(photo: @newkingsdems)
After the 2016 election, I was one of the millions of people who felt helpless and depressed about the state of politics. To feel less helpless and depressed, I decided to get involved; the only problem was that I had no idea where to start. Sure, I marched, donated, and even hosted a few letter-writing parties, but I couldn’t shake a nagging feeling that, somehow, it wasn’t enough.
Then I got an email from #RepYourBlock, a campaign led by the New Kings Democrats, asking me if I wanted to run for a seat on County Committee – the official governing body of the Democratic Party in Brooklyn. And I know this sounds cliché, but after receiving that email everything changed.
But before everything changed, I was the new person at my first meeting, watching a bunch of confident, passionate, and super impressive strangers use a whole bunch of lingo I didn’t understand to talk about a complex issue I knew nothing about. It was scary. It was intimidating. And it was humbling.
But I was determined to make an impact. I was going to do more. And so I stuck with it. I went to another meeting. I learned more about the issues affecting my community. I introduced myself to some of those intimidating strangers from that first #RepYourBlock meeting and quickly learned they were sweet, caring people who were more than happy to help me get up to speed and explain things again when I didn’t get it the first time. (That happened often, and still does.)
Running for County Committee starts with petitioning to get on the ballot. In my case I had to collect about 35 signatures of registered Democrats who lived in my Election District — it seems easy but can still be very intimidating when you’re doing something like this for the first time. That's why it was so great to have the company and moral support of my County Committee partner, a lovely gentleman named William who has lived in the building around the corner from me for the past 15 years.
I met William briefly at a #RepYourBlock petition training event just a month before petitioning began, he gave me his business card and a couple of weeks later I called him to ask if he wanted to be partners, hoping he remembered me from the meeting a couple of weeks prior. He did, or at least said he did, and together we hit the streets! #RepYourBlock printed our petitions, and provided us with a walk-list of registered Democrats so we knew which doors to knock on.
I now have two years as a County Committee member under my belt. I can’t tell you how empowering it feels to be a part of a community of people who roll up their sleeves, get involved, and band together across Brooklyn to fight to make the Brooklyn Democratic Party more transparent, participatory, and representative.
#RepYourBlock was founded to help fill the thousands of vacant County Committee seats - with the idea that by increasing participation, we could improve the Brooklyn Democratic Party's capacity to represent and work for Brooklyn Democrats. It exists to make sure that these seats are open to anyone who wants to get more involved in local politics, not just close allies of elected officials. County Committee members help dictate party business and are even sometimes afforded the power to fill legislative and judicial vacancies, and we think all kinds of everyday Brooklynites should have a say.
And although we’ve made a lot of strides with #RepYourBlock, we still have a long way to go. Because in truth, County Committee has been historically run by a complacent party machine. I'm hopeful that the party's newly-elected "boss", Assemblymember Rodneyse Bichotte, will bring positive change.
Too often, the party machine (with its hold on County Committee) has been content to make many decisions -- such as about which races to prioritize and candidates to support, how to spend the party’s money, and who gets to become a judge -- behind closed doors and keep us out of what should be a truly democratic process. But I know first-hand that if we can inspire our neighbors to run for these seats, we can change the way politics works in Brooklyn. We can make sure our neighborhoods are represented and our voices are heard.
But how much can you really do on County Committee?’ Well, someone once said to me, “If it’s not working on the local level, it’s not going to work on the national level,” and that’s exactly why getting involved with #RepYourBlock to run for the most local of local party positions -- a seat on County Committee -- is so important. You’re actively participating in a process that leads to tangible progress. As a member of County Committee you have the opportunity to connect with neighbors who are passionate about increasing political engagement in your Assembly District and beyond.
In an effort to have the greatest impact in this role, I and other County Committee members from Assembly District 50 formed an Assembly District Committee, or ADC, a creation of the party rules through which we regularly hold voter registration drives, candidate forums and other outreach events.
Join County Committee and you have officially “gotten involved.”
If you’re feeling similar to how I did after 2016, then I invite you to get involved for our 2020 push.
We’re building up the grassroots infrastructure in the party, activating more Brooklyn voters, encouraging electoral competition in Brooklyn, and increasing transparency in the judicial nominating process – and we need people like you to make it happen. So be brave. Challenge yourself to do more. And step just a little bit outside your comfort zone. Because I promise you, it’s worth it.
Petitioning to get yourself on the ballot can happen in a weekend, and it takes place this February and March. If you’re a Brooklyn Democrat, sign up to learn more now at the #RepYourBlock website.
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Michele Kaufman is represents the 19th Election District in Assembly District 50, and is Secretary of the Assembly District Committee.
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(photo: Michael Appleton/Mayor's Office)
New York’s Public Service Commission recently approved another rate hike for Con Edison, as it does every three years. This hike will increase electric rates by 13% and gas rates by 22% over the next three years.
Con Edison won. Like always, it requested and was granted its rate hike. It doesn't matter that New Yorkers already pay the second highest municipal rates in the country. Nor the $200 million for new fossil-fuel infrastructure baked into Con Ed's request. Despite this, state regulators are once again allowing them to increase rates and their return on investment. The regulators ignored that Con Edison has been absolutely disastrous for New Yorkers.
Last year, hundreds of thousands experienced blackouts, brownouts, and shutoffs. Some of these happened on the hottest days of the year. And they mostly happened because Con Ed hasn't done routine grid maintenance. But when you are an unaccountable monopoly, profits to your shareholders will always win out over safety and health.
The reason Con Ed is so profitable is simple, we allow them to be. It cannot fail financially because it is a privately-owned monopoly providing an essential service: energy. For this, state regulators don't care if projects complement or harm New York's goals of reducing our carbon footprint. To regulators, there is no difference between a solar farm or a new fracked gas pipeline. For Con Ed, new fracked gas pipelines are easier and cheaper to connect to the existing grid, so with their contractually guaranteed return, they choose and advocate for a gas pipeline over a microgrid every time. In this rate case Con Ed did just that!
And don't get us started on the coercive actions of National Grid, whose self-imposed gas moratorium hurt thousands of New Yorkers. This phony crisis was all an attempt to bully New York into approving another dirty fracked natural gas pipeline. Luckily, National Grid lost, but it is still asking for a rate increase of over 17% this year.
The science tells us that we have a decade to shift from a fossil-fuel based economy to one of renewables. That won't happen with Con Ed or National Grid. Only one PSC Commissioner, Tracey Edwards, had the courage to break the insane cycle of ever- increasing rate hikes coming at the expense of the environment. In voting against this increase she said, "I can't support it because I want to just push us [the state] further and further to go faster and faster [toward renewable energy].” She's right. Con Ed and National Grid have proven that they will not get us there. They have proven that profits and shareholders come before our environment and ratepayers.
That is why there is only one thing for New York to do: make our utilities and electric generation publicly owned, 100% renewable, and democratically controlled.
First, New York should invest in the necessary energy generation to make all state-owned properties 100% renewable by 2025.
Second, turbocharge renewable energy production by allowing the New York Power Authority to own renewable energy production. With our current for-profit model, New York generates only 5% of our energy from wind and solar. To meet the state's codified climate goals, and to face environmental realities we need to do much better. Direct investment and ownership of renewable energy production is the only way to make a meaningful change.
Finally, consolidate the privately-owned downstate utilities into the Downstate Power Authority, a democratically-controlled and publicly-owned utility.
This publicly-owned distribution utility will provide rates cheaper than what we pay now, while having democratic oversight. With this, we will finally have a distribution utility run for and by the rate-payers.
If we do these three things we will transform our energy system into one that recognizes the scale of the environmental crisis we face. We know our current utilities have no interest in being part of this transition. That is why we have introduced three bills that will give power to the people by bringing Public Power to New York.
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Robert Carroll represents the 44th Assembly District in the New York State Assembly. Aaron Eisenberg is a climate activist with the NYC Democratic Socialists of America. On Twitter @Bobby4Brooklyn & @ae53 of @nycdsa_climate.
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(photo: Patrick Cashin/Metropolitan Transportation Authority)
Is the MTA’s plan to redesign the Queens bus network an improvement, or will it further destroy the bus system?
The MTA released its Draft Queens Bus Network Redesign on December 30. Queens voices have protested the plan from Woodside to Bayside and Whitestone, from Jackson Heights to the Rockaways. There also has been concern from Maspeth, Glendale, and Middle Village, from the bus drivers’ union, and reaction from Rep. Tom Suozzi.
Assemblymember Brian Barnwell from Maspeth wrote a letter to then-MTA New York City Transit President Andy Byford, strongly objecting to the plan to eliminate bus routes and asking for discussions to take place in additional neighborhoods such as Astoria and Elmhurst. Legislators also met for one hour with Byford in Albany to express concern.
Any massive changes will meet with some opposition but why all this resistance from so many neighborhoods? It is because all these neighborhoods will lose service so that other neighborhoods can be better served. That is unnecessary. It also is unavoidable when you are insisting the changes be cost-neutral without making strategic investments. Congestion pricing funds, set to start rolling in early next year, will be allocated only for capital improvements.
Cost neutrality also means that some worthwhile ideas will most likely be removed to pay for service additions requested by communities. That way, the MTA can claim the public participation process worked. Bus ridership will only increase if you provide more service, not less.
Why does the MTA propose to cut service provided by the MTA Bus Company, such as discontinuing Sunday express bus service, when these services are fully subsidized by the city? One theory that has been floated is that the city is exerting pressure on the MTA to reduce their bus subsidies so the funds can be freed up to provide additional ferry service, which requires even greater subsidies.
Before the release of the Queens draft bus report, I previously discussed why the MTA is not correctly performing these borough redesign studies.
The MTA repeatedly stated that these are only draft proposals. The question is whether the MTA is willing to go back to the drawing board to make major modifications, or will only make a few minor adjustments where the outcry is the greatest and then declare that the public participation process worked.
Several years ago, the MTA proposed to eliminate bus service on Newport Avenue in the Rockaways. The proposal was withdrawn after protests by Community Board 14, but is being proposed again. How can Byford’s claim that the effort is “customer driven” be true when the MTA is blatantly ignoring communities’ wishes?
Over 300,000 people a day depend on Queens buses. Only about 3 percent of them are aware of the Queens Bus Network Redesign. Each workshop, the primary form of publicity, attracts a few dozen participants because they are ineffectively publicized. The final plan will be presented to the full Community Boards only for informational purposes. Requests for presentations to Community Boards will be made to the Transportation Committee of about ten people, not the full boards where the public attends. The vast majority of bus riders will only learn of the changes a few days before they take effect, or as the routes change.
On the new MTA website, you must click under “System Modernization” to learn about the redesign studies rather than a more obvious designation like “Bus Network Redesign Studies.” The other alternative is to search for “Queens Bus Network Redesign” or go to the exact webpage for information. That assumes you already know about the study before you search. You will not learn about the study or the workshops If you search “Planned Service Changes” or “Public Notices” from the MTA.
The workshop format is also under attack because unlike town halls requested by elected officials, it doesn’t allow reactions to be shared in an open forum for all to hear, and it doesn’t create a record of the plan’s deficiencies so that suggestions for changes can be evaluated. Oral comments can easily be overlooked. It epitomizes the premise that service planners know best and the citizenry does not understand what is best for them. Workshop means no consensus among participants so the MTA can still carry out its intended plan. The required public hearings come far too late in the process for meaningful changes to be made and are mere legal formalities.
The plan also features new zone express services in Southeastern Queens, some new routes, some routes that are discontinued or shortened, as well as the elimination of many bus stops, which the MTA disguises as “bus stop balancing.” In effect, most local routes will become Limiteds. It does not serve the public to have a local bus route stopping every five blocks and an SBS on the same street. This will be a hardship for anyone who has difficulty walking. Some streets have buses stopping over a mile apart, such as the QT5 on 101st Ave. There is an on-line petition opposing removing so many bus stops.
The MTA’s primary goal is to reduce operating costs. Many one-bus trips become two- and three-bus trips which does not accommodate the greater good. In Eastern Queens, in some cases, two buses will be required to access the subway instead of one, or a long walk of three-quarters of a mile. This will be especially inconvenient in bad weather and is certain to discourage ridership, necessitating further service cuts. Direct north-south service is desirable, but direct subway access needs to be maintained during peak hours.
There are many opportunities for the MTA to become more efficient, such as through better scheduling where buses do not travel halfway across the borough while not in service, and the merging of NYCT Bus and MTA Bus Company depots. Saving money should not be at the expense of the passengers.
Bus speeds can be increased with a state law requiring non-emergency traffic to yield the right of way to buses pulling out of bus stops, not by eliminating most bus stops or spending $6 million a mile on unnecessary exclusive bus lanes as proposed that will further increase traffic congestion without significantly helping bus riders.
The MTA will never admit failure. Ridership losses will be attributed to the next fare increase. The MTA will insist the losses would have been greater if the network were not redesigned. The lack of predetermined criteria to measure success or failure is a chief shortcoming. Faster bus speeds are to be expected when you space bus stops every quarter or half mile apart, rather than every two or three city blocks, forcing some riders to walk a half mile or more to a bus stop when the traditional planning standard is a maximum of a quarter mile walk to a local bus. This is in no way an indication of success. The major criterium should be “can more trips be made in less time from origin to destination?”
The MTA promised a 30 percent quicker commute with the Woodhaven SBS. It only delivered a three-minute savings for trips greater than three miles, but still declared success. Now it is proposing to eliminate the Q53 SBS by curtailing service to Woodside and Jackson Heights where the ridership is very heavy, ignoring the data, discontinuing a route it called a success, and turning a one-bus trip into a three-bus trip. How can the MTA be trusted to provide a system that better meets the needs of the passengers? The public must vehemently voice their objections to prevent all negative outcomes.
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Allan Rosen is former Director of Bus Planning, MTA NYC Transit. On Twitter @BrooklynBus.
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