Gotham Gazette

The Place for New York Policy and politics

Sandy Nurse

Sandy Nurse

  • New City Budget Incrementally Expands Composting Programs as Council Considers Citywide Mandate

    Community composting (photo: William Alatriste/City Council)


    When Mayor Eric Adams was running for City Hall, he pledged to expand the city’s incipient residential curbside composting program. But despite a push for more by some City Council members, the recently approved $101 billion budget for next fiscal year, beginning July 1, only marginally increases funding for other composting programs while halting the promised expansion of residential curbside composting. 

    The city’s voluntary curbside composting program has moved forward in fits and starts. Organics account for about a third of

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  • Majority of City Council Declares Opposition to Reauthorizing NYC Tax Lien Sale

    City Hall (photo: Benjamin Kanter/Mayoral Photo Office)


    New York City’s controversial tax lien sale program, which helps the city collect unpaid property debt, expired at the end of February and a majority of City Council members now say they will refuse to reauthorize it.

    The city government uses the tax lien sale program, created in 1996, to sell unpaid debts on property taxes and sewer and water bills to private entities, which pay the city about 75 cents on the dollar. Those private lien servicing companies then tack

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  • As City Council Continues Push for Sanitation Funding, Administration Touts Investments 'In a Lot of the Right Places'

    (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office)


    Trash and sanitation have become a top issue for the City Council in this year’s budget season, but Mayor Eric Adams’s $99.7 billion executive budget proposal for the 2023 fiscal year that begins July 1 failed to fund many Council demands. At a hearing on Tuesday, Council members questioned administration officials on their sanitation priorities — from corner basket pickups to composting — and their approach to a problem that has

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  • How Trash Became a Top-of-the-Heap City Budget Issue

    Council Member Chi Ossé on a sanitation tour of his district (photo: John McCarten/NYC Council Media Unit)


    Trash has become among the most prominent issues in this year’s New York City budget negotiations, as well as the focus of larger policy debates about how the city handles its garbage and recycling.

    The infamous mountains of black bags that clutter sidewalks, the overflowing waste baskets at street corners, and the litter on city streets have all been the subject of significant attention from Mayor Eric Adams, Comptroller Brad Lander, and many members of the New York City Council,

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  • Max Politics Podcast: The Future of NYC Trash, with City Council Sanitation Chair Sandy Nurse

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    City Council Member Sandy Nurse (photo: @SandyforCouncil)


    February 4, 2022 - Max Politics Podcast: The Future of Garbage and Trash, with City Council Member Sandy Nurse

    City Council Member Sandy Nurse, the new chair of the Council's Sanitation Committee, joined the show to discuss her background in recycling and green jobs, her approach to chairing the committee, the future of organics recycling, commercial waste zones, curbside trash containerization, and more.

    Listen to the conversation and let us know what

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  • Newly-Seated Brooklyn City Council Member Quickly Faces Tough 2021 Primary

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    Former City Council Member Rafael Espinal in the 37th District (photo: John McCarten/City Council)


    Darma Diaz is one of the newest members of the New York City Council, having recently won the election to represent Brooklyn’s District 37, filling an unexpected vacancy at the beginning of December. But her election did not take place under normal circumstances and now the Democrat must defend the seat that she won unopposed in both the June primary and the November general.

    District 37, which covers Bushwick, East New York, Cypress Hills, Ocean Hill,

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