The biggest change at the polls in New York this year will be a requirement that first-time voters present identification at their polling place.
As I wrote last month, (A Broken System Stays Broken), this requirement is in response to the federal law, the Help American Vote Act, or HAVA, that Congress passed and the President signed in 2001, which aims at improving the election systems in every state in the nation in order to ensure against the kind of breakdown that occurred in Florida in the last presidential election.
That law requires many reforms:
• the elimination of punch and lever ballots
• a statewide voter database
• full accessibility for people with disabilities
• new voting machines?
• and identification requirements for first-time voters
But the states have until 2006 to be in compliance with the law, and none seem exactly to be rushing to implement it. In part, this is a result of recent controversies over new voting machines, which in some states have hinted at having as many (or different) problems as the ones they replaced. In part, states are treading cautiously; they do not want to do anything that would jeopardize what is the first money every allocated by the federal government for such voting reform. In part, in some states, it is a result of a dysfunctional legislature.
Like many other states, New York has requested a waiver from the federal government for certain provisions of the law, such as the database and the voting machines, until 2006.
The one provision of HAVA that New York State has implemented, is that part of the law that requires voters who have registered for the first time by mail after January 1, 2003 "[present] to the appropriate State or local election official a current and valid photo identification; or‚ a copy of the current utility bill, bank statement, government check, paycheck, or other government document that shows the name and address of the voter." In New York, this is new; it was not required that voters show identification at the polls for any reason in the past. Voters who fail to provide proper identification will be given the chance to vote through affidavit (paper) ballot, but not on a machine.
Voters who registered by mail for the first time after January 1, 2003 will not be required to present identification at the polls if they submitted with their registration any of the required identification pieces just mentioned, or their driver's license number, or the last four digits of their social security number.
This specific provision in HAVA was controversial when it was introduced - especially in New York City. Given the demographics of the city, with its high population of immigrants, and a small population of drivers, many election rights advocates and civic organizations opposed this measure. In fact, the only two senators to vote against HAVA were the two senators from New York, Charles Schumer and Hillary Clinton.
However, New York will need to deal with this issue this year. New York City, admittedly, has been better than other parts of the state to clearly define "by-mail" registrants and how to process the applications. They have sent thousands of letters to registrants who have failed to provide either a drivers license or social security number and according to their databases, have received a large percentage of the information needed from those registrants.
Yet, civic and good-government organizations have been fighting for more clarity and a broad, statewide list of acceptable identifications at the polls. The State Board of Elections has generated a fairly good list of what will be considered acceptable identification, yet the problem is that local and county boards of elections will not be required to use the list. It must be written into legislation so that New Yorkers in Buffalo will not have different identification requirements than New Yorkers in Long Island.
Thus far, the Assembly has introduced a bill that includes the broad list the civic organizations are advocating. The Senate has not introduced such a detailed and broad list and this past March, the Assembly and the Senate had a hard time coming to an agreement on a voter id list. The stalemate seems to have come from a difference over the semantics; had the State Legislature agreed on a list, it would have been the first broad and clear list of acceptable ids in the country. Yet, like many other things, the Assembly and Senate left Albany without a compromise and left many wondering what would happen in September.
When the Legislature came back in August to negotiate the budget (the 20th late budget in a row), they also quietly met to discuss HAVA issues, specifically the identification issues at play this year. Yet, the same problems they had in March over semantics persisted. Instead, both houses passed a stop-gap bill that amounts to a reiteration of the vague HAVA language regarding identification, a law that will expire July 1, 2005.
What does this mean for New York? Precisely what election-reform advocates feared - the possibility of different standards. Earlier this year, NYPIRG and the Brennan Center did a survey of the county boards and found that answers to questions regarding identification requirements were vastly different across the state.
The legislature failed to give proper guidelines and guidance to election officials that would have made Election Day processes run smoother. Beyond all the other provisions of HAVA that have stalled in the legislature and might have jeopardized the federal money for election improvements, allowing Albany to play politics with our election system is unacceptable. And voters should remember that at the polls this year -- that is, if they can get to them.
Jillian Matundan is the Making Votes Count Project Director for Citizens Union Foundation, which also publishes Gotham Gazette.
Additional Resources: |
For the Guide For 2005, click here
Many voters seem to agree with the presidential candidates that Election Day in November will be the most important election in a generation. But there is another Election Day before that - Primary Day this week - which NOBODY thinks is more important.
True, in New York City, a thoroughly Democratic town, many local races will in effect be decided during the primary on September 14, when New Yorkers will select party nominees for U.S. Congress, the State Legislature, and a dozen seats on the Civil Court.
But most of the incumbent members of Congress and the legislature are running unopposed anyway. Even the few who have opponents aren't much worried; voting has become a game that incumbents almost always win. Visit our Voting Arcade and play our first voting game, Donkey Con (Elephant Evasion), to learn first-hand the power of an incumbent's superior name recognition, party backing, cash, and other usually insurmountable obstacles for a challenger.
Adding to the normal frustrations of Election Day are new rules intended to make the process more reliable - first-time voters in New York State who registered by mail after January 1, 2003 will now be required to present identification at the polls. (Read more about this change and why it is not necessarily an improvement.) One addition that might be helpful -- a Voter's Bill of Rights, which must be displayed at every polling place.
For all the problems, it is still a citizen's obligation to vote - and, since some races are considered competitive this year (some even have no incumbents!), there remains the possibility that one person's vote can make a difference.
Here is our Primary Day guide for the last minute voter.
After the election is over, visit Gotham Gazette for the results
Congress
New York City's 13 representatives to the U.S. Congress are all up for re-election. Whoever is elected to the White House in the next term, and whatever their position on urban issues, members of Congress will face difficult decisions on issues critical to the city such as:
The links above go to articles about these issues in general. Gotham Gazette has published articles by most of the New York delegation members on these and other issues, and will publish more by challengers in coming weeks. (To read the articles, visit Focus on the Feds.)
There are five primary races for Congress in New York City: one in Queens, two in the Bronx, one in Brooklyn, and one in northern Manhattan. (For races to watch, see "Which Races Are Competitive".)
To find out who is running in your district, type your address into Gotham Gazette's Congressional District finder.
State Legislature
All 89 New York City representatives to the New York State Legislature are up for re-election this fall. If nearly everyone in New York agrees that state government in Albany needs new blood and new ideas, it is unlikely they are going to get it.
This year, the State Legislature missed its budget deadline for the 20th year in a row. Lawmakers failed to come up with a plan to fund a basic education for New York City students, even though a state Court of Appeals required them to do so. Many pieces of major legislation stalled. And three members of the State Legislature pleaded guilty to criminal charges, while several more are currently being investigated. (Read more about why Albany is so dysfunctional)
For more on state races to watch, see "Which Races Are Competitive?" section below. To read more about races, see Gotham Gazette's Eye On Albany 2004.
Judicial Races
The elections for Civil Court this fall will select judges that hear private, non-criminal lawsuits, which have a monetary value of no more than $25,000. (Click here for a list of judicial candidates)
Recently, New York City's judicial system has come under scrutiny with reports of scandal and political patronage and investigations are still ongoing. (Read more about judicial scandal or play Gotham Gazette's Judges Game.)
U.S. Congress
The most watched local Congressional race this year is in Brooklyn's district 11, where 22-year incumbent Representative Major Owens faces two challengers: City Council members Tracy Boyland and Yvette Clarke. Owens has said he plans to retire at the end of his next term, and his challengers say he will be a lame duck if he is re-elected.
Other congressional primaries include a race in district 17 in the northern Bronx, where two Democrats, Kevin McAdams and Jessica Flagg, want to unseat Representative Eliot Engel.
The northern shore of Queens features a Republican primary as Stephen Graves and Gonzalo Policarpio vie for a chance to face Democratic Congressman Gary Ackerman in the November election.
In eastern Bronx and northern Queens, Democratic Congressman Joseph Crowley faces three challengers: Curtis Brooks, Dennis Coleman, and Aniello Grimaldi.
And in northern Manhattan's district 15, Democrats Ruben Dario Vargas and Geoffrey Johnson are trying to unseat Congressman Charles Rangel.
State Senate and Assembly
While many incumbents in the New York State Legislature do not face challengers in the primary, there are four rare open seats this year.
The indictment of long-time State Senator Guy Velella, who is serving one year in prison for bribery, has upended the status quo in Bronx politics this year - not only in his district in northern Bronx and Westchester, but in two other districts as well. (See an article about the race to fill Velella's seat).
Two incumbent State Assembly members have given up their seats to run for Velella's spot. One is Assembly Democrat Stephen Kaufman, who represents Co-Op City and the northeastern Bronx (See an article on the race to fill this seat). The other is Democrat Jeffrey Klein, who represents neighborhoods like Pelham Bay and Norwood in the Bronx. (See an article on the race to fill this seat.)
In State Senate district 23, which includes southwest Brooklyn and the north shore of Staten Island, four Democrats are fighting for the seat left vacant by the retirement of Seymour Lachman. (Read an article on this race).
Other races feature multiple candidates hoping to score an upset this fall.
In Harlem, two challengers - John Ruiz and Eddie Baca - are trying to unseat Democratic Adam Clayton Powell, who has been the subject of criminal investigations after two women accused him of separate incidents of rape. (Read an article about this race).
In East Harlem, three Democrats -- Jose Serrano, Agustin Alamo Estrada, and Nelson A. Denis – are vying to challenge long-time Senator Olga Mendez, who switched to the Republican Party in 2002. (Read an article about this race.)
And on the South Shore of Staten Island, a feud in the local Republican Party has pitted Assemblymember Robert Straniere against two Republican challengers: Mario Bruno and Vincent Ignizio. (Learn more about this race.)
Click here a full list of all of the state primary races and candidates.
Even the most attentive voter can have trouble evaluating candidates, especially those who are running in the primary and agree on many basic issues.
Newspaper editorials can be helpful; the major metropolitan newspapers endorse candidates for office in their editorials:
New York's issue advocacy groups also rate candidates on certain policies:
Citizens Union, a good government group affiliated with Citizens Union Foundation, the publisher of Gotham Gazette, prefers candidates for state office based on their ideas for reforming Albany. The Empire State Pride Agenda rates candidates on their stands on gay and lesbian issues. The New York League of Conservation Voters endorses candidates on environmental issues.
Voters who have registered should have received a yellow postcard in the mail with the address of their polling place. If you did not, call the Board of Elections at 1-866-VOTE NYC, or try the board's poll site locator web site. You can also e-mail them at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. with your complete address, and you should receive an email back instructing you where to vote.
Polls open at 6:00 a.m. and close at 9:00 p.m. Absentee ballots must be hand-delivered to the Board of Elections by 9:00 p.m.
New voting regulations may cause confusion at the polls this year.
New Yorkers who registered to vote for the first time via mail after January 1, 2003, will be asked to provide identification, such as a driver's license when they go to the polls. Those without a driver's license can also offer a copy of a valid photo ID, a current utility bill, a bank statement, a government check or other government document that shows the voter's name and address. Those who don't have any form of identification or refuse to supply one will be allowed to vote on paper ballot, not in the machines, according to the Board of Elections. Those votes will be counted once they are verified to match registration forms. (Read more about I.D. requirements.)
The new rule is part of the federal Help America Vote Act, which Congress passed after the turmoil in Florida during the 2000 presidential election. (Read more about efforts to reform voting in New York.)
The city's Board of Elections also says that it has increased efforts to make polling places accessible for senior citizens and handicapped voters, but they admit that there are still problems at some sites. Voters who feel that their polling site is inaccessible should call the Voter Registration Unit of their local borough office for information.
The New York Voter's Bill of Rights answers basic questions like "Can I bring someone with me to help vote?" and "Can I still vote if the machine breaks?" (The answer to both questions is "yes.")
Television stations and newspapers will cover the most competitive races, but some results - like judicial races - are more difficult to find.
Visit Gotham Gazette's results page on election night and the following days. Remember, a close race can take days or weeks to decide.
The General Election is Tuesday, November 2. And there is still time to register to vote in November.
The last day to register to vote in New York is October 8. The last day to file a request for an absentee ballot for the General Election in New York is October 26.
You can register in person at the Board of Elections offices (click here for a list of offices). Or you can download a voter registration form (pdf format) in English, Spanish, Chinese, and Korean.
Then mail the form to:
Board of Elections in the City of New York
32 Broadway, 7 Fl
New York, NY 10004-1609
Additional Resources:
Gotham Gazette's Election Results
State Legislative Races
Focus on the Feds
Eye on Albany 2004
List of Judicial Candidates
New York City Board of Elections
CNN's Guide to New York Congressional Races
The Voting Arcade has moved to a new location. If you are not automatically directed to the correct page, click the following link: |
New York City Council Stated Meeting Report
Every two weeks the New York City Council meets for its Stated Meeting to introduce and pass legislation. As a regular feature, Searchlight covers these meetings and posts a summary of the bills passed.
STATED MEETING - September 9, 2004
Quote of the Day:
"Houses of worship that do not have 'fixed seats' are not required to have parking. That means that folding chairs have become very popular." - Councilmember Melinda Katz on changes in the zoning code requiring churches and synagogues to build parking lots.
Meeting Summary:
For the first time in 40 years, the New York City Council amended the city's zoning code as it relates to "community facilities," buildings such as medical and dental offices and houses of worship.
For decades, such buildings were not required to provide parking spaces for patrons. When zoning laws were first drafted, many neighborhoods had a local doctor's office that served a relatively small number of patients. Likewise, small houses of worship that had limited funds and simply set up chairs in storefronts or other buildings were not required to build parking facilities.
Over time, the council argues, these exemptions have become outdated.
Medical facilities are now often large practices with dozens of doctors. And some warehouse-style churches and synagogues have purposely used removable chairs or benches, rather then pews, in order to avoid having to build a parking lot. The result, supporters of the measure say, is that quiet neighborhoods have been overrun with traffic, and there are too few parking spaces for residents.
The new regulations (L.U. 236 and Res 586) will require that medical and dental facilities be built in commercial areas. Houses of worship will now have to build parking lots to match their building's capacity.
The Department of City Planning helped draft the legislation that some council members like Queens Councilmember Tony Avella have been pushing since 2001.
"By passing this bill... we are restoring the stability to residential communities, and we are preserving the quality of life," said Avella.
The City Council also overrode Mayor Michael Bloomberg's veto of the Dignity for All Schools Act (Intro 188-A), a bill that will require that the Department of Education establish clear guidelines that prohibit harassment and bullying in schools.
The mayor said he supports the goal of the legislation, but vetoed it because he said the task of disciplining students should rest with educators.
The council needs 35 votes to override the mayor's veto; the council voted 44 to 3 to override. Republican Councilmembers James Oddo, Andrew Lanza, and Dennis Gallagher sided with the mayor.
"We are sending a back-to-school present to all of our students and all of our teachers - namely that bullying has no place in our schools," said Councilmember Alan Gerson, who drafted the bill.
The next Stated Meeting is scheduled for September 28, 2004.
For an archive of past meetings and council votes, visit Gotham Gazette's Searchlight.
It has been four years since Gabriela Jaksa saw her younger brother Attila. She lives in the Bronx now; he remained in Hungary.
But, the two met - in a way -- on the street in the East Village on a Sunday afternoon in early August and talked for two hours.
"It was very touching," Jaksa said. "I'm going to remember it forever."
The long-awaited rendezvous took place over a live public video conference created by a team of artists and technologists in New York and Budapest. The project allowed concertgoers at one of Europe's largest music and arts events, the Sziget Festival, to see, hear and interact in real-time with passersby in New York's East Village for five hours a day for nearly a week.
"Exchanges between New Yorkers and Hungarians ranged from the raunchy to the sentimental to the avant garde and super sweet. There were tense, sexist and racist moments as well as hilarious ones," said Mathieu Borysevicz of Vizual Works Contemporary Art Association in Budapest.
One local musician serenaded the Hungarians with a tribute song about Budapest, another sang a Jamaican hip hop song.
Constant questions about the time difference and the weather seemed to convince participants in New York that the sounds and images were really coming from Hungary and not just somewhere in Upper Manhattan.
"What we learned from this project is that there is an inherent novelty of the technology. Once the novelty wears off, people might begin to interact on a more meaningful level," said Josh Tonsfeldt of Harvestworks, one of the New York sponsors. For example, several regulars who visited the live video daily began to build relationships with their Hungarian counterpart.
"One of the most profound aspects of the project was that for many people in Hungary it was the first opportunity for them to speak with Americans, or better yet Americans of color," added Borysevicz.
The project illustrates how the use of communication technology in public spaces is transforming our experience of the urban environment in New York City. In the future, such interactions may not be confined to the art world but instead could easily, cheaply and quickly become part of the city's basic infrastructure.
Noemi Pataki, a 30 year-old hotel and tourism student from Hungary, and her boyfriend Andras Miklos, a 30 year-old economist, visited the live public video to talk to his sister Judit, and described it as, "the greatest experience during our two-year stay in the USA.We talked about everything, family, music, life & people in NYC, even about politics (the upcoming election) and a lot more," and say that they would use the service even if it wasn't free.
For a limited cost-the whole project cost under $1000 in donated equipment-New York could set up multiple live public video conferences with cities worldwide. For example, Times Square could be connected to Shibuya Crossing in Tokyo or Trafalgar Square in London. New York already has a number of "sister-city" relationships; why not further enhance these partnerships with live real-time video interaction?
Technology and Politics
Those following the campaign for president lately speak early and often of Swift boats and Abu Ghraib. But to tech-savvy politicos, the more important words for the moment are a bit more obscure - Moport and TxtMob. They are both new mobile phone technologies.
TxtMob was first used at the Democratic National Convention in Boston, allowing users to broadcast messages quickly and easily to groups of cell phones. This enabled more than 200 protesters to get out up-to-the-minute information about direct action and police reaction. TxtMob's creator, the Institute for Applied Autonomy (IAA), an art and engineering collective that develops technologies for political dissent, is currently working with activists in preparation for the Republican National Convenion.
Moport, a new mobile phone reporting tool, will allow anyone with a camera phone or a digital camera to cover the protesters and thereby provide an alternative view of the events. The free service will allow people to report collectively about important events in real-time using mobile phones.
Laura Forlano is a doctoral student studying communication technology policy at Columbia University.
1854 - Birth of the Party
Anti-slavery advocates, including Abraham Lincoln, spearhead the creation of the national Republican Party. The New York City Chapter is also established, with Horace Greeley, publisher of the New York Tribune.
1854 - Early Victory
Myron Holley Clark is elected the first Republican governor of New York.
1857 - Police Dispute
The Republican-controlled state legislature creates the Metropolitan Police, effectively abolishing New York City's Municipal Police. Although Democratic Mayor Fernando Wood resists, the state government prevails, and the Metropolitan Police patrol New York until 1870, when police power is restored to the local level.
1858 - Republican Endorsement
After the state legislature strips Wood of his power, Daniel Tiemann, a Democrat and wealthy paint manufacturer, is elected mayor with Republican support. He will serve for only two years before Wood returns to power.
1860- Historic Oratory
Abraham Lincoln gives his famous Cooper Union Address, which paves his way to the Republican presidential nomination later in the year.
1862 - First Republican Mayor
George Opdyke, a clothing manufacturer, financier, and member of the state Assembly, become the first Republican to be elected mayor. His two years in office will be marked by the draft riots of 1863, during which he refuses to negotiate with the rioters. In the history if the city, seven Republicans have served as mayor.
1874 - Animal Imagery
New York cartoonist Thomas Nast gives the GOP its symbol when he depicts Republican voters as an elephant in a cartoon for Harper's Weekly. The inspiration came from a hoax perpetrated by the New York Herald, which falsely reportedly that elephants from a menagerie had escaped into Central Park where they were foraging for food.
1886 - Losing Effort
Republican Theodore Roosevelt, a member of one of the city's most prominent families and a former state assembly member, comes in third in a bid for mayor.
1895 - A Strong Mayor
After a long drought, another Republican, reformer Republican William L. Strong, is elected mayor. He will go on to reorganize the city's street cleaning department, establish the Board of Education and create small parks in the city, but will lose the 1897 election partly because of his enforcement of blue laws and anti-Catholic school measures.
1895 - Police Commissioner
Strong appoints Theodore Roosevelt president of the city's Board of Police Commissioners. Roosevelt then establishes the foundation of the Police Academy and imposes stricter discipline on police officers. He will leave the post in 1897 to become secretary of the Navy and will later serve as governor of New York, vice president and, after the assassination of William McKinley in 1901, as president of the United States.
1901 - Reform Alliance
Seth Low, a former mayor of Brooklyn and president of Columbia University, is elected on a fusion ticket backed by the Republican and Citizens Union parties. He is credited with introducing civil service and a merit system for hiring city employees, lowering taxes while streamlining government services, improving the school system, and reducing graft in the police department. In 1903, he will lose the mayoralty to Democrat George McClellan, Jr.
1909 - Legislative Branch
Allied with Fusion candidates, the Republicans gain a majority on the Board of Alderman, a precursor to the City Council.
1911 - Serving Both Parties
Republican President William Howard Taft names Henry Stimson, a New York lawyer and U.S. attorney for New York, secretary of war. He will later be secretary of state in the Hoover administration and secretary of war under Franklin Roosevelt, a Democrat.
1916 - La Guardia in the House
Future mayor Fiorello LaGuardia, a Republican, wins a congressional seat from heavily Democratic East Harlem. He will remain in Congress, with a couple of interruptions, until 1932.
1924 - Presidential Politics
Calvin Coolidge carries New York City in the presidential election, the last Republican ever to do so.
1934 - Fusion Mayor
With support from Republicans and reformers, Fiorello H. La Guardia is elected to the first of three terms as mayor. Although a Republican, he works closely with the President Franklin Roosevelt to secure funding for large public works projects. He achieves the unification of the city's rapid transit system, reforms surface transit, pushes for a new City Charter, and expands city parks and cultural programs.
1937- Never a President
After achieving fame for his prosecution of organized crime figures, Thomas Dewey is elected district attorney of Manhattan. Six years later, he will become governor of New York and then an unsuccessful presidential candidate, losing to Franklin Roosevelt in 1944 and Harry Truman in 1948.
1946- Two Houses
Jacob Javits of the Lower East Side is elected for the first of four terms in the Congress. He will serve in the House until 1954, and then go on to the Senate where he will stay until 1981. His achievements include playing a major role in the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
1958 - Four terms
Nelson Rockefeller, a scion of the wealthy family who grew up partly in New York City, is elected to his first term as governor. Despite three unsuccessful attempts at the presidency, he will be re-elected governor four times before resigning in 1973 and briefly serving as vice president. As governor, he created the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.
1965 - Liberal and Republican
Republican John V. Lindsay is elected mayor. Labor strife turns out to be the bane of Lindsay's administration. He also expands city services and seeks to give blacks and Hispanics a great voice in the city. In 1969, Lindsay will fail to receive the Republican nomination for mayor but will win re-election on the Liberal Party line.
1975 - Famous Front Page
With New York City slashing services to avoid defaulting on its bonds, Republican President Gerald Ford vows to defeat any federal bail-out of the city, prompting the Daily News to print the headline, "Ford to City: Drop Dead." After city unions release funds to provide some relief, Ford relents and approves a federal loan guarantee for the city.
1993 - From Prosecutor to Mayor
After losing the 1989 mayoral race, Republican Rudolph W. Giuliani is elected 107th mayor of New York City. His administration will be noted for a large reduction in crime in the city and revival of many neighborhoods. He receives national acclaim for his handling of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the city, but leaves office in 2002 because of term limits.
1993 - Two Terms and Out
Wealthy Republican Ronald Lauder successfully proposes and backs a referendum limiting New York City officials to two terms in office.
2001 - Billionaire Republican
A registered Democrat, millionaire businessman Michael Bloomberg changes his party affiliation and gets the Republican nomination for mayor. He wins the general election after a campaign in which he spends nearly $70 million of his personal fortune. This marks the first time a Republican has ever followed another Republican in the mayor's office.
2004 - Meeting in New York
For the first time in history, the Republican National Convention will take place at Madison Square Garden. It is expected to generate $150 million in economic activity and be attended by 50, 000 people.
New York City Council Stated Meeting Report
Every two weeks the New York City Council meets for its Stated Meeting to introduce and pass legislation. As a regular feature, Searchlight covers these meetings and posts a summary of the bills passed.
STATED MEETING - August 12, 2004
Quote of the Day:
"In a few minutes, [the Staten Island council members] will cast the best vote of our careers, perhaps the most important vote, and certainly the vote that is going to have the greatest impact on our communities.... The one local issue that unifies this council is the issue of overdevelopment" - Staten Island Councilmember James Oddo.
Meeting Summary:
The New York City Council dedicated most of its agenda on August 12 to landuse measures that will remake neighborhoods in Staten Island, Long Island City, and lower Manhattan.
For Staten Island, the council approved a series of actions that it promises will put an end to developers tearing down one- and two-family homes and replacing them with massive apartment buildings. The measures create specials zones in which the density of housing is limited.
The action was a result of a task force appointed by Mayor Michael Bloomberg to address issues of overdevelopment. And other City Council members hope that similar measures can be put in place for neighborhoods across the city.
"We are a city of 8 million people with one set of zoning rules," said Staten Island Councilmember Michael McMahon, "and what is applicable in one very urban part is not applicable to residential areas."
The council also approved a rezoning of the Hunter's Points section of Long Island City, Queens, which will allow for more commercial and residential development in what is predominantly a manufacturing area. Queens Councilmember Eric Gioia said that it will help the city retain companies who may be tempted to move out to New Jersey by offering them new, less expensive places to build.
However, not everyone agreed it was a good plan. Brooklyn City Councilmember David Yassky voted against the Long Island City rezoning arguing that as many as 2,000 people could lose their jobs and that the city must make a commitment to ensure that some of the new housing is affordable.
The council also approved a landuse item that will make way for Goldman Sachs to build a new 800-foot tall world headquarters in Battery Park City, arguing that would help assure that lower Manhattan remains a hub for the international finance industry.
In addition, the City Council passed one new bill (Intro 313-A), which will require city agencies to record and report information about workplace injuries. The city spends $140 million a year on workplace injuries, according to the council, and the legislation will help compile information to help prevent future accidents and illnesses.
The next Stated Meeting is scheduled for September 9, 2004.
For an archive of past meetings and council votes, visit Gotham Gazette's Searchlight.
Community service can be useful to help address community needs. Federal, state, and municipal governments throughout the United States have set up various forms of community or national service, including the Peace Corps, VISTA and AmeriCorps.
But while community service ought to be encouraged, should it be coerced outside of the criminal justice system? And should community service be required of one group of Americans who receive federal aid, but not all people who receive assistance from Washington?
Congress apparently thinks so. In 1998, the year I was elected to the House of Representatives, Congress passed the Quality Housing and Work Responsibility Act. This bill funded a range of programs beneficial to public housing residents, but it also contained a provision requiring public housing residents, 18 to 62 years of age, who are not working or attending college full time to perform eight hours of community service per month.
Community service ought to be a matter of choice, not coercion. We should offer incentives to encourage community service, not require it of Americans just because they have the misfortune of being unemployed. Moreover, unemployed public housing residents should not be singled out, while people who receive federal housing vouchers or a variety of other federal housing subsidies are exempt from community service.
The community service requirement stigmatizes unemployed public housing residents. Many people regard compulsory community service as a form of punishment meted out by the criminal justice system and thus will assume that a public housing resident who is forced to do community service must have done something wrong. Unemployment is not a crime.
In context, the community service requirement continues the punitive concepts of public assistance that crystallized in the 1980s and intensified under the Republicans' Contract with America in the 1990s.
I grew up in public housing in East Harlem, raised by hard-working parents, and then went on to college and law school. Later I served as a county prosecutor, as an administrative judge, as a member of the State Assembly and now as a member of Congress - who proudly represents tens of thousands of public housing residents in the Sixth Congressional District. Because of this, I have some insight into how hurtful and humiliating this community service requirement is. All of us should ask, as a public housing resident recently did, "Why stop at people who live in public housing? Lots of people get federal subsidies, including corporations. Why aren't they also forced to do community service?"
I have introduced two amendments to correct some of the unfairness of the 1998 law. The first converts community service from a requirement to an incentive. It would give each adult resident in public housing who performs eight hours of community service priority for admission to education and job training programs sponsored by the public housing agency that administers the development where that adult lives.
The second would exempt from mandatory community service any public housing resident who is 60 or older; in the third trimester of pregnancy; the parent or guardian of a child under five years of age and who resides with that child; a victim of domestic violence; parent of a child under 14 years old and who also has a spouse who is employed full time; provides more than 20 hours of unpaid child care to a child for whom that resident is not the parent or guardian; or who receives food stamps.
These amendments also spare local public housing authorities from a colossal and costly administrative headache of having to process, assign and follow up on possibly hundreds of thousands of public housing residents who are to be compelled to do community service.
I hope that the debate about the community service requirement encourages Congress and the public to take a deeper, more thoughtful look at the notion of punishing, humiliating, or singling out public housing residents. The current law seems to say that those living in public housing and who are unemployed are somehow living off of society, and therefore, need to be coerced into "giving back." Like other unemployed people, unemployed public housing residents would be happy to "give something back" in the form of the payroll and income taxes that accompany full-time employment.
Gregory Meeks, a Democrat, is the U.S. representative for the Sixth Congressional District in Queens.
Few have completely forgotten the debacle in Florida during the presidential election of 2000, where thousands of voters were disenfranchised because their ballot was so confusing that they chose the wrong candidate (the so-called "butterfly ballots"), or because the ballots were so poorly designed that it wasn't clear who the voter had voted for (the "hanging chads"), or because they were simply deleted from the voting rolls. Manual recounts took months, and then it was the Supreme Court who decided the presidency.
The nation was shocked, outraged, embarrassed. The federal government vowed to do something about it.
Little has changed in New York.
When, in response to Florida, Congress passed the Help America Vote Act (commonly referred to as HAVA), the plan was to provide state and local governments with millions of dollars to upgrade their voting systems. What this meant in New York was money to:
* replace our clunky 40-year-old lever voting machines
*create a state-wide voter database to prevent fraud
*institute procedures that will prevent scenarios like the East Side State Senate race in 2000, where it took more than six weeks to declare a winner.
But when the federal Election Assistance Commission recently gave out $861 million to 25 states, New York was not one of them.
That's because the only thing more dysfunctional than New York's voting system is the State Legislature in Albany. Lawmakers failed to meet the federal requirements to get the funding, and so New York did not receive its share of the payment.
There is still hope that we will eventually get the funding, but legislators must act quickly.
Money earmarked for the Empire State is sitting in Washington, but, according to a federal election staff member, Congress may use the money for other purposes if Albany does not claim it by the end of the year. And even if New York does get its share of the money, Albany's partisan bickering and failure to deal with difficult issues raise serious questions about whether the voting system can be overhauled by the deadline of 2006.
NEW YORK'S PART
Over the next few years, New York should receive an estimated $235 million in federal funding to improve its voting system. But that money is being given out in stages, with certain requirements that states must meet. (New York has already received $66 million). In order to receive this latest payment from the federal government, Albany legislators had to do three main things:
* Create a specific account to deposit the money in so that it stays separate from other state money.
* Match five percent of the federal money (about $11.8 million) with state funding.
* Agree to a procedure by which voters can complain if they feel their voting rights have been violated.
Lawmakers failed to achieve any of these requirements.
For the 20th year in a row, Albany missed its budget deadline and politicians left for the summer without passing much of the legislation that accompanies the budget. No financial account was created, and the state did not match the money even though it is only $11.8 million out of a $100 billion state budget.
At times in the last year, there were reasons to hope that Albany would produce concrete guidelines for reform.
In February, the Assembly and Senate each passed their own versions of how to implement the Help America Vote Act. Advocates and civic organizations immediately called for the creation of a conference committee, where the two sides could meet to work out their differences. Uncharacteristically, the Senate and Assembly agreed to meet.
But the lawmakers got stalled on the details.
One of the main sticking points was the issue of what kind of identification voters must show to register and to vote. The federal guidelines require that first-time registrants by mail must provide proof of identification, but leaves it up to the states to decide what constitutes "current and valid photo identification."
Only about half of New York City residents have drivers' licenses and so some lawmakers worry that the ID requirement may disenfranchise immigrant and young voters.
After much deliberation, the Assembly and Senate agreed to a list of appropriate forms of ID, but got hung up on the phrase "including, but not limited to" at the top of the bill. The State Assembly wanted more flexibility for city residents; the State Senate did not want more exceptions to the rule and wants the State Board of Elections to decide.
The two sides could not reconcile their differences and no compromise legislation was drafted.
VOTERS AT THE POLLS
Nevertheless, New York voters will still see some differences at the polls this year because of the Help America Vote Act.
One new addition is a revised version of the New York State Voter's Bill of Rights, which outlines what each voter is entitled to (things like the right to privacy in the booth, the right to vote regardless of disability, the right to an emergency ballot if the machine breaks). This Voter's Bill of Rights must be posted at every polling place.
But voters may also encounter some confusion this year.
Without an acceptable list of the types of ID that will be required, local boards of elections and some good-government groups fear that individual poll workers will decide what are and what are not acceptable forms of identification. This will likely vary from polling place to polling place and there will be no statewide uniform system.
It is also unclear exactly what voters will be able to do if they feel their rights have been violated since the legislature failed to agree on a complaint procedure. The best advice is to write down your polling site and names of poll workers and register your complaint with the Board of Elections and other government watchdog groups like the New York Public Research Interest Group.
LOOKING AHEAD TO 2006
The significant changes, -- new voting machines, a new statewide database, and better procedures in counting votes -- will not be in place until the 2006 elections.
There is still much work to be done, and since legislators are routinely stuck on small details there is little confidence that they will able to resolve difficult issues like what kinds of voting machines to purchase and how to verify electronic vote counts. Voting machines have recently undergone a large amount of scrutiny based on states that have already purchased new electronic machines. The concern for machine fraud is well-based; there are numerous problems in the states that have already bought the new machines. Issues such as machine malfunctions, unsolved security problems, and lack of voter-verified paper trails are now being settled in the courts - such as in Maryland where the Board of Elections ruled that votes would not be counted for voters who voted by paper ballots because they did not want to vote on the machines in the March primary. (See "How They Could Steal The Election This Time" in The Nation.) In Ohio, the president and CEO of Diebold Election Systems caused a stir when he promised to "deliver Ohio's electoral votes to President Bush in 2004." Ohio votes on Diebold machines, along with Maryland and a few other states.
New York legislators are aware of the issues surrounding voting machines and both houses have introduced provisions in their pieces of legislation that will safeguard New York against possible problems with electronic machines, such as voter-verified paper trails and the use of an independent panel to verify machine integrity, hardware, and source code. However, New Yorkers will have to wait until the legislature decides to meet again on the issue.
The longer Albany holds off in passing Help America Vote Act legislation, the longer it will take New York to get its fair share. The longer we are forced to wait, the harder it will be to create a voting system we will be required to have by 2006.
Jillian Matundan is the Making Votes Count Project Director for Citizens Union Foundation, which also publishes Gotham Gazette. Â
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Days after September 11th, 2001, Clear Channel Communications, America's largest radio conglomerate, which owns five radios stations in New York and over 1,200 nationwide, released a memo listing 150 songs that it felt were in "bad taste" to play on the radio. The songs included everything from Louis Armstrong's "What a Wonderful World" to John Lennon's "Imagine."
It has been widely debated whether the memo was official guideline for all stations, but many believe that the Texas-based management - which has ties to the Republican Party - wanted to censor the airwaves.
The concentrated ownership of the media makes this possible. And even though New Yorkers are in a better situation than most other places of the country – we have, for instance, eight local daily newspapers in Spanish and English owned by six different companies – media consolidation gives a small group of people huge influence over what we see and hear.
In July, Clear Channel again used its clout in an attempt to stop New Yorkers from getting certain messages, when it tried to block an antiwar group from renting advertising space in Times Square during the Republican National Convention.
But Clear Channel is not the only monster conglomerate that is changing the choices for the public. Since 1983, the fifty corporations that dominated the American media market have become ten corporations, the consolidation reaching a kind of apogee when AOL and Time Warner joined together in the largest media merger in history, a corporation valued at $350 billion.
These mergers occurred thanks to the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which Congress passed in the belief that the radio industry would thrive with less regulation. The new law increased how many American media outlets any one company could own or operate, while retaining certain limits.
But in the first five years after the bill's passage, 9,000 out of 10,000 existing radio stations nationwide were sold at least once, according to research by Common Cause (where we work). The result? An array of voices and choices in large markets across the nation were soon silenced or curtailed.
"In New York City, the top four companies control 80 percent of the [radio] market," says Jenny Toomey, executive director of the Future of Music Coalition. The top ten rated FM stations in New York City are owned by four companies: Clear Channel Communications, Emmis Communications, Spanish Broadcasting System, and Viacom. Radio station WEVD, was sold in 2001 to the Walt Disney Company media conglomerate, and the local, independent, multi-lingual station was reformatted into just another outlet for the sports network ESPN Radio.
In June of 2003, the Federal Communications Commission, the government agency that regulates all sources of American communications, issued new regulations that loosened many of the ownership caps established in the Telecommunications Act. Under the new regulations, a single corporation could own television stations reaching up to 45 percent of American households nationwide; cross-ownership rules were changed so that a company could own newspapers, radio and television stations in the same market.
The rule changes were opposed from all ends of the political spectrum. Groups from the National Rifle Association to the National Organization for Women saw the control of media by just a few voice as a fundamental threat to the diversity and localism of viewpoints necessary for democracy. The Federal Communications Commission was flooded with over 2 million communications from concerned Americans – more than they had received for any other issue.
Despite the outcry, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Michael Powell stood by the decision. The matter was taken up in Congress and the courts, and continues to be fought today.
The growth of media conglomerates has created a highly competitive and cut-throat industry where business economics plays an increasingly large role in production and even editorial decisions. Companies, searching to cut costs and meet revenue goals, have been using standard corporate business models to alter the behind the scenes production of their press, while trying to find ways to appeal to the broadest possible audiences. Journalists' jobs and responsibilities have been rapidly changing in what is a drastically different industry than the locally owned and operated business structure of broadcasts past.
"In the last twenty years, rigorous issues-oriented journalism has been under continued attack by large commercial interests seeking to streamline operations, tighten payroll, control more outlets, deregulate the industry and, ultimately, fatten their bottom line," said Timothy Karr, executive director of MediaChannel.org. "The net negative result is a news industry that avoids politically sensitive topics in favor of cheaply available entertainment, trivia and â€lifestyle' reporting."
Indeed, a recent poll found that some two-thirds of working journalists believe that "bottom line pressure is â€seriously hurting' the quality of news coverage." A majority of their bosses disagreed that the changes were undermining quality. It is difficult to conclude otherwise, though, when given examples such as New York's Channel 9, which Rupert Murdoch's company News Corp. purchased in 2002. The newsroom for the station was combined with that of another Murdoch property, Fox Channel 5, both stations' newscasts now overseen by a single news director -- and 65 jobs eliminated.
Opponents of further media consolidation see hope in educating the public about the fact that the American people, and not corporate conglomerates, actually own the airwaves. The broadcast airwaves are licensed by the Federal Communications Commission to companies for free, in exchange for their promise to provide programming and content that serves the public's best interest.
In 2001, it was estimated that if the airwaves used by the broadcasters were actually sold at auction to corporations – which has been a common practice with other technologies – it would have brought in $367 billion to the public treasury.
"Broadcasters cannot have it one way -- receive special treatment from the government -- but give nothing in return," said Karr. "With the outcry in 2003, the public sent Big Media and the FCC a loud message. The media industry can no longer put profits before its duty to serve citizens in a democracy. The media reform movement is now well mobilized to ensure that the FCC weighs the public's best interests before handing out more to media corporations."
Joanna Erenberg works on issues of media consolidation in New York as special projects coordinator for Common Cause/NY, where Ian Manheim is an intern.