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New York Must Halt Evictions Amid Coronavirus Pandemic


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People need secure housing for themselves & others (photo: Benjamin Kanter/Mayoral Photo Office)


No one is immune to the novel coronavirus: The World Health Organization recently declared the outbreak a pandemic, Governor Andrew Cuomo declared a state of emergency, and the congressional doctor reportedly expects up to 150 million citizens to be infected.

Do you know who is most vulnerable to COVID-19? Health professionals have identified people who are elderly and sick as particularly at risk, but we must not forget those who are poor or homeless. New York City has the largest homeless population in the country, and our homeless shelters are ill-equipped to deal with a highly contagious disease. Now is the time for New York to act by protecting the most vulnerable New Yorkers.

Our government can mitigate this growing public health crisis in several ways. One is that New York State should institute an eviction moratorium immediately. Eviction moratorium plans are already underway in San Jose and San Francisco -- and many more cities are expected to follow.

An eviction moratorium in New York is the bold and sensible action we need. Taking this important step not only gives reprieve to thousands of tenants from becoming homeless, which is necessary in itself, it would also slow the growth of this pandemic. As studies have shown again and again, good housing policy is truly also good healthcare policy.

As a housing attorney, I see thousands of people pass through New York City housing court daily. These tenants are disproportionately poor, black and Latino, immigrants, LGBT people, seniors, people with disabilities, and women. In fact, New York City’s Open Data Portal shows over 3,000 executed evictions have taken place since January 2020. Each eviction places already vulnerable seniors and people with health issues -- their families and everyone they come in contact with in the court system -- at further risk.

Mayor Bill de Blasio has urged New Yorkers to limit nonessential commuting, but how do we expect thousands of tenants to heed this call when they must commute to work to try to make rent? Or commute to court or risk losing their home there? How do we expect poor people, who may be exhibiting symptoms of infection, to self-quarantine, when there is nowhere to quarantine if they lose their home? We need an eviction moratorium now.

Legal services organizations, and the unions representing thousands of attorneys, paralegals, and advocates, have reached out to Governor Cuomo and Chief Judge DiFiore of the Office of Court Administration to implement measures to: stay warrants of eviction, adjourn cases rather than issuing defaults, and provide litigants with the opportunity to appear by videoconferencing. The Right to Counsel NYC Coalition has called on the governor to close housing court, except for applications for emergency relief. These requests are still pending.

As the pandemic grows, so does the growing chorus of advocacy groups demanding an eviction moratorium. A recent online petition, organized by the Upstate Downstate Housing Alliance and Housing Justice for All, garnered over 2,000 signatures in one day alone. And, there is mounting momentum among elected officials, including Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer, who issued a public letter calling on Chief Judge DiFiore to declare a moratorium on evictions immediately. State Senators Brad Hoylman and Brian Kavanagh are introducing legislation to enact a statewide moratorium on evictions and foreclosures during the coronavirus pandemic and future emergency declarations.

While we wait on Governor Cuomo, the State Legislature, and Chief Judge DiFiore to act on the state level, Mayor de Blasio can act on the city level. The mayor can and should institute a moratorium on all NYCHA eviction-related cases in public housing. During Hurricane Sandy, NYCHA instituted an eviction moratorium in response to the urging and advocacy of The Legal Aid Society. In addition to the eviction moratorium we saw during Hurricane Sandy, the precedent exists in the winter months for broadly similar reasons raised now regarding public health concerns of homelessness and the real risks to life.

The coronavirus pandemic is highlighting some of the greatest inequalities in our society. On the national level, we are hearing the demand for large-scale programs such as national paid sick leave and Medicare for All. Given the state of our federal government, these are worthy long-term goals that, at the moment, are theoretical responses to the current crisis. In the meantime, there is at least one simple and immediate proposal on the table right now in New York: an eviction moratorium, and we can get it done immediately.

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Jason Wu is a housing attorney for The Legal Aid Society of New York and a Trustee for the Association of Legal Aid Attorneys, UAW 2325. On Twitter @CriticalRace.

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Surveillance and the City: Cuomo’s Coronavirus Coup


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The Governor has acquired new powers (photo: Darren McGee/Governor's Office)


It may be Chicago’s Rahm Emanuel who’s famous for saying that you should “never let a good crisis go to waste,” but it’s New York’s Andrew Cuomo who’s taking the adage to heart. For proof, one need only look to the governor’s response to the recent coronavirus outbreak.

There should be few things less divisive than how we respond to a public health crisis. Increase funding for hospitals? Of course. Reduce barriers to disease testing? Without a doubt. So, when the governor called for $40 million in emergency funding to fight COVID-19, it would have seemed like a slam dunk. Then why did the chairs of the State Assembly and State Senate health committees vote against the response?

The reason they said “no” wasn’t the price tag of the bill, but the power grab buried inside. In a matter of hours, Cuomo pushed through language that not only gave him more money, but the broadest emergency powers of any governor in the country, according to an analysis by my organization, The Surveillance Technology Oversight Project.

Even before the new law, Cuomo had sweeping authority. The governor could suspend any law or regulation that got in the way of emergency response, which was enough to make civil rights advocates nervous. But not even George Orwell could have imagined what would come next.

The governor “may issue any directive during a state disaster emergency…necessary to cope with the disaster and may provide for procedures reasonably necessary to enforce such directive.” Strip away the legalese and we’re left with the power to do anything in time of crisis.

It’s staggering — the thought of one person having the power to rewrite state laws without so much as a second opinion from lawmakers. And this isn’t just for COVID-19, the emergency powers covers everything from tornadoes and volcanoes (do we have those in New York?), to drought, and vaguely defined “cyber events.” And, unsurprisingly, it’s the governor who gets to declare an emergency in the first place.

We’ve been down this road before. Few of us forget the panic-struck days after 9/11, when a public desperate to feel safe again supported legislation like the USA PATRIOT Act and the Authorization for Use of Military Force. In a matter of days, we rewrote the way our country has been governed for decades.

The PATRIOT Act, which was supposed to sunset just a few years later, became a fixture of American life, giving birth to the perpetual surveillance later exposed by the likes of Edward Snowden. The AUMF has been used to justify military strikes as recently as last year, when President Trump assassinated the Iranian military leader Qasem Soleimani. Prior to the AUMF, that sort of military action without Congressional approval would have been blatantly unconstitutional, but the Trump administration claimed that 18 years later, the AUMF is still giving the President a green light to kill nearly anyone he wants, at any time, and in nearly any place.

How long will Cuomo’s new emergency powers be with us? It’s hard to know. The new law is set to expire in just over a year, but the history of the PATRIOT Act teaches us that emergency laws may live on far longer than we first expect. Cuomo himself has indicated he thinks it makes sense as a permanent adjustment.

Even more alarming was the process. The legislation meant one of the most fundamental transformations of New York State government in generations, and it happened with almost no notice or debate. Even worse, the emergency powers were tied to the same legislation as COVID-19 funding, so those who voted against the bill now face the prospect of attacks claiming they opposed providing emergency pandemic cash.

Sometimes emergencies call for immediate action, but nothing the governor did here required the legislature to abdicate its role. The few reforms we’ve seen since last week could have been easily approved by lawmakers, and the emergency powers legislation could have been given at least time for a debate.

In a week when the state Legislature held hearings on everything from loan forgiveness for farmers to actuarial tables for health insurance, one would think that lawmakers would have time to discuss one of the most transformative New York bills in our lifetimes. Sadly, while it’s very easy to take new powers in an emergency, it’s generally a lot harder to roll them back.

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Albert Fox Cahn is the founder and executive director of The Surveillance Technology Oversight Project (S.T.O.P.) at the Urban Justice Center, a New York-based civil rights and privacy group and a fellow at the Engelberg Center for Innovation Law & Policy at N.Y.U. School of Law. He writes the monthly Surveillance and the City column at Gotham Gazette. On Twitter @FoxCahn & @STOPSpyingNY.

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Don’t Let Them Win - Muslim New Yorkers Must Participate in the 2020 Census


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Muslim New Yorkers in prayer (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office)


As we again learned in 2016 and 2018 that voting matters and elections have consequences, we must also recognize -- ahead of time, right now -- that the 2020 Census matters and not being counted has consequences.

After 2016, many New Yorkers have been mobilizing to bring progressive voices to elections: from supporting change in Albany and flipping local House seats to turning entire state legislatures blue across the nation and backing chosen presidential candidates. We have been organizing and fundraising for campaigns, with intense focus and passion — cheering every win, large and small, across the country.

We are maligned as “snowflakes” for caring about people and inclusive values, but it is our passion that carried our wins in recent elections and what is required for the big win this fall.

However, there is one critical campaign that isn’t getting the same attention: the 2020 Census.

New York City is at risk of a huge undercount in the 2020 Census, which would result in undermining our democracy and communities by leading to decreased political representation and decreased federal funding for the next ten years. 

Anti-immigrant and Islamophobic federal messaging and policies combined with concerns about data privacy have created legitimate anxiety in many communities around anything involving the U.S. government. This is especially true of the Census, which to some feels like a registry akin to the special registry of some Muslim immigrant men after 9/11 or the list of undocumented immigrants the Trump administration was clearly hoping to develop with its failed citizenship question.

Additionally, the 2020 Census will initially call for online submissions for the first time. While that will simplify the process for some digitally-savvy individuals, it will not be as easy for all Americans. Filling out a form online is more complicated than sharing a funny cat meme and many communities lack sufficient access to the internet as well as limited digital literacy. Combine this with fears of the government, especially but not limited to the Trump administration, and you have a perfect storm that can lead to nonparticipation.

Historically, New York City has faced census participation challenges. In the 2010 Census, the city had a 61.9% average initial household self-response rate, well under the national rate of 75.8%, with some communities as low as 44%, like those in Brooklyn’s Brighton Beach or the 50% rate in Bronx’s Eastchester Heights.

Census data is crucial to providing social services, Medicaid, education, and funding for infrastructure, such as our subways and bridges. It is key to states’ ability to advocate for their fair share of $670 billion in annual federal funding, in part because the Census also determines political representation, most directly in terms of seats in the House of Representatives. New York is at risk of losing up to two Congressional seats this time around.

Undercounted communities will have less representation at the federal level but also state and city levels once the Census leads to legislative redistricting.

The anxieties of traditionally marginalized communities around government data collection are not at all misplaced. For example, Muslims are intimately familiar with the risks: the NYPD utilized publicly-available aggregate census data to spy on Muslim communities after the September 11, 2001 terror attacks.

But that very same data also helps advocates and government better support the very same communities. For example, racial demographic data is utilized by civil rights lawyers to highlight racial inequity in policing and incarceration as well as political representation. Muslim communities have advocated successfully and used data to push for Muslim school holidays and halal lunches at senior centers and schools.

An Imam asked me, “Why would anyone fill this out? In this current time with this current government?”

But the answer is that we must fill out the Census form, especially at this time, especially with this government. If we don’t, they will win so much more than just an election. If we do not participate in the Census, then we will lose the ability to fully participate in our democracy, binding our communities for decades.

If you believe that the future of our democracy is at stake in the upcoming election, that the safety and security of our most vulnerable communities is on the line, then you should be just as passionate about ensuring that you and every individual in your community near and far gets counted in the 2020 Census.

Get involved in your local 2020 Census organizing committee; in New York City join your Neighborhood Organizing Census Committee. Help get the word out to all your friends and family and volunteer in April and beyond to help ensure everyone completes the 2020 Census.

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Ahsia Badi is the New York Census Director for Emgage, the largest non-profit focused on Muslim civic engagement, and is a member of Manhattan Community Board Six. On Twitter @kashmirimama & @EmgageAction.

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We Want a Ferry for Coney Island, But Not Like This


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The planned Coney Island ferry landing site (photo by the author)


Coney Islanders asked for a ferry. Instead the City is providing the community with a deadly toxic brew of lead, dioxin, mercury, PCBs, and pesticides.

At a February 12 Brooklyn Community Board 13 meeting, the New York City Economic Development Corporation made the surprise announcement that the originally proposed ferry dock at West 33rd Street on Gravesend Bay had been replaced by a new site in Kaiser Park that, when constructed, will destroy the single most environmentally sensitive and vulnerable area in all of Coney Island. 

The Kaiser Park site on Coney Island Creek requires an extensive dredging project in the narrow channel adjacent to Calvert Vaux Park, the former industrial dump and landfill that is known to contain long-buried toxic materials. The City's Environmental Impact Statement (EIS), revealed that core samples drilled last fall at the channel found that "sediments in the eastern dredging area contain contaminants of concern exceeding Class C thresholds, including thresholds for arsenic, lead, mercury, pesticides, polychlorinated biphenyls [PCBs], and dioxin, which can be associated with chronic and potentially acute toxicity to aquatic life."

Class C is deadly, and the effect of these carcinogens on humans was glossed over in the EIS. Construction and operation of the ferry dock will bring these toxins to the surface. The EIS only covers impact caused during construction and ignores future impact to the community after project completion. Kaiser Park is being sacrificed.

These disturbing findings have not deterred the City's choice of the Kaiser Park fishing pier site. It turns out that the final Coney Island ferry site was not "decided by science," as officials promised. Thousands of people who signed petitions requesting a ferry were not told it would be located in Kaiser Park — they believed it would be on the ocean side.

The City's plan to move the dock to a vulnerable restored estuarine habitat with a small pier and a beach used by school children for marine education, and for kayaking and fishing, was apparently made long before the Environmental Impact Statement was released in late January 2020. The City's report describes construction impact, but not the long-term impact to the community, public parks, or the environment after completion of the project. The report also neglects to analyze the impact on Kaiser Park from automobile and foot traffic for the ferry. 

Kaiser Park is the Central Park of Coney Island, a neighborhood refuge for playing and picnicking. The EIS compiled a list of the ferry's negative impacts to the park including noise: "adverse impact at Kaiser Park is unavoidable...and that no feasible and practical mitigation measures have been found." Noise and pollution impacts at the park caused by the ferry's diesel engines are being ignored.

The EDC downplays the effects of the dredging project, claiming that it will be handled in a "safe" manner, with the toxic materials removed using "Best Management Practices" for hazardous waste removal. Hazardous material removal is never perfect, and the larger problem is that buried contaminants and chemicals can migrate and leach from the adjacent sediments along Calvert Vaux Park into the low point of the newly dredged channel.

Ferries docking and turning in the narrow channel will stir up other toxins now buried under a cap of clean sand that covers the creek's bottom. No cleanup of the entire creek bottom, or mitigation of any kind for that matter, has been proposed or cited by the City's EIS report. Several years ago, hazardous material removal and remediation in a small area of Calvert Vaux Park for construction of soccer fields cost the City millions of dollars. Similar hazardous materials remain buried alongside the narrow channel that will require constant dredging for the ferry.

Of the two contested sites, the West 33rd Street site had much to recommend it. It's a straight shot from Gravesend Bay to the dock, avoiding the need to enter Coney Island Creek and according to the EIS, "does not require dredging restrictions or special handling." The 33rd Street site called for a pier with "public amenities" including benches and access for fishing. This location would have provided needed community benefits but was rejected.

EDC officials said the 33rd Street site was too exposed for a ferry, but this isn't true. The site is similar to the Bay Ridge ferry dock, which has similar exposed orientation. Skanska Construction, the multinational marine construction company building the City's ferry docks, has the engineering ability to construct any kind of dock in any kind of environment. The City just doesn't want to spend the money to do this project the right way, a decision that will prove more expensive in the long run, while jeopardizing the health of the surrounding community for years to come.

The endangered Kaiser Park location has come a long way. When I was growing up in Coney Island in the 1950s and 1960s this site was one of the most polluted parts of the creek, downwind from a now-closed sanitation department incinerator and across from the once active dump that is now Calvert Vaux Park. During the last 25 years, the site has been restored with sand dunes, native plants, a new shoreline, and a horseshoe crab spawning beach. This location is used as an outdoor schoolroom by environmental groups including the Coastal Classroom, Billion Oyster Project, New York State Marine Education Association, Coney Island Beautification Project, Coney Island History Project, and Partnerships for Parks.

Kaiser Park provides the safest public access to Coney Island Creek, a place to conduct research, monitor horseshoe crabs, and launch rowboats, kayaks, and underwater robotics. Future stewards of Coney Island Creek, mostly youth of color from the neighborhood, are being denied their classroom.

The pier and adjacent sand bar are also known as the best fishing spot for a local community of subsistence anglers. Fish caught at this location – striped bass, bluefish, and albacore – are coming from the ocean and considered safer to eat than the fish that live in the creek. All educational and recreational activities will be forced to end with the construction of the ferry dock.

The remote ferry location has made few residents happy. The amusement businesses in central Coney Island lobbied for years for an oceanfront ferry only to have it placed in the West End, far from their businesses. West End residents have expressed valid concerns about the impacts caused by thousands of seasonal visitors being stranded in their neighborhood without a viable means of transportation to or from the ferry dock. A temporary jitney has been proposed but seems impractical.

Many in the community feel the dock sites were chosen to serve the newly constructed high-rises located three blocks away. The City has offered no mitigation or increased enforcement to protect the public parks and environmentally sensitive areas surrounding the dock.

The ferry has also been touted as a "commuter line" benefitting NYCHA residents, but it actually doubles the fare to Manhattan, as most passengers would have to take the subway from the Wall Street terminal and pay an additional fare because there is no free transfer. When questioned about tourists and visitors using the ferry to get to Coney Island attractions, an EDC ferry official told me that "they'll take it once" before realizing that it's not for them.

Most New York City ferry docks are located in former industrial areas attached to hard bulkheads. Coney Island will be the only dock located at a small beach where people are now swimming, fishing, and boating. It's the only ferry line that will transit an extremely narrow channel with inherent navigational risks. The mouth of Coney Island Creek is in constant transition with drifting sands from beach nourishment on the ocean side. The proposed ferry dock at Kaiser Park fishing pier will expose the surrounding community to toxic materials in the air and water unless mitigation is implemented.

Last summer local residents held a demonstration at Kaiser Park after hearing a rumor that the City was planning to move the dock from 33rd Street to the Kaiser Park fishing pier. Officials from the EDC and Skanska Construction vehemently denied the rumors. Seventy-five local residents, most living on West 33rd Street, signed a petition demanding that the City not build the dock at the fishing pier, contradicting the City's insistence that most locals did not want the dock at West 33rd. At a February 2020 community board meeting, EDC officials could not answer a simple question of when the final decision had been made to move the dock to Kaiser Park.

The only concession made by EDC officials so far is a promise to make repairs to the fishing pier that the ferry dock will be attached to, actually a required repair as the pier is falling apart and has been condemned in the past. The representative claimed at the February meeting that people will still be able to fish there, and that the ferry would not disrupt anything. But a more truthful Skanska representative told me last July that "people will be able to fish there but they won't be catching anything."

A false narrative is being circulated, implying that community members concerned about negative impacts at Kaiser Park do not want a Coney Island ferry. Nothing is further from the truth. Coney Island desperately needs a ferry, but the project has to be done right.

This project requires an independent impact assessment, as well as remediation and mitigation to protect the long-term health and well being of the community and the Coney Island Creek estuary. These issues must be addressed before construction begins.

It’s not too late to make your voice heard, too: written comments concerning this project will be accepted until 5 p.m. on Monday, March 16.

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Charles Denson is Executive Director of the Coney Island History Project, and author of the book “Coney Island: Lost and Found.”

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What’s Really Behind Efforts to Reform Bail Reform? A Familiar Theme


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Law enforcement officials have pushed for bail reform rollbacks (photo: Governor's Office)


The hyperbolic vitriol about bail reform in New York should be viewed in context – it is but one example of the ways those with entrenched power in the criminal legal system rebel against even the slightest diminution of, or threat to, their authority.

Despite a growing movement for change, police officers, prosecutors, and judges cling to their absolute power to arrest, prosecute, and adjudicate with scant concern for due process, equal protection, or basic fairness. 

Law enforcement representatives went on the offensive as soon as the reality set in that bail reform meant fewer people would be held at Rikers Island and other jails. NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea penned an op-ed decrying the bail reforms and began lobbying in Albany for reforms of the reforms before the ink in the law books was barely dry. Shea’s Chief of Department, Terence Monahan, at precinct meetings with community members predicted an outbreak of violent crime. 

District Attorneys also rallied to defend their threatened prerogatives. While prosecutors are supposed to enforce the law, it seems they spend much time figuring out ways to circumvent it, particularly as it relates to the recent bail, discovery, and speedy trial reforms. Last year, Bronx District Attorney internal documents revealed trainings in techniques to overcome speedy trial rules. More recently, a presentation at the New York State Prosecutors Training Institute included ways to avoid the impact of bail reform.      

Perhaps the most telling example of prosecutorial unwillingness to cede even some control has been the outcry over having to provide the accused with speedy discovery of the evidence against them. It has been reported that the new obligation to comply with that fundamental constitutional right, a rule long recognized in virtually all other states, caused several prosecutors to resign.   

Complaints about bail reform and new discovery obligations are hardly the only examples of opposition to meaningful reform of the criminal legal system. The ongoing fight over public access to police officer disciplinary records is another example of organized resistance to reform. New York Civil Rights Law §50-a, known accurately as the police secrecy law, restricts public access to a police officer’s disciplinary records even when there are serious and credible allegations of misconduct or violence. Efforts to fully repeal §50-a and put New York State in line with the rest of the country are vehemently denounced by the NYPD.

Prosecutors have supported this police campaign too, in an indirect yet effective manner. Even with §50-a on the books, prosecutors have the power to address part of the problem and to avoid relying on police officers with dubious credibility. Last year, Gothamist/WNYC reporter George Joseph reported that the city’s elected District Attorneys maintain secret databases that track police officer dishonesty. In some cases, prosecutors have created “do not call” as a witness lists of certain police officers. And yet these lists had not been provided to the accused, or their lawyers, who were arrested by these very same police officers.  

Prosecutors have also organized resistance against other reforms that threaten their power. Consider the bipartisan legislative effort to create a Commission on Prosecutorial Conduct to review and investigate alleged prosecutorial misconduct. The bill’s stated purpose was to provide for a more transparent and just system. Prosecutors across the state denounced from the inception the very idea of outside oversight and claimed, without any hint of irony, that it violated their due process rights.

Nor is it only DAs and the NYPD who actively fight to reject reform of the criminal legal system. The courts, too, are determined to maintain the existing distribution of power, even if it means violating laws directed at limiting their actions. Two judges recently deliberately flouted the law by setting bail against the accused in circumstances explicitly prohibited by the new bail statute. 

On a broader level, mimicking law enforcement, judges have taken to airing their opinions in public, calling bail reform a threat to public safety and predicting a spike in crime. Ironically, as judges rail against the new bail laws and demand greater discretion over when and on whom they can set bail, they ignore the point that it was in large part their irresponsible exercise of judicial discretion that led to the need for bail reform in the first place. Rather than rebel against reform it would be more appropriate for the judiciary to express collective contrition for having jailed so many people who lacked enough funds to pay their way home.

The hostility to any expansion of rights for the accused is manifest not just in New York’s lower courts, but all the way up to the Court of Appeals. Professor Vincent Bonventre of Albany Law School catalogued what seems like a concerted effort by the majority of judges to reduce the number of criminal cases heard by the Court. Even more troubling than the Court’s disinterest in hearing criminal appeals is the overwhelmingly pro-prosecution voting records of most of its judges. In 2017 and 2018, excluding cases where the Court was unanimous, Judges Jenny Rivera and Rowan Wilson voted in favor of the prosecution in less than 30% of the cases, while the rest of the members of the court ruled in the prosecution’s favor between 70% and 98% of the time. In fact, one judge sided with the prosecution in 96% of the cases in 2018 and 100% of the cases in 2017.   

The Court’s unsympathetic approach to the rights of the accused is reflected in individual cases even more so than in the overall number of appeals denied. Luis Alvarez was convicted of brutal crimes committed when he was 19 years old. He was sentenced to 66 2/3 years to life – in other words, to die in prison. Years later, he challenged his sentence on the grounds that his appointed appellate lawyer failed to provide basic effective assistance of counsel by neglecting to challenge his sentence as unduly harsh and excessive. 

The majority of the Court was not troubled by the death by incarceration sentence imposed on a teenager, or the obvious incompetence of appellate counsel, and denied Alvarez’s motion. Judge Rivera in her dissent detailed the many defects in the appellate brief, including that it contained several one-sentence paragraphs, misspellings, grammatical and typographical errors, and lacked citations to cases in support of legal arguments. The entire brief was 20 double-spaced pages, including the table of contents, even though the trial lasted three months and yielded a 4,000-page transcript. In contrast, the prosecutors’ brief was over 175 pages. 

The majority of the Court minimized the many faults Judge Rivera highlighted (though noting that the brief was “somewhat terse, could have been better drafted, and is not a model to be emulated”), and ruled that Alvarez received effective assistance of counsel. 

Judge Wilson in his dissent, besides noting the “atrocious” quality of the brief, wrote about the man Alvarez had become and why it is wrong to prejudge the entire future of a teenager. Judge Wilson noted Alvarez’s positive disciplinary history in prison, his record of programmatic achievements, and his current medical condition – Alvarez’s cancer went undiagnosed until it metastasized, and he is now a paraplegic. Judge Wilson closed his dissent by asking how anyone would feel about the quality of appellate counsel if Alvarez was their son. You don’t have to be a legal scholar to know the answer to that question.

The outrage over bail reform reveals much more than outrage over bail reform. It exposes the entrenched nature of the criminal legal system as ferociously dedicated to maintaining absolute power and the status quo. While the criminal legal system is not unique among governmental entities intent on maintaining a brutal grip on power, the concerted effort to eviscerate bail reform provides clear evidence that all efforts to impose even a modicum of fairness and decency on the criminal legal system will face near pathological resistance.

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Steven Zeidman is a professor of law at CUNY School of Law. On Twitter @SteveZeidman.

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A State Budget Necessity: Start-Up Funds for New Campaign Finance Program


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State Legislators have an important decision to make (photo: NY Senate)


In New York State, money doesn’t only talk, it decides who does the talking, who makes the laws, whose voices matter, and who gets left out. After years of grassroots activism, New York State is a big step closer to shifting the balance of power in Albany through a new public campaign financing program, moving away from big-monied interests and toward regular New Yorkers.

A new state campaign finance system with lower contribution limits and public matching of small donations became law in December, designed by a commission appointed by Governor Cuomo and legislative leaders after years of Democratic officials like the governor talking about support for reform. But Cuomo has omitted necessary implementation funds from his proposed budget for next fiscal year, which begins April 1. Without sufficient resources to scale up, the new system of public campaign financing can’t have the impact we need for change.

The ideal reform would amplify the voices of black and other historically marginalized people by using public matching funds in electoral campaigns throughout the state. Yet Governor Cuomo’s failure to fund implementation, coupled with his support of new ballot access restrictions the commission created to hinder smaller political parties, casts serious doubt on his claims of wanting a better democracy.

When Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins and Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie release their majorities’ own one-house budget proposals this month, they must include start-up funds for public financing and then urge the governor to agree to such funding in their final adopted budget. The three leaders must assure the millions of New Yorkers who have been shut out for too long that this transformative reform is here to stay.

Public financing of elections is a matter of racial justice. Black, poor, and working-class New Yorkers cannot truly build political power and combat racism and oppression if big donors — who are overwhelmingly wealthy and white — continue to hold outsized influence. In 2018, just 100 big donors gave more to New York state candidates than all estimated 137,000 small donors combined.

Regular New Yorkers would have greater influence to counter powerful special interests with small donor public financing, which matches low private donations with public funds for candidates who choose to participate. In New York City, legislative candidates who opted into the city’s matching funds program relied more on the residents of their districts for support than candidates who did not use public financing.

The new state program would increase the campaign finance influence of constituents even more than in the city’s program. For legislative candidates, only small donations from within the district they are running to represent would be matched. That may seem like a limited pool of potential funds for a candidate, but the level of match is sizeable enough to enable someone to raise competitive sums. Even the smallest donation from a constituent will be important, as a sliding scale gives the highest match of public funds for the lowest dollars.

And private fundraising requirements to participate in the program are lower for candidates running in low-income districts, making the possibility of electing candidates of constituents’ choice even greater. Experts say these features are innovative and could be models for other parts of the country looking for alternatives to the undue influence of big donors in their elections.

We will keep fighting to improve the new program. With the proper funding and support it will be profoundly better than the old way, which perpetuated racial injustice and outsized political power for the wealthy by letting millions of dollars drown out millions of people.

There’s no time to lose to start building the program, which is set to launch in November 2022 for candidates running in the 2024 legislative and 2026 statewide elections. The State Board of Elections has requested the modest outlay of $2.7 million for this year to hire staff and build the technology needed to provide a solid foundation for the program.

The governor and legislative leaders must commit to deliver the public financing program that they promised just a few months ago. If we ever want to have real democracy in New York, political voice and representation must finally become open and equally accessible to black and brown communities in our state.

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Monifa Bandele is Senior Vice President for MomsRising.org and a member of the Leadership Team of the Movement for Black Lives Policy Table. On Twitter @monifabandele.

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Bail and Other Misguided Laws Started with Loss of Republican Senate


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Gov. Cuomo and Long Island Democrats (photo: Governor's Office)


Long Island residents are finding out the hard way, once again, why it was so important to keep a balance of power in New York State via a Republican-controlled Senate and Democrat-controlled Assembly.

When Democrats took over the Senate after the 2008 election, it led to the horrendous MTA tax, which forced schools, nonprofits, and businesses throughout Long Island to pay a huge payroll tax to foot the bill for the city transit system. The bill was put over the top by two Democratic senators from Long Island. The public rebelled and the Senate was put back into the hands of the Republicans.

But in 2018, the tide shifted back to Democratic control in the Senate and throughout state government. “Don’t worry,” we were told, the Long Island bloc of Democrats will be moderate and stop the extremists from implementing dangerous policy. How did that work out?

Laws were passed giving driver's licenses and taxpayer-subsidized college scholarships to undocumented immigrants. Abortion was allowed up to the time of birth. Nine days of early voting, costing millions of dollars, was enacted when just a few days would have sufficed. Unrealistic limits on energy production will cause our electric bills to soar. And, of course, the new bail reforms are undermining public safety and order.

Our Long Island delegation is made up of well-intentioned, hard-working, and dedicated legislators. They will claim that they voted against some of these measures, including the driver’s license law, and can still be counted on to be an effective voting bloc. But it’s not their individual votes on these matters that are most important.

Rather, it’s the singular vote they take at the first legislative session of the year that leads to all these negative outcomes. That is, the vote to put in place a liberal Democrat at the head of the Senate, who then appoints New York City-centric “progressives” to be in charge of just about every committee and push the agenda. Consequently, uber-left legislation that in the past would have been stopped in these committees and never seen a Senate vote are now getting out to the floor.

Numerous local senators are now scrambling to undo the damage done by bail reform, but this misguided law would never have passed had Long Island Republicans still been in charge.

As impressive as these newly-minted senators are, the bottom line is they will vote to continue to have the New York City-centric liberals running the committees and dictating much of the chamber’s agenda. And that is not good for Long Island.

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Steve Levy is President of Common Sense Strategies, a political consulting firm. He served as Suffolk County Executive, as State Assembly member, and host of "The Steve Levy Radio Show." On Twitter @SteveLevyNY.

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Do Homeless Lives Matter to the De Blasio Administration and City Council?


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(photo: William Alatriste/City Council)


Imagine the reaction if the number of deaths within a particular neighborhood or among a certain ethnic, racial, or religious group had gone up by 40% in one year! There would be demonstrations on the steps of City Hall and the Mayor would be forced to respond.

Unfortunately, that is what has happened among the city's homeless population. Between July 2018 and June of 2019, 404 people considered homeless in New York City died, according to a recently-released city report. That is a 40% increase over the prior year and the largest year-over-year increase in a decade.

Many of these deaths did not occur within shelters. Homeless people died in hospitals, on subway cars, in abandoned buildings, and in vacant lots. The majority were middle-age men. Drug addiction, alcoholism, and heart disease were major contributors in many of the cases.

However, 15 homeless people died by suicide, which was more than double the amount in the previous year, and three of those individuals took their own lives inside a shelter. There were also 10 homicides, three more than the prior year (and although none took place in a shelter during the reporting period, at least two people were killed inside a shelter between July and December 2019).

In addition, 17 infants died in the system compared to 10 the prior year, a shocking number. Many of these cases are still under investigation. In addition, women also died more frequently than the prior year, to 91 deaths, up from 59, another incredible increase.

You would think such shocking statistics would sound an alarm at City Hall, but the administration‘s reaction to this has been underwhelming at best -- that basically it’s not their fault because these deaths and underlying conditions are results of “chronic health conditions due to decades of risk factors,” as city Social Services Commissioner Steve Banks told Gothamist.

Incredibly, administration officials seem to brag that when it comes to drug-overdose deaths, they have been able to keep the numbers steady, but at a high rate of 103 accidental drug overdose deaths.

Dr. Mitchell Katz, the CEO of the city’s public hospital system, told Gothamist that the overall increase in deaths among homeless people is driven by an aging homeless population and easy access to cheap drugs. In fact, the majority of those who died last fiscal year were middle-age men and there are 1,400 seniors in the shelter system.

Why is it then that seniors and middle-age men and women are not being prioritized into the supportive housing system? A middle-age man and woman in a homeless shelter system is equivalent to a much older person living a stably-housed life. The city must urgently move to get middle-age people and seniors who are living on the street and in the shelters into supportive housing as quickly as possible.

As someone who has run two supportive housing programs I know the advantages of these programs, which give a homeless person their own apartment and a social worker to speak with on a regular basis, among other services. Unfortunately, the placement rate into supportive housing is at a 14-year low, according to Coalition for the Homeless. Be aware that an increase in affordable housing coming online is not going to help this group. You need housing that is structured for supportive services and for a population that has no income.

We can no longer allow homeless people who are living on the streets and in the subway system to vegetate and sleep in filthy conditions, many of those who do clearly have serious mental and physical health issues. The current standard of when someone can be committed to a psychiatric hospital is that the person has to be a threat to themselves or others. However this has been interpreted too strictly.

A commonsense approach has been proposed by Loree Sutton, a former Army brigadier general and psychiatrist who was the city’s veterans services commissioner until resigning and announcing her candidacy for mayor in 2021. Doctor Sutton has suggested that the civil commitment law be amended so that seriously mentally ill people can access inpatient services before exhibiting an immediate danger to themselves or others. Of course we also must stop the elimination of psychiatric beds and reverse course to substantially increase the number of those beds available in the city and state.

Health services must be improved within the shelters and we need to quickly increase the number of drop-in centers that will allow people to get off the street quickly and receive food, clothing, showers, medical care, and access to a social worker. A nurse at a drop-in can quickly diagnose an urgent medical problem and call for an ambulance. We now have only two of these centers in Manhattan.

The very shocking statistics of fatalities among the city’s homeless population must be investigated and the subject of a City Council oversight hearing. The Council cannot allow the administration to sweep this under the rug and cast off blame. The large increase to an already unacceptable problem must be paid the attention it deserves.

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Robert Mascali is a former Deputy Commissioner at the Department of Homeless Services and a former Vice President for Supportive Housing at Women in Need.

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A Cruel Surrogacy Proposal That New York Must Reject


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There are competing proposals to legalize surrogacy in NY (photo: Governor's Office)


Imagine having a baby but then being told you have to wait eight days before securing custody of your child. It’s bizarre and cruel, yet it’s an idea that’s actually being floated in Albany right now as a “compromise” to finally end New York State’s outdated ban on gestational surrogacy.

As a three-time cancer survivor in my thirties who went through three rounds of fertility preservation before treatment, this is heartbreaking. I choose to live in New York for many reasons, one of them is the progressiveness of our laws. We are leaders, but not on surrogacy. Now, it’s essential we catch up, and there’s nothing progressive about a bill separating newborn babies from their biological parents just days after birth.

During my cancer recovery, I was shocked to learn New York is one of only three states banning surrogacy. This is an issue that hits home for me and the women I work with who have also survived cancer. For many cancer patients, infertility is an enormously emotional and physical side effect of life saving treatment. This can mean a significant decrease in number and quality of eggs, as well as the inability to carry a child to term. In many cases, the only possibility for having a biological child is through a partnership with a woman acting as surrogate.

Last year, Governor Cuomo, signed FAFTA (the Fair Access to Fertility Treatment Act) into law.  Part of this mandate (that went into effect January 1, 2020) requires private insurance companies to provide fertility preservation medical treatments for people facing iatrogenic infertility, that is, infertility caused by a medical intervention, such as radiation, medication, or surgery. The next obvious step is to figure out a solution that helps these women become mothers after their cancer chapter has closed.

Currently, New Yorkers in this situation are forced to go out of state to find a surrogate. A bill that would end that ban, the Child-Parent Security Act, has the strong support of Governor Cuomo and passed the state Senate last year before dying in the Assembly. It is under serious consideration again this year, with the governor prioritizing it in his budget proposal.

Now a new bill is being sold as a “compromise” that while technically legalizing surrogacy would also effectively eliminate its practice in New York. This means an exacerbating ‘well we tried’ response from people who don’t take New Yorkers’ needs seriously.

The so-called compromise bill (S7717), sponsored by Senator Liz Krueger and by Assemblymembers Didi Barrett and Danny O’Donnell, would establish that after a child is born via surrogacy, the surrogate (who has no genetic relationship to the child) and the intended parents (who in most cases do have a genetic relationship to the child) would share parenting responsibilities for up to eight days. The surrogate could take the child home if she chose to. And if she petitioned the court within those eight days, she would automatically become the legal parent of the child with no recourse for the intended parents. In order for the intended parents to become legal parents, they would need to submit to medical evaluations, home studies, and background checks. Last I checked, these are not requirements for those with the ability to become mothers the traditional way. 

Think about how cruel this proposal is for women struggling with infertility, including cancer patients. Imagine having to undergo treatment, doing everything possible to preserve fertility options, recovering from cancer, creating an embryo through IVF, and ultimately partnering with a woman who will carry your child to birth as a surrogate. And then still having to worry every day of the pregnancy that at the end of the process, the woman who is serving as a surrogate will change her mind and keep your child. It’s frightening, cruel, and just outright wrong. 

It also reflects a lack of understanding about what surrogates want. Under professional practices in the United States, every surrogate already has their own biological children and have undergone careful medical and psychological screening. These women know exactly what they’re engaging in – they’re not pursuing surrogacy to have another child, but to help a family that cannot have children on their own.

Conversely, the Child-Parent Security Act would go far in helping those struggling with infertility in New York build a family. This is where New York can establish itself as a leader once again, now as it relates to surrogacy. In addition to legalizing compensated gestational surrogacy agreements, the legislation would create peace of mind for intended parents and establish the strongest protections in the nation for women serving as surrogates. Critically, the legislation would create a Surrogates’ Bill of Rights in New York, ensuring that women serving as surrogates have the right to make all medical decisions regarding their health and the pregnancy, the right to independent legal counsel, the right to comprehensive health insurance, and the right to access counseling.

Given the additional pain and trauma Senator Krueger’s proposal would put cancer patients seeking to become parents through surrogacy through, I hope she will consider withdrawing it and choosing instead to support the Child-Parent Security Act. New York must legalize surrogacy agreements and I applaud Senator Krueger for recognizing that need. But it is critical that we do so in a way that does not create additional trauma on intended parents – who have already gone through so much – and that protects women who serve as surrogates in New York.

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Amanda Rice is the founder and CEO of the Chick Mission, a non-profit focused on critical issues unique to young, female cancer patients – including fertility challenges that may follow after surgery, chemotherapy, radiation, and drug treatment. On Twitter @thechickmission.

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New York Has Already Moved Beyond Indian Point Nuclear Power; Here’s Where We’re Headed


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(photo: Kevin P. Coughlin/Office of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo)


Despite the last-minute denials in an op-ed column recently published in these pages, there’s actually good news regarding replacement energy for Indian Point’s 2,060 megawatts once it goes offline in April. The New York Independent System Operator — which coordinates the distribution of our electricity supply — says that New York will have enough replacement power to supplant the aging, problematic nuclear plant’s output once it closes, and it can be done with combinations of clean energy sources, transmission improvements, and energy efficiency.

Furthermore, in the last three years alone, enough clean energy and efficiency has been installed to replace one of the two Indian Point reactors. We’ve already made considerable progress toward replacing Indian Point with demand reduction, additional transmission, and new renewables, and we are continually making more at an ever faster pace.

Therefore, there will be no problem keeping the lights on when Indian Point closes while New York’s energy grid continues to reduce its reliance on fossil fuels. Moreover, the energy doomsayers forget that Indian Point is one of the most dangerous reactors in the country, surrounded by the largest population. We simply cannot take further safety risks and must close these reactors.

Increasing clean energy initiatives continue to be the foundation of New York’s efforts to combat climate change. In 2019, Governor Cuomo announced the procurement of 1,750 MW of offshore wind to add to the energy mix, while NYISO also approved 1,250 MW of transmission improvements that will allow wind and other renewables to get from upstate to downstate more easily by relieving two major bottlenecks. Additionally, battery storage can increasingly replace power plants that operate only during peak usage.

In Albany, Riverkeeper joined a full-court press by environmental and environmental justice groups to convince lawmakers to pass landmark legislation to combat climate change. The Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act, signed into law by Governor Cuomo, establishes aggressive mandates to ensure a 40 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 and an 85 percent reduction — with 100 percent carbon neutrality — by 2050.

It also codifies Governor Cuomo’s goals to achieve 70 percent low-carbon electricity by 2030 and 100 percent low-carbon electricity by 2040. The 2050 mandate stands as the most comprehensive and aggressive climate bill ever enacted at the state level. The bottom line is that the CLCPA will ensure that gas plants are rapidly phased out as more clean energy is generated.

The CLCPA also begins to address fairness and equity for environmental justice communities — those at the greatest risk from potential climate change-related impacts. While the law could have gone further to ensure economic justice for those front-line communities, it does require a proportion of state energy and climate investments to be made in these communities and it attaches fair labor standards — including prevailing wage standards — to all green projects receiving state funding.

Indian Point, on the other hand, is neither safe, clean, nor green. The plants are ranked the worst in the nation on earthquake risk, they had troubling problems with aging of the bolts that hold the reactors together, and there is no viable evacuation plan in case of an accident. Indian Point’s antiquated once-through water cooling system kills over one billion fish and fish larvae each year. The system withdraws 2.42 billion gallons per day from the Hudson and heats it up to a deadly temperature before discharging. Fish are killed when they are impinged on filter screens, entrained through the cooling system, and scalded by hot water. Evidence indicates that over 40 years, such slaughter and habitat degradation have contributed to the decline of numerous important fish species in the river. Also, the pools at the plant that house spent nuclear fuel have been leaking toxic, radioactive water into the ground since the 1990s, contaminating the local soil and the Hudson River.

Now, with the nation’s most aggressive climate legislation and the shutdown of Indian Point, New York’s energy landscape is about to be transformed for the better. Going forward, energy efficiency and renewable power will more than make up for the loss of generating capacity at Indian Point. Not only are no new gas plants needed, existing plants will rapidly come under pressure to close as the green transformation of New York’s power grid ramps up.

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Richard Webster is the Legal Director for Riverkeeper. A graduate of Columbia University Law School, he was formerly a staff attorney in the Environmental Enforcement Project at Public Justice. On Twitter @EnviroWeb & @riverkeeper.

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