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New York City Gets Back in Bed with a Bad Bank — But There’s a Better Way


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The Mayor on Wall Street (photo: Ed Reed/Mayoral Photography Office)


This past week, an obscure public body, the New York City Banking Commission, decided that the city can resume banking with Wells Fargo — meaning the scandal-scarred bank could hold billions of public dollars for at least the next two years. 

The Commission, composed of the Mayor, Comptroller, and Commissioner of Finance, voted to redesignate Wells Fargo during an 11-minute remote meeting with no opportunity for the public to weigh in.

You’ve heard of three men in a room. Meet three men on a Zoom.

Stakes were high, transparency was low, and New Yorkers deserve better. That the Commission even considered placing city deposits in Wells Fargo again underscores how entangled New York City’s finances are with Wall Street — and the extent to which big banks call the shots in our city. 

Prior to the meeting, members of the Public Bank NYC coalition and the New York City Council strongly urged the Banking Commission to reject Wells Fargo’s request to hold city deposits. Ignoring widespread opposition, the Commission voted 2-to-1 in favor of the notorious predatory lender and climate destroyer. A representative of Comptroller Stringer voted “no,” but his vote was overridden by two “yes” votes by representatives of Mayor de Blasio and Commissioner of Finance Sherif Soliman, a mayoral appointee.

The City cut ties with Wells Fargo in 2017 ostensibly in response to the bank receiving a long overdue downgrade of its Community Reinvestment Act rating. In fact, environmental and indigenous rights activists, racial and economic justice groups, and many others had raised multiple justifications for dumping the bank.

Wells Fargo’s misdeeds and scandals are too numerous to list, but here are some lowlights: 

Wells Fargo’s shameful record raises a question we’re tired of asking: How bad does a bank have to be before it faces real consequences? We need a public option for the city’s financial holdings—a public bank for the public good. 

Public banks are owned by and accountable to the people. Rather than being driven solely by profit, a public bank would be mission-driven and chartered to meet the needs of the city, particularly historically-redlined Black and brown neighborhoods.

A public bank would give the city a powerful new tool to help ensure a just recovery and strengthen our ability to withstand future crises. It would partner with community-based lenders to deliver responsible financing and emergency funding to small and worker-owned businesses hardest-hit by COVID-19.

Public banks around the world responded quickly and effectively to economic devastation caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, shoring up small businesses and other critical infrastructure. That’s because public banks specifically invest in sectors that provide direct economic, social and environmental benefits.

We can bring that success here, with a New York twist. 

Through public banking, New York City can support permanently-affordable housing, small and worker-owned businesses, green infrastructure, and other equitable development in Black and brown neighborhoods—and divest from Wall Street banks that actively harm New Yorkers, our economy, and the planet.

The broad-based Public Bank NYC coalition has charted a path for the city to follow to establish the country’s first municipal public bank.

For starters, the City Council must advance “The People’s Bank Act,” a transformative legislative package that lays groundwork for the creation of a public bank. The Mayor should work with the Council to establish a public bank capitalization fund.

In Albany, legislative leaders must pass the “NY Public Banking Act” this session, paving the way for cities and counties across the state to pursue public bank charters.

Reopening the door to Wells Fargo suggests that city officials have not learned the lessons of the past year, or decades. In the face of New York’s severe affordable housing shortage, climate devastation, and extreme racial wealth inequality—all exacerbated by COVID-19—we need bold action.

A public bank would build wealth and power in communities hardest hit by the pandemic. It’s needed now more than ever.

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Andy Morrison is Associate Director of New Economy Project. On Twitter @NewEconomyNYC.

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Don’t Let Kathryn Garcia Get Hillary’d


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Kathryn Garcia with Andrew Yang (photo: @aqreno)


“A competent woman losing a job to an incompetent man is not an anomalous Election Day surprise; it is Tuesday in America,” writes New York magazine’s Rebecca Traister in one 2016 presidential election debrief. Unfortunately, five long years of hindsight later, this dynamic persists. On Tuesday, June 22, Kathryn Garcia stands to get Hillary’d in the Democratic primary election for New York City Mayor.

Garcia is a career public servant who most recently served as commissioner of New York City’s Sanitation Department. She has led the city through multiple crises, overseen tens of thousands of employees, managed multi-billion-dollar budgets, and served across departments and at different levels of city government. She has won the endorsement of The New York Times Editorial Board, which noted, “Her ideas and experience stand out in a crowded field of Democratic hopefuls.” At the first official primary debate earlier this month when NY1 anchor Errol Louis asked the eight leading candidates who other than themselves they would vote for – the plurality chose her.

Still, Garcia has at times struggled to break through the noise created by her male competitors.

Despite her bona fides, Garcia had, until recently, been flailing in this highly consequential primary, polling well behind Andrew Yang, a man of dubious accomplishment, and Eric Adams, a man with a penchant for controversy. Much like the 2016 election, Garcia’s quiet, consistent, and effective work to keep the city functioning has not earned the same attention as her viral and mercurial male opponents.

Yang’s first real engagement with politics was when he ran for president in 2020, winning 0 delegates to the Democratic National Convention. Prior to his run for mayor, Yang joined the ranks of Rick Santorum as a commentator at CNN. His other endeavors were rife with complaints about his management style, including charges of racial and gender bias. Still, Yang has long-been a frontrunner in this primary despite never voting in a New York City mayoral election. At this moment, a man who fled New York City during the pandemic still appears more likely to be the city’s next mayor than Garcia, who oversaw the cross-agency effort to ensure all city residents had access to food during this crisis. If Yang’s lack of experience suggests he is unqualified to be mayor, his comments on a host of New York City issues this past week remove all doubt.

In assessing Garcia’s candidacy, Gotham Gazette writes, “she’s had her head down helping to run city government, not developing a donor network.” Prioritizing public service over campaign funding is not an affliction Eric Adams, who has also polled ahead of Garcia for most of the primary, appears to suffer from. The Times recently reported on Adams’ long history of using his “government power to benefit donors and advance his political ambitions.” While it cannot be said Adams, Brooklyn borough president, lacks the experience Yang does – he has maintained relevance in the primary through more of a cult of personality than thoughtful policy or accomplishments.

This dynamic was laid bare at the May 13 primary debate. Analysts described Garcia’s performance as “plenty substantive” but feared she “failed to introduce herself to voters…because she laid too far back from the fray.” In contrast, Adams repeatedly attempted to create reality TV moments, while offering dodges and clarifications in lieu of specific answers. He said civil rights lawyer Maya Wiley was acting “desperate” and being “nasty” due to her lagging behind in the polls. His exchanges with competitors were laced with terse retorts like “let me give you some facts.” He told Wiley “we both know how much [the Civilian Complaint Review Board] was a failure under you” and lambasted Yang as “disrespectful and appalling” for taking credit away from Stacey Abrams and other Black women organizers regarding the recent Georgia Senate run-offs that helped deliver Democrats a razor thin Senate majority.  

Beyond their media and social media antics, Yang and Adams have demonstrated almost no principle with regard to their policies. Both candidates have flip-flopped on issues both large and small. This ideological inconsistency underscores their form-over-substance campaigns. Meanwhile Garcia consistently offers some of the most detailed and comprehensive plans to solve big city problems. Just as Hillary Clinton’s campaign policy book “Stronger Together” apparently wasn’t interesting enough to earn media coverage commensurate with Trump’s racist, ill-conceived, proposals, Garcia’s plans don’t earn the headlines won by Yang’s thoughtless street-vendor crackdown proposal or Adams’ dangerous gun-baiting.

Electing attention-grabbing men over competent women comes at a very real cost. From pandemic management to policing – the lives of New York City residents are literally on the line. The winner of this Democratic primary will all but inevitably become the city’s next Mayor. We’ve seen this movie before. New Yorkers have less than 30 days to rewrite the ending. Latest polling shows this is an incredibly close race among Adams, Garcia, and Yang. It’s time to start paying attention and getting engaged. On that Tuesday in June, let’s make sure the qualified woman wins.

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Kaivan Shroff is a political commentator and alumnus of the Hillary for America Digital Team. On Twitter @KaivanShroff.

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Stop the Ranked-Choice Fear-Mongering — If Maine Can Do It, So Can We


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Voting (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office)


I moved from Manhattan to Maine in early 2020 to run the Democratic Party’s inaugural voter protection team in the Pine Tree State, trading lox for lobster rolls and the deep blue West Village for a purple battleground. But while Maine still had a Republican senator and had only recently dumped proto-Trump Governor Paul LePage, it did have one major liberal leg up on New York: far more voter-friendly ballot access laws.

Here in the Empire State, the Constitution bars no-excuse absentee voting and same-day registration, we choose city officials in off years, and a patronage-addled Board of Elections system prevents career professionals from running our elections. These endemic issues leave New York straggling on voter participation. Compared to other states in the Northeast, we’re dead last. On one front of fairer and more representative democratic processes, though, New York City is finally catching up to the redder Maine electorate: we now have ranked-choice voting.

Unfortunately, many New York leaders—including progressives who should be celebrating this improvement to our democratic processes, and some of the candidates competing in the races for mayor and other offices—are parroting fear-mongering talking points about RCV straight out of the LePage playbook. This rhetoric misinforms New Yorkers and risks a failure to fully reap the upside of a more engaged and energized electorate. 

Worse, misplaced criticism of RCV can stoke distrust in the integrity of the election; after living through propagation of the Big Lie about the 2020 presidential race and the resulting insurrection, that’s the last thing we should want to emulate in the Big Apple.

On a recent episode of the Max & Murphy podcast, for example, two former mayoral candidates, former City Council Speaker Christine Quinn and former Comptroller Bill Thompson, were among the latest Democratic leaders to misguidedly criticize RCV. Ranking candidates might depress turnout by confusing voters, they said. Besides, we don’t need it, since we already have a diverse City Council. And it’s easier for voters to decide on one candidate than to make decisions more complex than A vs. B. And only a few places in America use RCV: is it really necessary here?

Quinn and Thompson aren’t alone in driving this narrative. Mayoral candidates Eric Adams and Ray McGuire have spoken out against RCV; an Adams spokesperson said the Brooklyn borough president is “deeply concerned that ranked choice voting will disenfranchise voters of color.” As of May 21, neither Adams nor McGuire had even confirmed that they would accept ranked-choice results. 

Beyond the candidates, six City Council members, including Majority Leader Laurie Cumbo, unsuccessfully filed suit in December 2020 to delay RCV’s implementation. Just this week, Cumbo and three other Council members—endorsers of Adams and Andrew Yang, who is now lagging in some polls—introduced new legislation to repeal RCV. The repeal would still have to go in front of city voters as a charter amendment, but these electeds are doing all they can to undermine voters’ faith in our voting processes just weeks before we go to the polls.

While concerns about RCV may be sincere, they are simply not borne out by the facts—nor by the experiences of Mainers, who have been voting via ranked-choice for years. They have twice affirmed their preference for RCV in statewide ballot referenda; once voters get a taste, they don’t want to go back. That’s because plurality voting, though we’re used to it, has obvious drawbacks. With eight major candidates on our Democratic mayoral ballot, a candidate could come in first with just 20% of the primary vote—around what the current first-place candidates are getting in polls—and then advance to a lower-turnout two-person runoff with another candidate who polled even lower in the initial balloting.

Even the old runoff system didn't guarantee broad consensus on a party nominee. Multi-candidate primaries that didn't require the 40% threshold for a win without a runoff -- races for borough-wide and City Council seats -- were decided with a winner getting less than that amount nearly 30% of the time. And in the last open mayoral primary, Bill de Blasio narrowly dodged a runoff with just over 40% of the vote: he was the first choice of just 282,000 New Yorkers, less than 3.5% of the city’s 2013 population and it was enough for him to end up in Gracie Mansion given the uncompetitive general election. 

That fact alone is galling, and it’s augmented by the circumscribed campaign strategy it incentivizes: just marshal a small block of die-hards, perhaps along demographic or geographic lines, and forget appealing to voters citywide. If this sounds familiar, it’s because Donald Trump won the Republican presidential nomination riding a similar wave of plurality-winner-take-all primaries. New Yorkers should want an election system that is as representative as possible, and that means one where a primary winner has to be near the top of most voters’ lists. Indeed, New Yorkers do want RCV: the switch was chosen by a 3-to-1 margin in a 2019 referendum.

Moreover, as progressives, we pride ourselves on following facts, and social science research proves that RCV has its intended impact. Directly contravening the assertions of RCV critics, studies show that RCV drives higher turnout by engaging more voters (with multiple studies showing a roughly ten-point increase), leads to more civil elections given the candidates’ needs to reach more voters, with RCV voters reporting greater satisfaction with the tone of campaigning; and leads to elected officials of greater diversity, specifically benefitting women and candidates of color.

On Max & Murphy, Quinn said we already have a racially diverse City Council, but it still underrepresents women and AAPI New Yorkers. And we’ve only had one non-white mayor—and no woman, as Quinn knows first-hand. There is no reason to be satisfied with our electoral status quo, especially given the terrible turnout we often see in citywide elections. RCV is a time-tested and data-driven solution to these problems.

Both Quinn and Thompson also spoke for many critics in calling this first covid-era citywide race “the worst time” to roll out RCV, implying that pandemic restrictions are forestalling face-to-face voter education. But we should take the opposite view: the high levels of attention on the open mayoral race makes it a remarkable opportunity to excite every voter with their ability to choose more than one candidate. Far more alienating than ranking multiple candidates would be a voter picking just one of over a dozen people, each with little chance to win—far worse would be conducting a primary election in which 80% of voters could see their candidate come up short. 

Education is more than possible with proper political will. Last year, I led an effort to ensure all of Maine’s general election voters—roughly the same number who will likely vote in our primary in June—could successfully request, complete, and return their ballots. Our educational lift was huge. Unprecedented numbers of citizens learned to request absentee ballots to cast by mail; at the same time, we worked to expand early voting opportunities and get the word out; and, after our advocacy, Maine rolled out new methods for curing defective ballots so they’d be counted even if voters made small mistakes. 

We saw record turnout—including myriad first-time and non-English-speaking voters. Maine is home to many immigrant voters who speak Somali and Arabic and others who are native speakers of Spanish and French. Learning how to register, get a ballot, return it, and cure it: these were the obstacles that threatened to keep voters out of the process. Filling in first-choice and second-choice circles next to candidates’ names was far more intuitive than navigating the broader bureaucracy of election administration.

Now it’s our turn. Not only will RCV be better for New York voters this year, but it will drive more engagement with local elections over the long-haul. By embracing RCV, we can foster a more aware and activated electorate that expects better from elections administrators and demands more from the officials we put in City Hall—even if those officials aren’t the number one choices on our ballots. 

My experience as voter protection director for Joe Biden and down-ballot Democrats in Maine threw into stark relief how important all (small-d) democratic reforms are. After the January 6 insurrection and the raft of suppressive laws being churned through state legislatures that followed Biden’s victory, the task of reinforcing our democracy is even clearer. Any process to increase voter participation and representativeness in our elections and government is crucial far beyond the implications of any one race; the dots from a ranked mayoral ballot to a thriving American democracy are, to me and other voter protection professionals, easy to connect. 

Thankfully, the Campaign Finance Board is running a $2 million education campaign, and initial skeptics like the New York City chapter of the NAACP are getting on board, among many other education efforts by the de Blasio administration, local civic groups, and others. It’s time for the rest of New York’s political leaders, and the still-mum mayoral candidates, to connect the dots on RCV—for themselves and their constituents. Besides, we’re the greatest city in the world. If Farmington and Fort Kent can do it, the five boroughs certainly can too.

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Ryder Kessler, a former executive board member of Manhattan’s Community Board 2, served as the Maine Democratic Party’s 2020 Voter Protection Director for Joe Biden and down-ballot Democrats. On Twitter @ryderkessler.

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The View from Above and Below: The Helicopters and Our Commons


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Helicopter in flight (photo: Julia Vitullo-Martin)


Like many of my neighbors on the Upper West Side I profoundly dislike and resent the tour helicopters that seem to unceasingly harass us on beautiful days, lining up equidistantly over the Hudson as if they were jets ready to land at JFK. Only they don’t land. They tremble and hover and circle stridently.

Still, I recognize that there are those who love them because the tour helis fly constantly and, apparently, full.

I decided to see for myself.

I booked directly with FlyNYON, which seems to have a semi-permanent 60% off & more sale. This means that basically you pay $350 per person, give or take a few dollars, for a 30-minute doors-off flight. You have to make your way to Kearny, New Jersey, which sits beneath the dazzling Pulaski Skyway. FlyNYON’s headquarters, housed in a handsomely converted warehouse, is landscaped and welcoming. Check-in is friendly and courteous, the video informative, and the waiting room pleasant. Likable employees outfit you with a harness that could hold a pony in place, and direct you to a van for a short ride to the helipad.

They really do mean doors off. No door whatsoever I learned, clutching my friend as we took off and trying to remember my high school physics class on centrifugal force. Something about vertical lift and equal and opposite reaction. We flew above industrial New Jersey, Manhattan looking like some fantastic futuristic kingdom in the distance. The pilot banked over the Hudson, tilting my side down almost perpendicular to the river. Awful sensation. No one else on the flight—all Gen Y—was worried in the least.

We cut over to Central Park via the 70s, which was common in pre-pandemic days, less so now. We circled slowly and noisily above Belvedere Lake and the Great Lawn for 8-10 minutes, reversing directions twice so that everyone could get their preferred photo, then turned East towards the river. “God, New York is beautiful,” said a young Serb, who had brought along his national flag, carrying the royal coat of arms that has replaced the Red Star. “Maybe the most beautiful place we’ve been,” murmured his friend, as we passed the towers of East Midtown. As we flew over the Brooklyn Bridge, the Statue of Liberty could be seen, growing larger and ever more thrilling as we approached. The Serb had hoped to photograph Lady Liberty beyond his proudly held Serbian flag, which wasn’t allowed.

I was the only one on the way home interested in photographing Port Newark-Elizabeth, which, with its immense container operation, had replaced Brooklyn, now a tiny remnant of its World War II glory.

For purposes of balance I also took a tour with Helicopter Flight Services, flying from the Downtown Heliport, a somewhat forlorn-looking facility that once booked 60,000 flights yearly. To fill out the flight’s 30 minutes we headed to the Verrazzano Bridge, skirting the Statue of Liberty, then flying over a pretty empty New York Bay. We returned, and flew up the Hudson, never crossing land as was agreed in 2016 when heli companies based at the Downtown Heliport contracted to reduce the number of flights by 50%, not fly over Governors Island, and turn around before the George Washington Bridge.

Our Heli Flight pilot never hovered. He was well aware of the landmarks, which he identified accurately, including the newly-opened Little Island, which he simply praised and moved on.

What I Learned in NJ: Complaints Matter
The most important lesson for those troubled about New York’s helicopter invasion is: Complaints make a difference, so keep up the protests. I asked our FlyNYON pilot why we did not pass the Empire State Building, as promised in the brochure. “The boss made a deal with the Eastern Region Helicopter Council to stay away from the Empire and the Chrysler,” he said. “Also the World Trade Center. Too many complaints.” This was confirmed by Jeffery Smith, ERHC’s vice president for operations and governmental affairs.

The redirection of routes away from Midtown and Chelsea is good news for those who had been under the old flight paths that had come close to clipping celebrated towers, but bad news for those suffering under the new flight paths—especially Central Park, which really does seem like Apocalypse Now on weekend days, as well as New York Harbor, the Brooklyn waterfront, and Governors Island. All of this is likely to get worse in the coming months.

Know Your Bad Guys
As we waited I spotted Bell helicopter N216MH parked on the tarmac beneath the Pulaski Skyway. That helicopter has often been castigated on social media as an especially bad (even “criminal”) FlyNYON tour heli. It is indeed a tour helicopter, but not for FlyNYON. Its customers were dropped off in a colorful van emblazoned “MiamiHelicopter.com” along with a non-working phone number. Our pilot said the real operator was newyorkhelicoptertours.com.

Many of the helicopters flying low and aggressively over New York are without callsigns or any identifiable registration. Some are Wings Air, flying out of Westchester; some are news helis, especially Channels 7, 8, and 11; and some are random private owners from neighboring states deciding to joyride around Manhattan. A Robinson 44 with a blocked registration from deep in New Jersey regularly circles and hovers at low altitudes late at night. No one can identify him and the FAA doesn’t care.

The point is that the FAA lets anyone—absolutely anyone—fly over New York, which has had more than its share of terrorist bombings over the years. To the FAA the skies are just a highway—skyway is the FAA term—that should be open to all, just as highways are open to all. In an attempt to understand and control the air traffic, Mayor Giuliani had mandated that all helicopters be marked with identification that could be clearly seen, much like MTA buses and NYPD patrol cars. Then-district court judge Sonia Sotomayor blocked him, enjoining the city from imposing any regulations.

What has helped us is not the federal government at all but private sector flight apps like FlightRadar and FlightAware that allow citizens to identify most of the offending helicopters. Some helicopters, however, such as the R44 cited above, turn off transponders and block all identifying data. This should not be allowed, but is, under the FAA’s free-for-all transpo policies. This is a matter of which the ERHC and industry groups could be productive, encouraging their members to identify themselves—and behave properly.

Save Our Parks!
To the FAA, our magnificent New York City parks are runways—open space with few or no buildings that are easily crossed at low altitudes by planes and helicopters. The FAA actually names its designated skyways after parks, the most notorious being “the Central Park route.” Jeff Smith points out that “the Central Park route letter of agreement with the LaGuardia tower is that we fly at 1,500 feet. Period.” That’s much too low, of course, for those below trying to enjoy a peaceful outing. The huge commuting Sikorskys that thunder through the park are especially destructive and, more often than not, fly well below 1,500 feet. Mayor Giuliani’s attempt to ban Sikorskys was also blocked by Judge Sotomayor.

Former New York City Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe, now President and CEO of the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, says, “With its route from the Hamptons the FAA is managing to kill some six parks across Brooklyn, starting with Floyd Bennett, then Marine Park, Greenwood Cemetery, Prospect Park, us, and Brooklyn Bridge Park.” Prospect Park is actually in the middle of what the FAA calls “the park route.” Brooklyn Community Board 6's district manager told Gothamist in 2014, “The air traffic over Prospect Park is in the approach to runway 3-1 at LaGuardia Airport and by the time they get to us the planes are around 1,000-3,000 feet overhead, which is quite low and loud. Prospect Park is an emergency landing zone, which is partly why they use the trajectory which brings them over our neighborhood.” This is still true. Says Benepe: “The places we go to get away from noise are exactly the places the FAA sends helicopters and planes over to make noise.” 

Even as we spoke, Benepe’s voice was muted by the helicopters circling above the Botanic Garden, which planned to hold “An Evening of Remembrance and Reflection” that night. Benepe was worried that the audience would have trouble hearing the performance of Breathe, a work for an ensemble of 20 brass and percussion musicians. Multiple news helis plus one NYPD helicopter had been circling over nearby Barclays Center, which was hosting a protest on the anniversary of George Floyd’s death. 

Why do we need news helis? he asks. Good question. In the old days news helicopters were useful for traffic, alerting drivers to accidents and blockages. But no more. Now we use phones and apps. But multiple news helis still fly to cover crashes—especially if they’re serious—and protests. And why? Helicopters cost some $200-400 and up per hour to operate and are likely to produce only a few minutes of footage to air. Fuel alone costs a Robinson R44 $113/hour, a Bell205A $380/hour, and a Sikorsky SK92 $755/hour. Why not set up a pool reporting system? This should be on the next mayor’s agenda: negotiate with the news stations for pool reporting.

The Tragedy of the Commons
Many New Yorkers would like the heliports closed. But that’s unlikely to happen, partly because of existing contracts but also because New York is a world city that needs to allow presidents, foreign dignitaries, and generic CEOs to fly in and out easily. We can rail about privileged big shots, but they’re crucial to New York’s economy and image (think Succession). “If the Pope can’t land you’re not a world city,” political consultant Jay Kriegel had said during an earlier push to close the Downtown Heliport.

But we need a return to a 1960s-type discussion of public goods, to resurrect an old Paul Samuelson term. Public goods are available to all and include such things as air, lighthouses, national defense, and public parks. The problem, Samuelson noted, can come with “free riders,” those who exploit, even damage, the public good without paying their fair share or paying anything at all—as in FlyNYON’s flights over Central Park, degrading the park experience for its legitimate users without paying a dime for its upkeep.

Or take the Tragedy of the Commons, in which an individual’s exploitation of a public good results in its depletion, imposing substantial damage on others. Examples include the original overgrazing of common lands in England, as well as over-fishing, over-hunting, or damage to broader goods like climate.

We all now pretty much agree that companies should not be freely polluting the air and water around them, and we all pretty much agree that noise is a form of pollution that should be curbed. As Benepe says about helicopters: “Noise is 80% of the problem.”

Noise can be corrected in at least two ways. First, helicopters should fly higher, which means the next mayor should be negotiating with ERHC and the FAA to rework FAA standards by which helis fly excessively low over our rivers and somewhat higher—but still too low—over land. Rob Wiesenthal, CEO of Blade Urban Air Mobility, says that his operators avoid flying over New York’s cityscape whenever possible. “And we are 100% supportive of a prohibition of flying over Central Park,” he adds.

A return to the old prohibition of flying across Central Park would be a productive initial step.

Second, noise can be corrected technologically—and will be in the next few years as Electric Vertical Aircraft, which are quiet and emission-free, come on line. Wiesenthal notes that heliports aren’t being built around the country these days because of noise. That will change as the industry changes.

In the meantime, let’s get the tour helicopters that are destroying our commons out of our skies.

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Julia Vitullo-Martin is a long-time editor and writer on cities. On Twitter @JuliaManhattan.

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State Education Commissioner Errs in Yeshiva Ruling


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Kids in Brooklyn (photo: Benjamin Kanter/Mayoral Photo Office)


Just when you thought the world of New York City yeshiva education couldn’t get any more like “Alice in Wonderland,” along comes a new ruling by New York State Education Commissioner Betty Rosa that, in Lewis Carroll's words, just makes the years-long dispute over lack of secular education at Hasidic yeshivas "curiouser and curiouser." 

Here’s the background: In September 2019, the mother of an eight-year-old boy attending a Brooklyn yeshiva filed a petition with Commissioner Rosa. The mother claimed that the New York City Department of Education (DOE) and the yeshiva are violating state law because her son was not receiving anything approaching the "substantially equivalent" secular education required by state education law on required instruction and patriotism & citizenship

The mother submitted sworn testimony on her visit to the school. She told Commissioner Rosa that the yeshiva’s “Principal of English” admitted that the school only teaches “tidbits” of required English classes because there isn’t enough time in the day given the yeshiva’s almost exclusive focus on Jewish religious texts. The City admitted that it had no idea what was going on in the school and the yeshiva put in no evidence at all on what English classes it teaches, how it teaches them, or for how many hours (or minutes) a day.  

But despite the uncontested evidence of state law violations and clear denial of the child's educational rights ("highly concerning," bemoaned the Commissioner), Rosa ruled that the State Education Department she runs lacks jurisdiction over the yeshiva when it comes to education; cannot investigate the mother’s allegations; and cannot force any changes at the school. Further, with topsy-turvy logic, the Commissioner conceded that while the Education Department has jurisdiction over yeshivas for some of their activities, it most certainly doesn’t have jurisdiction over the education they are (or are not) providing. Passing the hot potato back to the city, she said that responsibility rests solely with the DOE, which, according to the mayor's own Department of Investigation (DOI), delayed similar investigations Rosa now claims only the city can do. The DOI concluded that the City had improperly delayed similar investigations for years. Moreover, even when 26 of 28 investigated yeshivas were found in violation, the DOE never issued a final report, leaving the state education commissioner, in her self-paralyzing decree, without jurisdiction.

Not only is the Commissioner's decision educationally misguided, it is wrong on the law. State Education Law § 215 specifically empowers Commissioner Rosa to "visit, examine into and inspect" any school she wishes to; and it requires the school to report on any information requested. Violation of the request can lead to loss of "any of the rights and privileges of such institution,” including state funding.

Or consider this statutory requirement:  “The commissioner shall be the entity that determines whether nonpublic elementary. . .schools are in compliance with the academic requirements” of substantial equivalency.  

The law is clear: yeshiva kids must receive a secular education that is substantially equivalent to the education public school kids get. Period. The law has been on the books for over 100 years but no political or educational leader has shown the courage to face down the politically powerful yeshivas and their allies, groups that fight against any public agency looking into their instructional practices. And why do they fight so hard? Because the answer is so obvious: the yeshivas are in blatant violation of the Education Law and they don’t want the truth to come out.

Now Commissioner Rosa can add her name to the many Profiles in Cowardice. It’s not her first time: just last week she abandoned substantial equivalence regulations that had been three years in the making. Rosa’s refusal to investigate the specific charges against a single yeshiva by a parent consistent with administrative procedures is an abdication of her powers and, without such intervention, the parent's plea will go unremedied.

Justice delayed is justice denied. In a modern version of the Biblical story, David here is a mother protecting her son's right to learn English, History, Science, Math, and the Arts. Goliath is the voting bloc led by ultra-Orthodox yeshiva operators whose immense political strength protects them from legal compliance even as they feast on public funds. The mother's courageous stand supports family values, common sense, and her son’s clear legal and constitutional rights. Goliath must somehow fall again. 

As a result, the parent is now appealing the Commissioner’s decision to a New York state trial judge. If politics, power, and emotions are set aside to make room for the law and the facts, Goliath should finally meet his match. And the eight-year-old child at the complaint's center will finally get the education he and thousands of other ultra-Orthodox yeshiva students are owed under New York's Constitution and Education Law.

***
David C. Bloomfield is Professor of Education Leadership, Law, and Policy at Brooklyn College and The CUNY Graduate Center. David J. Shapiro is petitioner's attorney in Appeal of B.W., Commissioner's Decision No. 17983.

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Andrew Yang Cares


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Andrew Yang & Ron Kim meeting with home-care workers (photo: @rontkim)


This past weekend, I hosted a town hall discussion between Andrew Yang and home-care workers at the Flushing Workers Center. The home-care workers set the stage for a substantive discussion about ending the exploitative 24-hour work-shift, and helping the workers recover back wages from their employer. At the end of the discussion, they would press Yang, a Democrat running for Mayor who I have endorsed, to sign their home care workers’ pledge.

It was a tense, hour-long discussion. The workers shared heartbreaking testimonials of the physical, emotional, and psychological trauma they suffered from working 24-hour shifts over the years. Their scars, some visible, others more hidden, were deeply troubling to Andrew and his staff members.

For context: The 24-hour work-shift is a grueling around-the-clock work shift that endangers the lives of caretakers as well as patients. It is a cruelty that is unheard of in any other industry or even in the home-care industries of many other states. 

More often than not, home-care workers on the 24-hour shift are forced by their agencies to work beyond 13 hours, cutting into the five hours of uninterrupted sleep and three hours of uninterrupted eating times they are mandated under Department of Labor regulations. As much as state regulations need to be amended to end the 24-hour shift and enhance worker protections and rights, even under the current legal regime, the law unambiguously states that should the agency fail to provide the sleeping and eating time requisites for their employees, the agency must be held liable to compensate the workers for all 24 hours of their labor. 

However, these mandates are often ignored or not enforced due to the unfortunate superseding prioritization of industry stability over workers’ rights; thus the home-care agencies that have exploited their workers and neglected to pay their wages are not only committing a grave moral wrong, but are also in direct contravention of state law.

The Chinese Planning Council (CPC) home-care workers pushed back against these abuses and sued their agency for back wages to fully cover their 24-hour shifts. In 2019, case law made it unambiguously clear that the home care agency — the provider — must be held accountable for all 24 hours’ worth of wages. (See Andryeyeva, et al. v New York Health Care, Inc., et al. and Moreno, et al. v Future Care Health Services, Inc., et al.) 

For the record, New York is the only state to have 24-hour shifts for home-care workers. This is due in part to Governor Andrew Cuomo’s obstinate commitment to profit over lives. My colleagues in the Legislature and I are working to end this inhumane practice completely by the end of this session.

Andrew Yang sat and listened to the stories from the home-care workers, and was initially hesitant to sign their pledge. But after seeing the physical impairments of the workers—who themselves need around-the-clock care—he signed the pledge, becoming the first New York City mayoral candidate to do so.

It is rare for a politician to come from a place of vulnerability, listen, and be moved. It is even more rare to show this vulnerability over a live-stream, without preconditions or guardrails from a campaign, leaving their candidate open to public scrutiny.  

Andrew demonstrated that the podium is reserved for the brave.

So far, he is the only mayoral candidate to see the obvious truth: that these home-care workers are being exploited. And because he is independent of establishment institutions, he is unafraid to take ethical stances when it is not politically expedient.

This should be a watershed moment for all of us—lawmakers, labor unions, activists, and nonprofit providers—to reflect on our shortcomings.

How did we allow ourselves to become aligned with exploitative institutions that brand themselves "socially just" and “progressive” without real scrutiny? Have we become so deferential that we assume any entity with “nonprofit” status is beyond reproach?

Andrew showed moral clarity even when some of my progressive colleagues have turned a blind eye towards these abuses. That hypocrisy leaves us open for criticism and exposes our stances as ones of convenience rather than consistency. Our values must hold strong regardless of who we need to hold accountable or who we call in to achieve them.  

Home-care agencies like CPC have gaslit their workers in public and in the courts, and given morally and legally baseless excuses for not paying their back wages. Despite the courts weighing in on this, the employers choose to impose forced arbitration in order to litigate against their home-care workers.

Is this industry and system as a whole morally corrupt and dysfunctional? Yes. The Cuomo nursing home scandal elucidated the depths of immoral self-dealing and untenable working conditions. I am now laser-focused on cleaning up this industry failure from the top down.

What is taking place is wrong, there is no other way to slice it. These workers have been suffering for over ten years. With Andrew Yang on board, I’m more hopeful than ever we can get this right. He stood for and acted on his convictions — that is what I want for our next mayor.

***
Ron Kim is a member of the State Assembly representing parts of Queens and has endorsed Andrew Yang in this year’s mayoral race. On Twitter @rontkim.

***
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More Cops in the City Won’t Solve What's a National Gun Violence Spike


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The mayor at a policing press conference (Mayor's Office)


People joke that New Yorkers think our city is the center of the universe, but judging by the recent media coverage, you’d think the rest of the country fell off the map. As we respond to the heartbreaking surge in shootings, many are quick to link the trend to civil rights protections like bail reform or the repeal of the controversial police secrecy statute 50-a. But the truth is that this isn’t a New York City problem, it’s a national crisis, with homicides up in nearly every city.

Of course, New Yorkers are right to worry more about crimes in our own communities, but as we grasp for explanations, we have to remember that more than local issues are to blame. New York’s homicide rate was up nearly 40% last year, but it was up 33% for all major cities.

Yet none of this has stopped NYPD leaders, police unions, and others from weaponizing the crime spike in a cynical effort to push back on recent historic civil rights protections. Every time a high-profile crime occurs, they blame “the do-nothing pols,” without ever really showing how politicians have supposedly undermined safety. And if New York’s leaders were somehow culpable for our city’s crime surge, just how did they manage to do the same nationwide? The argument makes no sense.

Instead, police boosters keep doubling down on this big lie: that we have to choose between safety and equity. That we have to allow them to act with impunity or somehow society will fall apart. But the truth is that we’ve seen this playbook before, far too many times, and we know where it leads.

If police use this moment to roll back civil rights, New Yorkers will suffer. One of the laws that the police unions hate most was the repeal of section 50-a. This long-standing statute was reinterpreted by the de Blasio administration to block public access to police disciplinary files. The unions fought the move to repeal 50-a tooth and nail, including going to court to block it, and they lost.

Now, as a result, the public has access to years of abuse allegations against officers, detailing the ways New Yorkers’ rights were violated and bodies brutalized. Is this making New York less safe? Not unless you’re an abusive cop.

Next, they complain about the years-long campaign to reform bail abuse in New York. Prior to last year’s reforms, New Yorkers were routinely held for months, even years, simply because they couldn’t afford to pay bail. Under our bail laws, poverty was a death sentence for New Yorkers like Kalief Browder and Layleen Polanco. But New York quickly rolled back some of the bail laws last year, and thousands of New Yorkers are still being held on bail, even now, in the middle of a pandemic. 

It would be bad enough if it were only the NYPD and police unions spreading this fiction, but many leading candidates for mayor have joined them. In the aftermath of a tragic shooting in Times Square, which wounded a small child, Eric Adams and Andrew Yang railed against police reforms and promised the return of deadly and abusive plainclothes police units. Neither candidate could explain how such officers would have prevented this horrific attack, and both almost exclusively avoided the tragic history of what plainclothes police have done in the past.

Plainclothes units were disbanded after last summer’s protests against police violence, but it was only the most recent time. The same squad had been disbanded two decades prior (and later reassembled) after officers shot Amadou Diallo 41 times.

While it’s clear that plainclothes officers are more prone to complaints of violence and excessive force, it’s not clear how they help supposedly lower crime. In the past, officers spent most of their time on discredited tactics like stop and frisk, subjecting Black and Latino New Yorkers to constant harassment. 

We’re all desperate to return to the pre-pandemic city we love, but telling the public policing fairy tales won’t get us there. The sad, somber truth is that as long as we face massive unemployment and insecurity, desolate streets, and closed-down classrooms, no police policy will help. We just can’t arrest our way out of a pandemic.

***
Albert Fox Cahn is the founder and executive director of the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project (S.T.O.P.) and a fellow at Yale Law School’s Information Society Project and the Engelberg Center for Innovation Law & Policy at New York University School of Law. On Twitter @FoxCahn.

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We Deserve Equal Pay for Equal Work and Students Deserve Good Care: An Open Letter from School Nurses


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Nurses help (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office)


Dear Mayor de Blasio and other city budget decision-makers,

The federal government recently provided funds for our school system to recover from the pandemic as part of the American Rescue Plan’s Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER). In addition, New York State has fully funded the Foundation Aid formula for the first time since 2007. A public health crisis brought our city to a grinding halt in early 2020, and the decade-old school nurse crisis has reached a zenith of daily shortages, anger over working conditions, and pay inequity. New York City has enough money to care for the health of our students in schools. School nurses must be included in the next city budget, for fiscal year 2022, due by July 1. 

The health and welfare of children in schools has not been a priority for this administration. There is a crisis in our schools due to a severe shortage of Permanent Full Time Nurses. With over 400 vacancies citywide, our children are at risk. 

These are the facts that you and other decision-makers have chosen to ignore. First, it is difficult to attract nurses at a lower salary that is uncompetitive with the industry’s prevailing wage for nurses. School nurses are essential, yet the average pay for a Department of Health/Mental Health (DOHMH) Public Health School Nurse is approximately $62,000 per year. Registered Nurses in New York City are paid on average $84,000. Retention for school nurses is therefore poor: approximately 50% leave the job in 3-6 months.

Further, Department of Education (DOE) nurses are paid more (and work fewer hours) but there is a three-year wait list to get one of those coveted spots. This pay disparity between DOE and DOHMH School Nurses negatively impacts the work environment. We demand equal pay for equal work. In addition, DOHMH nurses perform the same professional job and role in the school for a lower salary and fewer benefits. DOHMH nurses are also first responders for city emergencies. 

During the Pandemic, Travel Nurses were hired from around the country and paid higher rates, put up in hotels, and paid a daily meal stipend – amounting to about double the rate that our local nurses get but for doing less work. As you know, these traveling nurses are leaving New York City at the end of this school year, which is the main reason we stand to have 400 vacancies with no plan to solve the problem before the 2021-2022 school year.  

In addition, School Nurses are engaged in direct and preventative care with an emphasis on family involvement. In New York City Schools, there are greater than 200,000 children with asthma, greater than 2,000 diabetic children, greater than 40,000 children with severe allergies requiring EPI pens, and countless others with both physical and emotional disabilities. Without proper care, children suffer. This spring alone, we lost a child to asthma in Harlem who should have had access to his school nurse. Multiple children died by suicide in New York City, and we nurses know that the health of our students must be prioritized as our schools fully reopen. 

You have chosen to outsource nurses to save money, but contract nurses do not have access to online health records (ASHR) or develop relationships within their school communities. Taxpayers don’t even benefit from the savings, because of unintended consequences such as lawsuits, like the one involving families with diabetic children and the American Diabetes Association. 

Perhaps what’s most dangerous is the fact that dozens of schools go unstaffed each school day, leading to scheduling changes. School nurses are frequently expected to leave their schools unattended and travel to other schools to administer medications and treatments. If a school nurse cannot get there, the Principal often calls 911 if a child needs care. And if no nurse can be staffed for the day, the Principal contacts the parent of a child with a medical need before school to keep the student at home for the day. 

Finally, conditions in medical rooms need improvement. Many medical rooms do not have air conditioning and proper ventilation. This can have a number of negative outcomes, including compromising children with asthma when they are being treated by the nurse. 

People take notice when there are emergencies and fatalities, but by then it’s too late. We need to take action now, we have the funds from the state and federal governments, and we must prioritize the health of the children in our schools. The only right choice is to hire permanent, full-time nurses for our schools.

Respectfully,
School Nurses

P.S. We will be rallying to make this call of our elected leaders on the steps of 52 Chambers Street on Wednesday, May 26, at 5 p.m. if you care to join us.

This open letter is signed by retired DOHMH Nurse Supervisor Mary Lawson, two other retired nurses and nurse supervisors, and 25 working nurses from DOE and DOHMH and all five boroughs. Most signers have preferred to remain anonymous due to their employment situations and fear of adverse career impacts from coming forward.

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The Latino Vote and the Bronx Borough President Race


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Ruben Diaz Jr. (photo via Bronx Borough President's office)


Term limits mean a slew of hotly-contested races every eight years in New York City. This year, not only is the mayor’s race in this category, but the race to succeed outgoing Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz, Jr. is too, yet it is one that is unfortunately attracting little attention.

The Bronx borough president race has five candidates on the ballot: Fernando Cabrera, Nathalia Fernandez, Vanessa Gibson, Sammy Ravelo, and Luis Sepulveda. Four of these five candidates are currently in elected office, come to the race with some name recognition in their respective districts, and are funded adequately with public matching money.

Historically, the Bronx Borough President position has been significant for Latinos. As the only Latino-majority borough in the City of New York, the Bronx has elected four Latinos to represent its borough in the last 50 years. The first Latino elected to the position was the iconic Herman Badillo, who won the position in 1965. Badillo’s victory was a pivotal moment in New York City Latino political history, and came at a time at which the Latino population in the borough (mostly Puerto Rican) was growing. This growth eventually led to an increase in Latino political representation; one that, at least in the Bronx, was paved by the likes of Badillo.

Badillo went on to run for mayor a number of times, but fell short of making history by being the first Latino to occupy Gracie Mansion.

Twenty years later, Fernando Ferrer became the second Latino to occupy the seat of Bronx borough president. During his 14 years of service, the “Bronx is burning” image of the borough began to dissipate. New development and new businesses replaced abandoned buildings, and with them came more jobs. Ferrer then tried to take his vision citywide, running for mayor in 2001 and 2005. He won the Democratic primary in 2005 but lost to Michael Bloomberg in the general election. Since then, Latinos have not had another prominent and recognized Latino candidate for mayor.

Adolfo Carrion succeeded Ferrer and like him made a bid for Gracie Mansion, but fell well short. In a special election to replace Carrion, who had accepted a position in the Obama White House, Ruben Diaz, Jr. won and has been the borough president since. Diaz, Jr. was at one point a candidate for the mayoralty and was considered in the top tier until he dropped out of the race.

All four of the Latino borough presidents in the Bronx, by virtue of the (largely symbolic) influence of their borough-wide posts, positioned themselves for the mayoralty and have been, until Dianne Morales' current candidacy, the only credible and viable Latino candidates for the mayoralty.

Having several viable Latino candidates on the ballot, all from different sections of the Bronx, may splinter the Latino vote, paving the way for a possible victory by Vanessa Gibson and the first non-Latino Bronx borough president in 35 years. The current voter rolls give us an indication that this may be a distinct possibility. Among the entire Democratic electorate, Latinos make up the largest share among all ethnic categories in the Bronx, with 285,586 voters. Black voters are second with 191,944. 

My theory has some quantifiable backing in the poll commissioned by StudentsFirstNY and undertaken by the reputable Benenson Strategy Group. The poll shows Gibson with a lead and the Latino candidates receiving between 9% and 12% of the vote-share among those polled.

Of the four Latinos in this year’s borough president race, City Council Member Fernando Cabrera has raised the most money and has received more public matching money than any other candidate. While he comes into the race with significant legislative experience, his conservative social values have been a cause of concern for many in the borough.

Nathalia Fernandez is the only Latina in the race and placed second in the aforementioned April poll. She has the least amount of money left in her coffers, so she may run into some difficulty getting her message across to a borough-wide electorate. Sepulveda and Ravelo round out the rest of the field.

Though this is an expansive, borough-wide race, media exposure and voter attention will largely be focused on the mayoral race. These next few weeks are therefore a critical time for the candidates to get their names and message before the Bronx electorate.

Will Latinos splinter their votes? If so, will the Bronx, the only Latino-majority borough in the city, elect its first non-Latino borough president in 35 years? We’ll know soon.

***
Eli Valentin is an adjunct lecturer at Union Theological Seminary, a frequent guest political analyst at Univision NY and author of the forthcoming, Reinhold Niebuhr: A Political Life. On Twitter @EliValentinNY.

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How District Attorneys Must Step Up to Support Survivors


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A rally for survivors (photo: Ed Reed/Mayoral Photography Office)


The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office doesn’t currently have prosecutors dedicated to combatting sex crimes. Yes, you read that right. Assistant District Attorneys responsible to victims of sexual violence simultaneously work in the Trial Bureaus and on sex crimes. This means that staff are overloaded, victims are not being put first, and the system churns rather than addresses the root causes of the violence. 

As a survivor of sexual violence and as a prosecutor whose career has been focused on just processes and just outcomes, together we have thought a lot about how to best reform a sex crimes unit. In order to center survivors and fight the public health crisis that is sexual violence and gender-based crimes, a modern sex crimes unit must start by reorganizing its staffing and priorities in order to rebuild its reputation.

Here are some key steps to take in reform:

Be unequivocal about special access
Recent reporting showed how Linda Fairstein used her privileged access on behalf of New York elites to influence the outcome of sex crimes cases. This behavior and the DA’s responsiveness further stacks the deck against survivors and denies accountability. We must foster an environment in which more survivors feel they can safely disclose abuse and there is not even the perception of conflict or favoritism. This starts with refusing to take campaign donations from any lawyer who appears before the DA’s office. Leadership must be unequivocal about special access.

Focus and expand the staff
Dedicate staff to the Sex Crimes Unit who can develop deep expertise. And, have the team report directly to the DA. Staffing will include a significant number of non-attorneys, such as social workers, medical professionals, investigators, and others to help utilize the trauma-informed processes to foster an environment in which more survivors feel they can safely disclose abuse. Believing survivors means supporting them in many ways. This also means including ADAs and staff who themselves are survivors of sexual assault. Lived experience, empathy, and cultural humility are assets in this fight. 

Mend strained relationships
We know that sexual assault is the most underreported violent crime in the country. We must build trust by centering the survivor. Staff the Sex Crimes Unit 24/7 so that survivors can always find support. Build back trust from the survivor and allied communities by stepping up to always be there. Create a meaningful staff partnership with the NYPD so that if victims contact them first, DA staff are involved at the very beginning of an investigation. Survivors should never be denied justice because of a tug of war between branches of law enforcement.

Reduce siloes
Throughout my career, I (Alvin) have done “connect-the-dots” investigations that look at systems of unlawful conduct: i.e. the hostile work environment at The Weinstein Company; New York Dioceses of the Catholic Church’s role in facilitating and covering up sexual abuse (which led to a recent lawsuit accusing the Roman Catholic Diocese of Buffalo and three bishops connected to it of engaging in a years-long cover-up of sexual abuse by priests). This holistic approach is a sharp departure from the status quo. Staff need expertise not only in investigating individual sex assaults, but also investigating complicit entities.

DAs must look at the account of one survivor as part of a bigger picture with the possibility of serial misconduct, complicity by other individuals or an entity, cover-up activity like lying or obstruction, and laundering of funds to facilitate sex offenses. The office must rigorously track complaint data to look for trends, use of banking and financial services information to track money flows, and use of required business records to establish false filing cases. White-collar crimes can no longer be seperate from sex crimes because siloed offices hurt survivors. This approach will also help identify powerful groups who sought to protect their reputations by ignoring warning signs or even hiding violent criminal activity perpetrated on people they were supposed to protect. 

Prosecutors’ offices are about power — how it is exercised and on whose behalf it is wielded. Our experiences with the criminal legal system, while very different , have shown us both that there are two systems of justice — one for the wealthy and powerful and one for everyone else. It is time for this to end.

***
Alvin Bragg is a candidate for Manhattan District Attorney and former Chief Deputy Attorney General in New York State. Marissa Hoechstetter is an advocate and sexual assault survivor. On Twitter @AlvinBraggNYC & @MHoechstetter.

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