Daily Q, Justice

The Daily Q: Is ‘stop and frisk’ based on official policy?

Posted on by Alice Brennan

Yesterday U.S. District Court Judge Shira Scheindlin granted class-action status to a lawsuit condemning the NYPD’s stop and frisk practices.

Her decision comes in a 2008 suit filed by four men claiming their fourth amendment constitutional rights were compromised by the NYPD, and allows thousands more plaintiffs to take part in the legal challenge.

The city denies the case is worthy of a class action, claiming the four plaintiffs ”fail to identify an official policy, or its equivalent.”

In today’s Daily Q we ask: Is “stop and frisk” based on an official policy? 

If you have information or insight to share, write us, tweet @thenyworld or comment below.

Daily Q

The Daily Q: Who is lobbying on medical marijuana?

Posted on by Pei Shan Hoe

New York State legislators on both sides of the aisle had a conference on Wednesday pushing for the legalization of medical marijuana with a bill that is being considered by the state Assembly.

This comes right as the latest Sienna poll shows 57 percent of New York voters support legalizing medical marijuana, with 33 percent opposed. Sure, New Yorkers have made what they want clear, but we all know money speaks even more loudly.

So the New York World would like to know: Who is lobbying on medical marijuana?

If you have information or insight to share, write us, tweet @thenyworld or comment below.

What we found

In the last two years, 10 organizations have reported lobbying in relation to the marijuana bill (or its State Senate equivalent). IThe state’s Joint Commission on Public Ethics does not provide a breakdown of each lobbying client’s contribution to a particular bill, nor does it indicate the client’s position, pro or con.

But we’re pretty sure that some, like the Drug Policy Alliance — whose homepage screams “End the Federal Assault On Medical Marijuana” — and Marijuana Policy Project are pro-legalization. MPP, which lobbied only on this one issue in 2011, put down $21,885 to support New York’s legalization of medical marijuana in 2011 alone.

Continue reading →

Money

Thompson’s $300 million Battery Park City bill

Posted on by Nathaniel Herz

The World FInancial Center in lower Manhattan will get a retail overhaul with millions in aid from the Battery Park City Authority. Photo: Nathaniel Herz

Mayoral candidate approved big breaks for donors

Mayoral candidate Bill Thompson voluntarily left his post as chairman of the Battery Park City Authority last week – unlike predecessor James Gill, who exited in shame after the authority spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on parties and meals on his watch.

But Thompson’s stewardship will cost the city much more, thanks to two deals that he and his board of directors approved on behalf of the mayoral candidate’s campaign contributors.

Last year, the board unanimously agreed to roll back a scheduled increase in fees paid by Battery Park City condominium owners by nearly $280 million.

Developers and condo owners don’t actually own the land that their buildings rest on — the authority charges them rent. Those rent payments go into a fund controlled by the authority, and New York City’s mayor and comptroller, which currently helps pay for the city’s affordable housing programs.

Without a cut, the average monthly rents would have nearly doubled, from about $225 per condominium unit to some $400, with another hike scheduled 15 years down the road.

Condominium owners and State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver lobbied to reduce the planned hike, warning that increased fees threatened condo owners there. “By restructuring this payment plan, we will be able to keep more middle-class families in their homes,” Silver said in a statement.

Yet the biggest winner in the deal was billionaire developer Howard Milstein, whose Milstein Properties owns 585 Battery Park City condos out of the 2,300 that benefited from the Board’s vote. Milstein will save $59 million, as Thompson and the other board members were informed in their briefing on the proposal. Continue reading →

Services

Youth jobs program cuts leave applicants facing tough odds

Posted on by Isha Soni

Young people submitting applications to the city’s Summer Youth Employment Program in time for this Friday’s deadline face higher than usual odds of getting a job. The city Department of Youth and Community Development projects the number of positions offered will drop at least 15 percent over last year. That comes on the heels an almost 20 percent drop the previous year.

The downsizing of the employment program, which pays for more than 30,000 teens to spend seven weeks working for at public and private employers, comes amid high rates of teen and young adult joblessness. New York City residents between ages 16 and 19 have a 28.9 percent unemployment rate, according to the Fiscal Policy Institute, outpacing the already high national teen jobless rate of 24.9 percent. Young people ages 20 to 24 have a 15 percent unemployment rate. Among all New Yorkers in the labor force, 9.8 percent are now unemployed.

Applicants to the seven-week summer program must be between ages 14 and 24. Last year, DYCD received 131,119 applications for 30,628 slots, which it filled via a lottery. This year, the program will offer approximately 26,000 positions, while the number of applicants is expected to remain the same, according to Andre White, program director at SYEP. Continue reading →

Power

Public Advocate reboots dormant public information oversight panel

Posted on by Pei Shan Hoe

Public Advocate Bill de Blasio seeks better public access to government information - but first he must keep an oversight panel alive without a budget. AP Photo/Robert Mecea

As a new city commission seeks to eliminate unneeded appendages of government, the Public Advocate is now looking to reboot a body that has only had two meetings since its founding more than 20 years ago.

The 1989 City Charter created the Commission on Public Information & Communication (COPIC), chaired by the Public Advocate. COPIC held its first meeting in 2007; its second, this February.

COPIC is tasked with helping the public obtain access to city information, reviewing city policies on public access to information, and developing recommendations to improve access to and distribution of city data.

Public Advocate Bill de Blasio’s senior advisor Jeff Merritt told the World the commission is still “a work in progress.”

“This is one of the entities that’s been inactive for a lot of years in the charter, and as a result, there’s no staff, no formalities, and there isn’t a budget,” he said.  Continue reading →

Services

Rise in transit worker assaults prompts summit seeking solutions

Posted on by Nat Rudarakanchana

The view from the cockpit of an M15 bus, the route where last week a driver was punched in the face. Photo: Jebb/Flickr

On Thursday morning, employees and executives of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) gathered in downtown Brooklyn for what Transport Workers Union Local 100 says is the first national conference on assaults against mass transit conductors and drivers.

The timing is apt. Last Friday, a male suspect in his 40s punched a 58-year-old female M15 bus driver in the face before fleeing the bus near East 102nd Street and 1st Avenue in Manhattan, according to the NYPD. The victim immediately drove back to her designated East Harlem bus depot, visited a hospital later that day, and will likely take time off work because of the incident, said Gerry Torres, union chairman for bus operators at her East Harlem depot.

“This is happening more and more,” said Torres, who believed that increased attacks had to do with government budget cuts affecting transport services and increased waiting times for passengers. “It’s not so bad here in Manhattan, but there are problems throughout the city.”

Police investigation is ongoing.

Jim Gannon, a spokesman for TWU Local 100, declined to comment on this case, but said that several drivers who are harassed or attacked “just want to put it behind them.”

“They just report it to Transit, and just say: ‘Hey, what am I gonna do?’” said Gannon. “A lot of the female drivers feel terribly intimidated.” Continue reading →

Services

Bronx ministry lures addicts from Puerto Rico aloft promise of salvation

Posted on by Yolanne Almanzar and Alexander Hotz

Alfonso Casta fled the ministry after less than a week, ending up alone, homeless and addicted in a strange city. Photo: Alexander Hotz

Eduardo Rosa was homeless at 50, on the streets of Vega Alta, Puerto Rico, after his brother kicked him out of his house for smoking crack. But what Rosa did have was a name from 1,500 miles away.

“I want the guy they call ‘Palmares,’” Rosa told local officials when they offered him aid. With his mayor’s financial help, he boarded a plane to New York.

In towns across the island, the name of Julio Palmares, a pastor in the Bronx, is synonymous with recovery from addiction. His Ministerio Renovación Cristiana claims to cure drug addicts through prayer.

Rosa still lives in the ministry, a year later. “I like it here and I don’t want to go back,” Rosa said. “The change in people and in my life, I’m grateful.”

Many alumni remain in the Bronx. Jeffry Salgado arrived in 2001 with 15 other men from Dorado, courtesy of their mayor. At the height of his heroin addiction, Salgado had stolen his grandmother’s oxygen tank to sell. “I knew she could die, but in that moment I didn’t care,” said Salgado. Today, his beard neatly trimmed, he wears clean, fashionable clothes. Salgado takes English classes, lives with his wife, aspires to become a mechanic.

Salgado and Rosa are among of thousands of men Palmares relocated to the Bronx since opening the ministry’s doors in 1999. But the pastor’s declining health was apparent during a gathering late last year, as program administrators helped him get to his seat. He was frail and walked with a cane.

In March, Palmares’ son informed the ministry of the pastor’s death at age 65. His demise leaves his ministry at a crossroads. He was the first to admit that his path to freedom from addiction was not for everyone. Some ended up on the streets of the Bronx, still hooked.

“I had to stop because it was like cleaning up Puerto Rico and dirtying New York,” said Palmares this winter. “For that, they should stay in their towns.”

Continue reading →

Money, Services

Federal aid cuts worsen New York City budget woes

Posted on by Yolanne Almanzar and Alexander Hotz

Cuts to child care programs in Mayor Bloomberg’s proposed budget, affecting services for thousands of city children, are dominating this year’s spending fight between the mayor and City Council. But while the mayor has taken heat for his proposed $150 million in reductions, an important force behind the scenes are cuts in federal funding to New York City that have hit child care particularly hard.

This year’s city budget anticipates a $205 million drop in federal social service funding over last year, including a projected $16 million decline to Head Start and another $14 million for the Child Care Block Grant.

Driving those declines is the expiration of federal stimulus funds, which had contributed up to $28 million a year for child care alone over the last three fiscal years. Meanwhile, Head Start funding remains uncertain because New York City’s Administration for Children’s Services is among the 132 local agencies that must reapply to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services for the program after failing to meet so-called quality thresholds.

“We are confident that we will not lose the majority of the $190 million we currently receive,” ACS Commissioner Ron Richter told the City Council at a March budget hearing. “Our technical deficiency had nothing to do with the quality of New York City’s Head Start programs.”

The cuts and uncertainty at the federal level have forced the city to spend more — or cut back.


Continue reading →

Access

Commission targets city reports for elimination

Posted on by Alexander Hotz

The Preliminary Mayor's Management Report could disappear following a review by a special commission.

Buried deep in New York City’s laws lurk obscure bits of bureaucracy like the Tattoo Regulation Advisory Committee and the Horse Drawn Cab Stand Report. Many have endured for decades in name only, while others carry on, with or without a reason for being.

These dusty corners of government are about to get a housecleaning. This Friday a new Report and Advisory Board Review Commission — that’s right, a commission on commissions — will hold its first public hearing, reviewing 21 mandated reports and boards that city agencies say have outlived their usefulness.

The commission consists of three members of the City Council — Speaker Chris Quinn, Gale Brewer and Leroy Comrie — and four appointees of the mayor, including his budget, technology and legal chiefs. By a majority vote, they will be able to suspend any or all of the reports and task forces. The Council will then vote to ratify the commission’s recommendations.

As requested by a majority of city voters last fall, the group will review all 175 reports and advisory bodies that have piled up in the City Charter and administrative code, the two blocks of law that govern New York City. Most are vestiges from past crises and administrations — like the Arson Strike Force, initiated in 1978 by the City Council and run until 1993 by the Fire Department in cooperation with the city’s police department and housing, welfare and finance agencies.

“I’m all for transparency, but people forget how big we are,” said Councilmember Brewer, who chairs the council’s Committee on Governmental Operations. “This review process is a good idea.”

For the first round, the the commission asked city agencies to recommend commissions and reports they no longer had reason to produce. The fire department volunteered the Arson Strike Force, which has not met for two decades and whose data is available in the Mayor’s Management Report and the Bureau of Fire Investigation annual report.

Continue reading →

Money

Mayor holds firm on budget cuts to child care, fire companies

Posted on by Alexander Hotz

Mayor Bloomberg presented his budget at City Hall and warned of tougher cuts ahead. Photo: Alexander Hotz

Mayor Michael Bloomberg presented his 2013 executive budget Thursday, which still includes the controversial closure of 20 fire companies and the elimination of approximately 47,000 child care and after school slots.

The administration did, however, set aside additional funding for education. In his February preliminary budget, Bloomberg had asked for the elimination of 2,500 teaching positions.

The Mayor said this year’s $68.7 billion budget, which he unveiled at City Hall, was especially challenging because of lower Wall Street profits. Tax revenues are down $352 million this year largely because of the financial sector, Bloomberg said. Although revenues from the technology, film and television and tourism sectors were up, those funds are not enough to offset Wall Street’s losses.

Bloomberg made sure to tout the city’s job growth, which is outpacing the national average. Only 40 percent of the jobs lost nationally during the recession have been replaced, while New York has regained 180 percent of the jobs it lost.  “Private employment is at a record in New York City,” said Bloomberg. “We haven’t seen these numbers since 1969.”

Shortly after the Mayor released his budget, critics were quick to attack the administration for not doing more to support early childcare programs. Under the Mayor’s proposed budget, $170 million would be cut from the Department of Youth and Community Development and Administration for Children’s Services. According to the city’s own numbers, services for 47,000 children — 6,000 childcare slots and 31,00 are after school slots – would be eliminated. Most of these children come from low-income working families. Continue reading →

Spaces

Council members seek stronger community review of zoning exemptions

Posted on by Michael Copley

The future site of a Brooklyn Whole Foods is one of more than 100 city properties that received special zoning exemptions in the past year. Photo: Bryan Bruchman/Flickr

The board that makes exceptions to New York City’s zoning code on behalf of property owners ruled in favor of 97 percent of those applications in the past year — in many cases over the objections of local community boards.

Alex Camarda, director of advocacy and public policy for the government reform group Citizens Union, told the City Council Committee on Governmental Operations during a hearing last Friday that community boards from Queens and Staten Island were the likeliest to object to proposals. They were also the likeliest to have those “no” votes disregarded by the Board of Standards and Appeals (BSA).

Most frequently, property owners sought the BSA variances to expand one- or two-family homes into larger structures or add commercial spaces in residential areas.

Under the City Charter, community boards have an advisory vote on all variances, which seek to build structures that would otherwise be too large or otherwise incompatible with local zoning. Applicants for the variances must prove that zoning imposes a hardship.

In Queens, community boards recommended against nine proposed variances between May 2011 and April 2012, out of 28 applications. The Board of Standards and Appeals approved all of the variances despite the recommendation.

Staten Island community boards recommended disapproval in another nine instances, out of 23 variance requests, and like the Queens boards saw BSA vote in favor of the variances. Continue reading →