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Queens Council District Holds City's First Ranked-Choice Election


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New York City voting (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayor's Office)


In spite of the challenges posed by the pandemic, and in some ways in response to them, 2020 proved to be a historic year for voting in New York City, with 3 million ballots cast in the presidential election in November, including a record-breaking 662,314 absentee ballots after the state eased rules on voting by mail, and unprecedented long lines at early voting poll-sites in the first presidential election with the nine-day period implemented in New York.

Moving into 2021, the newest change impacting New Yorkers’ ballots is the first-ever implementation of ranked-choice voting (RCV), which applies to special elections and party primary elections for city government positions.

The launch of ranked-choice voting will be a special election to replace the vacant seat formerly held by Rory Lancman in the 24th City Council District, covering parts of eastern Queens including Kew Gardens Hills, Pomonok, Eastchester, Fresh Meadows, Hillcrest, Jamaica Estates, Briarwood, Parkway Village, Jamaica Hills, and Jamaica. The ballot is set and absentee voting is underway, while early voting runs January 23-January 31, and election day itself February 2.

The winner will serve out the rest of this term for Lancman, who took a position in Governor Andrew Cuomo’s administration, which means the rest of 2021. Meanwhile, the regularly-scheduled 2021 election for the seat, along with the rest of the City Council and city government, will take place with the primary in June and a fall general election. The winner of the special election, like those in several other City Council districts with special elections from December or upcoming, will quickly have to defend his or her seat.

The race in City Council District 24 will be crucial not only for representation for that district and its residents, but as a litmus test for ranked-choice voting’s strengths and weaknesses in advance of the other special elections set for February and March, as well as the full citywide primaries in June.

Six of the City Council hopefuls in the eight-candidate District 24 race appeared this past week at a forum on ranked-choice voting, hosted by Rank the Vote NYC a coalition of elected officials, business and labor leaders, and other reform groups that led the charge in 2019 to implement ranked-choice voting in New York City, Common Cause NY, the nonpartisan organization behind Rank the Vote NYC that has led education efforts on ranked-choice voting in New York City, the Queens Daily Eagle, Disability Rights NY, and the Northeast Queens Chapter of the NAACP. The event was moderated by David Brand, the managing editor of the Queens Daily Eagle, and Aditi Lamba, an anchor at ITV Gold, a South Asian network.

The six candidates, listed in alphabetical order by last name, included Moumita Ahmed, a progressive community organizer, who is endorsed by the Working Families Party; James Gennaro, the former City Council member for District 24 in Queens, who served three terms from 2002 to 2013; Neeta Jain, a Democratic district leader and practicing psychologist; Dilip Nath, a higher education executive and president of the New American Voters Association; Deepti Sharma, a small business advocate and entrepreneur, including as founder of Food to Eat, a catering platform for small and mostly immigrant-owned restaurants; and Soma Syed, a practicing attorney and Queens County Women’s Bar Association president. Candidates Michael Brown, a real estate agent, and Mujib Rahman, a community activist, were not present at the forum. All candidates are Democratic, and with the exception of Gennaro, all are first-time candidates to the City Council. Special elections in the city are non-partisan, whereby candidates run on self-created ballot lines, so there are no party primaries or ballot lines from the major or even minor parties.

The content of the forum focused on how candidates were incorporating ranked-choice voting into their campaign outreach, including education on ranked-choice voting, how ranked-choice voting would minimize vote splitting, or where ideologically or demographically similar candidates split a base of support, increasing the likelihood of a dissimilar candidate winning instead, and how the new voting system was affecting their candidacies overall, including broaching “taboo” or “hot-button” topics with voters and their interactions with the other candidates. Forum participants were not asked questions about district-specific issues, although candidates nevertheless raised them in their responses.

In the interest of time, Brand and Lamba introduced the candidates themselves. Participating candidates appeared at the same time and took turns answering the same questions. They were each given 1-2 minutes to answer each question.

Kenny Cohen, the president of the Northeast Queens NAACP, opened the forum saying, “NAACP has been fighting for voting rights since its inception in 1909. To see this beautiful, diverse group of candidates running here in this City Council District 24 in Queens is a beautiful sight. And it's a testament to the work that NAACP and all the civil rights advocates in the past have done to get us to this point.”

Before the Q&A portion of the forum began, Sean Dugar, the education campaign program director for Rank the Vote NYC, a citywide education and outreach initiative on ranked-choice voting, explained how ranked-choice voting works with a slideshow presentation, followed by a mock election.

In summary, the new ranked-choice voting process allows voters to select up to five candidates (including a write-in) in order of preference. To win outright, a candidate must reach over 50% of the first-place votes. If a candidate does not win a majority of first-place votes on first count, then the candidate with the lowest number of first-place votes is eliminated and their votes are redistributed to the remaining candidates based on their voters’ second choices. This process repeats itself until only two candidates are left, and then the person with most votes is declared the winner. The system will apply starting this year to party primary and special elections for City Council, Borough President, Public Advocate, City Comptroller, and Mayor.

The goals of ranked-choice voting include preventing polarized elections, promoting demographically and ideologically diverse candidates and officeholders, increasing voter awareness of candidates who are running, disincentivizing negative campaigning, and eliminating the need for costly runoff elections, which have applied to party primaries for citywide positions. And perhaps most of all, ranked-choice voting is meant to ensure that the winner of crowded elections has broad support among the constituents they are elected to represent.

Although the referendum passed with nearly 75% of the vote when a Charter Revision Commission put ranked-choice voting before New York City voters in the fall of 2019, critics have argued that it was an especially low turnout election given little was on the ballot and that the city has not adequately prepared voters for the change, potentially leading to voter suppression in marginalized communities where voters may not rank as many choices. But proponents of the new system disagree, pointing out that organizers in communities where voter suppression is more common led the charge for ranked-choice voting in the first place and that there is a robust voter-education underway. They also note that the 2019 Charter Revision Commission did painstaking work in a public process before proposing ranked-choice voting.

Brand kicked off the Q&A portion of the forum, saying, “It's a historic moment. It's our city's first use of ranked-choice voting, and it’s cool that it's happening in Queens.”

Lamba added that candidates in the race for District 24 were also scheduled to meet the following night on Thursday, January 14 for a forum co-hosted by multiple local organizations — Chhaya CDC, a housing advocacy organization geared toward low-income South Asian and Indo-Caribbean New Yorkers; India Home, a center for senior care; the Chinese-American Planning Council, an organization dedicated to the economic empowerment of Chinese American, immigrant, and low-income communities; Shetu, a community-based non-profit organization that assists low-income, Bangladeshi immigrant populations; APA VOICE, a non-partisan, pan-Asian coalition that seeks to increase civic engagement in the Asian-American community; and the MinKwon Center for Community Action, a Korean-led community group focused on social services for marginalized Asian Americans — and encouraged audience members to attend.

Brand posed the first question, asking candidates how City Council District 24’s diversity has influenced their campaign outreach. According to 2010 Census data, District 24’s total 167,448 population was 33.2% white, 28.9% Asian, 21.8% Hispanic, and 11.7% Black. District 24 has the largest Bangladeshi population of any City Council District, with over 10,000 people, part of an overall New York City population where Bangladeshis are the fifth largest Asian group overall, with almost 62,000 residents, according to the 2015 American Community Survey..

“I actually helped pass ranked-choice voting as field and education director for Common Cause. I believe in this way of voting; otherwise, I wouldn't have gotten involved,” Ahmed said.

“As the only renter running, I am mobilizing all of our communities around the issue of housing justice,” she continued, listing numerous endorsements from various civic groups, including the Hispanic American Voter Association, the Working Families Party, New York Communities for Change, Bangladeshi American Advocacy Group, and The Jewish Vote. “That's how we're talking to voters. That's how we're advancing the agenda of ranked-choice voting.”

Sharma began on a personal note, saying, “I was born and brought up in this district on 150 Fifth Street, right by Queens College. My son is going to the same school that I went to, and our focus has been talking to every single voter.” Although Sharma is one of six candidates in the race hoping to become the first South Asian elected to the City Council, she also emphasized, “I'm not here to represent the South Asian district, but every single person that makes this beautiful district exactly what it is.” She went on to add that she wants to prioritize her voters' concerns, citing COVID-19 relief, the vaccine rollout, and safe schools, workplaces, and neighborhoods.

“What better place to have ranked voting than here,” said Nath, referring to Queens, which is the most racially and ethnically diverse county in the country. He went on to praise term limits for creating space for new and diverse leadership, saying that “ranked-choice voting will further enhance the concept of diversity and inclusion.” He added, “What matters to you, what matters to Jewish [communities], what matters to South Asian or Latino [communities], is what matters to me.”

While Jain concurred that ranked-choice voting is important for amplifying diverse voices, including immigrants, she disagreed with the question’s premise, saying, “It is not affecting my election.” Jain highlighted her experience of community leadership — 30 years of practicing psychology, four years as a Democratic district leader, eight years as a founder of the civic engagement group International Ahimsa Foundation, and one year as the elected president of Daniel Patrick Moynihan Democratic Club of Queens — for “making a difference in their [people’s] lives.”

Jain stressed the range of problems that she has personally witnessed people facing during the pandemic, citing small business owners who went to her for “help to fill out the forms for SBA loans” and “kids suffering at home” because “schools do not have proper devices” for remote learning.

Gennaro emphasized his political career and the network of contacts he developed throughout his tenure as a City Council member, saying, “I was the one that appointed Kenny Cohen to the community board,” referring to Community Board 8 in Queens, and “I appointed the first Bangladeshi woman to Community Board 8,” alluding to Nargis Ahmed. “I’m quite confident that my relationships will serve me well in the upcoming election,” he said. Recalling his history with the community, Gennaro said, “I've had the ability to immerse myself in every community and really have a profound impact. I think people remember and appreciate that.”

Since his departure from the City Council in 2013, Gennaro has served in the Cuomo administration as the deputy commissioner for New York City Sustainability and Resiliency at the Department of Environmental Conservation.

In contrast, Syed said, “We need leadership that is of the future, not of the past.” Growing up in Jamaica and her experience as an attorney working pro-bono cases, has enabled her to form deep bonds within the community, across racial lines, Syed said. “Whether it be the Black community, Hispanic community, the Asian community, the Jewish community, and the white community — we are all together in one community. We’re all looking to better our lives, and the lives of our future, our children.”

Lamba asked if there were any issues that candidates considered “taboo” or “too hot” that they felt ranked-choice voting allowed them to talk about more openly or even campaign on.

“We have to make sure that we're talking about workers’ rights, and that includes sex workers,” began Ahmed, pointing out how certain groups like undocumented immigrants are excluded from federal aid and government protections. On that note, Ahmed spotlighted the “homelessness situation” as a “top priority,” explaining that “we’re closer to being homeless than becoming billionaires right now.” Even though these topics are often seen as taboo because “we’re talking about working-class Black and brown folks,” Ahmed said she believes they shouldn’t be. “That’s why ranked-choice voting is so great,” she added, “because it allows candidates like myself who come from working-class families...to talk about working class issues.”

‘Policing is one of those issues that I've noticed that does alienate a few people, or groups of people,” said Sharma, ““one of the most important things that we need to think about.” To illustrate her point, Sharma described an incident as told to her by a Queens College student, who experienced a panic attack during finals. He called 911, but instead of a mental health professional or social worker, police officers responded to the call, and they handcuffed him. According to Sharma, “That didn’t help the situation. That made it worse.” She explained that the crux of the problem is funding, and then she centered Pomonok Community Center, which “used to have programs like taekwondo, gymnastics, and dance” but now “the only thing that exists there is homework help.”

“When we talk about investing in our communities, we need to keep talking about where the money is going to come from,” Sharma said, though she did not explicitly raise support for the “defund the police” movement.

For Gennaro, “Nothing is taboo. Nothing is off the table. Everything has to be discussed.” In response to Sharma’s mention of the Pomonok Community Center, where she said she personally benefited from its enrichment programs, Gennaro said, “I was happy to fund the good programming that she enjoyed.”

Sharma clarified by saying, “I did that in the 90s, though,” predating Gennaro’s tenure on the City Council.

On the question of taboo issues, Syed said, “I haven’t shied away from any issue. Everything that’s happening to even one person in our community needs to be discussed.”

Jain flagged mental health as a conventionally taboo subject that she believes needs to be discussed more on a political scale. “School children are growing up with anxiety. Our youth are out on the streets, and they are doing more drug abuse. Our seniors are going through depression.” She warned, “We really have to pay attention” because “it’s not going to go away that easily.”

Nath decried the state of remote learning, calling out the economic pressures placed upon low-income families who cannot afford high-speed broadband or laptops or iPads. He also pointed out that the closure of three hospitals in Queens in 2009 effectively transformed the borough into the epicenter of the pandemic a decade later.

Brand then asked candidates how they thought ranked-choice voting might serve voters and how it has affected the way they talk about themselves, as well as other candidates.

Candidates seemed to unanimously agree that ranked-choice voting creates a more level playing field for candidates in the electoral process. “RCV is giving a broader platform to everyone,” said Jain.

Candidates also agreed that the new voting system allowed them to focus more on the issues rather than political attacks. “It's giving a chance for voters to actually research and look up every single candidate because now that they know that they're not just voting for their number one,” said Sharma. She also said that these conversations with voters in which she’s able to focus solely on the issues, have enabled her to squeeze into voters’ number two slots in cases where she isn’t their top pick, thereby securing as many votes as possible.

Lamba asked candidates how they thought ranked-choice voting minimized the spoiler effect, or vote splitting between candidates who share similar demographics or ideologies.

“We are trying very hard through RCV not to split votes,” began Jain, “but I think that it’s still going to happen.” Jain said she has conducted an educational seminar for voters on ranked-choice voting and is planning another one soon, which she hopes will minimize vote splitting.

Syed expressed some doubt over the abilities of the New York City Campaign Finance Board and New York City Board of Elections to “invest enough resources and time to educate voters about RCV.” She went on to say that these shortcomings are “going to affect our minority communities who are already marginalized, who are afraid of the voting process. It falls on the candidates to pick up the slack and educate the voters.”

Gennaro said he didn’t think significant vote splitting would occur, saying, “I think that the whole idea of ranked-choice voting is to turn that splitting phenomenon on its head.” He did concur with Syed that “there has not been enough education by the Board of Elections and by the Campaign Finance Board,” concluding that “this election is going to be a little bit of a shakeout.”

Nath did not directly answer the question but voiced praise for the “many minority candidates running for office” compared to when he ran in 2005 for the same seat.

Sharma said she’s hoping to mitigate vote splitting by staying focused on the issues rather than identity politics. “I don't just talk about my race. I don't just talk about my gender. I talk about the things that are affecting them.”

“The beauty of ranked-choice voting is, yes, it diversifies the slate in terms of our identity. But issues, as well,” added Ahmed, citing her pro-worker platform.

Brand then asked what was possibly the most controversial yet straight-forward question posed during the forum: who is your second choice?

Sharma answered, “We are still analyzing our second choice based on how these forums go. I want to know that people are the same in every room, and don't pick and choose what they say, when it's convenient.”

Jain also said she was in the process of evaluating her candidate picks.

“My ballot is private,” said Gennaro, “but I will keep my eye on the candidates as the race progresses.” When Brand called this a “cop-out answer,” Gennaro told him, “I reject your characterization,” claiming that revealing his second choice would in effect attempt to “manipulate the voters.”

Syed also said she has not yet decided on a second choice candidate, saying that she is going to wait for more debates to hear other candidates’ platforms.

Nath did not explicitly share any names, but named top priorities: education, health care, and housing. He also said he’d rank candidates with “roots in the community.” Nath said he’s undecided on his fifth choice.

Ahmed was the only one who shared her candidate picks, saying, “I like to walk the walk.” She went on to disclose that Sharma will get one of her votes because of her detailed housing plan, Nath will also get a vote from Ahmed, who praised his work with New American Voters Association, and she also committed to voting for Jain because she supports taxing the rich. She didn’t name a fifth vote.

For the final question, which was submitted by a member of the audience, candidates were asked how they were educating voters on completing their ballots under the new system.

Gennaro, Nath, and Syed all identified reminding voters to vote for up to five different candidates as part of their education on ranked-choice voting in order to maximize the potential of the new voting system.

Sharma said her campaign volunteers have been taught how to educate voters on ranked-choice voting through a script and training sessions.

“We have literature in multiple languages explaining how ranked-choice voting works,” said Ahmed, who also pairs this education with reminders about her platform and endorsements, so that they will think of her on Election Day.

In addition to educational seminars, Jain also said that she has a sample ballot on her phone, which she uses to demonstrate for voters how the ballot will look and how to use it.

The forum on Thursday night, hosted by Chhaya CDC, India Home, Chinese-American Planning Committee (CPC NYC), Shetu, APA VOICE, and the MinKwon Center for Community Action, also began with an educational presentation on ranked-choice voting. After that, the candidates each had one minute to introduce themselves. The Q&A portion of the forum was divided into four rounds including questions from members of the organizations sponsoring the event; a “lightning round” requiring short answers; audience questions; and the candidates selecting an opponent of their choice to ask a question.

The questions posed to candidates touched on plans for social services, language accessibility, gentrification and displacement, land use, housing, tenants’ rights, senior care, the city budget, and more. The forum was moderated by Habib Rahman of TBN24, a Bangla language live television channel.

Although originally scheduled to appear, Gennaro cancelled an hour or so before the event, according to organizers. Habib called this news “disappointing” a few times throughout the forum, and said, “We’d like to thank all of the candidates who saw it important to come to the forum and speak to everybody who’s here.” Candidates Mujib Rahman and Michael Brown were also missing.

When asked how they would enhance professional development programs geared toward immigrant and undocumented communities, all of the candidates agreed that language accessibility was a crucial aspect of this and proposed different strategies.

Syed suggested coordinating with the Small Business Administration to “connect with employers to see what needs they have, and we train and provide funding simultaneously.” Additionally, Syed proposed “investing in trade schools,” as well as educating those with foreign degrees about the existing system for certificate conversion.

On language accessibility, Nath took a few shots at Gennaro, saying, “Today, we have somebody who is running for this seat who voted against a language assistance program. Apparently, he’s not even on this panel. Maybe I’m missing him.” If elected to the City Council, Nath said, “I want to specifically work with CUNY and SUNY and create a center at York College and Queens College” that would help immigrants with their certifications.

Jain emphasized funding, citing her experience as a Democratic district leader and a delegate for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris in the most recent presidential election. “I know how much money is sitting there for our adult education program. I want to bring that money to my district. I want to bring the fair share to my community,” she said.

Sharma said she would create a task force of community leaders to strategize “innovative solutions” that are “on par with what’s happening in the community,” including making sure that “language accessibility is part of [job training].”

Ahmed said her personal experience of providing translation for her immigrant parents has informed her understanding of the need for language justice, saying, “When you can't understand, you can't participate.” But the clock ran out before she proposed specific strategies.

When asked how they would assist first-time homebuyers, Ahmed, Nath, Syed, and Jain all agreed that basements should be legalized as separate dwelling units.

Ahmed went on to say, “And we need to work with state legislators to tax the rich and make sure there's funding to give a stipend to homeowners so that they're able to pay their mortgage.”

Nath emphasized his commitment to helping homeowners, saying, “I have not taken a single dime from developers,” which he criticized for artificially inflating prices. He added that taxes should be suspended for first-time homebuyers and that the process by which to secure loans for homes should be easier.

“There’s already a program that exists, which provides $40,000 for the first-time homebuyer,” began Jain, referencing the HomeFirst Down Payment Assistance Program. “It should be extended more, and there should be some more educational programs also to be funded by the City Council,” added Jain.

If elected, Sharma said that she would work with the state on property taxes, although she didn’t specify. She also proposed “creating a New York City public bank, where we can actually provide capital that goes to a more diverse group of people.” She identified loans at the “number one problem” for first-time homeowners.

“Since 2002, property taxes have increased almost 18%,” began Syed. “When I get to City Council, I’m pledging not to increase property taxes on one-to-three [family] homes.” She also emphasized the need for seminars on purchasing homes and spotting predatory lending.

On gentrification and displacement as a result of rezonings and real estate development, all candidates agreed that input from the community is vital.

Both Nath and Jain called for the creation of more affordable housing.

Sharma, Ahmed, and Soma said that racial impact studies, as suggested by Public Advocate Jumaane Williams and some City Council members, should be required on major rezoning proposals. In addition to racial impact reports, Soma emphasized the need for environmental impact statements. Sharma and Syed also criticized what they say is a one-size-fits-all approach of Mayor Bill de Blasio’s Mandatory Inclusionary Housing program. “AMI, the average median income is the same across the board” when it should vary neighborhood by neighborhood, said Sharma.

Ahmed called for reforming the entire land use review process overall, saying, “I would not vote for any rezoning under our current ULURP process,” which she said “prioritizes developers over our community.”

On supporting tenants, Sharma said she would start with holding “problematic landlords” accountable by “taking them to court,” referring to Zara Realty, a real estate company that faced a lawsuit from New York Attorney General Letitia James over violations of rent stabilization and tenant harassment laws.

Syed, who has represented tenants against Zara Realty, said she would cancel rent “for those tenants who are not able to pay rent.” On this point, Nath disagreed, saying, “If we do that, that will hurt some of our small landlords.”

“What I will do is work to continue the moratorium on evictions during the pandemic by working with state legislators, expand ‘right to a lawyer’ for all renters in housing court, encourage the creation of more tenant unions…and expand community land trusts to help working class families afford a home,” said Ahmed.

On senior care, Sharma proposed distributing the COVID-19 vaccine via a mobile van, and Nath agreed, saying, “We need to bring the vaccine into the local community.” Syed promised using $750,000 in discretionary funds allotted to City Council District 24 to fund senior centers. Ahmed concurred, adding, “We also need adult daycare centers to provide help for our seniors, whether it's physical therapy, mental health support.” Jain, who serves as chair of the community advisory board of India Home, cited her experience in the role, including mental health counseling for seniors, providing hot meals, and vocational skills programs.

When asked how they would approach the city budget in the midst of the fiscal crisis caused by the pandemic, Sharma, Ahmed, and Jain called for new revenue streams. Sharma and Ahmed suggested redirecting a portion of the NYPD’s budget toward social services, with Ahmed pointing out, “The city spent $230 million in 2018 alone on lawsuits against the NYPD for misconduct. It's clear that we need to stop pumping billions into a policing system that's broken and plagued with lawsuits and human rights violations.” Ahmed and Jaim also proposed taxing billionaires. Additionally, Ahmed said she would “work with state legislators to pass marijuana legalization,” “take away tax abatements so corporate landlords can’t avoid taxes,” and “make sure New York City collects fines for permit violations and tax commercial property warehouses.”

While Sharma said that the city needs “to stop relying on federal funding,” Syed said that she would “push the Biden administration to provide state funding.” She also added, “We need to look at the entire city budget and make the appropriate cuts,” but she promised those cuts would not impact essential social services, such as senior care, mental health services, and support for the unhoused.

“What I'm proposing is suspending the commercial rent tax for at least one year, and giving a grant to the small business owner, so they can open the business and create jobs,” said Nath. He also said he was “supportive of Amazon” building a massive new campus in Long Island City, but in lieu of that, “We need to make sure we invite companies who will create jobs that are going to help the middle-class American. Of course, they have to be union jobs.”

During the lightning round, candidates were unanimous in their support of “people over profit,” Medicare for all, affordable housing, ranked-choice voting, and working-class communities. When asked to choose between investment in community programs and services or investment in law enforcement, most candidates chose the former, except Syed, who said she supported both.

During the final round, in which candidates asked another candidate of their choice one question, Sharma kicked things off, asking Nath for his stance on the Black Lives Matter movement. To this, he said he was supportive. “We cannot end [systemic racism] by electing the same people year after year who violate term limits, who just treat politics as a career,” he said, seemingly referring to former City Council member Gennaro, who served three terms and is now running for his old seat in District 24. (The current law limits officeholders to two concurrent terms, but there is nothing barring Gennaro from running again. He was among those who approved a term-limits extension in 2009 that allowed Mayor Bloomberg and City Council members like himself the possibility of an additional term.)“By electing one of us, we can bring diversity and inclusion to the City Council. That's how we end systemic racism in this country,” Nath said.

Syed asked Jain how she thought white supremacy affected immigrant communities, to which Jain replied, “This is a democratic country. What happened in Washington, that should not have happened.” She added, “Of course it affected our immigrant community,” highlighting immigrant concern over safety.

Next, Ahmed asked Nath what his favorite Bangladeshi restaurant was on Hillside Avenue, and he answered, “Sagar Chinese.”

When Nath asked Ahmed if she would pledge to not work with candidates “who violated the term limit,” seemingly another reference to Genarro, Ahmed said, “I absolutely support term limits and would not want to work with anybody who's exploiting a loophole.”

For the last question of the forum, Jain asked Syed what she would do differently from the previous Council member, Lancman, for immigrant communities. Syed said, “We need to equitably distribute discretionary funds into communities that really need them.”

***
by Allison Smith for Gotham Gazette
 @GothamGazette

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De Blasio Releases $92.3 Billion Preliminary Budget for 2022 Fiscal Year


de blasio budget address

De Blasio in 2017 (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayor's Office)


Mayor Bill de Blasio released a $92.28 billion preliminary budget for the 2022 Fiscal Year on Thursday, expressing optimism that the city will receive additional federal funds but warning of cuts from the state.

The mayor’s budget plan for next fiscal year, which begins July 1, is more than $4 billion larger than the budget that was adopted last year for the current fiscal year, and reflects a nearly $20 billion increase from the last budget he inherited from former Mayor Michael Bloomberg. But it is lower than the $95.3 billion budget that he had proposed in January last year, when the city’s economy was at a peak and warnings of the coronavirus had yet to be heeded.

The mayor said his chief priority in the newly-released budget plan is ensuring the city’s recovery from the pandemic and he highlighted new spending that includes direct covid response measures, closing gaps in education caused by the pandemic, and maintaining essential city services. “Everything is about building the framework to get to recovery. That's what we're going to focus on,” he said.

The budget plan will be the subject of City Council hearings, followed by the mayor’s executive budget, released after a new state budget due by April 1. Both the city and state fiscal pictures will continue to depend on what comes out of Washington, D.C., among other key factors like economic recovery that may be spurred by the covid vaccine rollout.

The coronavirus pandemic decimated the city and has led to an expected sum of $10.5 billion in revenue losses for fiscal years 2020-2022, de Blasio said Thursday. About $1.5 billion of that drop has happened since November. Property taxes, a typically steady and crucial element of the city’s revenue, are expected to decline by $2.5 billion alone in fiscal year 2022. Despite job gains in the past few months, unemployment, which reached a high of more than 20%, remains at about 12.1%.

That leaves the city with an expected $5.25 billion budget gap for next fiscal year (FY22), which de Blasio said would be covered through a combination of measures including additional federal stimulus funds and fighting off potential cuts from the state. He said he will mandate a Program to Eliminate the Gap (PEG) to cut $1.4 billion in costs at city agencies, along with a citywide savings plan. The mayor’s office will set an example by cutting its own spending by 13%, de Blasio said. “We want people to see we're tightening our belt. We expect every city agency to tighten their belt,” he said. Overall, the efforts will account for $3.6 billion in reductions between fiscal years 2021 and 2022, he said.

The mayor also plans to reduce the city’s workforce, though he has no current plans to carry out mass layoffs that he had warned about for much of last year, he said. Instead, de Blasio said the city will reduce headcount by about 5,000 workers by through attrition, mandating that for most agencies, they can only make new hires for one position for every three vacancies, saving $349 million through fiscal year 2022. The city has already cut the workforce by 7,000 since January 2020, he said. Additional savings will come from the city pension system – $430 million this fiscal year and $300 million next fiscal year, the mayor outlined, through measures to more immediately use pension investment gains and reduce the expected rate of return on the pension funds so there is less strain on the city budget to make up the difference.

Another $1 billion is meant to come from unspecified labor savings.

There was some good news for the city on Thursday. In total, the city has spent $5.9 billion on the response to the pandemic, of which $1.3 billion had not been covered so far by reimbursement from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). But just prior to the mayor’s presentation, U.S. Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, soon to be the Senate majority leader, announced that the incoming Biden administration had agreed that FEMA would fully cover emergency costs for New York and provide another $2 billion to the state and city.

About $1 billion of that, de Blasio said, is owed to the city alone and would help prevent cuts that he had planned for the budget. De Blasio said the city will no longer have to cut $150 million for Fair Student Funding to schools in the next fiscal year and will not have to delay the expansion of free pre-school for three-year-olds, which would have meant a $44 million cut.

There remains, however, the risk that the state’s own fiscal woes will end up harming the city. Governor Andrew Cuomo has repeatedly cited a $15 billion deficit for the state, without taking into account the second round of fiscal stimulus delivered in December. Without additional federal aid to fill the state’s budget hole, Cuomo has warned that he will have to cut $8 billion in aid to localities, with a $4 billion hit to New York City.

“This is the hidden danger here, massive potential state cuts that we have to be ready to guard against, and we need that stimulus in particular to help us do it,” de Blasio said Thursday. Even pre-pandemic, Cuomo has often sought to cut funding to the city or offload costs for shared entities like CUNY, Medicaid, and the MTA. The city’s fiscal picture has been far stronger than the state’s for a number of years. De Blasio and allies have beaten back some of those attempts but not others.

As de Blasio estimated Thursday, the second stimulus package included $4 billion to fund K-12 schools in New York State, and the city expects $2.3 billion from that sum. But, because the language of the legislation was not clear, the mayor is worried that the state could choose to cut from other areas, a process called supplanting. “We've already spent a huge amount of money to get schools back open and to support remote learning and to support free devices for kids who needed them,” he said. “We deserve this federal funding to make us whole and to help us move forward and we need to fight for it.”

Instead, he urged the state to increase taxes on the rich, noting that 120 billionaires in New York have seen their net worth increase by $77 billion even as working and middle class families have suffered. “If you want to avoid cutting the vital services that cities and counties and towns provide to their people, here's a solution,” de Blasio said. “Tax the wealthy. The wealthy of New York State have never been taxed at the level they should. They have not paid their fair share.”

To fight the pandemic, the city has budgeted about $200 million for the vaccination and test and trace programs in FY22 (which could be reimbursed by the federal government). “What matters most, well, unquestionably defeating covid, that's what matters most. We are throwing in the kitchen sink to put covid in the rearview mirror,” de Blasio said, noting that those costs will likely grow.

Other spending the mayor outlined Thursday includes $62 million in the current fiscal year for the Learning Bridges child care program for students in ‘hybrid’ learning, expansion of WiFi in homeless shelters at a cost of $14 million in the current fiscal and $3 million in the next fiscal year, $52 million in the current fiscal for food relief, $35 million in the next fiscal to fund social and emotional learning programs, $10 million in extra funding in each of the current and next fiscal years to bolster the 311 city helpline, and $132 million in the next fiscal year to restore 70,000 Summer Youth Employment Program slots, though advocates have called for many more.

The mayor also announced measures that will be music to the ears of homeowners. He said the administration has reached an agreement with the New York City Council to reform the city’s tax lien sales process to save homeowners struggling during this pandemic from hardship while also maintaining $1 billion in revenue for the city. He said the Council will vote on the reforms later this month.

Additionally, he said again that “there's no way in hell” he will raise property tax rates. “That would be wrong, it would be counterproductive, it would hurt so many homeowners and everyday New Yorkers who are struggling through the covid crisis,” he said. Noting that property tax assessments are still set to increase because of state law, he said the city will create a new rebate, using federal stimulus funds, for owners of 1-3 family homes with a market value of less than $500,000. The rebate will affect 293,000 families, he estimated.

The preliminary budget for next fiscal year also includes an increase in capital spending for infrastructure needs. The ten-year preliminary capital strategy is $118.8 billion with a major focus on affordable housing, Vision Zero projects, and climate change and resiliency construction.

***
by Samar Khurshid, senior reporter, Gotham Gazette
     

Read more by this writer.

Andrew Yang Announces Candidacy for New York City Mayor


Andrew Yang prez trail Iowa

Andrew Yang on the presidential campaign trail (photo: Gage Skidmore)


Entrepreneur and former Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang announced that he is officially running for Mayor of New York City on Wednesday in a campaign video posted online. Yang followed the launch with a Thursday morning press conference in Upper Manhattan, after which he was slated to attend events in three other boroughs.

“New York City always felt like the center of the universe,” Yang says in the video, which was directed by famed Hollywood filmmaker Darren Aronofsky. Yang appears with his wife, Evelyn, and two young children, interspersed with shots of him speaking with everyday New Yorkers, eating a slice of pizza, riding a skateboard, and playing a piano on the Coney Island boardwalk. Yang grew up in upstate New York, where he owns a home, and has lived in the city for 24 years, he says. “I came of age, fell in love, and became a father here,” he says of the city.

Yang is joining a crowded and diverse field of Democratic candidates seeking the party’s nomination to replace the term-limited Mayor Bill de Blasio. The primary -- likely to determine the city’s next mayor given Democrats’ massive voter enrollment advantage -- will feature two important firsts: it is happening in June and will feature ranked-choice voting.

Yang is running as an outsider candidate and has the advantage of broad name recognition, a large social media following, and the likely ability to raise massive amounts of funding for his campaign, as he displayed during his aborted presidential run. In the lead up to making it official Yang has all but acknowledged his plan to seek the mayoralty and created a lot of strong feelings about his run: excitement among supporters, trepidation among competitors, and many questions from the news media and other interested parties.

He’s also had some bad initial headlines as he teased his mayoral bid. City & State reported that he hasn’t voted in the past four mayoral elections. Then Politico New York found that he was among the wealthier New Yorkers who fled the city during the pandemic, temporarily relocating to his second home upstate. His defense of the move, in an interview with the New York Times, prompted widespread criticism that he was out of touch with the majority of working New Yorkers. “We live in a two-bedroom apartment in Manhattan. And so, like, can you imagine trying to have two kids on virtual school in a two-bedroom apartment, and then trying to do work yourself?” he said. He later explained that he made the move to help one of his sons, who is autistic.

Yang is attempting to quickly amend any negative initial impressions by relying on his significant base of supporters, his exuberant personality, and his signature universal basic income (UBI) proposal – which earned him popularity during the presidential race as he talked about lifting people out of poverty and combatting changes in the economy – but tailored for New York City. He will pitch the updated version of the idea, which he notes has been championed by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and others in the past, in an announcement at Morningside Heights Park in Manhattan on Thursday morning, according to the campaign. Yang is also launching his campaign with several other eye-catching ideas: city control of the subways, a pledge to "name a civilian Commissioner of the NYPD," new specialized high schools with a revamped admissions process, and more.

Yang’s UBI proposal, which he called the Freedom Dividend in the presidential campaign, originally entailed giving every American adult $1,000 each month with no strings attached. Running for mayor, he has tweaked that idea and is proposing to spend $1 billion annually to give the 500,000 New Yorkers who most need it an average of $2,000 and up to $5,000 each year. Undocumented immigrants and those with past criminal convictions would qualify, his proposal says.

In his launch, Yang also advanced a proposal for a “people’s bank,” which will automatically enroll those who receive the universal basic income. In the campaign video, newly-inaugurated U.S. Rep. Ritchie Torres from the Bronx praised the proposal. “Your advocacy for universal basic income is so critical,” Torres said in conversation with Yang. “The surest way to end poverty is to put money in people's pockets. It’s that simple.” At the Thursday press conference, Yang revealed that Torres is serving as the co-chair of his campaign along with Martin Luther King III.

Queens Assemblymember Ron Kim, a progressive who strongly advocates for raising taxes on the wealthy and a larger social safety net, is also seen in the video with Yang. Kim is one leader of the city’s large Asian population that Yang, who is the son of Taiwanese immigrants, may be able to excite about his mayoral campaign. The city has never elected an Asian person as mayor.

Yang will have a lot of work to do to catch up to the rest of the Democratic field, some of whom have been angling for City Hall for years, have far more experience with municipal government, have millions of dollars in the bank, and have been working in communities across the city during the emergency of the pandemic and years prior. They include Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams, Comptroller Scott Stringer, City Council Member Carlos Menchaca, former counsel to the mayor Maya Wiley, former federal housing secretary Shaun Donovan, former nonprofit executive Dianne Morales, former sanitation commissioner Kathryn Garcia, former veterans services commissioner Loree Sutton, former Citigroup executive Ray McGuire, military veteran and entrepreneur Zach Iscol, and others.

But Yang is likely to roll out many ideas for the future of the city and have the strengths to make up any ground on campaign funding and familiarity with voters. The question will be whether he can convince enough of them to choose him to lead the city in the next phases of its recovery. That conversation will include Yang’s resume, which includes his presidential bid, but also his work in start-ups, nonprofits, and leading a Manhattan test prep company where he found financial success. Other Yang ventures have sputtered, but he has found a large following talking about the struggles of everyday people, those struggling to find work and pay the bills, and those leery of a future economy more dependent on automation.

Though his launch video is brief, Yang did touch on a series of issues that are likely to be central to the mayoral race. He is seen with Kim at a restaurant, discussing the plight of small businesses that have shuttered because of the coronavirus, and pledged to help bring the local economy back. He spoke with two Black New Yorkers about the police killings of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd, which prompted months of protests in the city and reinvigorated police reform movement last year. He stressed the need for high-speed internet across the city, a lack of which has been one of the main obstacles to remote learning as schools closed during the pandemic. His wife prompts him to pursue smaller class sizes in part by hiring more teachers. Yang said he wants to "take back control of our subway," seemingly a reference to altering the structure of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, a state-run entity. He even joked about saving the Knicks.

On his initial campaign website, Yang has several policy-focused pages with mostly broad language, promising detailed plans in the coming weeks, but some do offer specific proposals and his "relief for our small businesses" page has a number of planks, including passage of the Small Business Jobs Survival Act, which has, in different iterations, been in the City Council for decades and would in its current form mandate new lease renewal terms to help protect small businesses. Yang also has a number of education-focused proposals, including "at least two specialized schools in each borough and holistic admissions to specialized schools, combining students’ SHSAT performance with other forms of evaluation - grades, interviews, essays, and more."

Yang's first full day as a mayoral candidate will be full: he's scheduled to appear on The Breakfast Club radio program in the morning, followed by the launch event in Morningside Park, then a visit to a Bronx food distribution center, lunch with Queens Borough President Donovan Richards, a walking tour of Brownsville, Brooklyn with Assemblymember Latrice Walker, an interview on NY1's Inside City Hall with host Errol Louis, and finally a virtual town hall with New Yorkers.

***
by Samar Khurshid, senior reporter, Gotham Gazette
     

Read more by this writer.

Ben Max contributed to this article.

This article has been updated several times since it's publication with additional information about Yang's campaign launch.



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