(photo: NYC DOE)
First, do no harm. Ha!
On Tuesday, the New York City Council will hold an oversight hearing on teacher recruitment and retention. The Council announcement states that a hearing is necessary because “there’s a growing teacher shortage across the United States, although it is impacting some states more than others. This is the result of a nationwide trend that has seen the number of college students enrolled in education majors decrease by 35% in the past five years, as well as an increase in teachers leaving the profession.”
This attention follows on the heels of the recent New York State Regents proposal to roll back rigorous 2014 teacher certification requirements and congressional efforts to rescind recently enacted U.S. Department of Education regulations.
We’ve got to stop the madness.
The constant revision of teacher preparation and certification requirements has real consequences, with the bad far outweighing the good. The reason for the problems identified by the City Council -- to be further illuminated at Tuesday’s hearing -- are of our own making. The fact is that policy-makers are in the dark because we really don’t know what is required to make a good teacher. Not a great teacher, mind you, since certification, despite the political cant, is about formulating minimum standards for public school job entry. A Google Scholar search of the field reveals hundreds of articles published in the last year alone on this highly technical subject, which no regulatory policy can hope to encompass.
The system of certification and retention is a sieve that screens more for those who persevere through the procedural maze than for talented educators. Every state comes up with its own scheme, blundering around in the politically-appointed regulatory kitchen since no workable recipe has been found. Private school teachers need no certification. Many charter school teachers are uncertified, provided exceptions under state law. Tens of thousands of New York City public school students are taught every day by staff teaching “out of license.”
And every time some new half-baked hurdle is raised, an industry of preparation programs and their students is thrown into chaos. I work in higher ed. Curriculum changes are a big deal. Sometimes whole courses need to be developed, taking months to refine and sometimes longer to be reviewed and approved by layers of faculty committees and administration. Even small changes in course content require time for instructors to research, identify readings, determine assignments, and create assessments. And for every new course or curriculum tweak, other once-favored material needs to be adjusted or dropped. Students are whipsawed among confusing mandates, across overlapping certificate categories, with variable, dizzying deadlines. What is easy for politicians and regulators to order becomes a hornet’s nest to implement.
And then, once set, it starts all over again as current city, state, and federal actions attest. We run in place with the urgency of lame hamsters on a wheel, every step dictated by some imperfect previous step and the political imperatives of change. Or, borrowing a more eloquent metaphor to describe our vain, pedestrian predicament, “we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”
[Read: Teacher Recruitment, Retention Will Be Focus of City Council Hearing]
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David C. Bloomfield is Professor of Education Leadership, Law, and Policy at Brooklyn College and The CUNY Graduate Center. He is the author of American Public Education Law, 3d edition (2016). On Twitter @BloomfieldDavid.
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NYPD officers and dogs in the subway (photo: @NYPDnews)
Over the past five years, in the course of our research and advocacy efforts, we at PROP have become convinced that the NYPD's unjust policies not only violate our country's central founding principle of providing equal justice for all, but also that the department's racist practices are so entrenched, so long-standing, that only fundamental and far-reaching changes can end -- really end -- abusive and discriminatory policing in our great city.
Relevant facts and PROP findings show the dire need for real reform:
-In 2015 the NYPD made over 20,000 arrests for the possession or sale of small amounts of marijuana; and 92.5% of these arrests involved New Yorkers of color. This, despite the research showing that white people use and sell the drug in equal or greater proportions than African-Americans and Latinos.
-Recently, defending his police reform record on WNYC radio, Mayor de Blasio stated, "we stopped the arrests for low-level marijuana possession." In fact, during the first nine months of 2016, the NYPD made nearly 14,000 misdemeanor arrests for marijuana possession, about 12% more than the figure for 2015.
-The largest category of NYPD arrests in 2015 was fare evasion, with over 29,000 arrests, 92% involving New Yorkers of color. During 2015, NYPD officers also issued nearly 124,000 summonses for fare evasion, bringing the total number of punitive interactions between officers and New Yorkers for this offense to over 153,000 for the year, or an average of nearly 420 per day.
-Of the NYPD's juvenile arrests in 2015, 94.9% involved African-American or Latino young people.
-Of the New Yorkers locked up on Rikers Island and in other city jails, about 88% are African-American or Latino.
-Over the past two years, PROP's Court Monitoring Project, where volunteers observe proceedings in arraignment parts of the city's four major boroughs, found that over 90% of the observed cases involved New Yorkers of color. Virtually none of the defendants was even charged with a predatory or dangerous offense.
These and similar undeniable facts, among other things, have shown us that NYPD daily practices are marked by a stark racial bias. We know, too, that political leaders, whatever their motivations, have at worst lied to the public about this ugly truth or at best misrepresented the harsh reality of NYPD practices.
Given our well-founded skepticism about mainstream leaders' willingness to address the problem of discriminatory and abusive policing and our understanding of how deeply embedded the problem is in the NYPD's institutional policies and culture, we at PROP have chosen as a principal strategy for 2017, a year of city-wide municipal elections, to focus our determined efforts on injecting sweeping reform proposals into the public debate.
Our recommended changes will aim to advance substantive remedies that no mainstream politician will currently support. Not because they don't make sense or are not the right things to do, but because they are too politically charged.
PROP's proposed reforms for fundamental change will include:
-Abolishing "broken windows" policing that targets low-income New Yorkers of color for engaging in petty infractions that have been virtually decriminalized in well-off white communities.
-Eliminating the quota system for evaluating officers' performance that emphasizes only their punitive interactions with New Yorkers and that, in effect, incentivizes bad policing.
-Reducing the budget, personnel, resources, and power of the NYPD -- the guiding principle being, in part, the time-honored shibboleth that "power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely," applied to the unchecked power of the NYPD.
-Transferring traffic enforcement -- in 2015, NYPD officers issued over 1 million traffic summonses -- to another government agency.
-Having mental health professionals, not police officers, be the first responders to emergencies involving persons in psychiatric crisis.
America teaches her young people that she provides equal justice for all, not equal justice for all except if you're a person of color, except if you're poor. America teaches that under her legal system, you're innocent until proven guilty, not that you're innocent until proven guilty except if you're poor, except if you're an American of color.
Our goal for 2017 is grandiose and, admittedly, quixotic: to, starting with New York City, call America home, to create an America, starting with the Big Apple, that adheres to the founding principles of which she is so justifiably proud. And it's only by agreeing to and instituting fundamental and far-reaching changes, starting with her policing and criminal justice systems, that America can fulfill its stated vision of a just, livable, and inclusive society for all its people.
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Bob Gangi is the executive director of PROP, the Police Reform Organizing Project. On Twitter @PROPNYC.
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City Council Member Carlos Menchaca, the author (photo: William Alatriste)
Barack Obama may have given his farewell address, but he still has work to do. In his speech, the president rightly celebrated America’s history of welcoming immigrants and their contributions to our country. But Mr. Obama’s legacy on immigration is mixed. He has both deported more people than any prior president and acted in America’s best traditions by letting the Dreamers - undocumented youth brought to the United States as children – emerge from the shadows. There is one final step that President Obama can, and should, take to cement his legacy on the side of history we know is in his heart.
Most immigrant families in the United States are mixed status, meaning most have children who are citizens and immigrant parents, including Legal Permanent Residents (LPRs). The incoming administration’s promise to deport 2-3 million people with legal infractions threatens to rip these American families apart, because the threshold for deporting legal permanent residents is so low. Experts argue that this 2-3 million number cannot be reached without deporting people for minor offenses, such as traffic tickets. This is why I recently joined 60 local elected officials from across the country in asking President Obama to grant a blanket pardon to legal immigrants who have minor infractions and pose no threat to the country. He can prevent the breakup of these American families.
Pardoning this group of immigrants fits with the president’s recent actions on criminal justice and immigration. His clemency initiative and Deferred Arrival for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program seek to fix the broken criminal justice and immigrant systems that harm American families.
Having already designated Legal Permanent Residents with minor convictions as low priorities for deportation, President Obama could protect these American families further with a presidential pardon.
Some will object, arguing that America is a country of law and order. We agree, and support the deportation of those posing a risk to our community. We also support the American belief that punishment should fit the crime. Someone who had a minor infraction such as shoplifting or excessive traffic violations as a teenager could be eligible for deportation 20 years later as a responsible adult with children who are citizens. These deportations make no sense, and hurt families and children without enhancing the wellbeing of the country.
The group making this request, Local Progress, is composed of local elected officials that know, work with, live in, represent, and are part immigrant communities. We know that deportations cripple families and harm neighborhoods and the economy. We also know that the American Dream lives in our communities and that the country benefits from these newcomers and their children. Pardoning this group would prevent the unnecessary breakup of our American families, and allow parents to stay where they belong, raising their children in the communities they have helped build.
Watching President Obama’s farewell speech, I could not help but think about the many families in my Brooklyn district that have lost a family member to deportation. The effects are harsh. When a father gets deported, the family loses income and can lose their apartment. The education of children can be disrupted, and those remaining long to be with their missing family member. For the children – citizens, immigrants, or both – it is a hurt that does not go away. It is a step the U.S. government should not take lightly, or for symbolic political reasons.
I stand with my fellow elected officials to ask President Obama to grant these pardons. I also call on my fellow New Yorkers to call the president’s office and tell him to grant clemency to the hundreds of thousands of immigrants who stand to lose under President Trump. Before he leaves office, President Obama can help cement his legacy with such a pardon. He has the power, and should use it, as other presidents have done in the past. There is still time.
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Carlos Menchaca is a New York City Council Member and Chair of the Council’s Immigration Committee. On Twitter @cmenchaca.
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Bridge construction (photo: Gov. Cuomo's office)
As legislators return to Albany for the 2017 session, bolstering the state’s infrastructure clearly ranks high on their “to-do” list. While Governor Cuomo and the Legislature made vital investments last session with passage of the $27.1 billion transportation multi-year capital plan, there was also unfinished business which must be addressed this year to ensure those dollars will deliver the cost-effective results taxpayers expect.
Despite bipartisan legislation allowing some New York City agencies to use design-build contracts, it was surprisingly left languishing in committee last session. City Department of Transportation Commissioner Polly Trottenberg says gaining design-build authority is a top legislative priority. “I still have to use traditional design-bid-build, which, frankly, will add years to the project and tens of millions, if not hundreds of millions, of dollars. It just makes no sense,” Trottenberg recently said.
Design-build would be the single most effective step to update aging infrastructure and build new schools and public housing. Yet, despite bipartisan support, New York City is not allowed to capture the innovative and collaborative efficiencies design-build has delivered elsewhere in the state.
Design-build isn’t new and it’s not radical; however, it does require public owners (like cities, states and the federal government) to provide flexibility in the procurement process, allowing designers and builders to collaborate earlier in the process, creating projects which allocate risks more efficiently and improving delivery time and budget.
Even though New York lags behind many other states in approving design-build authority, the state’s successes are impressive. The emergency reconstruction of State Route 42 in Greene County, after its damage from Hurricane Irene, was completed in just four months, ahead of schedule and approximately 10 percent under budget using design-build. The state Department of Transportation projects the $550 million replacement of the Kosciuszko Bridge will be completed 3.5 years earlier thanks to design-build.
The largest capital project in the state used design-build for the New NY Bridge (replacing the Tappan Zee) which is projected to cost $1.7 billion less than originally planned while delivering 18 months ahead of schedule. And even though the city’s efforts at securing design-build have been futile in recent years, the state, led by Governor Cuomo, has been able to provide project specific authorization for the city. Specifically the billion-dollar expansion of the Jacob J. Javits Center and the Penn Station renovations will use design-build contracts.
Given the many New York design-build successes over just a few years, it’s impossible to understand why the Legislature has not granted all state agencies permanent design-build authority. Instead, we face a seemingly never-ending cycle of budget re-authorizations to allow the design-build delivery method; leaving agencies, contractors, subcontractors, and the workers they employ in a biannual legislative limbo. It’s even worse for New York City leaders who have no design-build authority even though they see the potential to save $2 billion over 10 years.
In these politically divisive days, it’s no small feat to find legislative proposals on which virtually everyone can agree. Design-build should be one of those proposals. Allowing innovation and collaboration to flourish on design-build projects in New York has stretched limited public funds by consistently delivering time and cost benefits on the vital infrastructure projects citizens support. New York is making the investments, now it must deliver the most cost-effective results possible. Providing permanent design-build authority for all New York State agencies while removing barriers for the City of New York is a win-win for lawmakers and the taxpayers they represent.
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Steven Ruether is Liberty Region President for the Design-Build Institute of America. On Twitter @DBIAnational.
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(photo: Sofie Hecht/Gotham Gazette)
In New York City, tiny, vulnerable, nonprofit organizations too often lose the real estate they own to for-profit developers. These unjustifiable losses are a complete mix-up of city and state tax policy, through the mechanism called the tax lien sale. New York City needs to fix this problem by removing nonprofits from the tax lien sale.
Nonprofits of various sizes -- religious institutions, universities, and community gardens alike -- frequently own property. These organizations, due to their nonprofit status, according to the New York State Constitution and New York State law and are tax exempt. Yet every year, New York City facilitates the sale of some of these properties to private speculative developers, and it is never the mega universities or big churches that end up in this mess, but small, local nonprofits.
New York City is correctly concerned with maintaining its tax base to keep the city functioning. In 1996, the Giuliani administration drastically changed the way the city deals with owners who don’t pay their property taxes out of concern for the lost tax revenue. One aspect of that change was the introduction of the tax lien sale for all property owners, including nonprofit owners even though they do not owe these taxes in the first place.
The tax lien sale works like this: if you, as a property owner, don’t pay your property taxes, the city places a lien on your property and sells it to a tax lien trust, an investment vehicle only rich ("accredited") investors can use. The trust then adds interest and fees and collects the "past due" taxes even when they were not technically due. If the property owner doesn't pay those fees, the trust initiates foreclosure and then sells to a buyer, usually a developer, at a post-foreclosure auction.
If you are a nonprofit owner, to avoid the tax lien sale you need to successfully apply for a tax exemption. When your tiny organization has a staff of two or three people, sometimes the administration is imperfect and you don’t file an exemption form when you acquire the property, which can lead to the loss of your property because of the tax lien system.
To continue avoiding the tax lien sale, your nonprofit needs to annually file a renewal form with the Department of Finance. So, if your community garden board misses a few pieces of mail because the former president retired and the new generation of garden caretakers doesn’t have every city agency sending mail to the right place, the renewal might not get filed. And the tax lien warnings may go unnoticed.
In a year or two, New York City thinks this property has a civic duty to pay taxes (which it does not) and is delinquent in that duty. The lien gets sold, and then your garden or church gets foreclosed. The worst case scenario happens when a developer shows up with court papers at your garden’s fence and tells you “we own this now and you must go.”
So, even though the state constitution provides for the exemption of property taxes for nonprofits, and even though New York law provides that your property is exempt from the date you acquire the property as a nonprofit, the City Department of Finance is still permitting the tax lien sales of nonprofits.
As D.W. Gibson reported earlier this year, the Black Veterans for Social Justice in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn learned this year that tax debt on their property had been sold. Tax debt that, under state constitutional principle and state law, they do not owe. They are working on untangling this mess before their building ends up in foreclosure.
Tax revenue from property owners is an important piece of how the city functions. But this cannot be an excuse for seeing a small community nonprofit, especially in an already pressed neighborhood, fall into foreclosure.
The city should collect taxes from luxury real estate developers. The city should exert more muscle to collect fines from delinquent landlords who permit their buildings to collapse around tenants. The city should focus its hunt for lost revenue on the actual organizations that legally and morally should be paying it.
The rules around tax lien sales are up for renewal this year. New York City must exempt nonprofits from the tax lien sale altogether. New York City should not be seeking lost revenue from the most vulnerable populations. This problem can be fixed.
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Richard Semegram is a tenant lawyer and an advisory committee member of 596 Acres. On Twitter @richagram.
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Gov. Cuomo (photo: Kevin P. Coughlin/Governor's Office)
Governor Cuomo’s plan to make tuition free for many New York State residents who attend SUNY or CUNY two- or four-year schools would be an exciting step toward ensuring students across the state can access New York’s prized public university systems. The newly-announced Excelsior Scholarship proposal could help 940,000 families who qualify for the state’s Tuition Assistance Program (TAP) with annual incomes less than $125,000. The program is designed to fill the gaps in tuition aid after state and federal grants have been used.
This is a big deal that New Yorkers should celebrate.
Yet, only increasing tuition aid is not enough alone to ensure true financial access. The proposal is a “last dollar” award, backfilling aid after state and federal grants, and therefore the program does not help low-income students who already have the full costs of their tuition covered by Pell and TAP but struggle to afford other expenses associated with earning a degree, such as books, child care, housing, transportation, and more.
In fact, non-tuition expenses make up the majority of the full cost of attending four-year and two-year public institutions. The Excelsior Scholarship program must come with a commitment to help cover these additional costs to allow students who enroll to actually stay in school, access the resources they need, and finish their degrees.
In addition to potentially leaving out the most at-need students who require more support than tuition coverage, the Excelsior Scholarship proposal turns a blind eye to some of New York’s neediest communities who would greatly benefit from a pathway to a free degree. Only students attending school full-time and who graduate on-time would be eligible to participate. This excludes part-time students, many of whom are balancing work and family responsibilities, requiring more than just free tuition to be able to attend college full-time. For the more than 84,000 undergraduate students at CUNY who attend part-time, representing almost 35 percent of undergraduate students, the Excelsior Scholarship falls short.
Another group excluded from this program are the more than 8,300 undocumented students currently attending SUNY or CUNY. The governor must hold true to his promises made to immigrant New Yorkers over the last few weeks by expanding the Excelsior Scholarship program to undocumented students and once and for all giving them access to state grants like the Tuition Assistance Program to access college.
The plan also claims it will increase on-time graduation rates by providing four years of tuition-free education, but we know being able to afford tuition doesn’t guarantee completion. It’s promising the governor is focused on improving graduation rates considering that less than 50 percent of four-year SUNY students and less than 30 percent of CUNY students graduate within four years. However, any plan to bolster timely completion must come with a commitment to significantly expanding opportunity programs that include academic and financial supports and services that support students while in school. This includes bringing to scale initiatives like CUNY’s Accelerated Study in Associate Programs (ASAP) to ensure that disadvantaged students from underserved communities can equitably access and make the most of a free public higher education when given the opportunity.
Addressing the cost of tuition is a critical step toward getting more young New Yorkers to complete college, but tuition is not the only barrier to success. To meet the needs of New York’s students, to make sure they get the skills and training needed to meet the demands of the economy and combat New York’s high young adult unemployment crisis, Governor Cuomo and state legislators need to expand this burgeoning plan to include the most vulnerable students.
The governor’s foundational investment and enthusiasm toward making college more accessible by making it more affordable is a promising step forward. However, we need to ensure this program is expanded to include those New Yorkers with the least access and with greatest challenges to earning a college degree.
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Kevin Stump is the Northeast Director for Young Invincibles, an advocacy and policy organization working on higher education, health, and jobs issues impacting 18-34 year olds. YI is also a part of President Obama's College Promise Task Force. On Twitter @KevinStump and @YoungInvincible.
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Hudson Falls, upper Hudson River (photo: NY DEC)
Who is responsible for keeping the Hudson River free from pollution? Actually, it is a responsibility shared by Federal and State authorities. Sometimes they agree; other times, they may be at cross purposes. That can make for some interesting political debate and interplay between the federal and state governments.
Two current environmental issues are good examples.
Cleaning up PCBs in the Hudson
GE dumped PCBs, toxic chemicals resulting from its manufacturing facilities in Hudson Falls and Fort Edward, into the Hudson for many years. Most of the chemicals settled to the bottom but some drifted downstream. They were ingested by fish, leading to a ban on eating fish caught in the river. After years of controversy and discussion, GE agreed to pay for dredging the river from Fort Edward to Troy, under supervision of the Federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as a federal Superfund project. Dredging work began in 2009 and concluded in 2015 with the removal of some 310,000 pounds of PCBs. GE called it a "major environmental success" and declared it had met its cleanup responsibilities.
EPA monitored the work and expressed satisfaction as it went along. EPA is scheduled to test sediment and fish mostly near the site once more in 2017 and then was expected to certify that GE had met its obligations. When the dredging concluded in 2015, EPA allowed GE to dismantle its PCB processing plant at Fort Edward with the implication that the work was done. The Cuomo administration did not object. Political pundits pointed out that at the time the administration was trying to convince GE to move its headquarters from Connecticut to New York. GE ended up moving to Boston instead.
But the PCB issue is not resolved.
In strongly-worded letters to the EPA in November and December, 2016, New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) Commissioner Basil Seggos expressed "significant concerns" and asserted that "EPA's work is not done." The river is still "much more contaminated than EPA originally predicted." He added, "it is clear that the dredging performed will not meet...targeted fish PCB concentrations and EPA will not be able to deliver on the projected benefits to public health and the environment from this cleanup unless additional actions are undertaken." Much more sampling and testing are needed, along the entire length of the river from Fort Edward all the way to New York City.
"It's simple," Seggos explained. "DEC is calling on the EPA to finish the job and hold GE accountable for cleaning up the Hudson River. If EPA won't do the job and protect New Yorkers and the environment, DEC is ready to step in and lead."
The war of words escalated in December. EPA Regional Administrator Judith Enck wrote Seggos on December 21 to say, "we strongly disagree" with the "baseless accusation" that EPA has not done its job. She rejected his demand for additional sampling beyond what EPA was already planning, adding that "NYSDEC is free to pursue that sampling itself if it so chooses."
EPA will make its decision early this year on whether GE needs to do more dredging.
Keeping oil off the Hudson
A consortium of maritime and oil companies has proposed construction of 10 "anchorages" along the shores of the Hudson River, from Kingston to Yonkers, to store large barges carrying crude oil south from Albany. The anchorages would include a total of 40 berths, or parking spaces, for the ships. The proposal resulted from a decision by Congress last year ending a ban on export of oil produced in the lower 48 states.
Proponents say that the action by Congress will increase the amount of oil moving by rail to the Port of Albany and then down the Hudson by boat. Their proposal will produce jobs, help lower energy costs, and boost the economy, they say.
Opponents counter that the anchorages are unnecessary and will cause environmental damage to the river.
The U.S. Coast Guard has legal responsibility for reviewing and deciding on the proposal. It has received more than 10,000 comments from interested citizens, environmental groups, local governments, and others.
New York state government weighed in with two long letters in December.
A joint letter to the Coast Guard from the New York Secretary of State, Department of Environmental Conservation, Public Service Commission, and Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation, set forth a long list of concerns about the proposal and called for more study, concluding that the proposal "lacks sufficient justification and detail." The state agencies expressed concern about the number of anchorages, lack of specificity about how many barges would be accommodated or how long they would stay, impact on state parks and other state-owned lands, the risks of accidents and spills, and the impact on fish, particularly two species of endangered sturgeon that inhabit the Hudson. But they couched their reservations not as outright opposition but instead mostly in terms of assertions that there needs to be lots more study and consultation.
Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, who sometimes makes a point of expressing positions on public issues that are independent from those of the Cuomo administration, sent his own letter, not to the Coast Guard but to the head of its parent agency, the Secretary of Homeland Security.
Schneiderman asserted that the Coast Guard should discontinue consideration of the proposal until it is reviewed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which Schneiderman asserts is required by law. But he went on to express more direct opposition than his colleagues in the other New York State agencies. “No one has demonstrated a manifest need for so many new anchorage sites along the river; no one has demonstrated a need for long-term anchorage at any of those specific locations...." The barges "would create significant security and hazard risks" particularly since the anchorages "would essentially allow barges to serve as oil storage facilities on the river,” he wrote.
The Coast Guard will decide on the barge anchorage proposal early in 2017.
The Hudson River and public policy
The Hudson River's extraordinary historical importance magnifies the importance of these issues. "Far more than a short river flowing through New York State, the Hudson is a thread that runs through the fabric of four centuries of American civilization -- its culture, its community, and its consciousness," wrote Tom Lewis in The Hudson: A History. It is "the valley where nature's creation and human creation meet, the river that connects so much of America's past with its present and future, unchangeable in presence yet always changing."
The PCB and oil barge issues illustrate a number of themes. Public opinion recognizes the commercial importance of the Hudson River. But people seem more concerned these days with the river's historical, aesthetic, scenic, and recreational values. Commercial exploitation has been at least partially upstaged by insistence on preservation for public benefit. There is a consensus that public authorities need to enforce policies to keep the river clean and, to the degree practical, that polluters need to clean up their pollution under government supervision.
But major policy decisions turn primarily on scientific evidence, and some imprecision is inevitable. When has there been "enough" dredging of PCBs? How much harm will giant oil barges cause to protected fish habitats? When federal and state perspectives and standards differ, which should prevail? How should economic and commercial benefits be balanced against environmental concerns?
These questions will be debated as the two issues discussed above play out in 2017. They are judgment calls that, inevitably, whether we admit it or not, are tinged with political considerations. But they are the sorts of issues that will continue to reverberate in environmental discussions here in New York, and indeed across the nation, in coming years.
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Dr. Bruce W. Dearstyne's latest book is The Spirit of New York: Defining Events in the Empire State's History, published in 2015 by SUNY Press.
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Mayor de Blasio (photo: Michael Appleton/ Mayor's Office)
At the end of his first year in office, Mayor Bill de Blasio said his new year’s resolution for 2015 was to be on time more often. The chronically late mayor mostly made good on that resolution. At the end of 2015, NY1’s Errol Louis asked de Blasio for a resolution and the mayor didn’t come up with anything on the spot -- I subsequently offered several to him in a Daily News column.
He accomplished few of them.
As 2016 came to a close, de Blasio didn't make an explicit resolution, but he seems to have settled on better addressing the city’s homelessness crisis as his major area for improvement in 2017.
On multiple occasions recently, the mayor has acknowledged that the city has been unsuccessful driving down the shelter census, which has increased significantly during de Blasio’s three years in office, to about 60,000, continuing an upward trend over decades that accelerated under Mayor Michael Bloomberg. While admitting the need to do better, de Blasio has also said the crisis would be even worse but for his administration’s actions, such as increasing rent subsidies and providing lawyers for thousands of tenants facing eviction.
When I asked the mayor at a December 29 press conference what mistakes he’s made in 2016 and what he hopes to do differently in 2017, he cited homelessness, but also said, “I’m very tough on myself. I’m very tough on my team...I want perfection from myself, I want perfection from them. But I make mistakes all the time and then I try and fix them. I try and figure out how I can do better. But I don’t make it a point to sort of self-flagellate nor to exaggerate when something goes right. I try and keep an even keel.”
He did not offer anything specific beyond homelessness.
So, like last year, I am suggesting several new year’s resolutions for Mayor de Blasio. The list would have been slightly different had de Blasio not moved in 2016 to clean up some of his messes: closing down the Campaign for One New York, limiting his meetings with lobbyists, and cutting top outside advisors (“agents of the city”) from government meetings, for example.
Still, there are a number of things the mayor can resolve to do better in 2017, if he so chooses:
Show, Don’t Tell
De Blasio has struggled to portray a strong image as an in-charge, on-top-of-things Mayor. He’s shown more interest in broad themes than nuts-and-bolts operations, though he’s recognized the need to be more present in neighborhoods. While de Blasio has started to hold town hall meetings throughout the city, he is still not as active as he could or should be on-site as city employees carry out essential tasks and provide public services.
It doesn’t have to be as hokey as helping fill a pothole, but more activity along those lines would be helpful to New Yorkers, city workers, and de Blasio himself -- both practically and politically. The mayor doesn’t even have to do any of the work, but he could more regularly visit what is happening “in the field,” see how it’s being done, thank those doing it, and show New Yorkers he’s overseeing things up-close.
Own Your Accomplishments
The mayor should hold more events to showcase his administration’s many accomplishments. Right now the mayor is known for his impressive implementation of universal pre-kindergarten. But, he could be known for much more if he were to put forth a sustained effort to promote and own what his administration is devoting resources to in order to create the more equal city de Blasio wants.
Instead of being known solely as The Pre-K Mayor, de Blasio could fairly easily also be known as The Affordable Housing Mayor; The Small Business Mayor; The Gender Equity Mayor; The Street Safety Mayor; The NYCHA Mayor; The Renewable Energy Mayor.
Can you imagine de Blasio holding 10 events on one subject within a month? (As, for example, Governor Cuomo just did on the Second Avenue Subway.)
I’m not sure de Blasio ever did that on pre-K. And, somehow, he still hasn’t done it on crime, despite the fact that crime has continued to trend downward during his tenure (while he’s also implemented several aspects of criminal justice reform). There are many opportunities to own these accomplishments and others. De Blasio may be closest on street safety (Vision Zero), affordable housing, and crime, but he’s nowhere near “there,” and could be in 2017.
Circle the Wagons at the City Council
The City Council is key to de Blasio accomplishing some of his goals. The mayor has some stalwart allies in the Council: seven members already endorsed him for re-election, and others are sure to follow. And, de Blasio has made holding a town hall in every Council district a goal and has done a good number so far.
But, he’s also faced some tough resistance to certain affordable housing projects, criticism of his management, and other pushback. It’s only natural that as a mayor’s tenure extends some relationships will fray while others blossom. De Blasio needs to make sure that he maintains key relationships, that he works with new Council allies, and that he doesn’t allow too many relationships to deteriorate. It could also benefit him to work on some of the already-frayed relationships -- with, say, City Council Member Rory Lancman, a steady de Blasio critic.
Explain Your Plans Better
De Blasio has promised a new outline of his fight against homelessness. Why don’t New Yorkers have a better sense of what’s already happening?
And, there are other plenty of other problems to tackle, whether citywide, by borough, or in specific neighborhoods. The mayor will surely announce new initiatives during his February State of the City speech, and he has a re-election platform to lay out.
Even before he announces new homelessness-fighting measures and puts them together with ongoing programs to show a more complete picture, there has been an avoidable deficiency in how the city’s efforts are presented.
Why not hold a press conference to make a detailed, clear presentation of the different pieces and how they fit together -- on homelessness, or transportation equity, or any number of complex subjects? The mayor does this each year for his budget address and he has given multiple education-focused speeches, with accompanying presentation slides. He could easily do this type of thing more often to showcase the steps his administration is taking on key policy issues.
Stop Blurring the Lines
As with the Campaign for One New York, other efforts that have resulted in law enforcement investigations, and his “agents of the city” declaration, de Blasio has made a pattern of blurring ethical lines, if not crossing legal ones. Even as he’s moved away from some of the more troublesome practices -- like allowing a consultant who has clients with city business to sit in on government meetings -- It happened again when City Hall released a video touting the de Blasio administration’s accomplishments and praising the mayor himself.
Instead of taking all kinds of action that require conflicts-of-interest and legal guidance, not to mention rhetorical tap-dancing, de Blasio should resolve to a higher standard.
Build and Repair Other Relationships
Things are probably beyond repair with Governor Cuomo, but it can only help to inch things in a more positive direction. Likewise Scott Stringer, another fellow Democrat, but the mayor should figure out ways to pull the city comptroller closer -- see, for example, how Cuomo made Attorney General Eric Schneiderman a special prosecutor in police killings of unarmed individuals. One easy way is the private-sector retirement savings program that the city is developing. There are a host of other potential collaborations that may give the comptroller a little more pause before excoriating the de Blasio administration at every possible turn.
There are less far-fetched opportunities for the mayor to build and repair other non-City Council relationships, though. Which state lawmakers should de Blasio look to partner with beyond Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie, who must remain a major de Blasio ally? Assemblymembers Michael Blake, Nily Rozic, and Brian Kavanagh make sense; State Senator Liz Krueger is an incredibly obvious ally the mayor should do more with, as is Senator Gustavo Rivera; and why not embrace the handful of Brooklyn state Senators who represent much of the mayor’s base, as well as other Democratic state legislators from across the five boroughs.
Then there is the quaint notion of bipartisanship. De Blasio has found some common ground with State Senator Martin Golden, he should find other opportunities to work with Republicans in both city and state government. Staten Island is always a good place for this type of effort. City Council Minority Leader Steve Matteo is the type of elected official who cares far less about political party than he does about getting things done for his constituents -- plenty that can be done with him. This type of work may even help improve the mayor's standing with white New Yorkers, who, according to opinion polls, have strongly unfavorable views of him.
Manage Better Before Crises
It’s the nature of government (and other sectors) that reforms are made in response to crisis. But, it’s clear from de Blasio’s management style, the city’s ballooning budget, and other evidence, that de Blasio has not made priorities of operational and organizational reforms.
Has he asked his deputy mayors and agency commissioners for reimagined org charts, with explanations? Has he asked commissioners to trim the fat at their agencies where they have shifted focus from the prior administration? A little of the latter, but not enough.
It can be good to look like you're responding to a crisis with reform, but it's also important to not always look or be so reactive when being more proactive can help prevent problems.
The Rivington House sage made it clear that First Deputy Mayor Tony Shorris has too much on his plate. And while Shorris’ office is bringing in a new high-level administrator, there may be room in 2017 for restructuring the upper management of City Hall, perhaps adding a deputy mayor, which could then lead to a new look at every city agency, how each is being managed, and where improvements can be made. Some new policy ideas could also emerge, and that wouldn’t be half-bad, for the mayor or New Yorkers.
Figure Out Your Media Strategy
De Blasio has said several times over the years that he has struggled to communicate. He’s rearranged his press strategy several times, made a number of changes to his communications team (a new communications director, his third, is about to start mid-January), and failed to develop any semblance of good will among the City Hall press corps (he hasn’t really tried). De Blasio has significantly limited the occasions on which he takes questions from members of that press corps, and rarely hosts press conferences at City Hall.
Most, if not all, members of the media think de Blasio should be more available to the press, of course. The mayor thinks the City Hall press corps ‘doesn’t get it’ and is often stuck on trivial matters, like the mayor’s helicopter rides or law enforcement investigations that de Blasio thinks shouldn’t overshadow the noble work he’s doing. Speaking of something de Blasio finds trivial, there’s been little press attention of late on the mayor’s gym routine, but that’s another good resolution for de Blasio in 2017: find a gym near Gracie Mansion or City Hall, and only visit the Park Slope Y on the weekends. Unfortunately, doing this in 2017 would look like a cynical re-election year ploy, but it would be welcome by many anyway.
De Blasio should be more open and frank, with the press and the public. He should hold more press conferences and take more questions when he does hold them. The mayor should give more one-on-one interviews to more outlets, especially if he’s going to continue to limit his press conference Q&As, and he should do more quick "gaggles" with reporters who follow him to public events where he's giving remarks or marching in a parade. And, City Hall should make a more concerted effort to get city commissioners in front of reporters and onto the airwaves.
The mayor regularly misses opportunities for “good news” press events, a mystifying pattern since he took office, and another thing that is easily fixable.
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by Ben Max, Gotham Gazette
@tweetBenMax @GothamGazette
Solar panel installation (SolarCity)
Let’s start with the good news.
Solar energy is growing and more popular than ever.
The amount of solar energy installed in the United States has quadrupled since 2010, generating enough energy to power 1 in 20 American homes.
In 2016, the United States witnessed its millionth solar installation and the industry expects to hit 2 million solar installations in just the next two years.
All this growth in solar power brings tangible benefits to local communities across New York.
Environmentally, solar power reduces the need for harmful fossil fuels and cuts pollution that science shows causes climate change. Here in New York, we know we need to act now to reduce the worst impacts of climate change. We already see its manifestations in hotter summers, wildfires, and more frequent extreme weather events.
Economically, solar power can lower energy bills over time as an energy source with zero fuel costs. It also creates local jobs. In 2015, solar employed over 8,200 people in New York. At the end of 2015, solar employed more Americans than the oil and gas extraction industry.
Furthermore, solar power fosters civic engagement between decision-makers and energy stakeholders, from homeowners to school principals and small business owners, creating more invested parties in the future of clean energy across New York.
Because of these benefits, solar power is tremendously popular across the political spectrum. Recent polls show that majorities of Republicans and Democrats support the advancement of clean energy.
Now here’s the bad news.
As solar power has grown, it has been attacked by entrenched energy interests who see rooftop solar as an existential threat to their bottom line.
A new report by Environment New York Research & Policy Center, Blocking the Sun, documents 17 fossil fuel-backed groups and electric utilities running some of the most aggressive campaigns to slow the growth of solar energy throughout the country.
Rather than value the full benefits of distributed solar energy, these utilities and their fossil fuel backers have attempted to cut credits to solar customers and charge them extra fees. In some states, they have even attempted to do away with renewable energy standards altogether.
The fact is we can’t maintain a status quo mostly filled with an energy portfolio of gas, coal, and nuclear power plants that threaten our environment and our health. We need to tap into solar and renewable energy sources on rooftops across New York and beyond.
Of the findings, the report documents how the Koch brothers have provided funding to the national fight against solar by funneling tens of millions of dollars through a network of opaque non-profits; the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) has provided utility and fossil fuel interests with access to state legislatures and inspired anti-solar legislation in a group of states; utilities in Arizona, Florida, North Carolina, Nevada, Ohio, West Virginia, California, and Illinois have undertaken extensive campaigns to revoke renewable energy policy or impose new charges on their solar customers.
In mid-2016, there were at least 84 ongoing policy actions in U.S. states that could impact the growth of solar energy, including limitations to net metering or new charges to make rooftop solar power less economically viable.
With all the advantages of solar energy, we can’t just turn our back on tapping the power of the sun. So far, New York leaders have stood up to those who have wanted to stop progress of rooftop solar. Let’s make sure they know how much support there is for solar power and continue to push back against attempts to stunt the growth of renewable energy.
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Heather Leibowitz, Esq. is the Director of Environment New York, a statewide advocacy organization. On Twitter @EnvNY.
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(photo: @NYCschools)
As families across the city gather in their homes to celebrate the holidays, a record number of children -- more than 23,000 -- are currently living in homeless shelters in New York City.
Homelessness means much more than lacking a permanent place to lay your head every night, especially for children. The impacts of homelessness on young people are particularly devastating and go well beyond housing issues into health and education.
Recent local media coverage has chronicled the record high numbers of homeless students in schools throughout the five boroughs and the difficulties their parents face in meeting their personal needs and help them fulfill their academic potential. It is not that homeless students are any less capable than their peers.
Rather, the troubling disparities in performance are a direct result of the staggering barriers to physical and emotional well-being children face when they are homeless.
Citizens’ Committee for Children’s Community Risk Ranking, an annual report on children in all 59 community districts in New York City, ranks well-being across six key domains – economic security, housing, health, education, youth, family and community – and illustrates the compounding nature of risk factors. Communities that rank high-risk in one domain tend to rank high-risk in several others, multiplying the problems faced by children growing up in those neighborhoods and dramatically increasing their chances of very poor outcomes.
The risk ranking shines a light on the areas in the city that are still struggling to recover from the economic downturn, with median incomes among working poor families remaining stagnant while rents and overcrowding have continued to rise.
Such is the case in East Tremont in the Bronx, where one in three families are paying more than 50 percent of their income on rent, and families are three-and-a-half times more likely to enter the city’s homeless system than families citywide. In this neighborhood, children are not only facing obstacles in terms of housing conditions, but also regarding poor outcomes in education, health, youth risks, and crime, as well as a profound lack of economic security – all of which are proven to have a negative impact on their short- and long-term well-being.
The data is disturbing – but it also arms us with the facts we need to make sure we are comprehensively addressing children’s needs. When we know what children are up against, we are better equipped to help them and their families face the challenges head-on.
In fact, data from the Community Risk Ranking also points to communities where risks are low and children are thriving. This shows that poor outcomes can be turned around when efforts are made to ensure that New Yorkers have access to the services and supports that provide pathways to opportunities for children and their families.
We need to keep in mind both the needs of children as well as what works for them when the federal administration changes hands next month. There is no doubt that anticipated proposals would intensify the risks facing our city’s most vulnerable children.
Homeless children and their families stand to lose not only public housing or federal housing subsidies that can bring them more stability, but also many of the social safety net programs through which they receive health care coverage, food supports, or child care, and upon which their futures rely.
For example, if our city’s children lose access to the food stamps (SNAP benefits) that allow families to put food on the table for their children, the odds are great that their physical and mental health and academic performance will worsen. That is a cruel truth of poverty: Positively addressing one need does not necessarily impact others, but cutting off a resource for one need can have a devastating ripple effect.
So as we ring in the new year with family and friends, we must resolve to focus in 2017 on those more than 23,000 children who lack access to so much of what many of us take for granted. We must be ready to fight so that we have more resources to help them with, not less.
Fortunately, we have the information we need to lend our voices to children and families. We must commit to maintaining steady pressure on our federal, state, and city leaders to not only protect the programs and services these children rely upon but expand access to the services that have proven to help them thrive.
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Jennifer March, PhD, is the executive director of Citizens’ Committee for Children of New York. On Twitter @CCCNewYork.
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