeDapper: Should the subway be taken over by the city?
Ferrer: I don’t think so. We’ve got to make the state and the MTA respond to the needs of our straphangers.
Jay DeDapper: Mayor, you’ve got four of 14 votes. You haven’t been able to stop a fare hike. You’ve complained about it but you weren’t able to stop it.
Bloomberg: We voted against it the last time. We couldn’t stop it. I’ve used the bully pulpit. Hopefully, we will not have one in â€07. I’ve argued that we should use some of the surplus to make sure that does not happen. You know, though, I was thinking that when I came to this city in 1966, the subways were covered with graffiti, there was crime rampant, there wasn’t any air conditioning, and they did bypass a lot of stations.
Jay DeDapper: And they were run by the mayor.
Bloomberg: And they were run by the mayor.
Jay DeDapper: Do you want control of the subways?
Bloomberg: When I first was running for office four years ago I thought that this city should be in control of its own mass transit. Then along came 9/11 and the economics changed. The city could not possibly afford to do it. And the MTA is all tied up with Metro North and the Long Island Rail Road. It is a regional transportation plan. It’s a regional authority, and everything that’s done has to be done by convincing people outside of this city to go along with us.
Jay DeDapper: But your compatriot in the Republican Party is George Pataki. You weren’t able to stop the fare increase. He’s a Republican. You’re a Republican. Doesn’t that diminish your argument you can get things done because you’re a Republican and Republicans run the joint?
Bloomberg: I don’t always agree with Governor Pataki. I tried to get us a commuter tax and I couldn’t do it. But I did get a Democratic speaker of the Assembly and I did get a Republican majority leader of the Senate to give us $2.7 billion over the governor’s veto and then I sued to make sure his veto did not stand up.
Gabe Pressman: Just to stand on the historical record, the MTA was created to take responsibility or reliability or accountability away from the mayor and the governor at the time it was created.
Bloomberg: The whole idea here was that the elected officials wouldn’t be responsible, that they couldn’t be blamed, and that’s exactly the problem with our government that we’ve had for a long time and that’s what I’m all about -- holding someone accountable. But unfortunately, we couldn’t take over the subway system and they wouldn’t give it to us. We do provide security and do a great job in doing that.
OBSCENE CAMPAIGN SPENDING
Gabe PressmanMr. Mayor, the New York Times in endorsing you said you were on your way to becoming one of the greatest mayor’s in city history. But the Times warned that your chances that status were reduced by one flaw, what the Times calls “obscene spending.” Now four years ago, you warned against obscene spending. How did you define obscene spending then and how do you define it now?
Bloomberg: Gabe, what I am trying to do is get my message out to everybody, every community, every single person, regardless of where they live. I’m doing it by buying time on television, radio, and in print. And I’m doing it by doing what I have for four years and that is trying to get to every neighborhood in this city. The fact of the matter is we’ve brought crime down. We’ve improved the schools. We have the best affordable housing plan going. I’ve got to tell people, what we would do, and why they should continue to support us.
Gabe Pressman: Are you saturating the airwaves with that message?
Bloomberg: I don’t know whether we will saturate them or not. We are going to find out on November 8. That’s what elections are all about.
Gabe Pressman: Mr. Ferrer, the fact that you are able to raise so little money, comparatively, does that indicate that you are just not getting wide spread support out there?
Ferrer: Well, you know, I can think of a hundred million reasons why New Yorkers are misinformed about Mike Bloomberg’s record. And that’s ok. It’s his money, he can spend it any way he wishes. But it doesn’t make it right. Now, he can buy all the TV ads, all the radio ads, all the print ads. I don’t think it’s right to avoid debate in this city. Elections are for holding contestants accountable. In fact, that is what debates are for. In 2001, Mike, you said that the public of this city was cheated by not having enough debates.
Gabe Pressman: You are debating right here now.
Ferrer: This is unfortunately the second and the final debate we will have. We should be having debates in every borough in this city. Mike, if you are proud of your record and if you are ready to defend it. And you don’t mind being held accountable, then debate me in every corner of this city. Come on, we’ve still got a week to do this.
Bloomberg: Having a debate about debates is not a good use of this time.
HOUSING PLANS
David Ushery: During the past ten days, Mr. Bloomberg, you have outlined a number of new proposals on housing and health care. And some observers have said they look a lot like Mr. Ferrer’s proposals. Do you think some of his ideas have merit and if not why do the proposals seem similar?
Bloomberg: He wants to build affordable housing and so do I. The difference is I have a way to do it with capital funds, he is going to have to do it with raising taxes. Look, what I have tried to do over the last months as this campaign has unfolded is tell people what I have done and what I would do if reelected. They have a right to know – what are your plans, how would they work, who do we hold accountable. How will we know that a promise made is a promise kept? And who is going to pay for it? Rather than just worrying about slogans and complaining and identifying problems, what I am trying to do is to lay out a clear plan that everybody can look at. Your vote is too precious to just waste. You should know who you are voting for. You should know what they have done in the past. And you should know what they are going to do in the future.
David Ushery: Your affordable housing plan had been out there for a while and then in the last week or so you expanded the number so they match Ferrer's, it would appear.
Bloomberg: What we did is that we had a plan to build 86,000 units of affordable housing funded by a variety of ways, not taxes. We are ahead of schedule on that plan, roughly 47,000 of the 86,000 either under construction or completed. We think we have a ways with private money, philanthropic money at the beginning and then private money, to double the size of that. I comes out to be roughly the same number.
David Ushery: Let me ask Mr. Ferrer conversely, if there is such perceived similarities, why should the voters change direction now?
Ferrer: Well, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then I am flattered. The simple fact is I've yet to meet a New York family who can live in a pipeline. Now the number keeps on growing as the election draws closer. Thank goodness for elections. But again, we are in the middle of a housing crisis in this city. And it requires resolve, a serious plan, and a plan that can be funded. I have put forward all three.
BUDGET CUTS
Melissa Russo: Mr. Ferrer, you have said that if you are elected, you would not cut the police department nor services for senior citizens. You have not ruled cuts however to the schools or the fire department. Now you have also promised to cut taxes, and as mayor you would have to close next year's $4.6 billion budget gap. What would you cut?
Ferrer: You mean the budget gap in Mike Bloomberg's next budget?
Melissa Russo: Correct. Unless you are convinced he is going to win reelection?
Ferrer:Well some people are, but I am not. It goes like this. There are important things we need to do to get this budget under control. And one of them is going to the governor, going to the legislature and finally getting serious about ending the fraud, waste, duplication, and abuse in the Medicaid program that cost the city and the taxpayers several billion dollars a year. And here is another way to do it. As I proposed the other day, going against the governor and the state legislature and saying look we have had enough of this. We had a commuter tax in this city; I want it reinstated. That will give us more than $500 million a year of dedicated revenue to not only to deal with that budget deficit, but pay down budget deficits going forward.
Melissa Russo: Mayor Bloomberg, you always talk about how more and more of city spending is mandatory. Things like pension costs and salaries that can't be cut. Your opponent is talking about getting revenue from elsewhere. You know being mayor for four years you have to make cuts. What would you cut?
Bloomberg: What we have done is cut about $4 billion out of the expense budget, either by finding ways to do more with less or by finding alternative funding sources. That is why the quality of services in this city has actually gone up over the last four years. What we have also done is try to get as much money out of the federal and state government. Remember, it was the Democratic led Assembly that ended the commuter tax. And we will not see that back, I think, for a long time. I have fought for it for four years. I will continue to fight for it. But the truth of the matter is that the votes from the suburbs are sufficient to keep the city from getting a commuter tax. What we have to do is be self-sufficient. The ways to do that is to grow the economy so our tax revenues come in. That's from having big projects, from getting jobs here.
Melissa Russo:What are you going to cut?
Bloomberg: I believe we can maintain services that we have now and improve the quality of them without cuts.
Ferrer: I'll answer that question.
Jorge Ramos: We have to go to another topic here.
Ferrer: Oh, I'm so sorry because this was so good, because I can't let New Yorkers labor under the misimpression that Mike Bloomberg fought for the restoration of the commuter tax for four years. That's not true.
WHAT DO YOU MOST ADMIRE IN YOUR OPPONENT?
Jorge Ramos: The thing is you have been criticizing each other for the last 50 minutes. Fernando Ferrer, what about Michael Bloomberg do you most admire?
Ferrer: Here is the one thing I do admire. Mike Bloomberg did not go down the path of exacerbating racial tensions in this city. And as a New Yorker, Mike, I thank you for that.
But at the same time, you didn't do much about the fact that there are two New York's. And by the way neither New York could afford you multi-billion dollar tax payer funded Jets Stadium.
Jorge Ramos: This is about admiration. This is about admiration for Michael Bloomberg.
Ferrer: I just expressed it.
Jorge Ramos: Mr. Bloomberg, what do you most admire about Fernando Ferrer?
Bloomberg: I think my opponent is a great family man. And I think he speaks Spanish better than I do. Pero estoy aprendiendo.
Jorge Ramos: Anything about his public service?
Bloomberg: Most of it took place before my time. But from what I have read he was in a position where he criticized the school system but he never took the opportunity to fix it. Every child that is in high school today was in elementary or middle school when he was in office.
Gabe Pressman: That is admiration mixed with other things. Jay DeDapper?
REBUILDING GROUND ZERO
Jay DeDapper: Mr. Bloomberg, it was three weeks ago when you began pushing for a bigger role for the city at Ground Zero. There have been numerous reports over the years that you have had a tacit understanding with the governor that you would get the lead role on the West Side where the stadium was going to be developed and he would get the lead role at Ground Zero. First of all, is there such a deal, was there such a tacit understanding?
Bloomberg: Never discussed it. Never had the understanding. And we were part of what was done over the last four years downtown.
Jay DeDapper: But you have got to admit that the governor is the lead down there. The Port Authority is controlled by the governor and acting Governor Cody in New Jersey. The LMDC board is controlled by the governor.
Bloomberg: Jay, three years ago I tried to get the Port Authority out. I tried to swap the land for the city land under the airports for that site, for exactly that reason.
Jay DeDapper: But in the last three years, with the exception of that beginning time, a lot of people say, "where have you been for the last three years while you were doing the West Side and while the governor was doing press conferences at Ground Zero?"
Bloomberg: Jay, we were part of the process that picked the master site plan. We were part of the process that picked a design for a memorial. We are not trying to walk away from this at all. What I have said is that recently if you take a look at the marketplace downtown, it may be shifting. And for buildings that we have not yet started, buildings 3, 4, and 5, we should take another look at what the plan called for – not where they are – but what they would be used for. I'm not sure that we should change. But the marketplace is the following: 9,000 housing units have been built downtown, just since 9/11. If you go back and take a look at the need for commercial space, at the moment, there does not seem to be the need for 10 million square feet of office space down there.
Jay DeDapper: Mr. Ferrer, you have criticized him for being missing in action at Ground Zero, but we have not heard from you a defined detailed plan of what you would do differently at Ground Zero if you become mayor in January.
Ferrer: You heard in the last debate but let me be even more specific now. First of all, talking about 9,000 units of housing. Too many of them are multi-million condos, luxury rentals that we are giving them tax breaks for. That's nuts. We need affordable housing in this city. But let's talk very specifically about the hole that is Ground Zero. We need to replace office space and commercial space. Before all of that, we need to have a fitting memorial, not only to the nearly 3,000 New Yorkers who perished in that attack, but to the hundreds of emergency service workers, police officers, and firefighters who perished there.
Jay DeDapper: But that is underway. Fundraising is going on...
Ferrer:And we still haven't seen one brick piled on another. We've waited four years. That's wrong.
CLOSING STATEMENTS
Gabe Pressman: Now to the one minute closing statements. Mr. Mayor, you are first.
Bloomberg: I came to this city with nothing but dreams and I have been very lucky. I was elected by the voters four years ago to run this city. It was a very difficult, tough time for this city. People were worried, people were scared. We pulled together. This is a city that I am proud to lead and proud to be part of. I think if we continue to do we what we are doing. Continue to make sure that every child gets a good education. If we continue the course of making sure that this city is safe, safe from criminals and safe from terrorism. If we keep building and getting investment to come here and jobs to come here, then the future for the city is something that we will all look back on and say, we stood the test. I want my children to look at me and say, “Daddy, you governed honestly. You governed fairly. You didn’t report to anybody but the public that you work for. When you had the opportunity to do what was right, even when it wasn’t popular, you stood up and did it.” And I think that is exactly what this city wants and will continue to want.
Gabe Pressman: Mr. Ferrer?
Ferrer: Mike Bloomberg says this city is going in the right direction. In some ways, that is true. But in too many other important ways, it isn’t. Look, I was brought up on a tough corner in the South Bronx. What brought me from that corner to this podium tonight, was crossing over a bridge of hope and opportunity. I am running for mayor for the millions of New Yorkers who are finding it increasingly difficult to walk over that same bridge I did. I am running for school kids and the education they deserve. After-school programs, ending overpopulation, overcrowding in their schools, ending the drop-out rate. Instead of teaching to a standardized test, teaching to the highest standards. I am working to lift up from poverty and unemployment New Yorkers who need a good job and that can be fueled by small businesses having access to capital and doing business with this city. Cutting the taxes of moderate- and middle-income homeowners being priced out of their homes. And providing a bold housing program to build affordable homes for everyday New Yorkers.
Gabe Pressman: Times up, Mr. Ferrer.
Ferrer: I’m asking for your vote next week. And if you vote for me, I’ll make you proud you did.
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This November New Yorkers have a chance to vote on a measure that, simply put, promotes justice. With Ballot Proposal Three, the charter revision commission has placed on the November ballot the recommendation that the city charter require that the mayor, acting jointly with the city's office of administrative trials and hearings ("OATH"), establish a uniform code of conduct and ethics for administrative law judges and hearing officers. The New York City Bar Association supports this recommendation and advocates its passage.
Quasi-judicial, administrative tribunals focus on matters of city law and regulation enforcement, in order to relieve congestion in the courts. The network includes tribunals like the Environmental Control Board, which assesses fines to those charged with violating city environmental laws such as putting household garbage in street-corner trash cans. The Departments of Consumer Affairs and Health & Mental Hygiene, the Loft Board and Parking Violations Bureau are among other agencies that conduct administrative hearings. Those charged with violations have the right to a hearing headed by officers appointed by the agency whose regulations are being enforced. Their daily volume is enormous.
For most New Yorkers, the city's administrative tribunals are the only place in which they interact with the city's law enforcement mechanisms. Citizens are rarely represented by counsel, language issues often present challenges. The resulting impression can be intimidation, confusion and the absence of due process. Justice requires fairness, efficiency, consistency and independence. These objectives would be served by uniform standards.
Unlike judges, however, administrative hearing officers are not bound by a uniform requirement of standards, ethics, procedures, conduct or even qualifications. There is no practical or compelling reason for this. Standards and minimum requirements of justice do not vary by the amounts in controversy or the laws being enforced. Neither do the standards and minimum requirements of ethical conduct.
There was a charter revision commission in 2003 proposing a similar measure to this year's, which also required the mayor to appoint an administrative justice coordinator to promote a uniform training program and professional standards for administrative hearing officers. The voters rejected it. The Bar Association applauded that effort but argued such an appointment did not require a charter amendment; it only required an executive order. This year, the Charter Commission accepted the recommendation and urged the mayor to appoint the coordinator under his own authority. The coordinator would have a major role in establishing a standard code of conduct.
Most city agencies continue to be the fact finder, prosecutor, and judge in their administrative enforcement proceedings. The establishment of uniform standards would bring a greater measure of independence to those agencies’ proceedings. As with the office of administrative justice coordinator, it is not clear that a charter amendment is required to establish these standards. However, such standards are sorely needed, and by approving Ballot Proposal 3 the voters can firmly establish them in law.
Peter J. Kiernan is the chair of the New York City Bar Committee on New York City Affairs Â
On October 26, 2005, the New York City Bar Association held a forum on Proposition 1, the state ballot initiative to change the state’s budget process. The following is an edited transcript of the debate. The panel was moderated by Daniel Feldman, executive director of the New York State Trial Lawyers Association.
“Vote Yes” - Modest, But Important, Reforms” - Megan Quattlebaum, New York Common Cause
- Better Than the Status Quo” - Blair Horner, New York Public Interest Research Group
“Vote No” - A Classic Bait and Switch” - Gerald Benjamin, Professor of Political Science, SUNY New Paltz
- Making a Bad Process Worse” - Charles Brecher, Citizens Budget Commission
In New York, the turn of the 20th century was a period of fairly irresponsible spending by the New York State Legislature. It prompted a tremendous public outcry for what’s called an executive budget. That is to say a budget drawn up by the governor with the legislature’s role limited to rejection, deletions, reductions and criticism. In 1927, New York’s new constitution incorporated that reform.
In the 1970’s the State Legislature began to develop staff capability that really allowed it to engage in what I would characterize as increasingly serious budget analysis. While the legislature and the governor continued to joust over budget power, I would say it was generally the legislature, not the governor’s office that imposed substantive conditions on budget items in the context of the budget process. From 1998 through 2004, however, the legislature and the governor engaged in more heated controversy over budget powers and exacted litigation over budget powers. The controversy centered really on the degree to which either could oppose substantive law in the context of budget bills.
When the dust finally settled on the litigation, known as Pataki v Assembly and Silver v. Pataki, just last year in 2004, the Court of Appeals essentially gave the governor, not the legislature, considerable leeway in imposing substantive policy though budget bills. In particular, the court upheld the governor’s right to insert into a budget bill, pages of revisals and conditions.
In 2005, the governor and the legislature responded to public outrage over twenty years of continuously late budgets by passing the budget on time. Nonetheless, the decision of Pataki v Assembly, many would argue, leaves delay by the legislature as the only effective weapon left in attempting to combat the governors now increased leverage in budget negotiations.
I would think that it was largely in response to that “decision” that the legislature has placed Proposal 1 on the ballot.
The most significant element of ballot Proposal 1 would shift much budgeting power to the legislature in the event that the legislature could not or would not agree to the governor’s budget, even after imposing reductions in or elimination of budget items. The only limitations the legislature could make to the governor’s budget proposal.
This ballot proposal is a response by the legislature essentially to retake a very substantial increase in budget power and some would say it would take much more than the power the court has taken away from them.
Proposal 1 is part of a larger reform movement that we have been pushing for in Albany for over three decades.
So I want to step back a bit and talk a little about where we are now in the budget process in Albany. Common Cause has long criticized the budget process for being too secretive, too unaccountable and too uncertain.
For example, the Health Care Reform Act, which is approximately $4 billion in spending and revenue, is controlled entirely by the governor with very little oversight by the legislature and comptroller. In the past, Health Care Reform Act funds were used to create pay raises for the workers of the 1199 Service Employees Union. Those were the product of secret meetings between the governor and the head of that union and a few of the legislative leaders. That may have been a good decision or a bad decision, but we believe that it directly resulted in Pataki being endorsed by that union a few months later. We think that’s not a good way for budget decisions to be made.
Issues of secrecy, issues of accountability, issues of uncertainty – these are the things that drive Common Cause to seek reform of the budget process in Albany.
For those problems, we think that Proposal 1 offers a modest, but important, solution. We would never refer to it as a panacea. But we do see it as part of the larger spectrum of reform. But Proposal 1 would take steps to making the budget more open, accountable, and certain.
It will put things like the Health Care Reform Act funds on budget.
It will create an Independent Budget Office to help take some of the spin off of the budget numbers coming out of Albany.
It will create a contingency budget so that if the governor and legislature cannot agree on a budget on time, there is always a budget in place for schools and agencies that rely on state funds.
And it will create two-year school budgets, so schools can plan ahead for the future.
These are some of the smaller, but equally important parts of Proposal 1. It is part of a larger reform movement.
Anyone who is a student of the Albany process knows that you never get what you want, but you may get what you need, in the words of the famous British philosopher Mick Jagger.
The greatest point of debate on Proposal 1 is the contingency budget.
This passed in 2004 and in 2005, and the criticism is that it will create a power grab by the legislature that will lead to runaway spending. One Assemblymember said it was like letting children in a candy store without adult supervision; a pretty strong charge.
So we looked at how the power relationship outlined in this contingency budget stacks up against how budgets are done in the rest of the country.
What we found is that New York is one of four states with extremely powerful executives. The remainder of the country gives the legislature more budgetary authority than New York.
Now, no other state does exactly what this proposal calls for. But if you look at that relationship - where the legislature has a lot of authority subject to the line item veto of the governor – it is a similar relationship in most states around the country.
The contingency budget along with the rest good things in this package are, on balance, better than the status quo.
That is the vote on November 8. There are only two choices. You keep things the way they are, or you change.
We think that the change – the improved openness in the development of the executive budget, the Health Care Security Act funds being subject to scrutiny, the creation of an Independent Budget Office – we think that as a package, Proposition 1 offers something better than what we have.
I regard this as a classic bait and switch. It proposes reform, when it in fact undoes the greatest reform ever made in the 20th century in New York governance – the executive budget system. It undoes the executive budget system, which was adopted to a discredited 19th century legislative budgeting system.
The motivation for Proposition 1 is the legislature’s loss in the litigation of Pataki vs. Assembly, and Silver vs. Pataki, that closed the door on any hope that the legislature could alter its role in the budgeting under the current rules.
The legislature feels it has no other option than to change the State Constitution. The legislature is uniquely situated to change the Constitution without a convention. It can propose the change twice, and bring it to the people without the governor having a role in it.
The legislature is trying to replace the separation of powers - that is the core issue. The other issues are peripheral.
The legislature, in my opinion, is right. It has been unduly marginalized in budgeting by the decisions of the Court of Appeals. But it is overreaching in trying to establish itself as the sole power in budgeting.
Under Proposal 1, if the governor’s budget is not adopted by the beginning of the fiscal year, the contingency budget goes into effect and the legislature has almost entire control.
The best reason to provide a contingency budget is to assure that it is never used. The contingency budget should be so offensive to both houses of the legislature and the governor that they work hard together to avoid it ever happening.
What we have here is a high incentive for the legislature to allow the contingency budget to come into force, and a very low incentive for the legislature to accept the governor’s budget or to negotiate. So we have reversed the dynamic, but we have not remedied it.
We have an executive budget system for good reason. The elective chief executive is accountable to the whole polity. The legislature, as an institution, is distributive in its character; it has to please a lot of people who represent a lot of different interests and places. It is less situated institutionally to do the balancing of revenues and expenditures.
I agree that the legislature is far better situation to deal with budgeting and fiscal issues than it was in the early 20th century. But the fundamental institutional issue remains.
There is an alternative. It is legislation, called Senate 3195/Assembly 4630, which was given first passage this year. It requires the governor to propose changes in permanent law apart from and not within appropriation bills that the legislature may alter. If Proposition 1 fails, the legislature will advance it for second passage next year. And then it will be on the ballot.
The legislature is not going to quit. It is not going to accept the status quo with the governor. If it can’t get its goal by overreaching, then it will accept a lesser goal.
Most New Yorkers think they are being presented with reform. The value of the reforms being advanced is overstated. The core issue being avoided is the undoing of a fundamental reform in New York government. We must resist and vote “no.”
All of these arguably “modest improvements” – putting the Health Care Reform Act funds on the budget, the creation of an Independent Budget Office, and the instituting two-year school budgets - are not what you are voting on November 8th.
What you are voting on with Proposition 1 is the creation of a contingency budget if the legislature doesn’t pass a budget on time.
That might be called a good thing, if it really were a tool. A contingency budget ought to be a hammer that you get hit over the head with if you don’t pass a budget on time. That is not what this is.
This is an incentive for the legislature not to pass the budget on time because they get more power under the contingency budget. This is going to make this process that we all agree is bad, even worse. It is going guarantee that the budget is late because that is how to make the legislature more powerful. If the contingency budget kicks in, they will have almost unlimited power to pass supplemental appropriations.
This would create a schizophrenic budget process. Up until May 1, the governor has all of the power. After that, the legislature has all the power. It’s a crazy way to do fiscal business in the state.
We have problems. This isn’t going to fix it. Don’t’ make it worse. Don’t’ vote for this. Let’s focus on the real issues.
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